I had been thinking about controlling sorcerers; some people think they are just fine, but I think many of us have had the distaste of having to watch sorcerers turn non-sorcerer characters into casual bystanders as the sorcerers steel the show, solve all the problems, get all the glory, etc.

As such, many of us have written, or read, mechanics alternatives to sorcery. Heck, I have a few myself (and do a search on my post "Ars Magica the TROS Way" on this board for my favorite).

However, what about a non-mechanical way of dealing with them?

I had already thought about this, but seeing a below post that discussed The Black Company made me decide to post it.

Imagine, if you will, a culture where, for whatever reason, hunt down and kill each other. Perhaps its all about power, and they hate each other tremendously; perhaps its about control, limited magical resources, or what have you.

Then, your PC sorcerer, while he can solve just about anything, has to consider carefully the potential long-term cost. Sorcerers will always be on the lookout for potential rivals; the more often a sorcerer wields his magic, the more likely he will attract unwanted attention. Sooner or later, he will then find himself the target of a hostile, and potentially more powerful sorcerer.

If you follow this route, dont hold back; take off the kids gloves, and if your PC sorcerer dies, he dies.

This could also be the backdrop for a hidden society of sorcerers engaged in wars in the shadows, of alliances forged and broken, a hunt club of arcane might and death on the wind, where each sorcerer, despite his power, may see his number coming up.

As a matter of fact... I'm an aspiring novelist. I have written one book (well, its done except the final draft; I send it to an agent within, oh, 6 months I hope; maybe I'll get in print!) I have another book idea and, talking about this idea above, and thinking of my book idea I've been working on for a long time, has made me realize this new book idea would make a perfect backdrop for a TROS campaign.

As such, if there is any interest, I may write it up and post it as an available campaign setting; if so, however, since I plan for it as a book for the future, I would need to copyright the ideas therein first, and see if doing this would meet with Jake's blessings.

Anyone interested? And, any feedback on my non-mechanical idea for dealing with things?

I like your idea. The advantage of your non-mechanical approach of controlling sorcerers is the fact that it isn´t just a rule but it is a part of your setting / the background the pcs have to deal with. Therefore it can be used to spice things up, to add additional flavor to your campaign. The only drawback i can see is that players could ignore it but then, as you said, they are doomed. Maybe a combination of mechanical and non-mechanical ways of control will do the trick.

Actually, it has given me an idea; I think I'm actually going to run my setting as a TROS game... if I can find the players. Hm.....

:D

I think that your solution here is automatically true in every TROS game. Given that the only threat a sorcerer likely fears is other sorcerers, I'm sure that there's competition. Now, it can be more or less organized, but it has to exist to some extent. Further, who better than sorcerers to find other sorcerers? So even if they're extremely rare, they still have to worry about each other.

In any case, this idea has been proposed over and over, so I think that it's certainly supported by almost everone. Add this factor onto the normal social regulation that sorcerers would certainly face (and no, they can't ignore it), and sorcerers are quite curtailed actually.

Mike

Hey, why do sorcerers fear the inquisition, anyway? I mean, they're just a bunch of normal blokes, with no magical power behind them, right? It's not like the grand Inquisitor is actually a secret Sorcerer, using his power to root out the competition and recruit apprentices into enslavement/training, right? It's not that they're terrified because they can see the marks of Conquer on the minds of every single soldier of the Inquisition, and their magic-draining blades cannot be turned by any spell... right?

First urge, ever, to run a Weyrth campaign...

yrs--
--Ben

Mike Holmes wrote: I think that your solution here is automatically true in every TROS game. Given that the only threat a sorcerer likely fears is other sorcerers, I'm sure that there's competition. Now, it can be more or less organized, but it has to exist to some extent. Further, who better than sorcerers to find other sorcerers? So even if they're extremely rare, they still have to worry about each other.

In any case, this idea has been proposed over and over, so I think that it's certainly supported by almost everone.

Add this factor onto the normal social regulation that sorcerers would certainly face (and no, they can't ignore it), and sorcerers are quite curtailed actually.

Ben Lehman wrote: Hey, why do sorcerers fear the inquisition, anyway? I mean, they're just a bunch of normal blokes, with no magical power behind them, right? It's not like the grand Inquisitor is actually a secret Sorcerer, using his power to root out the competition and recruit apprentices into enslavement/training, right? It's not that they're terrified because they can see the marks of Conquer on the minds of every single soldier of the Inquisition, and their magic-draining blades cannot be turned by any spell... right?

First urge, ever, to run a Weyrth campaign...

yrs--
--Ben

One could also rule over the power of sorcery by implementing the idea(much like sorcerors and enemies and such) of a Highlander-esque plot.. whereby the sorceror's are drawn to battles with each other.. fighting to the death as usual. Possibly because they might be greedy and want to be the only sorceror around.. to have all of the magic to himself and THEN be unstoppable.. this can apply to all of the races, the Fey, gifted humanss.. etc. Some of the Fey might not care about these goals and so forth.. but some might. Some might care to join the fight in order to keep the 'evil' sorcerors from gaining too much power, or keeping the bad ones from eliminating the good ones.. *shrug*

Either way it gives an opportunity to incorperate SA's into this picture.
Vaguely following the 'There can be only one!' line of thinking... can keep sorcerous characters in check.. can show a struggle for power, life(everyone is still essentially mortal), freedom, etc.

Hell, Emperor Uglub over yonder in Gelure might even be calling for all of the gifted to come to him.. in order to bind them under his power.. so that there can be no rival to face him in the known world that is not directly controlled by him.. or at least is a pawn in his mind.. or a mind-slave.

There are many many many different ways to take off with this and expand on it, so I will leave you all to do this.. and just leave this general idea out there.

-Ingenious

An adversary I thought of to trouble a pc sorceror is an ambitious baron who sees magic as the answer to all his problems.

The baron initially approaches the sorceror as a patron offering jobs and starts off seemingly generous. The trouble will start however when the sorceror decides they'd like to move on, the baron turns nasty. He has his retainers try to kidnap the sorceror, once they are successful (the baron will get his way eventually), he locks the pc up in the bottom of his castle and starts using threats on the sorceror's livehood to force spells for the baron's interest.

Of course the Baron has no appreciation for the well-being of the sorceror and will try to push magic's limits when if the sorceror dies of old age as the result of casting one of the Baron's spells, the baron merely intends to kidnap himself a new sorceror like any other weapon! He also knows enough about sorcery to be cautious in the manner he imprisons the sorceror so escape won't be particularly easy...

only problem with that is, sorcerers are quite powerful; even if he kidnaps the sorcerer, the sorcerer will likely be able to escape....

Every human sorcerer starts off with either "dependent on gestures" or "dependent on incantation." This is a "free" flaw, that they get automatically. So, tie their hands and gag them, and they can't cast spells.

And up until that point, just get some archers to surprise the sorcerer and shoot him in the leg. Pain subtracts from the sorcery pool too, and sorcerers aren't any more observant than the average human.

Also, sorcerers have to sleep sometime.

And they have to eat and drink, and are thus vulnerable to poison or drugs.

Barring constant Divination spells, they don't have eyes in the back of their head, and are as vulnerable to knives in the back as anyone.

A killing fall of 75' is over in less than 4 seconds, far too quick to cast an unprepared or unformalized spell of flight or levitation (Movement 2 or 3, volume 2 for most people) -- especially if the sorcerer's been knocked out or tied up before being pitched over....

Also, you can only cast one spell at once, and a spell big enough to get all of a mob is very likely to knock you out and leave you at the mercy of anyone who can crawl up to you with a knife while you're stunned....

Sorcerers have lots of reasons to be afraid of ordinary people who know what they are, where they live, and have time to organize a plan of action.

Oooh, and don't forget the classic ways of getting somebody powerful to obey you: Blackmail ("smite my enemy, or a letter I have left with the Inquisition will be opened"), or coercion ("find me treasure, or your beloved daughter will be slain!").

SAs can be exploitable weaknesses as well as strengths.

James, I think that most of the people complaining about the power of Sorcery are still playing something more like D&D using TROS in a sort of incidental fashion.

That is, as Jake has said repeatedly, Balance doesn't matter in TROS. Yet, somehow these people keep saying "Magic is unbalanced". Well, duh. The game proceeds fine anyhow.

In all the threads where people have posited blowing up the earth with level three movement spells, the answer is that no matter how powerful a thing you can do, there are always other sorcerers out there who don't want to be blown up, and who will already have taken steps to see that it won't happen. I can cite a dozen threads that say stuff like this, probably.

The point is that if you're playing the character's SAs, then you can create interesting conflicts for characters. In Nobilis you play gods. Is that a problem? Well, no you say because in that game you all play gods. But then I point out that what you're talking about again is the disparity between the power levels of differing characters. So, again, you must be worried about balance. Worry about creating conflicts for each character individually, and it all works out. Things like sorcerers as challenges for sorcerer PCs suddenly become rather obvious.

Mike

For ideas about what a world full of TROS sorcerers might actually be like, behind the scenes, I recommend reading the fantasy series "A Man of His Word," by Dave Duncan. I don't want to spoil the plot, for people who care about such things, but suffice it to say that Sorcerers have a dog pile and, if you aren't at the top, you are likely to be enslaved by magic and used for whatever twisted purposes your superior wants.

Stay... Hidden...

yrs--
--Ben

Mike Holmes wrote:
The point is that if you're playing the character's SAs, then you can create interesting conflicts for characters. In Nobilis you play gods. Is that a problem? Well, no you say because in that game you all play gods. But then I point out that what you're talking about again is the disparity between the power levels of differing characters. So, again, you must be worried about balance. Worry about creating conflicts for each character individually, and it all works out. Things like sorcerers as challenges for sorcerer PCs suddenly become rather obvious.

Mike

Exactly the point I was thinking of when I first responded to this topic. If one character can single handedly overpower an adventure and sideline the other players from having any fun.. what is the point in playing then? The object of playing is to have fun.. and how can you do that if one person is going around solving everything, doing anything he feels like.

GM's in TROS need to think more like the real world. To every action there is a reaction, and well.. there are consequences as well. If someone is using magic too much.. have him be hunted by a group of sorcerors or some such event that creates a situation where the sorceror has to skip town or otherwise not use magic for risk of being further discovered and tracked down... and this also can bring in the other characters to be on the lookout for a group of suspicious looking people that might be going around carrying out an investigation..
You might even bring in a group of wizards that keep an eye out on everything going on in a particular region.. such as the government is a group in the movie 'Enemy of the State'... and(diverting from the plot of the movie) the sorceror's frequent magic use might run the risk of magic being discovered in the area and over-night creating a nationwise manhunt for anyone with the gift. The people hunting down the sorcerors might be other sorcerors, Fey, the church.. etc.

I do not agree with limiting the scope and capability of magic.. but I would control its use.. it is meant to be concealed.. for it to be rare.. and for it to be used wisely.
-Ingenious

Hell yeah there's sorcerers in the inquisition.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Hell yeah there's sorcerers in the inquisition.

Ben Lehman wrote: For ideas about what a world full of TROS sorcerers might actually be like, behind the scenes, I recommend reading the fantasy series "A Man of His Word," by Dave Duncan. I don't want to spoil the plot, for people who care about such things, but suffice it to say that Sorcerers have a dog pile and, if you aren't at the top, you are likely to be enslaved by magic and used for whatever twisted purposes your superior wants.

Stay... Hidden...

Is there a TROS magic supplement planned? Becuase, I winder if this issue could actually be used fruitfully. That is, if the opportunity was taken to address and discuss these ideas and some constructive advice given, it might be an interesting extension of the product in tis own right.

OK, so lets say, the disparity in player power is not an issue necessarily, and one might say that it just requires a different structure. But, if some advice can be given on how to build that structure, it could potentiually open play to a lot of new scope.

I would like to call for people who HAVE succesfully integegrated characters with such disparate power levels to give more details on how they did so and specifically, what sort of dynamics they found between the PLAYERS in these games.

One form I could see employed is the Ars Magica Wizard-and-Grog approach. You have one character on which much of the nominal importance of in game action hinges, and the others are to an extent "in this story" because they associated with this one. I've seen this done perfectly satisfyingly in Vampire games. Although it might seem at first sight that this relegates the other character to insignificance, in fact in practice its no more than a pretext like meeting a hooded wizard in a bar and being hired for a mission. If you set up a scenario in which the reasons the characters associate is that on one side the wizard is a meal ticket, and on the other the "mundanes" are the necessary henchmen, you might get a good game. Mutual dependanncy does not have to be symmetrical. I've also seen players spontaneously adopt, and have great fun with, partially antagonistic relationships of this kind in a Cyberpunk game, where one character was the fixer and the rest were essentially hirelings. This can actually add a certain frisson to all the character interactions while the players, in full knowledge and consent, don't push it quite too far.

What else could be used?

Maybe being magically endowed necessarily makes you a major social figure. Then, the other characters status rests entirely on their being the Favoured Ones of the wizard-character. As with the above, this nuances the inter-player relationhsip without necessarily making it unequal, IMO.

The reason I think this sort of approach is potentially more accessible in TROS is that the SA's mechanically reinforce the players seeeking their own agendas. For all you might have some real power distnction between the wizard character and the warrior character, each character individually has their own self-motivating attributes. Player action will necessarily be about more than just thast power distinction. An objective goal to which the wizard can provide a wham bam thank you ma'am solution is not really the point, something the player can get their characters personal teeth into is the point.

As opposed to this, Sorcerers in TROS appear, at least in some ways, to be so much more powerful that they seem capable of making the contributions of the other characters somewhat superfluous at best.

It appears to make the other characters look like the sidekicks to the Sorcerer's star of the show.

Mike Holmes, with that reply, you have just made yourself my idol! :)

Mike!

Man, I've been waiting two years for someone to get it. Right the hell on!

You'd lead a wizards council my man.

Hail.

Here's another aspect you might want to consider:

Casting aging spells makes your hair and nails grow, right? I've seen a man in TV with nails about 30cm long. They weren't thing, but almost round at the base. If someone's nails grow for several months' worth of time, would they also be thicker? So even if they were cut, for some time to come, they would be thicker than normal nails are. The inquisition, for example, might be familiar with this aspect, and thus they'd also burn people who they consider to have unnaturally thick nails.

I can see it now..

All sorcerers must take flaw: Compulsive habit used to hide their identity as a sorcerer. Some sorcerer constantly file their nails. Others meticulously trim their beards. Still others use daily herbal skin treatments to keep their skin looking young and healthy.

::chuckles lightly:: And what makes it all the more amusing is that I can easily see these neurotic tendencies becoming standard traits among sorcerers, giving the inquisition even more keys to notice. It's a vicious, vicious cycle.

Well, it does make sense, you don't have to alter the setting to incorporate it, it's totally mechanics-free (except for the aging rolls)...

Welcome to the Inquisition!

"Trust no one over 30!"

Future home of Logan's Run...

Mike Holmes wrote:

Because the game isn't about who can kick more ass. That would be D&D.

See, what makes the other characters non-sidekicks is that they're featured by what's important to them. By your estimation, Frodo wasn't a main character in LotR, because Gandalf was in the story. You can do this with TROS, because the rules center around the SAs.

You're stuck in the "party" mentality. And until you do, you won't "get" TROS. It's not about some group who band together for no particularly good reason for mutual defense against monsters. It's about individuals who are off looking for their own answers to a riddle. And no amount of power in another character can take that away from the individual. You could be playing next to a god, and it wouldn't matter.

Every character will have his time in the spotlight unless the GM isn't doing his job. Which is very, very easy, you just put stuff that relates to the character's SA in front of him. If you find TROS difficult at all, then you're trying to get a plot to happen or are playing dungeon crawls or something. Because coming up with stuff for each character to be cool is as hard as looking at his SAs.

Mike

I see what you are saying now, and you know what? You are right. Not that I was running games D&Dish - I'm better than that. But I WAS stuck in the party mentality thing. Primarily, it seems that if you arent involved in party play, you end up feeling like you are running a bunch of solo games.

With that, I was about to start protesting. But then, I remembered Amber, the Diceless RPG. Anyone ever play that? That epitomizes freedom and solo play within a party environment. I have run several very successful campaigns with it, no problem.

Yet I was stuck in the party mentality with TROS for some reason. I have no idea why; I leaped the paradigm shift with Amber with no difficulty, but didn't make it with TROS until you drew that analogy.

That helped a lot. Thanks.

Amber is a great example. You can't do the party thing because the PCs are often the only competition for the other PCs. In any case, everyone has silly strengths, so the stories have to be about something other than their strengths (shudders trying to envision a game which was only about exploring PC power in Amber).

We're just getting to the point in games with systems that don't use something like "diceless" to get the same effects.

Mike

Wolfen wrote: I can see it now..

All sorcerers must take flaw: Compulsive habit used to hide their identity as a sorcerer. Some sorcerer constantly file their nails. Others meticulously trim their beards. Still others use daily herbal skin treatments to keep their skin looking young and healthy.

In the campaign setting I'm currently developing with a good friend of mine, we've tied in Sorcerous magic with an animistic spirit concept/individuation archetype thing(emijig) ;) . Essentially all vagaries and sorcerous power is a side effect of an interaction between the character and a spirit. Spirits essentially represent certain concepts or elemental entities and aren't some anthropomorphic dead dude all whispy like. Certain characters within the world embody the concept strongly enough via their SAs and are gifted (they're called Av'Tarah after the sanskrit) The interaction is a symbiotic relationship between the sorcerer and spirit whereby the sorcerer gains some power via vagaries etc and pays with ageing. The spirit gives some power and is paid via the life-essence integral to the ageing. The life-essence goes part of the way to ensuring the passing of the spirit from being a mere spirit to a fully fledged deity (this new world has no current deities and represents a time prior to their emergence).

This gives us an explanation for the "My sorcerer blows up the world" problem... what spirit would give the power necessary to negate its own existence. This isn't why we designed it this way, it was just a nice little by product of actually working out the metaphysics/mystical elements of our world.

anyway. This has probably been suggested previously, just thought I'd share.

edited: for clarity and forgetfulness...

Magic given a social consciousness directly. Nice solution.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Amber is a great example. You can't do the party thing because the PCs are often the only competition for the other PCs.