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OK, I've noted a possible problem with some GMing of Sorcerer. And I'm not sure how to adress it, so I'm chucking it out here. Sorta important to me right now as we're about to start a Sorcerer game next week.

The problem is that in play that I've seen of Sorcerer, even when the GM is good at driving PCs, they seem to me to forget to play the Demon-PC relationship up. I've done it as GM, and Chris Kubasic (who I can only assume is masterful with NPCs) seems to have had it happen recently. And I've seen other GMs do it too. The only explanation I can offer is that Sorcerer aalready makes nifty characters, even without the Demons. So, perhaps they seem ancillary in some way to the story being told. That seemed to be Chris' problem.

I offer as evidence that I can't remember one Kicker that I've ever read that involved a character's demon in the description. Isn't that odd? Or have I just missed the demon-laden ones?

Anyhow, is it just me that's having this problem in play (certainly a possibility)? Or is this phenomenon real? Or isn't the dysfunctional demon relationship all that neccessary to focus on?

If there is a problem with people forgetting, what techniques can I use as a GM to remind myself to put the demon "into play" as an antagonist when neccessary? Other than stapling a note to my forehead, are there any cues or events that occur in game that should be tipping me off?

It's funny, but as a player, I have no problem with mixing my own character up with his own demon. Is there something we should be doing to provoke players in that direction?

Actually, Josh will be GMing this upcoming one, and from his descriptions of play and what I know of him, he'll probably not have any problems with this. Still, I'd like to discuss it for my own edification, and just to see if we can root out any techniques for bringing out what I see as potentially one of the more powerful elements of the game.

Hmm. I hope this doesn't make me seem dense (more than usual).

Mike

Hi there,

Mike, many thanks for starting this thread. Christopher's recent experience frustrated me greatly, to the point of inarticulate raving, and this seems to be the best way to address the issue.

PART ONE
You are dead on target regarding the importance of Kickers. Here's an example Kicker that I presented in a recent thread in this forum:

QuoteI'll make up a character on the spot: Joyce McDougall, the sociology professor who has turned the entire campus into an experiment without anyone realizing it. Her demon is the Parasite that inhabits and animates the now-dead body of her old thesis advisor, who reads and critiques all of her experimental writeups to this day.

Her Kicker? No problem - her brother, an anti-intellectual roughneck, brings by his pal Frank. Frank is a sweaty, grunting, streetwise, ex-con pile o' male danger, and Joyce goes completely off her head about him. The Kicker is specifically that she's finally thrown herself at him, and they're having sex on a half-busted bed in a seedy hotel, and she looks up during the action to see her demon, standing in the doorway, staring at them.

Now, I think there is no way, in hell or NaN, that both the GM and the player can afford to ignore the demon as an active phenomenon in play, given a Kicker like this.

However, what puzzles me is how, in a game like Sorcerer, a GM in particular doesn't make every Kicker into such a Kicker during the first session of play, if it doesn't have this demon-connection already.

Player's Kicker: "A guy tried to kill me with a hatchet on the bus today."

GM, to himself: "Awesome!" Reviews Binding strength, special effects of the Binding as previously established, the back of the character sheet, and much more. Happily peruses demon sheet, imagines wondrous and awful things that the demon might have done to prompt the Kicker, or how it might react to the Kicker, if it had nothing to do with causing it. Makes a decision about that, thinks about what other NPCs or PCs are involved, does all sorts of tweakings to the back-story. Creates multiple possible Bangs to bring to session #1, based both on the hatchet-wielder, the demon, and whoever else.

This seems, to me, axiomatic. I mean, totally axiomatic. Can it be possible that someone wants to play Sorcerer without being utterly creatively invested in the demons' activities? Can it be possible that they think the book's contents will tell them what to do in this regard, much like the Monster Manual tells you what to roll to see how many giant ants show up?

I'm not anyone else. I can't really expect them to see it my way, so the answers to the above questions must necessarily be "Yes." But I must say, people who do answer Yes to them give me a lurching feeling that everything I am saying in the book is probably meaning something 90-degrees away from what it means to me.

PART TWO
Looking back over Christopher's thread, here's what I notice - they were trying to play a full-on Sorcerer story in a one-shot convention setting. I've said it before, said it again: it's not the right game for that. Such play can demonstrate at best two cool things about Sorcerer, and quite likely none of its true strengths.

Now, Christopher knew this, and deliberately built the character creation and scenario creation into the con design in order to bring out some of those strengths. My call? He succeeded in building something that would work wonderfully for multiple-session play, and thus guaranteed failure of the session as a convention run.

1. It went on too damn long, long after I would have said, "Great first run! See you next week!"

2. It concentrated on building conflict, not on resolving it, again, which is great for Sorcerer but not for a con game.

3. The philosophical scope of the game cannot be resolved in toto, but rather in parts and examples, which requires them to be thrown into sharp focus during a session, which usually means resolving them over the next session.

Well, those are some of my thoughts. I'm still emotionally a little too close to this issue, so I have to specify that I am not criticizing Christopher.

But I'm really starting to think that no one should ever run a Sorcerer convention demo without having run the game in the long term first, so that he or she can decide what strengths to emphasize, and how techniques of play he or she can rely on even during the stress of creating stuff with new people.

Best,
Ron

You know, my first response to this was going to be:

QuoteThis seems like a subset of a more general problem involving NPCs closely related to PCs. Shouldn't it be in the RPG Theory forum?

Then I read Ron's response with respect to Kickers which is, obviously, something that makes this a Sorcerer-specifc issue. Is that the only thing that makes this a Sorcerer-specifc concern, though?

I mean, we are obviously talking about demons in Sorcerer, but - other than Kickers (which are obviously integral here) - are the issues significantly different for, say, a Wraith game (with Shadows) or even a superhero game with a sidekick or closely-related NPC (say, Robin or Lois Lane)?

Stuart

I'll throw in my thoughts here because god knows my own play has suffered from this problem.  I think there are two forces at work.

1) Habits.  Demons are a big source of Player Effectiveness which almost all other RPGs hold as sacrosant.  I mean, can you really see a D&D GM telling a Wizard's player that he can't cast his fireball because he didn't feed his familiar this morning?  This would be considered PARTICULARLY bad form if the Wizard was in a situation where he really badly needed that Fireball.  Sorcerer litterally demands a GM behavior that almost all other RPGs would consider as a MAJOR breach of social contract.

2) Thinking in terms of fictional relationships is actually a very difficult thing to do and is a skill not many RPGs nurture.  One of my great failings as a GM is that when a scene gets underway not only do the demons fall out of my mind but so do all the other NPCs who not a physically present in the scene and often I also forget those that may be present but aren't DIRECTLY involved in the conflict.

I get this kind of emotional tunnel vision where only the shortest of short term emotions and feelings of the spot lighted NPC and in my mind.  I forget things like, hey this guy's married and has two kids.  How do THEY relate to this situation and how does that influence/get influence by the outcome or this NPC's behavior.  

Even over the long term I'm not much better.  Here's an example from actual play.  It wasn't a Sorcerer game but given the circumstance it might as well have been.  I'll put it in Sorcerer terms to keep things focused.

Okay so Yanosh has a passer demon, Mishka, who's a ferret.  Lenia has a passer demon, Raja, who's a cat.  Yanosh and Lenia are pretty good friends.

After a good long period of play Yanosh's player asked me why Mishka and Raja haven't been fighting.  He thought it might be really cool because it would put tension on Yanosh and Lenia's relationship.

Brilliant!  And I didn't think of it.  *THWAK*.  It's a skill and skill a lot of GM's who come from a long history of Call of Cthulhu and D&D like games just don't have.  We're simply too used to keeping track of NPCs in terms of the facts they possess, the obstacles they pose and the "keys" that unlock them.

I really LIKE Ron's suggestion of keeping the Demons in mind from the start and that regardless of whether they are mentioned in the Kicker or not immediately consider their ROLE in the Kicker as the first priority.  I will definitely keep that in mind for future games.

Also, I think the next time I use a relationship map I will make it bigger and keep more extensive notes on the actual relationship lines themselves.  That might help.

Jesse

I don't know, Ron, Chris states that the first half of play was sorta "demonless". I agree that one can make a good story without the demons completely interfering, and he probably did for that part of the session. But it was his comment that it all unravelled after the demons arrived that got me thinking. If they'd been involved right from the get-go would that have been as much of a problem? Well, who knows, fatigue may have played a role. But I think your advice to get demons into play instantly is key.

I think Jesse has something with the "traditional play" problem. But only to an extent. I mean, Jesse, Chris and I aren't that bad at GMing, and surely we aren't too bound by tradition? Stuart makes a good point, too, that this may just be an NPC handling issue. Basically you have to do some handling right from the start.

I also like Jesse's idea about relating the demon to the relationship map. In fact, being the guy I am, I'd probably put the demon on the map in notation, and make notes about potential problems that the demon could cause with each relationship. Sort of bangs (duh, why are there no demons in my bangs?) coming from the demon and aimed right at pulling those strings. In a way, one could think of the demon as that strong a relationship and could pretty reasonably put the demon on the map itself. After all, it's providing the solution for some problem that's so important that a demon had to be summoned...

Also, the reminder to inject the demon's presence into the kicker as a setup step seems great Ron.

Any other advice? This is really clarifying how to get it all together for me.

Mike

Hi there,

Here's another take entirely. Let's say, and I think this is probably exactly correct, that Christopher's GMing and group were right on the money for the first phase of play. All set. No hassles.

So, as an entirely alternative approach to this thread topic from the one I proposed above, I'm specifying not to use my above-mentioned solution. No more demon-stuff from the get-go then they used.

... and I'm claiming that it probably would be fine. The trouble, in this case, would be, what happened then?

I suggest that the issue now becomes one of energy, reflection, and time. Sorcerer (and Hero Wars, and Orkworld, and TROS, and ...) all require a significant break and resumption of play in order for the "real" strengths of the games to kick in. People need that authorial moment of putting their hands behind their heads and gazing at the ceiling. In thinking about role-playing in particular, I'm convinced that a full break of several days, with attention spent on other stuff (like reality) is optimal.

Then, that reflection gets everyone saying to themselves, "Hey, what about those demons?" which more-or-less sets up Bangs (GM-posed conflict) and what amount to Kickers again (which is to say, player-driven conflict) for the next session. People return to it with exactly the same zest they entered session #1, but with demons-included this time.

Without that, demos or one-shot Sorcerer need to be set up more like Alyria or TROS-con play, which is to say, the story is group-constructed, but it's also pretty much 80% about-to-climax. Conflict is up, running, and well-understood at the table, rather than being constructed there. What's constructed is the operatic finish.

There's still plenty of room to talk about it, but at the moment, I'm inclined to think that Christopher's experience was a "noble experiment" - it demonstrates that the creative strengths of Sorcerer setup are very hard, if not impossible, to establish in a convention context.

Best,
Ron

Regarding what Ron said, I agree that the "down time" between sessions is absolutely essential (and Paul Czege believes even more whole-heartedly in the notion, so maybe he has to something to add).  As for me, I'll take a slightly different tact.

Starting with the character creation session - and the group character creation session is absolutely essential here - the GM has to provide a little bit of input into those demons.  The point of group character creation is to get everyone invested in each character, which goes for their demons too, and it definitely does not disinclude the GM.  Now, I'm not saying the GM gets to create the demons for the players or that he should have final veto power, or anything like that, but if he's expected to proactively play the demons for all their worth, it'll help if he loves them as much as the players do.

My actual play bears this out.  The first time I ran Sorcerer, the players created their demons with me taking a largely hands off approach.  I actually had other ideas about what I thought would be cool, but I squelched them in favor of the players' preferences.  The result: An almost demonless game.

Next time I ran Sorcerer it was Charnel Gods.  The players still created their Fell Weapon demons, but bound by the imagery and rules I set forth in the mini-supplement.  They loved those demons, but I'll bet I loved them more.  They were my fucking demons, afterall.

Take care,
Scott

Hi all.

Just a couple of quick points:

Thanks for the suggestions... And I'll definately keep them in mind.  

I think the vital one is the need for the downtime.  I have no idea *why* this should be, but I do think it's there.  I even said exactly this already in the thread up above in Actual Play.

I'm not sure if the demons needed to be more involved at the start.  They could be.  But I'm not sure if it was vital.  I think allowing my brain to cool and think, "Ah, and now the demons," would be all that was needed.

I, too, gladly chalk this up to a noble experiment.

And finally, some perspective.

First, I bit off more than I could chew.

Second, I'd played four rpg sessions over the last eight years -- and only GMed one of them.

Third, when I ran that night, I was like an ex-jogger who said, "I should go for a jog again."  I slipped on my shoes and went for a run.  It felt good.  I decided to keep going.  It felt good.  I went further than I planned on going and it still felt good... Until I realized I was cramping something horrible.  Yeah, we ran too long... but only because it had felt so good.  Now we all know better.  Won't happen again.

Fourth, I dropped the ball on the demons.  You know what?  I don't fucking care.  Giving how much terrific role playing I saw that night, I just don't care.  I saw, as described in the thread above, beautiful character and scene work off the fly from my players.  For the moment, fuck the demons. I was happy for the first time in a decade to be playing an RPG!

Really.  If I had tried to play the "Con version" of Sorcerer would we have had so much fun?  Would the players, who loved playing, have had so much fun?  No.  Bluntly: No.  It was a bad con session.  It was a great taste of a great RPG and great play.

I'm really, really glad that's the way I decided to run it exactly the way I did.  Would I run it that way again?  No.  But I wanted to play Sorcerer -- and I did.  And I'm really happy about it.

****

Okay. If want to hash out ways to make Demons work better in Sorcerer, that's great.  But please, let's stop using select moments from a few hours of the lives of five guys that almost nobody here knows as touchstones for object lessons in role playing.  Right?

Again, thanks for the comments.  Rock on.

Take care,

Christopher

Hi there,

Good point, Christopher - so moved & so carried. Mike raised this issue at a general level, so we should keep it there.

Anyway, what I'm hearing, or working out for myself, is that a GM needs to know that at some point demons should be acting extremely proactively as GM-run NPCs. This might arise straight from the moment that the GM learns about the demon in question, it might get worked into and around a given Kicker, or it might arise later in play, as many as two or three sessions in.

I suppose the usual two-step between "don't push it" and "get to it" applies, which I'd put into the Art Part box along with a few other things.

Any more thoughts or comments about that?

Best,
Ron

Chris, I only used your example to support what I've seen elsewhere. As I said, it seems like a phenomenon to me in general. I used you as an example because you were handy, and seemed to be data supporting my general claim. Sorry to have given you offense, somehow. If my assumptions are incorrect, all you have to do is say so. But unfortunately all we have is annecdotal evidence of this sort to talk about in terms of theory in this hobby, so we have to use it where it arises.

Actually, this is all reassuring to me. I've played only two games where it went longer than one session. So, I'm guessing that it was the lack of continuation that was the problem, as suggested. It was the short games that seemed to have the problem the most. Perhaps, if we had continued these the Demons would have shown and all would have been as it should.

So, I've got methods for instantly starting in with Demons, and I've got the advice about insinuating them long term between sessions. That ought to do it.

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike,

No problem.  

And let's by all means use the material I presented in actual play.  I was responding to reactions of "inarticulate raving" and the need, on the part of some kind hearted souls, to defend me with their own "I too got Sorcerer wrong" posts.  It was getting all very emotional and non-Forge like -- though still streaked with Forge earnestness.  If I posted without clarity before, let me try one more time now: Let's not draw too many tragic conclusions from a few select moments of posted game play.

And now onward:

From my experience with the game at the Con, I'd say I really dropped the ball on making the demons antagonists.  You said as much earlier: in my desire not to steal protagonism from the players I made them sort of briefcases with names.  That's a problem.

On even more reflection I realized why: I was really cleaving tight to the idea that the players are giving me what interests them, and so that's what I want to give them.  The players made up the mortal NPCs, so I really went to town with those NPCs.  That's a style of play I really trust.

However, I made up the demons.  And so, in a perverse extension of the above logic, I deemed them less interesting to the players. I didn't want to inflict my inventions on the players when we already had a ton of NPCs they made up lying around.

Now, if I'd fully committed to my (as Ron generously called it) "noble experiment" then the players would have made up their own demons and I'd have followed through with their inventions happily.  Time constraints made that clearly insane (as opposed to the more obscure insanity I missed) so that wasn't an option.

But that, in part, is why I missed the boats with the demons.

I'd offer that the fact the players create their own sorcerers demons is in part what starts the demons off as antagonists.  Even if the player can't articulate it, having worked up creature and mortal, he or she knows something is at stake between the two characters.  It is, in my loopy opinion, the unravelling of this relationship that provides a lot of the dramatic tension in a successful Sorcerer game.  (I'm using my time in Jesse's game as an example of successful Sorcerer/demon play.)

So yeah, from the start for demon antagonism. But it might be a sublte tension that is revealed -- even to the players and GM -- with time.

Christopher

Quote from: Christopher KubasikI'd offer that the fact the players create their own sorcerers demons is in part what starts the demons off as antagonists.  Even if the player can't articulate it, having worked up creature and mortal, he or she knows something is at stake between the two characters.  It is, in my loopy opinion, the unravelling of this relationship that provides a lot of the dramatic tension in a successful Sorcerer game.  

That certainly sounds reasonable.  Although I think that also relies on the players realizing that the demons are something more than the Origin story for their cool superpowers.  Otherwise they will just be player created briefcases.

That I think is the key that needs to be articulated most strongly in some fashion.

Ralph, Chris, good points. I've made the mistake of allowing a utility demon on occasion. And Ron's written and spoken against that before, so, enough said there.

For example, there was this one demon that Ron made for my Sorcerer and Space playtest...

Just kidding!

:-)

Mike

It's interesting to me to note that way back at the beginning of this thread someone said:

"It's funny, but as a player, I have no problem with mixing my own character up with his own demon."

Now, I'm not sure what they were specifically referring to, I'm taking the quote out of context.  But skimming the thread, it jumped out at me, and is relevant to the "briefcases with names" and "cool superpower origin" comments about demon's roles in relation to the PCs.

My point is this- and I think Ron will back me up, despite my not having played yet (hint hint nudge nudge)- No player should EVER mix their character up with their demon.

I've had something of an issue with this myself, it seems every time I try to come up with a Sorcerer character I come up with someone with cool demon-powered special abilities.  But that's not what Sorcerer is supposed to be about, right?  

I realize I'm probably reiterating a point everyone here is already intimately familiar with and I hate redundancy, so I won't belabor it.  But I hope I am getting the right impression of things...  feel free to smack me around some more if I'm being dense again =>

/babble

NtD

I had an idea about character creation that I mentioned to Ron, but it seems appropriate to this thread as well.

During group character creation, when everyone is creating their starting demons, instead of each player assigning Need and Desire to their own demon... why not have everyone write two need/desires down on slips of paper and put them in a hat (or whatever).  Then everyone takes turns drawing two slips until each demon has a Need and Desire.

In this fashion, the players would have created their own demons, and thus feel that bond/connection to them storywise, etc; but at the same time provide that hint of otherness that demons should have, just enough to constantly remind the player/character that the relationship between them and their demon is not a comfortable thing.

Maybe it's not a great idea for every session, or for every style.  In particular Ron seems (just judging from posts and comments, I could be wrong) to put more power/knowledge (IE authorship) in the hands of the players, so this sort of thing might not sit well with that philosophy.  

Myself, I like authorship but I also like to be in the dark sometimes...(no longer commenting specifically on Ron's style) as a PC if I know everything what's the point of playing?  I like discovery and exploration and the chance to figure things out from clues and hints.  

Anyway, enough babbling... I'm just looking forward to actually playing...

NtD