I ran Sorcerer for the first time last night with my mostly-regular group consisting of Colin, David, and Matt. This comes on the heels of a whole season of Primetime Adventures and four sessions of In A Wicked Age (IAWA). The change in approach to running these games made me a bit nervous, so I called Judd to elicit some much-appreciated input. In return, he asked me to write about how it turned out, so here goes that.
In short, it went quite well! I felt like we all enjoyed the game, even with some stumbling over parts of the rules (i.e., learning curve).
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First, the fictional setup. Our game is set in 1968 in Berkeley (and other parts nearby), California, at and around the university. Humanity is defined as concern and relationships with other human beings, and demons are summoned through achieving a state of extreme isolation.
We've got three Sorcerer PCs, and I decided to start with the scenes where the kickers came into play.
Frank Holloway (Colin), a fringe scientist who works for the university, just summoned his first demon in his isolation tank. As the raven-haired stunner of a passer demon, Lillith, is taking a shower in his apartment, the professor receives a call from the dean's office that his funding has been cut and his lab will be turned into a gym extension. Lillith desires competition and has a need for fistfights.
Dick Atkins (David), an ex-astronaut, found his demon on his space walk, all alone among the stars. It's a parasite living in his blood, driving him to seek sensual pleasure and requiring him to radiate himself with x-rays on a regular basis. He's in the middle of running for Senator on the Republican ticket, getting dressed to go out to a gala, when he receives a blackmail package containing tapes of him going temporarily insane in his space capsule.
Devin Love (Matt) is a young black Vietnam veteran whose mother is his mentor in all things sorcery. Thanks to her education, he was able to bind an inconspicuous, ancient Egyptian demon taken from a Sorcerer that Devin killed in the middle of a godforsaken patch of Vietnamese jungle. His demon desires mayhem and has a need for Devin to kill small animals and drink their blood as sacrifice to him. Devin is a Black Panther, his brother is a crook, and his girlfriend is a pacifistic peace activist. His kicker: his brother storms in, telling him that Feds, without a warrant, took their mom away.
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We went around the table taking turns for scenes, but I'll group them by character for ease of following the developments. Frank was shocked at the news about his lab, but first had to find clothes for his demon. He managed to find out where his lab assistant, Anita, buys her clothes. He's got a big crush on Anita, and that was fun to see play out. After shopping for clothes, he and Lillith marched into the dean's office, finding only the assistant there.
Frank gave in to Lillith's urging to feed her need, unleashed his fury over the impending lab closing by wrestling ineptly with the assistant, and chased him out into the hall where he beat him down with the office phone (he then lost his humanity roll for this callous action). He tried to bully the assistant into staying quiet, realizing what he'd done. But when he went to see the dean the next day, security was right there. Thanks to Lillith discreetly psychic-forcing the guards into the wall, he managed to coerce the name of the company responsible for the lab closure out of the dean.
Dick's night and following day went much more quietly. He called his campaign manager to get him to investigate how the tapes got out. At the gala, he got a call from his mistress, Anita (the very same). She was upset about the lab closure and asked him to help. He, driven by his demon's urging, decided to meet her at their favorite seedy nightclub. He ended up spending the night at her place, despite not telling his wife or manager that he'd be gone, which might be trouble down the road. In the end, he told Anita to set up a meeting with Frank so he could figure out how to help her.
And Dick's campaign manager told him that he found a list of a handful of people who'd had access to his NASA files. This will work as the springboard for continuing his investigation into who's blackmailing him.
Now, Devin had a rough night. His brother told him he had a source who knew where the FBI safehouse was where their mother was being held, and persuaded him to round up a couple of Black Panthers, shotguns, and ski masks, and get mom back. It was interesting to me to see how willing Devin was to resort to violence; his service in Vietnam apparently made him more callous rather than opposed to fighting. He was supposed to meet his girlfriend Tamira at a peaceful sit-in that night and promised he'd show up later.
The group met at a bar, flirted with a lady there (Devin is paranoid and wanted to make sure she wasn't spying on them), then went to room 213 of an apartment complex with Delin (the brother), Isaac (Delin's partner-in-crime), and Michael and Tyler (two ready-to-rumble Black Panthers). Isaac stayed in the car (stoned as he was), Delin and Tyler watched the front and back entrance, and Michael and Devin went upstairs. They decided to kick down the door to room 211, where loud music was playing, to get on the fire escape there and surprise the Feds next door that way.
When they kicked in the door, they found that a camera had been set up to film what's going on in 213. A fight ensued with the man handling the equipment. Devin tackled him, Michael tried to shoot him, the man tried to pull his gun, and the demon (with prior orders from Devin) tried to take out Michael to avoid deaths. They struggled and ended up with Devin and the guy on the floor, before the demon took him out by order of Devin. People ran past the doorway from room 213; Michael shot someone in the thigh, but they made it downstairs, shot Delin in the shoulder, and escaped. There was no sign of mom--only lines of coke on the table. Now Devin is pissed, thinking that Delin set him up to take out a bunch of rival drug dealers. Still, mom's apartment is empty.
And Tamira waited in vain for him that night.
The next morning, Devin then went out to the middle of nowhere, where his mother had told him ley lines lay, and summoned himself another demon: one with Perception and Hint, who could tell him the truth and help find his mother. When you can't trust your family and friends anymore, you turn to demons, right?
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Alright, on to the rules. The first time we had a fight, I forgot that combat works a bit differently than simple opposed rolls. Basically, Sorcerer's combat is the precursor to IAWA. The initial rolls are made to determine initiative, and then characters can decide whether to abandon their action for a full defense with all dice or only use one die and keep their action roll on the table. Characters who've already acted get to use all dice for defense later that turn. So after we'd determined the result with a simple opposed roll, I realized my mistake and we went back to redo the exchange. Interestingly, the result was exactly the same (the PC's action succeeded by 1 victory, the opponent failed).
I really like it that both sides can get what they want and that you can prioritize how important your own action is as opposed to your defense. That's a choice you can't make in IAWA. But it makes the whole exchange that much more complicated (e.g., you have to deal with the impact of damage on already-made rolls). Still, the shootout at Room 213 felt quite intense to me because of all of the potential outcomes. As a GM, that uncertainty was entertaining and challenging to me, and the situation changed in ways we couldn't have predicted. That's great stuff. I think that, even though it's not easy keeping track of everything, multi-character conflict is where Sorcerer's die system really shines.
I think having played IAWA allowed us to grasp this system very quickly. Combat turned out to be quite deadly; characters get down to 0 dice in no time. Especially when demons are involved. Mental conflicts are just like IAWA as well: they are always backed up by the threat of violence, because in the end, your rollover dice are good for doing extra damage.
The contacting, summoning, and binding of Devin's new demon turned out to be the most difficult thing, rules-wise. That's probably to be expected the first time around. One thing that was confusing was the number of Humanity rolls required, which I couldn't find in the rules text but inferred from the examples given. Devin lost half his humanity, going from four to two, just by acquiring a new demon. I wasn't sure how successes in the ritual rolls worked regarding the Humanity rolls, for example. I'll take a look at the Sorcerer wiki with fresh eyes now and will probably figure most things out from that.
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As a closing note, it's interesting that all three characters had different moods going on, I felt. Frank's scenes were often humorous. Devin's were intense in more ways than one and felt very gritty to me. And I couldn't quite get a handle on Dick yet--it felt more like we were setting him up, trying to figure out who he is first before we throw him into the midst of trouble. His scenes felt more introspective, especially in contrast with the others. I'm not sure whether I should have pushed him more this time, but I definitely will the next time we're playing. I still felt that his decisions, which were based on more low-key bangs (stick with your supportive wife or go see your mistress, for example), worked out well for revealing his personality.
But overall, despite the different moods, the game still felt like it held together just fine as a whole. If this was a TV series, I'd be interested in all three characters, though I wouldn't be sure at this point if all (or any!) of them are protagonists :)
It's ok, Graham. I *played* in the game and I've got nothing useful to add - Christian has summed things up pretty well, as usual. :-)
If I had to say anything I'd say that it's been a blast so far, and that the rules take some getting used to, as Christian has explained.
I think the different moods with the characters is largely an artifact of the players and their respective play styles. I like to play characters you can laugh a bit at, even when they are taking themselves seriously. I feel like if I saw Frank in the Sorcerer movie I would be covering my face with my hands, laughing, and saying "OMG I can't believe he just did that. He is *so* screwed". Great fun :)
It'll be interesting to see how the tone of the story evolves when these three very disparate characters meet each other for the first time. I think I'll make a concious effort to match that tone, while keeping Frank a somewhat hapless genius who does stuff that makes us cringe.
I still see Devin as reluctant towards violence. He knew his brother was probably going to go try to spring her anyway, guns-a-blazin'. If he agreed to go and make his brother wait outside, maybe he could keep him and anyone else from getting killed. I just thought to myself, "WWOD?" (What Would Omar Do?) So far it looks like no one is permanently harmed. Just a little more of his trust in Delon eroded and his mother is still missing...
From the player side, I tend to think less often, "what would my character do?" and more "what would be interesting and push the narrative forward?" Ideally, I suppose you can do both. When I haven't thought carefully about who my character is, who my character becomes is whatever fool move I just made. ;)
When I played Dictionary of Mu with Judd, my Damsel Messiah opened with horrific violence and spent the remainder of her time trying to make things better. I kinda like that arc.
I spent a few minutes after the session chuckling to myself recalling how things would have gone down if Michael and Devin had busted into 213. Possibly committing a double-homicide with Devin yelling, "Where's moms?!?" and with his demon Atum shouting down the apparent drug dealers. All on Fed film.
Looking forward to some scenes with Tamira and some hope, however false, of redemption. Looking forward to learning more about Frank and Dick too and figuring out how and whether any of us fit together. Talk about a three-way odd couple...
I thought Christian ran the conflicts well and I was again really impressed with the kind of nuance that the system brings to conflicts. I experienced the same thing for Mu. I've read Sorcerer and two of its supplements a few times and still have a hard time figuring it out. Whether or not what we did was correct in all cases, it worked and I see a lot of potential going forward. If I hadn't played Dictionary of Mu I would have been reluctant to give Sorcerer a try based on my readings.
Oh, and I just gotta get one scene with Eldridge Cleaver before this tale is all told...
This all sounds terrific. I've been away from my gaming group for three weeks, and it makes me want to get home as fast as i can to play Sorcerer.
I think the fact that there are different tones at the table as -- well, normal. Great! But normal.
One of the things I love about Sorcerer is that it nails down a lot of specifics before play begins (Humanity, Lore, Demons, Kickers, Price and so on....) and then, using these elements as a unified base, allows the Players to spin variations off this base.
I see it like a pallet in painting -- say, anywhere from 2 to 11 colors. You don't want too many colors, or the eye gets confused. But if you pick a limited pallet, you get the unity of the 2 to 11 colors, but by recombining those 2 to 11 colors, you get unique variations of hue and tone that prevent the painting from being boring.
As long as everyone is circling back to those core elements chosen for that group's Sorcerer game, then the unity is there -- even if they're playing different tones, or combining the elements in unexpected ways no one could have seen coming.
Can anyone offer any examples of the "nuance that the system brings to conflicts"? I'd love to hear about those moment and how the system elicited them.
Also, this: "If I hadn't played Dictionary of Mu I would have been reluctant to give Sorcerer a try based on my readings."
Two of my Players in my regular group had the exact same reaction to the reading the Sorcerer rules. During our second session they stopped the game to make exactly that point.
Can anyone talk about the features of play that are enticing now that might not have been clear in play? What features of the game are really standing out?
Nuance might be an ill-chosen word. There were basically a few aspects I enjoyed. Christian already touched on one of them. I'll emphasize my experience with the system is limited.
First there is the opening roll establishing both the potency and the order of declared intents among multiple factions. I also like the range of declared intents - I may be less interested in harming an opponent than in preventing their specific action that round. Then there's the interpretation how to resolve the conflicts based upon the initiative order, altering or making moot some intents. Finally there's the interesting choice about whether to defend strongly and give up your action or continue with your intent and defend less vigorously, the variables being what your opposition is trying to do and that roll result you can see lying there on the table. The die pool means that that calculation is more difficult than "am I likely to beat a 7 on 1d10?" AND you don't yet know what the actors downstream are going to do given their similar choices.
There's something very satisfying to me about the interaction of all this. It's a nice balance between tactical decision making and "casting the runes" and scrying the result.
Michael and Devin (with his demon Atum) burst into room 211, and there's a Fed (presumed) with a camera going into room 213. He sees two black men with ski-masks and shotguns and goes for his pistol. Devin rushes forward trying to interpose himself between Michael and the Fed, so that Michael doesn't shoot, disarm the Fed and shout "Cool it, Michael! Hostage!" (before it's become more clear that the guys next door aren't also Feds). The Fed is trying to shoot Michael. Michael is trying to "kill a fool!" Atum, per Devin earlier, is going to shout down Michael to prevent him from blowing a hole in the Fed. We've declared actions which assume (hope) a certain order but none of us really know how it's going to go down until we roll them bones.
My memory is really horrible for these kind of details. Whatever I write would have to be corrected by Christian or one of the other players but we had to make some difficult choices and Devin had to use one of his actions to give Atum some new marching orders to keep things from spiraling further out of control after he'd gotten the Fed under control and Michael had relented from aerating the Fed's insides.
There's also the matter of the intensity that comes from the damage rules. There are other systems do that, but maybe few that are this gritty also have the potential to inflict a harsh penalty that is only temporary such that if you can get past the current situation with the right mix of allies and intents, you might get out from under the stick.
On your second question - features of play that are enticing now that were not clear from my reading, or features of play that are enticing despite not being clear in play? Very few of the game's features were or are clear to me on reading or re-reading. The author is fortunate to have helpful ambassadors for his game, and he has provided good guidance on his forum. The original text is pretty opaque to me and it is difficult to reference for clarification when memory fails.
I expect we'll have more thoughts on what stands out as we play more.