thread: 2008-01-07 : Another year's worth
On 2008-02-12, Vincent wrote:
Christopher, I'm just groping toward it, so no, I don't have a clear answer for you. I have some unclear groping though if that'll help:
So we're all pretty comfy by now with "a game's rules organize who gets to say what about what, when," right?
A game's rules also, on top of that, dependent upon that, organize who's willing, who's provoked, who's inspired to say what about what, when. We haven't talked much about this - it's hard! - but it's the real work of rpg design (who gets to say what about what, when, being the dead simple rudiments of rpg design).
So now. My proposal is that Sorcerer's rules in action create a social environment in which whether your character is a good person, or a sympathetic person, is especially open to the other players' judgment. Going into play, you can't presume that the game - the social environment created by the rules in action - will treat your character as automatically good, automatically bad, automatically sympathetic, or automatically unsympathetic. Here's the important part: you can't presume, even if it's perfectly clear to you which your character should be or must be. You can't presume that no one will be inspired to reach into your understanding of your character and change it, without your consent, from good to bad or bad to good.
Other rpgs, especially the Primetime Adventures clan (including Shock:), you CAN presume that your character will be good, bad, sympathetic or unsympathetic, more closely matching what you're certain she should or must be. There is a cleaner, stronger, clearer link between what you intend your character to be and what she in fact is.
To play a villain in Sorcerer, you create a sorcerer for your character, and maybe she'll turn out to be a villain, who knows! Maybe you don't get to play a villain this time. To play a villain in Primetime Adventures, you create a villain for your character.
How does Sorcerer do this? Well... it's not just by having carryover bonus dice or by having random humanity checks, although those both contribute. It's by arranging its rules such that occasionally, by chance, kicker->demon->want->need->rituals->stats->carryover bonus dice->humanity checks offer up a result that makes your character look like a shit even when you didn't think she was one, or that gives your character grace even when you thought she'd used her grace all up.
There! Groping, unclear. Good as I can do, I'm afraid.
