Lisbon Gamer

Ahey, 🙂

Here’s Ron:

1. Don’t fucking drop the ball on me. You have my Kicker. If it’s a mystery, you’re supposed to know what’s going on. If it’s an action-event, you’re supposed to round out its human and motivational side. If it’s just freaky, you’re supposed to embrace the weirdness. Don’t cop out. Above all, our shared agreement is that this Kicker is going to matter, and that means not only to at least one other character besides my own, but also to us, the people, here, during play. I know it matters to me, in its unbaked, unspiked form. You make sure your private/prepped version of it matters to you. All of that goes double for Humanity checks and Humanity gain rolls.
2. My character can do a lot. And I’m not sure exactly what he’s going to do first, but you can bet that in the first few moments of play, he’s going to do something, and it has nothing to do with familiar role-playing tropes or standards for character action. This guy is not a “role-playing character.” He is bigger than any prep, bigger than any game-book, bigger than any genre. I am not playing in the “playful” sense of that word. Maybe sometimes he’ll play it cool or cautious, but never purely reactive. I will not wait for cues.
3. More privately, and maybe I wouldn’t even tell you this, I’m not sure whether going this far is a good idea. There’s one key safety-net missing here – that my character is the hero, and will eventually be nicely positioned in a climactic confrontation with whoever really and for-sure truly is the bad guy. In a lot of other games, we’d know that for a fact, but not in Sorcerer. Without that, I’m looking at a character whose actions and attitude I will myself be enacting, without much premeditation, and who I cannot say at this time is necessarily the good guy. I believe he might be, or could be, or could turn out to be. But I won’t know which way he’ll jump in any number of situations until we get there in play, and that will depend a lot on the immediate history of how we got there, too. This is like 
4. I know what I’m doing in one way, though. I’m not going to go spastic on you or turtle up. You won’t be looking at my guy and at me, going “What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?” I’m listening to you and to everyone else, soaking up everything that’s said and described. My character’s actions and words are right in there with what’s happening and what has happened. He is not an idiot, nor a pyschotic. Whatever I have him do, just run with it, respond, bring out the consequences.
5. I love what you’ve told us regarding our upcoming game. I get it. I want to do that. I can’t wait to see it happen via the lens/input of my character.
6. The system works, as long as we stay clear about exactly what our characters are doing and what they are driving for, at least at that moment. That’s another thing you can count on: that if you want to know what he’s doing, then one of these three things will work: (i) you already know because I just told you, (ii) you ask and I’ll tell you, or (iii) you have a pretty good idea and frame right to it, waiting for my nod to confirm that what you say works for me. No tedious murk. We don’t need it. With that knowledge in hand at all times, the dice are ready when they’re needed.
7. In fact, that brings up another point. You have Bangs, conflicts, possible rolls in mind? Good. So do I. Be ready for me to do stuff which demands rolling, without your permission or prep or any consideration of your readiness.

From this thread.

I wish I had known that, all those times I tried to play this. I wish all the other players knew this.

I wish it was written in large, firendly letters on the back cover.

Cheers,
J.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 12:16 and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.