Ludoverse Lab: The Pool by James V. West, Part 2

We wrapped up our sessions with The Pool with three returning players and one new addition. To watch the video of our session (with post-game debrief, click here.

We were able to get a taste of how the game’s advancement system works. In brief, after playing a session, the players get an additional 15 words that they can add to their character descriptions (or, if they want, they can bank those words to deploy them later). They also get 9 points in their “pool” which they can use in turn to add points to their bonus traits. As with all matters, the approach is streamlined and elegant.

This week, we were joined by Linnea, who is the creative director of a video game design company living in Sweden. It didn’t take long to get her up and running with the game. The fact that everything is grounded in those character descriptions made it easy for her to get quickly oriented.

This is, to say the least, a group that attacks the game from an array of perspectives. You have a college undergraduate majoring in English and psychology, a college professor specializing in philosophy and ethics, a high school government teacher, and me (a high school English teacher).

I decided this week to “go Memento” on the players by starting things off with the scene that would chronologically END our narrative and then work our way backward in time. The streamlined system of The Pool hummed with this approach. The trick is for the GM to begin by describing a scene that is happening in medias res and to weave in abundant specific details from the previous session and the character descriptions. But the special sauce is to leave things open. You don’t have to explain everything that’s going on: That’s for the game play to determine. You can also allow the players to insert the characters into the scene as they see fit.

I could explain things, but really the better course of action is to direct you to 6:45 of the video. There, you’ll see me framing things up and letting the mayhem rip. Role-playing games are best experienced from the players’ side, but even as an observer, you will quickly pick up on the energy and creativity that The Pool and this kind of hard scene framing generate. With one session under the belt, the players quickly lean into their character traits, and the resolution system works hand-in-hand with the weaving of the narrative tapestry.

As a GM, I felt like my main role was to keep the spotlight moving around. After establishing the crazy setting, my job is quite easy and loads of fun. I add a detail to the scene, ask one character what they are going to do, resolve a conflict, and then move onto another character. The elegant system gives the players just enough to work with, and the swinginess of the dice rolls adds to the fun.

I’d again point out how the failures end up inciting more creativity from both the players and the GM. This week, we see the players sometimes failing and opting to deliver a Monologue of Defeat instead of grabbing another die for their pool. And they are also much more quick and eager to take the reins when they are delivering their Monologues of Victory.

I was also happy to see characters volunteering dice from their pools to help their companions. One stipulation I made is that they had to explain what their character was doing to offer assistance within the fiction, and this became another way of moving the spotlight around and of enhancing the descriptive richness of the narrative.

If you have never tried running a role-playing game in reverse order, I urge you to try it out. The approach will allow your session to take off from the opening moment, and it will also challenge the creative thought process of your players. It also forces the mind to think about narrative organization in a more intense and deliberate manner. When you start to step back in time, everyone at the table has to think about how they are going to get the new scene to END where the previously played scene BEGAN. This gives the players and GM a focused objective to chew on as they consider their decisions since they need the action to move toward a determinate end point (which is also a beginning point).

We end the session with some reflections on the game and our experiences. The Pool remains a vibrant gem in 2020, and I encourage educators to study it. Weighing in at only 4-pages, it is like the superfruit of rpgs. I don’t think you could find a game that provides more bang in such a small package. You will find it readily adaptable to varied classroom contexts, and if you are looking for an easy way to introduce a group to role-playing games, The Pool is a perfect place to dive in.

Introducing the Ludoverse Lab: The Pool by James V. West

I’m excited to introduce the inaugural “broadcast” of the Ludoverse Lab.

The core purpose of this project is to experiment with innovative role-playing games with an eye towards education. Beneath that general goal are nested a constellation of exciting possibilities:

• I hope this series contributes to the general conversation about gamification and game-based learning in the classroom.
• I’m openly inviting other educators—regardless of prior experience—to join in either as participants or as observer-commentators.
• I’d like to hone my own skills as a “role-playing gamer” and a teacher through these experiments, and I hope those who join me are similarly sharpened. I would argue that much of the rpg skill set is transferable to teaching.
• I want to analyze game systems and actual play from multiple perspectives.
• Finally, I want this experience to be fun and generally enriching for all involved.

A few comments about this opening experiment in the Ludoverse Lab.

We are playing James V. West’s The Pool, which came out in 2001. Though many today are unfamiliar with the title, one would be hard-pressed to find a game that has exerted more influence with such a short set of rules.

And the influence continues. It is now so deeply ingrained in the DNA of today’s role-playing games that I suspect some designers use its ideas without even realizing the progeny. Just last week, I was introduced to Alien: The Role-Playing Game, and the impact of The Pool was there, though unstated.  In under four pages, West managed to crystallize a number of key ideas about character-based narratives, conflict resolution, player-facing authority, intentional dialogue at the table . . . . I could go on, but so much of what I would say has been more masterfully handled by Ron Edwards in his essay “Understanding The Pool.” I highly recommend that you go there for a deep dive into the game from both a historical and an analytical perspective. You can also look at an earlier piece I wrote for Ludoverse last year.

The Pool does not define a setting or a genre, so, as a GM, it is critical to focus the players by providing them with a skeleton setting. Appropriately enough, I opted for a fictitious modern-day educational institution, which I named Palmer Eldritch High School (credits to Philip K Dick) set in the Appalachian foothills of western Virginia. I provided these additional details to let the tone sink in:

• Mascot: The Luna Moths
• Motto: “Dreaming of tomorrow.”
• School Colors: Blood Orange and Reddish Green (the latter being one of the so-called “impossible colors”)

Our players consisted of a university philosophy professor, a high school government teacher, and an undergraduate student interested in education and psychology. So I had a good mix of disciplines and levels of education represented.

I won’t bog you down with details of the game play itself. The video has been edited, and I’m impressed by the tightness and creativity that the group brought to the table. I invite you to watch it by clicking this link.

I did introduce a few twists to the rules, some of which are derived from the so-called anti-Pool variants. Here’s a summary of the changes which I provided to the group in advance:

1. Character creation. Before the first session, write a 50-word character sketch, following the rules of The Pool. The 50 words should detail your characters' talents, profession, quirks, weaknesses, skills, personality traits, special objects, a signature item, relationships, etc.—anything you imagine as being important or interesting to play with in the game. This sketch provides the traits for the player's character sheet, and the 50 word limit is firm--so you have to be efficient!

Give your character a name and a “kicker” or goal. These are for free--they don’t count towards the 50-word limit. The kicker or goal should be something that sets your character in motion: It should be something specific and concrete. Examples of kickers: Your character enters the parking lot and finds that her new car has been sabotaged (tires slashed, sugar water in the gas tank, etc.). Or your character hopes to gain a college scholarship by leading the basketball team to the district championship.

2. Traits and Bonuses. Follow the rules of The Pool. In brief, you pull traits from your character sketch. You may list a trait with no bonus attached (leaving it available for later advancement). You start with 15 points. To assign a Bonus, spend dice from your starting Pool. The cost is the Bonus times itself. Thus, a +2 would cost 4 dice and a +3 would cost 9 dice and so on. It is very important to leave some dice in your Pool--at least 3 or 4.

3. Casting the Dice. Follow the rules of The Pool with these important modifications:
On a successful roll (i.e. at least one of your dice came up a “1”), you LOSE any dice you gambled from your pool, but you GAIN a Monologue of Victory! Rolling multiple 1s will add to the impact of your success.

On a loss (i.e you rolled no 1s) you get your gambled pool dice back, and you get a choice. You may either ADD an additional die to your pool or you may GAIN a Monologue of Defeat [Note: The Monologue of Defeat must stay true to the fact that you failed your dice roll.]
Other players may contribute dice from their pools to your effort if they can explain how their character is contributing to the action in the fiction. The total number of pool dice gambled cannot exceed 9.

4. Success and Failure. These follow the basic rules of The Pool save the reversal regarding the loss and gain of pool dice (see above). Note the stipulation that multiple 1s magnify the degree of success. Note also that the GM may interpret a failure as a short term success but accompanied by nasty side effects. For example, you fail your roll to climb over the fence. The GM might allow your character to make it over, but notes that your character lands hard on the other side and thinks they might have sprained their ankle. Oh . . . and there’s a guard dog that heard them when they crashed to the ground.

5. Continuing the Story. These follow the rules of The Pool, but you may deduct any previous points invested in a trait to raise that trait. In other words, a +3 costs 9 points. But if that trait is currently at a +2, you have already spent 4 points to get the trait to that level. So now it will only cost you 5 additional points to raise it to a +3. Note also the rule that you may add or increase bonuses to traits at any point.

6. At Death’s Door. Should circumstances require it, we will follow the rules of The Pool.

There are many instructive elements of our game that deserve particular note:

After sending them the skeleton setting, I gave the players the 50-word character sketch as a pre-game homework assignment, and this included the requirement providing me with a “kicker” or goal. Some might prefer to accomplish these tasks through a conversation at the table, but my mind likes to chew over what the players are signalling me in advance of the opening session. I’m better able to weave their kickers and traits into the opening scenes when I have the time to reflect. The value of this strategy is apparent in the scenes we work through.

Also deserving of study are the moments of victory and failure that occur throughout the session.

With my variant, when a player achieves success on a roll, they get a Monologue of Victory. You will see the players initially surprised by the narrative power that this gives them, but once they wrap their head around the concept, it sparks tremendous creativity and enthusiasm. They realize that they can, within reasonable limits, dictate where the fiction goes, and they obviously are jazzed that they were able to throw something back at me, the GM, which I would run with.

The moments of failure are also instructive. The players hesitated to use my “Monologue of Defeat” variant in favor of adding a die to their pool. But even so, the failures resulted in some creative and unpredictable swerves in the narrative. As a GM (and as a teacher), it is important to view failures as opportunities to move things forward in creative and exciting ways. This doesn’t mean treating failures as though they are successes. But it does mean considering failures as swerves that might lead the story into new, unplanned paths. In retrospect, sometimes these trails can lead to some of the most memorable and fulfilling moments of the session.

One notable highlight is how the players are quickly leaning into their traits and abilities. This perhaps is not surprising given the fact that all of these elements derive from the character sketches that they players wrote. Designers, GMs, and players should take note of the psychological investment (and improved game play) that this type of character creation element generates.

The video ends with some of our reflections on how The Pool might be put to use in the classroom. I’ll have more to say about this in a later post, and I invite anyone interested to offer their thoughts.

The group was enthusiastic about this inaugural experiment, so we will be moving on to a second session with the game. So expect a second installment of the Ludoverse Lab as we take another dive into The Pool.

And if you want to join in on an upcoming lab, drop me a note. I’m looking forward to taking others on the ride.

Teaching Role-Playing Games, Part 3: The Debrief

I’ve wrapped up my unit on tabletop role-playing games, so I’ve been taking stock and reflecting on our triumphs and our struggles.

For those coming new to this discussion, I’d suggest taking a quick look at Parts 1 and 2. The brief synopsis is that I took a three-week period of my AP English Language and Composition class and segmented it into the following:

1. a few days to introduce tabletop role-playing games as a form of ergodic literature and medium of communication;
2. a few days for students to decide upon a role-playing game, read the rules, create characters, and prepare to play;
3. a full week of class devoted to playing the selected games;
4. a few days to hear presentations and to write actual play analyses.

In each of my four sections, I had 3-4 gaming tables running simultaneously, with each table playing a different game over the course of a week. As previously noted, few students had ever experienced a tabletop role-playing game before. Not surprisingly, even with generous time allotted in the previous week to read rulebooks, discuss mechanics, and generate characters, the students were challenged when they launched into game play. I was circulating constantly during the class period, but, since there was only one of me, that meant groups often had to spend some time figuring things out for themselves while I was running the circuit. 

RPG Rulebooks and Critical Reading

This brings me to one of the many values of the rpg unit: There is a special form of reading entailed in synthesizing a rulebook and implementing it at the table. This type of reading is not one that students have had much exposure to, yet it provides vital training. An rpg rulebook is analogous to a manual or how-to guide, but, for many reasons, the level of complexity is multiplied. The social dynamic at the rpg table is fluid and unpredictable. Apart from understanding the basic mechanics of a game system, one has to interpret results within the fiction. Situations emerge which rules may not have fully anticipated. One could go on.

Many of my students found that their critical reading skills were initially coming up short. They misinterpreted key mechanics; they overlooked a crucial bit of text; they had disagreements as to the meaning of a sentence in the rulebook. One of the great payoffs of the rpg is that I was often not the one pointing out the students’ errant ways. Instead, the game itself made things apparent to the students. A question came up at the table, and it was clear that the rulebook held the answer. Students needed to reread and evaluate sections of the book that they had not adequately synthesized. Some of my time with students inevitably involved closely reading sections of the books with them to puzzle out vital instructions. Students quickly realized that these games were serious about procedures, mechanics, and admonitions. 

Games as Punishing Teachers

And there was another way in which games themselves chided lax players. In more traditional rpgs where there is a risk of player characters encountering harm, imprecise reading or inattention to situations can have deadly results. The most dramatic instance of this lesson occurred with one group playing Legendary Lives. The game ended up in a dramatic Total Party Kill when the characters went up against the boss monster (in this case, a powerful necromancer). When I sat down with the students to assess the game afterwards, I asked them about that tragic final scene. Had their characters tried to use some of their key abilities? Did they consider more strategic approaches? Could they have accomplished their goal without a direct assault? 

As we processed things, lightbulbs were popping. It dawned on the students that there were a host of abilities which had lain fallow because they had not read the rulebook with a sufficiently analytical eye. In addition, they had taken a more simple and blunt approach to the situation at the table instead of opting for more nuanced tactics. When the group delivered its actual play report on the game, they demonstrated a lucid understanding of the mechanics and rich resources, and it was evident that much of their insight was a result of the war wounds inflicted by the game.

The Fun of Self-Imposed Challenges

I was impressed by the students who stepped up to take on the GM roles, and I offered them footholds. In the case of Legendary Lives (a fantasy heartbreaker from the 90’s) and Swords and Wizardry (a reskinned version of the original Dungeons and Dragons), I showed the GMs some prewritten scenarios to help with the preparation. And in the case of the groups running Inspectres (a comic horror game of paranormal investigation) and Sorcerer, I suggested setting the game in Central Florida and using actual locations around town. Finally, in the case of The Princes’ Kingdom, I had the fledgling GM start by adapting the example provided in the rulebook for the first adventure.

Some of the groups opted to play GM-Less games: The Quiet Year, Shooting the Moon, and  Follow. For these groups, one of the major hurdles involved framing scenes and latching onto the role-playing. Some scaffolding work and demonstrations on my part helped them. 

I also stressed to students the fun of making things hard on themselves. A Quiet Year, for example, directs the players to grab contempt tokens in situations where they don’t feel like their opinions are respected or when a decision is made which cuts against what they believe to be the best course. Those groups which consciously worked to employ this mechanic ended up with more dramatic and satisfying narratives. This involved players deciding to start up more edgy, controversial projects, and it involved other players being willing to demonstrate their displeasure.

This lesson was one that carried over to the GM games. Good stories involve conflicts and challenges, and if you are effortlessly successful throughout a game, it won’t take long for the game to become predictably boring. In introducing the unit to the students, I had stressed the elements of emergence and creativity, and for most students, those ideas stuck like super glue. In watching them play and in hearing them speak about their games, an ever-present theme was the thrill of experiencing unexpected turns. Even the GMs were quick to latch onto the idea that it was exciting to let go of any predetermined ideas about where the narratives would take them.

With different games running throughout the day, I was exhausted when the school day ended. I had thought of taking a more focused route and requiring all students to play the same game during the week. This certainly would have made my job easier, and it would have allowed me to work through hurdles more efficiently and smoothly. But that’s not what a 21st century teacher needs to do. Much was gained when students had to deal with glitches and the challenges at the table, and taking stock of their frustrations and mistakes required them to solve most of the puzzles on their own.

Time Management

The games ran at different speeds, and this is one area which I will be more prepared next year. Groups playing The Quiet Year were off and running while those playing Sorcerer and Legendary Lives were immersed in character creation. Generally, those playing GM-less games had finished before the last day of play, so I gave them a choice of either running another round of the same game or taking a look at a new one. Meanwhile, some groups playing the GM games had to find provisional stopping places at the end of the week and were wishing that they had more time to continue. 

I don’t know that there is a tidy solution for those latter groups . . . save to let them know that nothing is stopping them from continuing to play! But next year, I’m going to offer some of the GM-less games in bundled pairs with the idea that those groups will try to complete two games and then compare them.

Going Deep

I was pleased with the depth of play involved. Players encountered situations in the games which required teamwork and self-sacrifice. They became alert to the way that decisions impacted the direction of the narrative and influenced the behavior of other characters. They were making discoveries about the dynamic inner workings of genres and settings. And there were cases where weighty moral decisions were debated.

Special mention goes to Sorcerer. I had mulled over whether to offer the game at all. Ron Edwards specifically categorizes his game as R-rated, “not because there are pictures with nipples on them or taboo vocabulary, but because it can lead to stories that are not nice.” I was intrigued that two groups opted for the game—despite, or maybe because of, my warnings that the game was serious when it titled itself “An Intense Roleplaying Game.” But those groups were committed and ended up playing games that took the game’s core trait of Humanity to heart. 

In their debriefing, one Sorcerer group talked about the value of using the safety mechanic of lines and veils when the GM was trying to stress the true violence suffered by a victim of assault. And I overheard the player of the other Sorcerer group making an agonizing decision of whether to have his character venture out from a safe shelter because he knew that, if he did so, his humanity would be at risk. This confirmed to me that those groups had latched onto the spirit of the game. At the end of the week, those students were bubbling with memories of the fraught bargains they had made with their demons.

Which reminds me . . . safety was directly discussed at the start of the unit, with the concept of lines and veils taking center stage. While most games did not enter danger zones, the Sorcerer games did, and since lines and veils were already on the table, those groups had the resources to play hard because everyone knew that there were tools in place to ensure that the games remained safe.

The Wrap Up

After devoting a full week to actual play, the groups followed up with presentations where they introduced the games to the class. Without prompting, most latched onto the idea that actual demonstrations of mechanics, scene framings, and role-playing would be key. For example, a group playing Legendary Lives set up a situation where characters from the game might be trying to persuade me to change a test day. This, of course, involved rolling the dice, and interpreting that result according to the game’s resolution chart. The group playing The Princes’ Kingdom pulled out one of the conflicts of their game and replayed it in front of class using the “call and raise” dice mechanic.

Groups went on to analyze the games in terms of actual play. They discussed areas of challenge and tension—the ways they struggled with mechanics, the social dynamic of the players, aspects of play that were engaging and those that were less so. 

The final assignment was a targeted individual written report. One stipulation was that the group members had to be sure that they were covering their game without retreading territory. But groups had great leeway in choosing how they wanted to cut up their pie and what topics to explore. Some of the students went into a nuts-and-bolts analysis of “system matters,” some investigated aspects of the social dynamic at their table, and still others talked about how their game fit into the English curriculum. 

To provide a couple examples, here were some of my suggestions for the reports:

RPGs and SEL. Role-playing games are unique in their ability to nurture self-awareness, self-control, interpersonal skills, responsible decision making, and social awareness. These are all qualities that are sometimes grouped under the umbrella of “social and emotional learning” (SEL). Many teachers see SEL as a key (but often overlooked) field of education.  Discuss your game in terms of these qualities. You might consider both the content of your game as well as the experience at the table.

Emergence and Collaboration. To what extent did the game result in a collaborative experience? What were the different roles that the players adopted at the table? To what extent did the fiction emerge organically or spontaneously at the table? Were there moments when you were surprised by a turn of events in the game? If so, what were they? What led to those moments?

Reading the Sitch

There’s no question that I will teach this unit next year, but there will be changes in store. In the midst of the unit, I was exposed to MASKS: A New Generation, for example, which gives me a Powered-by-the-Apocalypse game ideal for the high school setting. And I have a better handle on how I can more effectively advice novice gamers about specific mechanics and strategies. 

I’m eager to hear reactions to this work-in-progress. I feel like I’m venturing into a largely unexplored frontier. With their focus on creating fiction and developing narratives, tabletop role-playing games clearly belong in the realm of English, but it’s a medium that is not being taught, so we are blazing new trails. If anyone wants to contribute or join me in the venture, I invite you to enter into the conversation.

Teaching Role-Playing Games, Part 2: The Game Plan

Robin Laws has appropriately called the tabletop role-playing game a “hidden art” because its heart and soul are only revealed through the dynamic experience at the table. It was evident to me from the start that the core of my unit on TTRPGs had to involve a sequence of classroom sessions dedicated to intensive actual play.

Of course, this poses a problem for the classroom. Most TTRPGs are designed for intimate groups. For me, a GM and a party of five players seems like a overfull house, and I can’t imagine running one of those early Dungeons and Dragons modules: I’m looking at Against the Giants where the introduction suggests a party of nine players as ideal (and an average experience level of nine). For the purposes of this teaching unit, I need all the students to be actively immersed, and that means dividing them up into small groups, each of which will run their respectively chosen games simultaneously.

So here’s what I did. I selected a group of 12 tabletop role-playing games for the students to choose from. I put the games on a Google slide presentation with a piece of art (usually a cover) and the game’s “elevator pitch.” All are games I admire, but it’s a diverse set. Some are GM-less, some are traditional high fantasy fare, some are comic, and others are dead serious. You can view the slide show here. Here are the titles:

• The Quiet Year by Avery Adler
• Follow by Ben Robbins
• Sorcerer by Ron Edwards
• My Life with Master by Paul Czege
• Legendary Lives by Joe Williams and Kathleen Williams
• Swords and Wizardry by Matt Finch
• Lady Blackbird by John Harper
• Shooting the Moon by Emily Care Boss
• Inspectres by Jared Sorenson
• Puppetland by John Scott Tynes
• The Pool by James V. West
• The Princes’ Kingdom by Clinton R. Nixon

In class, I presented the lineup quickly, with just a few comments. For example, I let them know that Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer means it when it says it is an intense role-playing game. I told them that Puppetland is very fun, but that it requires some committed improvisation from its players. I mentioned the genre of each, and noted that The Pool and Follow are incredibly flexible in allowing the players to choose a setting.

I shared the link to the Google slides and told the students to mull things over for a couple days. Then, at the start of class two days later, I had each student write down their top three choices on a 3x5 card, after which I sifted through the desires to organize them into games they were interested in playing. When I figured out the groups, I determined which chosen games were neither freely available nor covered under a creative commons license, and I contacted those creators to let them know what my plans were and to ask if I could make the rules available to students on my school’s secured classroom management platform.

Some notable developments: Two groups in separate sections chose Sorcerer. Two other groups chose Legendary Lives. The Quiet Year was the most popular choice. I’m most excited to see the end product of one of my sections where I will have the following four games in action: Follow, The Quiet Year, Swords and Wizardry, and Legendary Lives. Those actual play reports should allow for some probing examination with two GM-less games on display alongside a D&D reskin and a dazzling fantasy heartbreaker.

Virtually none of my students have played a tabletop role-playing game, so, to give them a sense of what the activity looks like, I had them watch a short clip from “D and Diesel” on Youtube. This is a segment where Vin Diesel joins some of the members of Critical Role to play through a brief scenario. I told students in advance that the video was a slick production that would not match our own upcoming experiences. But it did allow me to illustrate the kinds of conversations that can occur and to walk through the respective roles of the GM and the players in the TTRPG enterprise.

This coming week (shortened due to Winter Break) will be devoted to intensive preparation. Students will read the rulebooks, gather supplies, copy character sheets, create quick reference lists, and acquaint themselves with game mechanics. By Friday, they will be into world building and character creation so that they can hit the ground running at the start of next week, which will be completely devoted to game play.

On my end, I will be active in class, working between the groups to troubleshoot, to help clarify, and to demonstrate the game systems. I’ll also be flagging parts of the games which I suspect will challenge them.

I will also be preparing them for the analytical task to follow the week of game play. For that, I’m going to have a discussion of Robin Laws’ “The Hidden Art: Slouching towards a Critical Framework for RPGs,” and I’ll also introduce them to an assignment that requires them to deliver some actual play reports to the class (in both written and oral form).

So that’s the setup. I’ll be back with Part 3 of this series detailing what happened in the classroom.

Social Media Sorcerer, Session 2: Depth and Duration in RPGs

I am posting my Actual Play reports over at Adept Play, but in case that slips by someone's radar, I'm cross-posting this report here. This is especially important because it touches upon issues pertinent to teaching and how you introduce complexity to someone (or an entire group) who is unfamiliar with an activity or procedure. Ron Edwards has a video-comment follow-up over at his Actual Play section which does a nice job of articulating and developing some of the ideas here.

We finished our second session of Sorcerer, and the Kickers with aid of the character diagrams continue to gain traction. You will find the video below. With so many dynamic elements at work in my game, I’m going to focus this report on the interrelated issues of depth and duration.

I have been catching up on The Grognard Files, a podcast from England involving players who have decades of experience playing a small handful of games together (especially Runequest). On an episode devoted to the Player’s Handbook of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, the two principles had a kind of wizarding face-off which involved delving into their favorite spells. Notably absent were the heavy artillery standbys like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. Instead, the two discussed spells like Shrink (the reversal of Enlarge), Magic Mouth, and Phantasmal Force. They were quick to point out the situational versatility of those spells—the way that a quick-witted magic user can find applications for those incantations that the game designers (or the DM) probably never even considered. It is clear from their discussion that they have been steeped in the game for a while, and their familiarity with the game mechanics and setting has given them a creativity and insight that the newcomers or more dilettante gamers would not perceive. There is a depth to their gaming experience, and this is related to the duration of acquaintance with the game. The example of individual spell may seem trivial, but it is related to other, more consequential types of depth that such committed players can achieve.

As a GM who has never played Sorcerer before, and who is now running his first sessions for a group of similar novices, I feel a bit the way I do when I teach a piece of literature to my classes: In those cases, the students are so busy trying to get their bearings that many of the subtle nuances and rewards of the text are only glanced at. I already sense that Sorcerer is the type of game where we will finish up the Kickers in a month or so, and we will then say, “O.K., we are starting to understand the game. Now we are ready to play it in earnest!” It’s the kind of reaction I have when I have finished a particularly satisfying novel, story, or poem: Upon finishing it, I feel like I’m paradoxically in a position genuinely to start reading it.

This raises the question of how best to approach the game with first-time players. There is a delicate balance to be worked out between directing the game and letting the players develop insights (and make mistakes) on their own. At points, I feel like I’m a bit too forward in creating insights for the players, but if I don’t take some leading steps, they might completely miss the boat on resources in the game. And if they miss out on gaining an understanding early on, they will find themselves hamstrung as the stories develop.

Here’s a concrete example. In session two, the character named Shawn McEwan writes a blog and spearheads some social media outreach for a cult named The Eighth Laurel. (Note: The cult itself is not actually sorcerous, but Shawn’s master, who is in the cult’s hierarchy, is.) Shawn’s Kicker involves a strange surge in the popularity of his blog and social media presence, and this has thrust him into the limelight, which is giving him a sense of meaning and belonging that he is desperate for. In session two, his mentor (a sorcerer named Diana) tells Shawn that she is happy about the success he is achieving, and suggests running a social media experiment. This involves trying to lace some of the cult’s tweets and postings with phrases, hyperlinks, and hashtags that might impact weak-willed and impressionable members of the internet audience. Shawn and his demon named Aaron (whose need involves influencing the beliefs and actions of others) set to work.

Partly through roleplaying Aaron, I suggested that Shawn use a sequence of Perception, Confuse, and Taint in combination with a small social media blitz for the cult. Granted, those demonic abilities are written with face-to-face situations in mind, but Lore is being defined in my game as “Algorithmic Alchemy” and sorcery is generated through some mysterious powers conferred by the internet and the darker recesses of the web. So, for our game, it seems like internet contact is as important (or maybe more important) than physical proximity.

The rolls were successful (they were up against a countering roll of 4 Will, which I used to represent the will of a potentially malleable audience open to the teaching of the cult). Granted, the impact of this application of sorcery is hard to measure. Indeed, it’s possible that it didn’t even work. But there is an uptick in the popularity of the blog. People are even recording short videos of themselves spouting teachings of The Eight Laurel in varied settings. One such person sustains injuries when he produces a live video of himself climbing up the scaffolding of a building under construction as a goofy stunt. He’s posing and reciting some tenets of the Eighth Laurel’s belief system during his daring climb, but he then loses his grip and plummets to the ground, sustaining some serious injuries. The demon Aaron is gleeful, and he gets that look that shows his Need is being satisfied. Shawn is appalled by the event, and sends a condolence message to the victim. He’s in disbelief that he could have caused such an event. I’ve left it ambiguous: It might be a result of sorcery, or it might just be that the video streamer was just being stupid.

Through this sequence, I as the GM was offering more suggestions than I would if we were all more familiar with the game, but I’m now up to a test case to see if Shawn is ready to take flight. The player in control of Shawn has, on a number of occasions, mentioned that there are internet trolls who especially raise Shawn’s hackles. So, for our next session, I’ll have one of the trolls raise his ugly head and see whether Shawn, without prompting, will lash out on his own with some nasty sorcery to take down that hater.

Here, the “personal range” rules of demon abilities will have to be stretched. But my thinking is this: If sorcery derives from the power of social media and dabblings in the internet, and if a sorcerer is in direct, one-on-one contact with a target through messaging, video conference, etc., then that would qualify as personal range.

I sense that I will need to do some similar preparatory work in order to get the players to realize the utility of the rituals. No player has mentioned yet mentioned Contact, but it seems like that would be quite powerful in the social media context of our game. I also would like to see the players actively going after bonuses on their rolls, and I’ll try to provide some direct instruction for this. They seemed to be more onto the bonus aspect in session 1, but that dimension fell off the radar in session 2.

These reflections raise a topic for another day: The tabletop roleplaying game scene is having a renaissance, but games are being produced and published in such a white heat, that there is less of a market for sustained, deep play. This is not to say that there aren’t games being created that reward such type of careful attention and long-term commitment. But when there are dozens of games being Kickstarted, published on DriveThru, etc. every week, the market forces seem to be saying “buy something new” instead of nestling in with a deep game. And this is also telling designers to slant towards one-shots or games that will play out in a few sessions as opposed to designing games requiring long campaigns. It seems like the “long form game” is something that is being driven out of the indie game market. If long form games are produced for the indie market, I wonder whether they will more likely to be read than played.

One specific rules question. There are abilities where the user must provide a crucial definition. For example, with Perception, “exactly what is perceived must be defined at the outset.” Do you make this definition when you first get the demon (in which case, the demon would be locked into that particular type of perception for the game), or do you make the definition whenever you want to employ the ability (in which case, the type of perception can vary from situation to situation)?

A similar question occurs with Special Damage. One of the characters in my game wanted to have both lethal and non-lethal forms of Special Damage, so I counted that as two abilities. The character also wanted ranged attacks. So I’m allowing her Ranged ability to apply to both types of attack.