The Sorcerer is all about channeling your emotions into your magic, so if you like feelings and magic, take this play test version for a spin!
Originally shared by Adrian Thoen
The Sorcerer is in a stable play test version, where I want players to take it for a spin and find what’s broken before I put it up on dtrpg.
Whether you play it or not, tell me what you think!
I think that this idea should be applied also to a fighter-type character (Hulk, anyone?).
I think there should be more Emotional Cores. There are six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise) and thousands of combinations which produce more complex emotions like the ones you’ve used (compassion, desire, rage). It seems like the possibilities for such a concept could be huge but the focus on these three emotions makes it feel limited. Then again it is called The Sorcerer which, by the word alone, gives a strong idea of what that person might be all about. I am usually highly opinionated about emotion based character concepts, so take my ramblings with a grain of salt.
Mostly I stuck to 3 cores because of space limitations on a play book. This could be circumvented by creating an alternate play book with 3 different cores.
The 3 cores were chosen to support certain roles in an action and conflict based game, but if I can think of 3 other compelling core moves I might make an alternate.
Point taken Adrian Thoen. Do you think it would be possible to make a type of emotion based free-form magic user? Much like your playbook, just with the ability to tap into the wide range of emotions. I definitely see how the three you chose colored the moves. I don’t particularly disagree with that approach either. Trying to cover much more would be overkill.
I had iterations that looked a lot like that, but they just weren’t fictionally interesting. All of the advanced moves merely ended up interacting with the core sorcery mechanic and weren’t engaging the fiction in either the trigger or the consequences.
I’m sure you could make a magical class that had influence over all emotions more broadly, but I’m not sure it would feel as archetypal. You could make a focus for +Jacob Randolph ‘s mage that had a focus on expressing or manipulating emotions through magic perhaps?
I haven’t had a chance to check out that playbook myself (on my to-do list) but that thought had crossed my mind. There was a discussion of the foci aspect of the playbook a little bit ago when Jacob announced some new products he had just released.
Better understanding some of your design decisions, I am much more pleased with the playbook than earlier. I think you have a pretty solid concept here. I wish I could offer some actual feedback on changes but after re-reading I can’t think of anything I feel needs actual changing. It seems pretty darn solid =)
Nice concept. I have added some comments to the document.
Thanks for the comments!