The perfect is the enemy of, well, everything

The concluding sessions for Sorcerer Marseille! I love it when the rolled outcomes make NPCs go batshit. At one point you get to see me act out the same stare that Cage is thoughtfully providing for you in the accompanying image.

Session 4 finally brings the slow burn of the previous sessionsโ€™ mere weirdness into raw and terrible focus for both sorcerers. I took great pleasure in โ€œreplyingโ€ to Gregoryโ€™s mistaken observation in a previous session that Chloeโ€™s life was so easy and uncomplicted compared to Liviaโ€™s.

Here’s my complex, detailed, sophisticated, and highly-nuanced notes to prepare for these sessions:

I also really liked the way the two characters were desperate to get back together, but as soon as they did, ran smack into power-rivalry. People who order demons around (i) get used to doing it and (ii) refuse to tolerate it, which is one of my favorite dynamics to see arise spontaneously in play.

With the help of excellent patron & Adept Play contributor Rod Anderson, I have finally figured out how to order videos in a playlist!

Session 4 is embedded below in four parts. Session 5 finishes play with distinctive craziness. Here’s Session 5 from the start, also with play-through.

I think I shorted our ending a little, much as I did for the Sorcerous Pets game. In this case, the closure really needed more play to focus on Liviaโ€™s pregnancy and on the death of Vanessa, Chloeโ€™s friend. I might want to think about why thatโ€™s happening.

As a final point, it’s been quite a while since I played a Passing demon with human form or an Inconspicuous demon with a vocal personality concept – in other words, in the past year or two, nearly all the demons I’ve played have been relatively inarticulate. Objects, Passing with animal form, surreal Inconspicuous things. I certainly like doing all of those, but it’s definitely different from playing demons who can talk normally.

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3 responses to “The perfect is the enemy of, well, everything”

  1. Chloรฉ’s kicker resolution

    Hi!

    We discussed about it with Laura and we felt that Chloรฉ's kicker (Vanessa's death) was not really resolved, or if it is, in a way that we couldn't really feel it. You mention that you shorted the end. My feeling is that my character, Livia's, was so messy that it attracted all the focus of the game (which was totally unvolontary). The ring seems to be totally linked wit Livia's kicker, and even if Adam came from Chloรฉ's diagram, I can't really see the link with Vanessa's death. The main line seems to be the reactions from the cops and the need for Chloรฉ to react to that, which she did by coming to the church. My feeling is that the end answered to different kickers, something like "My mother discovered the stealing of the ring" (Livia), and "Adam has bind a demon" from Chloe. Still thinking about it.

    • I completely agree. I was

      I completely agree. I was distracted by the connections, interactions, complications, and implications that had arisen through all the Weaving, and Vanessa was lost.

    • I think a question worth to
      I think a question worth to be asked collectively with the input of our experience (Laura and me) is why it happened. My assumption is to recognize that the game is a collective process in terms of group dynamics and there are moments where I realized that (Laura and me discussed about it) but we didn’t explicitly stress it.

      I still have to think why and by which mechanisms we couldn’t, as a group, raise and work the issue in play. I’ll deconstruct my own reasoning in a future post!

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