Sorcerer Character Creation
From AdamWiki
Each character has six stats (Stamina, Will, Interface, Passion, Humanity, and Price), a Demon (useful, creepy technology), and a Kicker (situation that starts play). Just as important, there are a bunch of background Details that get written in a four-sectored diagram in a special way. These details flesh out the character, so don't skip them.
Contents |
Main Stats (with Descriptors)
Divide 10 points among Stamina, Will, and Interface. Minimum 1 point in each.
A normal person has Stamina 3-4, Will 3-4, and Interface 0. A 2 will get you by in society, minimally. A 4-5 is above average and a 6+ is exceptional.
Pick one of the descriptors for each of Stamina, Will, and Interface. If you assigned a score of 5 or higher, pick two descriptors for that stat. Descriptors are how you say why your score is what it is.
If none of the descriptors work for you, just make one up and let the GM know what it is.
Stamina
Your energy and ability for all things physical.
- Corporate Fitness Plan
- Muscle Memory Enhancements
- Genetically Optimized
- Drugged Out
- Street Experience
- Military Training
Will
Your social and emotional power. It's not intelligence, because it's assumed that you are as smart as you want to be.
- Designer Personality
- Off-the-Rack Personality
- Religious Code
- Networked
- Chemical Reinforcement
- Free Thinker
- Screw You, Man!
Interface
Lore becomes Interface and represents a character's ability to tap into technology when she wants to. This is a kind of tapping-in that normal people just cannot do, even in this futuristic world. Really crazy shit. Interface is transgressive. It's not just that you're really, really good - you can do things people should not be able to do. You can do things people cannot do. Maybe there are software programmers who can write a really complex program to infiltrate bank security, but you can do it without errors in ten minutes, by making impossible leaps of intuition. Maybe other gangers get their arms replaced with cybernetics but when you pop your ripper claws a battle rage takes over and time slows down, letting you shred your targets at impossible speeds.
The Interface levels below are just suggestions.
- Naive (Interface = 1)
- Chipped In (Interface = 1 or 2)
- Groomed (Interface = 2 or 3)
- Hacker (Interface = 2 or 3)
- Assembler (Interface = ?)
- Machine Epiphany (Interface = ?)
- Autodidact (Interface = ?)
- Machine Code Savant (Interface 3+)
- Physically Wired (Interface 4+)
Other Stats
It's really not fair to say these aren't "main" stats, because they are actually more important than the other three in some ways. They don't have descriptors though.
Passion
Let's rename the game's stat Cover as Passion. This is who you are. Your day job might be as a janitor, but at night you are Rob Sex, guitarist for the Apocalypse Zombies. Your passion is being a Rocker. The cyberpunk genre is not about the drones who get crushed by the system or freak out from culture shock. It is about individuals who seize power and do. It is about people who change the system.
I'm drawing liberally from the Cyberpunk 2020 vocations list for Passions. I describe each and put their old CP2020-style special ability in parentheses. You'll have to guess what they mean.
- Rocker (charismatic leadership). Musicians who can sway people through performance and media.
- Solo (combat sense). The ultimate street warrior with a sixth sense for danger. Probably military trained.
- Techie (jury rig). The dude who can fix anything with some duct tape.
- Medtech (medicaltech). An alley surgeon who can fix anyone with some duct tape.
- Media (credibility). A reporter or photographer who tells it like it is, and people believe them.
- Cop (authority). An officer (local? state? federal? corporate?) who may or may not follow all the rules. The badge opens doors though.
- Corporate (resources). A powerful businessperson who makes big deals and has a big expense account.
- Fixer (streetdeal). The guy on the street who knows everyone and who can get things done.
- Nomad (family). A wandering gypsy ganger type whose first loyalties are to the tribe (and whose tribe backs her).
There are some others mentioned in various supplements, but you get the idea. You don't have to choose one of these Passions, but they're sorta the primeval cyberpunk archetypes, so if you choose "off menu," make sure it's as cool as this stuff. Like, "Scientist" isn't on that list and probably ought to be.
Your Passion score equals either your Stamina or Will score (your choice).
Humanity and Price
Humanity is redefined as independence. You have to give up control to the System to gain power, and as you do, you lose Humanity. Your Humanity score is the greater of your Stamina and Will.
Price is generally defined as the pain you've suffered (and continue to suffer) because of your choices, specifically lifestyle choices surrounding technological enhancement. How has technology made you less human? This ties into the definition of Humanity (see below).
We'll assign it some suitable, game mechanicky penalty, too. Examples: Lame (-1 to any action that includes running or balance), Paranoid (-1 to all actions unless the character is under physical attack), Arrogant (-1 to all perception rolls), Cynical (-1 to all Humanity checks), Scarred (-1 to casual interactions). They're all pretty harsh.
The Price score starts at -1.
Details
You need a name! You need all kinds of details about your character's life, work, family. Don't make a loner that doesn't have any friends or colleagues, cuz that doesn't give me (GM) much to work with.
Here are some questions to consider. This is not an exhaustive list.
- Where do you live and how nice is it?
- Do you have stuff?
- Where do you work?
- What's your office like?
- Who do you know?
- Who are your closest friends?
- Do you have family and what do they think of you?
Name those people, places, companies, devices, and so on, please.
Demons
In the Cyberpunk setting, a demon is any piece of technology that you can't entirely control. It's supposed to be this useful tool, but it's never that easy.
Now, in regular Sorcerer, each demon has a mind of its own. It's literally an evil, intelligent agent who has needs and wants. In Cyberpunk it may not be that way, but it certainly can seem that way. Your "demon" tech will never be something you can fully control, or fully trust, even while it grants you transhuman abilities. You may have views about why your technology behaves like an unruly, possibly malevolent presence. Your character may have views. But you may not be right. Maybe your cyber-arm has a sentient AI. Maybe it's possessed. Maybe it's just buggy. Maybe that hack of a MedTech fucked up the neural connections and that's why you get the strange urges and dreams. Some of your technology may literally talk to you, if appropriate - but it may be lying.
Like, imagine that your Rocker character uses some mind-enhancing drug so he can control an entire electronic orchestra all at once for performances. That's pretty cool, right? The drug is a demon. It has Needs and Desires. Maybe the Need is adoration of crowds of screaming fans. The Desire could be something like crazy sexual acts with groupies. Really, that's your need and desire, right? Are you sure? Are you sure you're the same person when you're on the drug? Are you sure the person you are when you're on the drug isn't the REAL you, while the sober you is a pale imitation? In game terms, this will be codified using the rules for creating Demons. All you know is that, if the demon is the mind-enhancing drug, it (you?) needs and desires that stuff all the time until you slake its thirst. And perhaps we say it punishes you when you don't meet its needs, through some kind of withdrawal symptoms.
Remember that the GM controls the creation of all demons, and you won't even necessarily know what the GM created.
You should come up with an idea for your demon. It should be something that differentiates you from "normal" people, even in this whacked-out setting. It should be something that is at least a bit transgressive, maybe a little scary, related to technology and The System and lack of independence (our Humanity definition), and it should have some power to offer you.
Kickers
A kicker is an event or situation that pushes your character into action at the start of play. It should be something that a) your character cannot ignore and b) cannot easily resolve. A bad kicker is "Dudes jump out and start hitting me." It's obvious what you'll do and how you'll resolve this. This is not a real conflict, even if it seems to put your character in danger. There's no moral danger. A good kicker tests your character's soul. For example, a good kicker might be, "Your company offers you a million dollars to use your autistic son for their personality implant experiments." Especially if your character needs the money.
Why doesn't your Rocker just continue the tour and then go home to work on the next album? Why doesn't your Solo just follow orders like a good soldier? What disrupted your life? For your character, resolving the Kicker is what this game will be about.
Yeah, make up a kick-ass kicker. If you can't imagine a blockbuster movie opening with this action, it isn't awesome enough. Is that sufficient pressure? Performance anxiety yet? I'm sure we have some drugs for that.
The Diagram
The Sorcerer character sheet has a box on it (shown below). You're supposed to write the important ideas about your character in that box. Related things get written near one another. Also, you should write things in one of the four sectors. So if your sister Sarah is part of your Passion, write her name in that sector. If your Mind-Control Power is related to your Interface and your Price, write it near the border of those two sectors.
Underline all the important nouns in your character details. Names, organizations, places, devices, ideas, feelings. Figure out how each of those relates to your character. Write each of those underlined nouns on that diagram in the place you think is best. This is just a tool to communicate to me what is important to you and how you think things relate to each other.
Since we're all doing this on the Internets, our RL Price is that we can't easily share drawings. Playing Sorcerer correctly requires us to use the diagram. The point is, I want people to do this, because Sorcerer games fail when people don't.
If you can, download the image below and overlay your character details on it and email it back to me.
