New Profession: Sorceror

[CharlieMonster]

In the absence of an official Sorceror Profession I've knocked up a quick home-made version, comments are welcome (well positive ones anyway )
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Profession: Sorceror
Cultural Background: Civilised, Townsman, Noble
Basic Skill Bonuses: Evaluate +5%, Lore (World) +5%, Persistence +10%
Advanced Skills: Manipulation (Magnitude), Sorcery Spell*
Pick One: Language, Lore, Manipulation (other)**, Sorcery Spell*
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* This is a magical skill. Choose one of the following: Animate (Substance), Damage Boosting, Damage Resistance, Glow, Haste, Hinder, Holdfast, Palsy, Sense Projection, Sense (Substance), Spell Resistance, Spirit Resistance or Treat Wounds.
** This is a magical skill. Choose one of the following: Magnitude, Range, Targets, Combine or Duration.
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I've deliberately retricted access to a few basic spells in keeping with existing RQ professions. Even so the Sorceror has more flexibility, on the other hand he gets a maximum of two spells, and at novice level the Sorceror is relatively weak. Note the PC may "buy" new manipulation skills with Free skill points, but not new spells.

When creating a higher level character, allow the PC to trade attuned runes for Sorcery Spells and allow them to buy Manipulation Skills as normal.

 

[Utgardloki]

Have you thought about defining different professions for different types of sorcerers, such as the hedge witch or the diabolical schemer?

I am a skeptic for the use of Professions. They seem too much like D&D classes in a bad way, in that they restrict a character's concept into a box the way that a D&D class does. I'd rather just give the PC's extra skill points and have them "make their own profession."

I find they are useful for NPCs. Having a City Guardsman profession means that I have a good idea of what a random city guardsman is capable of. I've thought of defining different martial arts professions to represent different martial arts styles and levels. And for sorcerers and other spellcasters, it may be useful to define different types as the old 2nd edition D&D concept of "kits".

But other than my philosophical objections, your Sorcerer profession looks good.

 

[CharlieMonster]

I am a skeptic for the use of Professions. They seem too much like D&D classes in a bad way, in that they restrict a character's concept into a box the way that a D&D class does. I'd rather just give the PC's extra skill points and have them "make their own profession."

They are a only really a starting point, it gives a little initial structure, but they add very little restriction in the long run. It is less "character class" and more previous experience. It is better to look on it as "the story so far", this is what the character has done/learnt up until this point, but beyond that anything is possible. Unlike D&D your profession doesn't limit your character, because once the game begins skills and other improvements cost the same whatever your background.

A good example of the way I look at it is Sam Gamgee from LOTR, his previous experience is as a Gardener (pretty much the Farmer profession), yet by the end of the adventure he has branched out into combat skills, survival abilities, diplomacy and even scholarly skills. He started with some non-standard Lore skills he learnt from Bilbo, which he buys with his free skill points.

For sure you can just give Skill points to spend, but a lot of players, myself included, find Char Gen easier if you have somewhere to start and to build up from there. Sure if a player has a specific concept that requires a profession be tweaked slightly that is easy enough, but most have an equivalent.

 

[Utgardloki]

I suppose another way of looking at it is that a profession is a suggestion of where to spend your skill points. Thus, in my Glorantha campaign, I plan to have the players decide whether their PCs are "Tribesmen" or "Villagers". There should be some suggestion of which skills are essential for members of either group.

Another thing I thought of is what I'd consider maybe a "meta-profession", in which the skills important to that profession are listed (e.g., Driving and Influence for a police officer in a Runequest Modern game) without specifying exactly how much in each. Or this can be added to a profession, such that a police office would have a minimum of +10% Driving and +10% Weapon use, and would also have "recommended" skills of Influence and Perception.

Of course, the Basic Education thread I started for the Modern RPG could be considered as defining a "Basically Competent Modern High School Graduate" profession. (Knows a minimal amount of mathematics, science lore, and world lore, and can read and write proficiently in at least one language, and can operate an automobile safely.)

For NPCs, I got the idea of rolling 2 ten-sided dice and multiplying them together to determine their skill in essential skills. This means most NPCs will have relatively low skills (+30% or so) but some will have high skills (+72% or more). An arbitrary limit can always be placed if the GM wants.

I think it useful, if a profession is going to be defined for a sorcerer, to define the professions more narrowly, such as academic, wu jen, ect. But then, I'm not sure personally whether defining the professions is worth the work, (thus my concept of meta-professions).

However, perhaps we have hijacked this thread to consider what role professions should play in a Runequest game.

 

[soltakss]

Presumably, some of the upcoming cults or magic books will have a fair number of sorcery cults/schools. After all, the Jrusteli/Middle Sea Empire were Malkioni sorcerers. There might even be a sorcerer profession there.

I've never cared for stand-alone sorcerers. I much prefer them in cults or organisations of some kind, it fleshes them out a lot more, helps them fit in or stand out.

 

[simonh]

I am a skeptic for the use of Professions. They seem too much like D&D classes in a bad way, in that they restrict a character's concept into a box the way that a D&D class does. I'd rather just give the PC's extra skill points and have them "make their own profession."

They're nothing remotely like D&D classes because they have no effect whatsoever on the character's future development and potential. Also the vast majority of the skill points you get in MRQ are free-spend.

The main limitations are that magicians particularly get pigeonholed into very narrow categories, to start with, and most characters get no magic. This very un-RQ and very un-Gloranthan, but pretty easy to fix. However I'll wait to see the Glorantha specific character generation resources before worrying about it much.

 

[Mugen]

Personnally, I think I would simply change the Runecasting skill of magic-using professions into Sorcery skills and spells.