One more thing!  The Apprentice version of the rules does a fairly poor version of explaining what a Kicker is supposed to be.  So here's the appropriate section from the rulebook...warts and all.<br/><br/>Hopefully this will help.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">The Kicker is an event or realization that your character has experienced just before play begins.  It catalyzes him or her into action of some sort.  If your character has lived for years wondering what did happen to his father that stormy night, today is the  day he finds a crucial clue.  If he has quietly studied sorcery under his master until this moment, today is the day of his first mission.  It can be anything as long as it gets the character going.  Just imagine the first scene of a movie before the title comes up: "There's this guy.  And then <strong>this</strong> happens to him!"  The Kicker is the <strong>this</strong>, and without it your character is just some guy.  you can do better than that, can't you?<br/><br/>Kickers are central to Sorcerer.  They provide the opening conflict that establishes a player-character as a protagonist. They make a player-character worth playing.  When a Kicker is resolved, it's a momentous event and allows the character to be rewritten (see Development below).<br/><br/>Kickers come in several categories, and at the very least the GM should tell the players what sorts are most appropriate for the story he or she has in mind.<br/><br/><strong>Shockers</strong>: "Today began like any other until you pulled aside the shower curtain to see the skinned body of your next-door neighbor hanging from the showerhead."<br/><br/><strong>Opportunities</strong>: "You open your suitcase after picking it up at the luggage carousel to find your clothes and stuff gone, replaced by a quarter of a million dollars."<br/><br/><strong>Mysteries</strong>: "A friend on the police force tells you that the scenes of each of the brutal crimes recently perpetrated in your neighborhood have been signed with your mother's maiden name."<br/><br/>Kickers should <strong>not</strong> (1) present a total mystery with no personal significance, (2) dictate a character's actions (e.g. in the suitcase example above, the character could respond in many ways, ranging from keeping the money, spending it right away, or going to the police); or (3) present something he or shee may react to casually.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>For this game,<strong>Opportunities</strong>and<strong>Mysteries</strong>are more appropriate than Shockers.<br/><br/>The Sorcerer wiki is a bit briefer:<br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">Kicker <br/><br/>A player-authored situation incorporated into the character-creation that (IMO) puts the character into motion, often by somehow destabilizing that character's life. <br/><br/>The event that makes it (very nearly) impossible for the character's life to go back to the way it was.</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>Hope this helps!