[The Pool] First Experience (long)

[Halzebier]

Hi Jasper (again) and Welcome to the Forge (everybody forgot)!

We've had our second session of The Pool yesterday, but before I get to that, let me answer your questions.

(1) Two players are experts on the setting of DSA and regularly read the newsletter (i.e., "Der Aventurische Bote"), many of the novels etc. One of them is a true fanatic and knows all the heraldic symbols, genealogies etc. Fortunately, these two have also played various other RPGs with me, including non-standard stuff (diceless, freeform etc.). They were looking forward to another of my 'experiments' and their enthusiasm infected the others (who've never played anything besides DSA). I might add that as a result, I felt under quite some pressure to live up to my reputation.

(2) Last night, Carl repeated his observation that The Pool would be highly suitable to break in new players and also noted, somewhat wistfully, that they'd probably have an easier time than "us old dogs". Kevin, who hadn't been there on the first evening, phoned before yesterday's game and wanted me to explain the rules. I tried as best I could, but even though the technical side was easy enough, Kevin said that it was difficult to get his head wrapped around it. Once he saw The Pool in action, most of these problems simply evaporated (he delivered on good MOV after another).

Finally, I might point out that having a clearly defined and well-loved setting really, really helped us. Everybody had a good grasp of his or her character's abilities (even though that was not part of the write-up for The Pool - I had simply announced that all PCs were roughly 10th level in power) and - to the players' delight - the adventure touched upon plenty of familiar places, monsters, organisations and so on.

*-*-*

Sorry, looks like I gotta go now. I hope to write about yesterday's session later today, though.

Regards,

Hal

[Halzebier]

Hi again!

We've had our second session on Monday and I have a few, albeit shorter, remarks on the game.

(a) Kevin, who hadn't been there on the first evening, took MOVs on his first two rolls and did a fine job. In both cases, multiple PCs were involved, so he got to tell lots of stuff (sometimes checking back with the players, so it wasn't a monologue, though it was close). I really enjoyed leaning back and seeing what he came up with.

(b) Gary, and to a lesser extent, all the players used the rules to their characters' advantage, i.e. they had them solve all sorts of serious problems with great ease. When a T-Rex attacked and Kevin took an MOV, for instance, I expected him to include at least a couple of unnamed NPCs dying, but he didn't. Even though the players expected the expedition to lose plenty of men (and wondered aloud at the low casualty rate), they tried to preserve them - probably thinking of them as a valuable resource - whenever possible (which was trivially easy with The Pool, of course).

Interestingly, this was *not* a serious problem at all. I think it *did* diminish the atmosphere to some extent, but there was neither a sense of 'power players ruining the adventure' nor of some PCs outshining others. I'm confident we'll get the hang of this.

(c) Towards the end of the game, Vicky took her first two MOVs, back to back: one to spy on a village of savages and one to handle the resulting negotiations. They were perhaps a tad long, but otherwise nice.

(d) Gary grumbled about the rules all night, as everybody had gotten a pool refill before the second session - all except him, that is, because he had had 11 dice left. He took one MOV just to spite Vicky and prevent her from narrating his and her PC's spying expedition. As both had MOV rights, they agreed to have the characters split up rather than work out something they both could agree on.

(e) The relationship-building has begun to pay off: Rick had his character betray his captain in an awesome scene and Hank's character was central to a scene which involved multiple PCs and NPCs and more sex - and kinky sex - than any scene we've ever done. People were not out of their comfort zones, but it was a close one and unprecedented, so that the scene was exciting and tense and funny all at the same time. This has been the high point of the adventure so far.

(f) Rick praised the system for fostering player creativity and pro-activeness (as opposed to putting up one's feet and waiting for the GM to call for a roll) and there were several other positive comments.

Some problems notwithstanding, it was a fine evening. I have a busy week coming up, so I probably won't write up the final session. Also, there are no big problems to discuss, so I guess this thread's function, if any, is to assuage newcomers' fears. For the record: I've had all sorts of worries about The Pool, but, following the rules and some good advice from the Forge, they turned out to be unfounded.

I highly recommend The Pool and would like to point out that the enjoyable play we've gotten out of it so far is *not* due to any mystical GMing mojo on my part (as much as I'd like to think that), but due to an excellent design.

Regards

Hal

[Jasper Polane]

Hi Hal,

Well, of course I want to hear more about the sex.

Especially about the "relationship-building", as you call it, and the working towards the sex scene. How did you do this? Did the rules help with this, or was it all "role-playing"? That is, did The Pool make this scene more likely to happen, of could it have happened playing DSA?

--Jasper

[JamesDJIII]

Hal,

Ok, so 2 sessions into it!

If you were to do this again, with the same people and characters, would you structure the preperation of the next game differently? I know that if you own a hammer, every problems looks like a nail - but I'd be tempted to apply Kickers as tool for generating the next group of session material. But that's just me, all hammers and nails.

Sure, this question is purely hypothetical and so, not Actual Play. But still, how would you get ready for the next block of games?

Again, thanks for your reports and answering my questions,

James

[Halzebier]

Well, of course I want to hear more about the sex.

Especially about the "relationship-building", as you call it, and the working towards the sex scene. How did you do this? Did the rules help with this, or was it all "role-playing"? That is, did The Pool make this scene more likely to happen, of could it have happened playing DSA?

What I prepped and which fed into the scene:

Halima (an NPC) is the illegitimate daughter of Travin (an NPC). Her goal is to prove and reveal herself to her father (who does not know she exists). She is very young and very pretty.

Travin is a bon vivant and interested in sex with any attractive character, regardless of gender.

Felian (an NPC) is bonded to the demon princess (not prince, as I wrote earlier) of perversion (Belkelel, for DSA fans), but poses as a priest of the sex goddess (Rahja). He wants to corrupt Travin.

What led to the sex scene:

Unbeknowst to the other characters (not the other players), Hank's character, Kell, had been infested with a minor demon of slaughter. In order to exorcise it, he turned to Felian. Felian offered to help him conduct a ritual to heighten awareness of his own body. The plan was that the sensual pleasure - we were not talking about masturbation, mind you - would then drive out the demon.

I offered this option as an easy, non-sexual way out, but several players pointed out and/or joked that actual sex would work better, be much more in keeping with the source material etc. I was more than happy to oblige and had Felian offer homosexual sex instead. Hank said his character was straight and would instead try to get Halima agree to sex. I think the rules played a role here, as I'm not sure if Hank would have tried this under DSA (where success would have been a matter of GM judgement).

He failed and ruined his pool, but I thought this was too much fun not to pursue, so I narrated how Halima gave in after much consideration - and then had her tell Travin and a few other NPCs about it. Her motivation was to make a big sacrifice (her virginity) for the good of the expedition - and to take credit for that. Kell, who had wanted to keep this whole demon business quiet, had his NPC affiliates spread the rumour that this was an elaborate ploy to get her in bed.

Felian pointed out that the demon might manifest if driven out of Kell, so the PCs should be on hand to slay it. I also told Hank that his inner demon would try to turn the act of sex into an act of rape (in which case he wouldn't be driven out). There's no such demon in DSA, but even DSA's rules allow that not all demons have been classified, so it would have flown under either rules system, I think.

How the sex scene played out

By the time the ritual came around, the whole expedition knew what was going on. A separate tent was set-up and all the PCs plus Halima and Felian entered. Halima asked to have Vicky's character along because the two had been growing close and another woman among all those spectating men would be nice.

Felian tried to ease the tension by telling of losing his own virginity and asked every PC to do the same. This proposition almost caused some players to panic, but Carl and Hank volunteered their characters' stories (a romantic one and an ambivalent one) and the others followed suit (with another romantic one and one well-narrated refusal). There were lots of laughs, teases and blushes all around. Felian began to pray (to subjugate the demon, really) and the lovers got into bed. I narrated at first, but then let Hank take over (no roll). This should have worked in any other RPG, but the rules contributed somewhat, as shared narration is the norm with The Pool. Then I asked Hank to roll (conflict: "resist the demon to prevent this from becoming a brutal rape"). Tension was high, not least because Hank had crashed his pool earlier. The Pool worked well here because the player had so much riding on one roll. He succeeded, took a die, and gladly let me narrate how the demon manifested over the climaxing bodies of the lovers. The other players worked together nicely and rolled to protect the lovers, protect Felian, and to slay the demon (x2), respectively. Kevin took his MOV and narrated the battle.

If you were to do this again, with the same people and characters, would you structure the preperation of the next game differently?

Kickers and some pre-existing relationships (e.g. one PC's love is another PC's boss etc.) would indeed have been great. The players created their characters in isolation and emailed them to me very late, both of which I'd like to avoid in the future.

The set-up was thus typical of FRPGs: a bunch of characters from wildly diverse backgrounds get hired for a mission (and shoehorned into the adventure). However, both this traditional setup and the equally traditional structure (i.e., get hired to go from A to B to retrieve C and deal with monsters and obstacles on the road) helped to ease the players into the game. They were on familiar ground and could learn the rules under circumstances they knew (the better to see how The Pool is different from DSA). I was grateful to have a structure to fall back on, too.

The game's best moments occured outside of "slay the monsters" situations, though, and always had to do with PC-NPC or, to a lesser extent, PC-PC relationships (e.g. goading an NPC into a situation where he made an ass of himself, building a power base among NPCs, seducing an NPC).

In any case, The Pool allowed speedy resolution (more story for your buck - this would have taken twice as many sessions under DSA), parallel resolution (lots of solo missions with no problems at all), and lots of player input.

I had prepared kickers, sort of, for the second session, i.e. I had identified some cool conflicts (based on what had happened during the first session) and drove straight towards them. (Unfortunately, we got bogged down with a discussion of the expedition's marching order etc. first. I was bored out of my skull.) I'm going to do the same for the next evening (and up the ante).

Regards,

Hal

[JamesDJIII]

I had prepared kickers, sort of, for the second session, i.e. I had identified some cool conflicts (based on what had happened during the first session) and drove straight towards them.

I was referring to Kickers as defined as "Player authored..." (just like the glossary).

Don't get me wrong: I think driving towards conflict is dandy. I just wanted to know if you would employ Kickers. That would mean, essentially, getting the players to generate them as the next stage in the pipeline. Would you do such a thing? Would the players do that? How would promote this to the "traditional" folks who have been trained to expect more spoon-feeding from the GM? Does this work with the Pool?

[Halzebier]

I just wanted to know if you would employ Kickers. That would mean, essentially, getting the players to generate them as the next stage in the pipeline. Would you do such a thing? Would the players do that? How would promote this to the "traditional" folks who have been trained to expect more spoon-feeding from the GM? Does this work with the Pool?

Yes, definitely. That's the plan, so to speak. =)

As for the players: some would jump at the chance, others would probably not find the time. I'm not sure what I would or could do about that, if anything. I think they'd all like the idea, but some are just not as dedicated to the game. For a campaign or mini-campaign, I'd simply have one session dedicated exclusively to character generation, but for a one-shot or something similarly short, that's not viable.

Kickers should work well for The Pool, as it is player-driven to a greater degree than your average dungeon crawl and character generation is extremely flexible. The kickers could be part of the character design or - this is perhaps better - added on top of that.

Regards,

Hal