The Pool for Pulp

[Steve Dustin]

I'd don't know if this fits under Random Order Creations forum or here, so I'm gonna stuff it here.

Finally played the Pool last night, and had a blast. I'm more than amazed at how solid it feels. Don't let the light-touch on the rules dissuade you. The Pool is a complete game. It works marvelously.

About a month ago, I decided to try it out on an experimental basis with my Fudge 30s Pulp game. The genre is occult archeology with emphasis on two-fisted action and light soap opera elements. I've got a campaign log on the net, and you can check it out here:

//chupacabra.home.sprynet.com/pulp

Since then, I had a bouncing baby boy, and haven't gotten to any real roleplaying until last night. In that time, everyone got a chance to read-over the system and to discuss it. I added the Monologue of Defeat, which jazzed my players, and described the Guided Event to them, to help them understand the % of success (a player said, "Do trust your GameMaster?" when describing GE's). One player took it upon himself to integrate the relevant passages from the Questing Beast into the Pool write-up, and posted it for the remainder of the players.

Each player had a different strategy on how to use his Pool, which I found refreshing. A few nickle and dimed their use of their Pool dice, a few threw their Pool all at once everytime. Neither approach seemed to win over the other, and luck had much more to do with it.

Some moments really shined during the game. Of particular note was the player who rolled for his sister's driving! He took a MoV and described throwing a rug over the windshield of the bad guy's car, causing them to wreck. Classic. I'm definitely going to encourage more "relational" rolls be made, to give a kind "everything emanating from the protagonist" game feel.

I'm not so sure what the difference will be to my game versus how it was using Fudge, except for that the rules gel together much better, and the players are much more proactive. Likewise, I think it fits the playstyle much better than my smorgasbord of Fudge rules (that mostly got ignored).

It's a great game. Everyone should play it at least once.

Steve Dustin

[Michael Bowman]

Finally played the Pool last night, and had a blast. I'm more than amazed at how solid it feels. Don't let the light-touch on the rules dissuade you. The Pool is a complete game. It works marvelously.

I played in Steve's game last night and definitely agree with him. The Pool worked very well. It's a very solid and coherent set of rules.

Each player had a different strategy on how to use his Pool, which I found refreshing. A few nickle and dimed their use of their Pool dice, a few threw their Pool all at once everytime. Neither approach seemed to win over the other, and luck had much more to do with it.

I was one who was nickel and diming, but that's because I failed much, much more often than anyone else. I can only remember one other Monologue of Defeat, but I had half a dozen or so. However, the failures weren't frustrating failures, they opened up possibilities. That is one of the big factors in my appreciation of The Pool.

I'm not so sure what the difference will be to my game versus how it was using Fudge, except for that the rules gel together much better, and the players are much more proactive.

All of the players became more proactive, and I think that it's a direct result of the rules. The mechanics of the game itself require the players to be proactive. Fudge, like most games, doesn't require proactivity,  thus it's more difficult to obtain it.

All in all, I think it was a big hit from the whole group.

It's a great game. Everyone should play it at least once.

Ditto.

Michael