Flipping The Pool

[Mike Holmes]

Interestingly the Anti-Pool will have periods of thrashing at the bottom as well. You will eventually win a few in a row or just burn a big one. Then, to get back up, you'll have to have a few failures. These failures won't be quite common enough, though, to keep the pool increasing constantly and you'll drop back down a bit again. But it does tend to buoy you up, and promote the small expenditures which will keep the pool from bottoming out after every use.

I'd keep the rule from The Pool that says that you can forgo the MoV to ensure yourself of another die. Then a failure means two dice , and a success means one less die is lost, essentially. This gives the player more options, and makes climbing more certain, just like in The Pool.

Actually I liked Jame's suggestion to Paul about getting as many dice as ones. This is cool because it means that players betting big numbers of dice won't always take the MoV, as they may like the idea of taking the dice instead. In the case of the Anti-Pool, on a success you'd lose the dice bet minus any ones rolled (at least one).

To combine these rules together do the following:
Before the roll the player decides if he want's to forgo a chance at an MoV. If so, then if the player's roll succeeds, he loses one die per die gambled, but gets one back for each result of one that comes up (at least one by definition). If the player decides before the roll to forgo an MoV and fails he gets two dice added to his pool.

If the player does not forgo the MoV before the roll, and the result comes up a success then the player may forgo the MoV at that point. In this case he loses one die per die gambled and regains one per result of one that comes up, just like as if he had forgone before rolling. The difference is that a player may not forgo an MoV after the dice come up a failure. In this case he gets the obligatory one die.

Note that the option to forgo MoV after the roll will probably only be used when at least two dice come up ones. If the player was willing to forgo the MoV for a one die benefit, then he should have forgone before rolling so as to ensure the extra die in case of failure.

This gives players lots to think about with each roll, and adds more gambling options. I like to think of going for the MoV as "taking the action points" in gambling. Big payoff or bust. Not taking the MoV is hedging your bets.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

I have figured out a method that would balance the Pool's current method vis a vis pressures as to how many dice to spend. It is inelegant, though, and mostly I propose it as a way of demonstrating that it can be done.

To begin with, the pool would have to be disociated from the success mechanism. That is, that expenditures from the pool would not effect success, but would make for a separate roll that would determine only whether or not the player got to perform an MoV. I discussed this possibility in another thread. Any how, in this case the player would spend points from the pool (not dice) to buy a chance of success to aquire an MoV. The roll would be on one die and the player would have to roll the die equal to or less than the purchased target number. The cost for the target number whould be the sum of the potentially successful numbers, or target 1 equals 1, target 2 equals 3, target 3 equals 6 target 4 equals 10 and target 6 equals 15. I'd probably not allow target 6 to be purchased so as to leave it to a gamble on every roll.

The point is that in this case the disproportionately higher cost for a higher chance of success is innefficient, giving incentive to choose low numbers. The "best srategy" is to only bet one. But this only get's you an MoV one in six attempts. This would balance against the desire in particular situations to gain an MoV.

This is not a great solution in its partiucular mechanics, but it does show that such a balance of motivations can be achieved in design.

FWIW, note that since this sort of proposed pool does not affect success, it can be inserted into most games fairly seamlessly.

Mike