[The Pool] Eden Falls

[jburneko]

Hello All,

So, my weekday group concluded the Ravenloft game I was running just before the Hollidays and we started up a fresh game last night.  For a while, I'd been fishing around for something kind of different and one of the thoughts I had was to try doing a superhero game.  I've never run a superhero game before.  I'm not really into superheroes in the first place.  But I have greatly enjoyed the recent run of superhero films (X-Men, Spider-Man, Daredevil) and I do read and enjoy Batman comics and watch the odd episode of The Justice League, now and again.

So, I started looking into superhero RPGs.  First, I looked at the new Marvel game.  I liked the core but it seemed really unsure of itself and did a lot of backpeddling in the text I didn't like.  So, then I looked at Mutants and Masterminds.  It was pretty neat but I had a very strong, "d20 by any other name..." reaction.  At this point I realized I was getting sucked into all those, "What's the best system for superheroes?" discussions that crop up from time to time.  So, I thought, "To hell with this! I'm going to use The Pool!"

So, now that I had settled on a system, I needed a setting.  Well, like almost everything I touch, it rapidly turned very dark, and very twisted.  Last night I started the game by giving this brief handout to my players.

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Concept: Eden Falls is a superhero setting that can best be described as having the tone and style of Batman but with X-Men like abilities and covered in a religious veneer.  If this were a comic book it would be painted in jewel tones.  The phrase that evokes the style is: Stained-Glass Noir.

Premise: This is still a bit vague in my mind and I'm willing to allow it to gel into place over the course of play.  For now, what comes to my mind involves the relationship between Faith, Power and Moral Decay.

Time and Place: Eden Falls exists on the edge of a large waterfall, vaguely in the northeastern U.S., similar to Niagra Falls, New York.  The time period is "sometime in the 20th Century."  For visual reference think Batman, Brazil or Dark City all three of which exist, visually, as a mix of varying time periods.  I plan to keep the game focused on the citizens of Eden Falls.  The larger historical, political and cultural context is irrelevant.

Setting Elements: These are a few setting elements that I imagine existing in Eden Falls.  I intend for them to act as a focusing point and springboard for character creation.

The mayor of Eden Falls is a fire and brimstone preacher and his church serves as city hall.  He wears an eye patch.

The falls themselves are HUGE and plunge into darkness.  No one seems to really know what's at the bottom of it.  I also imagine a cave complex located behind the falls.

A social hotspot in the city is a nightclub called Eve's.

The Eden Falls cemetery consists of large above ground tombs.  I imagine a lot of angelic statuary here.

As a starting point for conflict I'm thinking about a new law having been passed banning alcohol in Eden Falls.

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Now, my weekday group is very large.  I have six players which can be a bit daunting when running something like The Pool.  I had almost expected the system or the setting or the combination of the two to frighten off a couple of the less experimental ones.  But it turns out all six of them rose to the occasion very nicely.  Here's the cast of characters they churned out:

A psychopathic killer who while in a coma recieved a vision of Hell.  He now seeks to deliver that vision of hell, which he can do through touch, upon his former criminal cohorts.

The caretaker of the cemetary and decendent of the original founding family of Eden Falls.  She carries with her the complete memories of all her ancestors.

A tribal prophet from a far off land who obtains visions through blood sacrifice.  She has traveled to Eden Falls because she recieved a vision of the dead rising from the cemetary which would harrald the end of the world.

A holy sorcerer who has been charged with guarding The Words of Creation which happen to be located deep in the caves behind the falls.

A monk with an interest in natural sciences and herbal medicines.  He has experimented with himself so much he now emits pheremones that can influence the emotions of those around him.  He has come to Eden Falls to study the reputed miraculous healing powers of the water from the falls.

The roman soldier who put the spear through Jesus's body as he hung on the cross.  He has been cursed with imortality and has come to Eden Falls looking for a release from his curse.

That's a pretty intense cast of characters.  I was particularly impressed with the player who created the holy sorcerer.  He's kind of new to the group and from what I had observed he seemed to have a fairly strong Gamist outlook with most of his gaming background in D&D.  But he looked at the mechanics for The Pool and grasped it almost instantaneously.  He didn't even find the rules all that bizzare.

Anyway, I had done some initial prep work on a scenario but after character creation it seemed kind of small.  The biggest thing in my prep was some bootlegged liquor as a McGuffin, but now I've got the Words of Creation and an impending Apocalypse to deal with.  I felt like I needed a bit more.

Originally, I had started with a relationship map from "Find a Victim" by Ross MacDonald (ironically, this is the same book Ron used for the Art-Deco Mellodrama experiment way back when, which I didn't realize until the book starting seeming REAL familiar about 50 pages in).  To get the extra meat I needed to support the size and weight of the group, I combined the map I had with a map I pulled out of a film called "Way of the Gun."  I've never done that before and I was surprised at how easily the two maps connected by simply collapsing a couple of characters between maps into single characters.

So, here's a question for those of you who like using relationship maps borrowed from sources as part of your prep work.  Have you ever had players in your group who were very familiar with one or more of your sources?  You see, I saw "Way of the Gun" on one of my player's recomendations and I saw it with another of my players.  We have discussed the film at length with one another.  Although, the elements I've pulled have been altered, especially where they come into contact with the other map, they are still recognizable.  This concerns me slightly and I'm wondering if anyone else has had to deal with this issue.

Jesse

[Valamir]

Sounds cool...but I just got this horrible image of Barbed Wire meets Footloose <shudder>

Is that 6 PCs or are some of them NPCs?

BTW:  I believe Longinus is the traditional name for the Roman soldier, if you were hunting for it.  He was a central character on a disappointingly short lived TV series whose name I forget but which took Rome vs the Celts in Britain as a setting and ran it through the Xena-izer.

The spear played a big role in Arthurian Myth and is presumed to be the one that struck the Dolorous Stroke when Balin injured the Fisher King with it.  Might be a good tie in to the apocalyptic storyline you're looking for.  In Arthurian Myth, the stroke laid waste to a huge territory and caused the Holy Grail to disappear (hense the quest to recover it).

I didn't see anything in the setting that particularly said "superheroes of X-men calibre" to me.  Seems more LXG level of quirkyness and ability.

[Tim Alexander]

So, here's a question for those of you who like using relationship maps borrowed from sources as part of your prep work. Have you ever had players in your group who were very familiar with one or more of your sources? You see, I saw "Way of the Gun" on one of my player's recomendations and I saw it with another of my players. We have discussed the film at length with one another. Although, the elements I've pulled have been altered, especially where they come into contact with the other map, they are still recognizable. This concerns me slightly and I'm wondering if anyone else has had to deal with this issue.

I've done maps from both the Maltese Falcon, and based off the arthurian legend. Neither one was especially noticed by the players at hand despite a good deal of familiarity with the source material. They had morphed quite a bit from the originals, and the settings were pretty radically different, Dust Devils for the first, and Cyberpunk 2020 for the second, so YMMV. In all honesty though I don't think familiarity much matters. I've found that at least with my stuff the majority of the NPCs and their deeds are out in the open quickly enough that it's irrelevent whether there was experience with it as a story beforehand. Also, since it's not static, the impact of the players has an immediate morphing effect which renders preknowledge moot.

-Tim

[jburneko]

Ralph,

That's 6 PCs.  As for the change in concept I fully expected that to happen.  All I wanted to avoided was the two extremes, of just ordinary people with extraordinary abilities and indestructable aliens from dimention Z.  I'm satisfied with what I did get.  And yeah, it doesn't exactly scream superheroes but whatever it is I'm happy with it.

Also thanks for the background on the spear.  I may try to work that in.

Tim,

Thanks for the feedback on the familiarity problem.  I was thinking about it over lunch just now and I decided to eliminate one of the most recognizable elements from the backstory because with all the other stuff going on it really isn't necessary.  So that may help.

Jesse

[Tim Alexander]

Thanks for the feedback on the familiarity problem. I was thinking about it over lunch just now and I decided to eliminate one of the most recognizable elements from the backstory because with all the other stuff going on it really isn't necessary. So that may help.

The baby? 'Cause let's face it, the baby is just the MacGuffin anyhow.

-Tim

[jburneko]

Oh, you've SEEN the film.  No, not the baby.  In fact the baby is WHY I added it to the map in the first place.  I eliminated the fact that the big crime boss guy and his wife thinks it's their baby when it's really the other couple's baby.

You'd have to see how I hooked it up with the material from "Find a Victim" to see why that makes sense.  I may put all of that in another post sometime.

Jesse

[Tim Alexander]

Hey Jesse,

Yeah, I've seen it. I love it actually. I'll be very curious to see the map when you're all done.

-Tim

[Blake Hutchins]

Quick side note:  And that TV series was "Roar," by Shaun Cassidy, his next offering after the excellent "American Gothic" folded.  Taken in context with the other show, it struck me as an attempt to inject mainstream TV series with a "gray area" take on religious belief.  Much like American Gothic, Roar was moving into a "this isn't really what you think it is" territory, premise-wise.

Best,

Blake

[Valamir]

THAT was it.  Which if I recall was an early vehicle for Heath Ledger.