[The Pool] Decameron-inspired variation and campaign

[MarcoBrucale]

I've just begun to use The Pool for my games, but it gives me new ideas every time I use it! And the good news is that they're whole *narrative structure* ideas, not stale plot hooks or sterile dice mechanics. Anyway, one of the first ideas I had was that the freely-flowing structure of Pool games lends itself greatly to recreating Boccaccio-style medieval satyrical short stories, with somewhat stylized/archetypical characters. Something like the very ancient art of 'Comedy of the Art' (sorry, I don't know if it's the right name in english; but I think that medieval 'Commedia dell'Arte' is quite famous).
I'll borrow the narrative structure of Boccaccio's Decameron: a group of friends (all the PCs, including a PC generated by the 'first' GM', see below) are hiding together in a small space for some days (to save themselves from something, in the Decameron it's the widespreading plague). They are not in immediate danger, but they'll need to find something to do in this long period of inactivity. The GM's PC then proposes that each of them could tell a story regarding their past, and starts narrating the first story. This story must have happened in the past, and must include all the PCs. When the story is over, the narration passes to another player, who effectively becomes the GM.  The twist is that each successive story is narrated by another of the PCs, that effectively becomes the GM for that session. Each new story must take into account the elements narrated in the prevous stories.
The twist is that everyone knows that the characters will survive; it could be a good way to 'cement' the PC party at the beginning of a campaign by providing them a set of events they experienced together.

Does any of this make sense to you?

You have to be happy with what you have to be happy with
MarcoBrucale

[James V. West]

Interesting!

For some reason it reminds me of the scene in The Usual Suspects where everyone is in the same jail cell.