[The Pool] Learning to set the stakes

[Arturo G.]

On the last three weeks we decided to play a story using The Pool system. I wanted to try The Pool since I read it from the first time, but I was frighten about not to know how to control so much narrative power in the players hands. Anyway I closed my eyes and jumped. Although I was more inclined to other alternatives I decided to try the original "The Pool" system. I was GM-ing two players. There were 3 sessions from 2 to 3 hours each.

1. Preparing to play (where Paladin and DitV provide inspiration)

I decided to ask the players if they would like to play a grim-fantasy story in a kind of renaissance Italy, being a requisite for the characters to be members of a Paladin's corps at the Pope service (we had been playing some DitV towns before, and I remembered a nice example adventure setting in the Paladin rules). They liked the idea.

I looked in the Paladin's rules for the example were there is a town in distress where a terrible plague is devastating the population, and where another renegade paladin is using his power to help a witch (something contrary to the order rules) to try to control and alleviate the illness. Good intentions but forbidden procedures. A moral conflict at hand. I added some more issues and NPC's using a kind of DitV procedure to create "the town" around the main idea (if you are interested in the details, please ask me). I drew a relationship map including the main NPCs.

2. Actual Play

2.1. First session (I was telling my story)

During the first session we were using the system properly. Indeed we were just exploring my setting like with any other classical one. I was actively showing the problems in a DitV style. But we were mainly trying to solve tasks or conflicts with bad set stakes. Most of the times they were so much committed with the tasks that they were risking dice constantly. After they lost their dice pools (something that eventually happens in The Pool) they were frustrated because they were not feeling like being able to do what they wanted (another symptom of the bad use of the system). Even when they were having the opportunity to use the "Monologue of Victory" they were hesitating and many times avoiding it because they were still exploring MY story in an old style. Only expecting me to tell what was going on there. They were enjoying it, but not investing too much. At the end of the session all the original setting (with minor changes) was already explored. I was urging them to take a more leadership role in the second session while taking decisions to solve the exposed conflicts.

2.2. Second session (Transition: discoverings, discussions and realizations)

The second session begun slowly, and it crashed after and hour or so. One of the players complained about my GM-decisions when assigning 1,2, or 3 free dice. He said he was not finding the relation with the difficult of the task. I explained him that it was not meant to be like that, we were not simulating difficulty. The discussion derived in how the system works. They complained that it was too easy to fail, even adding some pool dice. Even when I was talking I was realizing I was not using the system well. We arrived collectively at the conclusion that our problem was that sometimes we were not solving real conflicts, and we should set better stakes. We realized that failing the dice roll (something that happens very easily in The Pool) should introduce new complications to role-play. Thus, getting what they want was a matter of rolling enough times, getting into more and more troubles with each failed roll. The last minutes of the session begun to work differently.

2.3. Third session (Finally exploiting The Pool, I was supporting them telling THEIR story)

And that was the day. We were forcing us to set good stakes with interesting complications or fallouts in case of failing. Indeed many times I was wishing them to fail because I liked more the open possibilities of the fallouts they were bringing up.
They begun to include interesting bits, and frustrated desires, of their characters on the proposed fallouts. The players were showing up the characters for the very first time in full. Immediately I noticed that: (a) they were not anymore so concerned about winning every conflict; (b) thus they were not risking as many dice in general; (c) the number of risked dice really represented their interest in winning the conflict; (d) they were using the "monologues of victory" more happily, to introduce their ideas and amazing plot-twists.

They were investing a lot and enjoying a lot. And of course I was also. As their characters were showing up, even my bangs were better tuned and they begun to grab the players. At the end of the third session we had generated a completely new and different story, much more focused on the characters, full of unexpected and enjoyfull plot-twists (I have transcribed some details, ask me if you are interested).

2.4. Replenishing dice pools

Something more about mechanics. Ron commented somewhere about a simple system to refill your dice-pool: look for "easy" conflicts where your traits become relevant, eventually you win the roll, take an extra dice. After a little discussion we determined that "easy", for us, meant that the stakes should be set low, such that the player is not going to get too much if winning the stakes, but he is not so much worry to lose the conflict (just in case you fail the roll). In actual play it become natural after a couple of tries. We begun to look for such scenes regularly, and the character traits begun to shine a lot, producing interesting and character-focused scenes.

3. Our conclusion

Playing to The Pool has been absolutely an eyes-opening for us. Now I think that we were not yet fully exploiting some of our new (indie) games because we were not used to set rocking stakes. It is clear that we need some more training.


Cheers,
Arturo

[Darren Hill]

Yay! The Pool is one of my favourite systems.
Can you give a few examples of conflict stakes, from the session where everything came together? Especially the fallouts the players suggested for failures.

[Halzebier]

Most of the times they were so much committed with the tasks that they were risking dice constantly. After they lost their dice pools (something that eventually happens in The Pool) they were frustrated because they were not feeling like being able to do what they wanted (another symptom of the bad use of the system).

Just guessing here, but maybe you guys were rolling too much of the time. Many things you'd roll for in traditional systems should just be greenlighted with no roll in The Pool. But maybe that's exactly what you're talking about when you say "'bad' stakes". So I'll second Darren's call for actual examples (if you're still grappling with the issue, that is - it seems as if everything worked out well in the end).

Even when they were having the opportunity to use the "Monologue of Victory" they were hesitating and many times avoiding it because they were still exploring MY story in an old style. Only expecting me to tell what was going on there. They were enjoying it, but not investing too much.

Yeah. In my (limited) experience, players are afraid to step on the GM's plot. Interestingly, I've had players be slightly disappointed (in other games) when they found out that the GM had improvised something rather than having foreseen the entire game by some magical process. Improvisation has something of a "cheating" vibe for some people, I guess.

The second session begun slowly, and it crashed after and hour or so. One of the players complained about my GM-decisions when assigning 1,2, or 3 free dice. He said he was not finding the relation with the difficult of the task. I explained him that it was not meant to be like that, we were not simulating difficulty.

Hehe. That's one big eye-opener.

Immediately I noticed that: (a) they were not anymore so concerned about winning every conflict; (b) thus they were not risking as many dice in general; (c) the number of risked dice really represented their interest in winning the conflict; (d) they were using the "monologues of victory" more happily, to introduce their ideas and amazing plot-twists.

Interesting - my players usually used all available dice (except after a crash) and just sort of accepted that there'd be dry runs.

Regards & Thanks for the write-up,

Hal

[Arturo G.]

Darren said:

Can you give a few examples of conflict stakes, from the session where everything came together? Especially the fallouts the players suggested for failures.

I cannot remember the best of them, it is the fisrt time my players invest so much during play, but here you have some examples of increasing interest, as we were advancing in the story:

1. Simple complication based on a delay of what the player want:

One of the characters, paladin of the Pope, is trying to promote his romantic "friendship" with an abbess and former princess. He wants to attract her introducing his nobility as a factor, even if he is the fourth son of a baron and he can expect no real benefits from it. What is at the stake: Does she begins to treat him as a peer? If not, she will suspect something strange in his interest to bring up the nobility issue, and she will keep the rest of the meeting trying to guess what is, making annoying questions about his family, instead of paying attention to his romantic efforts.

2. In a detailed combat only a minor delay to the next roll, but adding a dramatic complication with no real mechanical effect:

During an open confrontation with a witch, one of the paladins draws his sword to attack her. One of the minions jumps on him and tries to stop him. What is at the stake? Does the paladin throw the minion away? If not, they will brawl, rolling on the ground, and the sword of the paladin will be broken under his body.
I think he got the roll, but even if he would have failed we knew that the next conflict would be a follow-up of this one and he could get rid of the minion even without the sword. From our point of view it would be really an add-on to the story if the sword would have broken.

3. Risking something they want.

They capture the witch. They suspect a relation between the witch and the bishop of the town. They want to go to the bishop-palace but they don't want to take the witch with them and they do not trust the city guards. Thus, they leave her in a cell, at the cathedral's quarters, guarded by the archpriest. But the archpriest was previously collaborating with the witch to try to stop the plague in the town. Now he has doubts about his faith and the eternal condemnation of his soul because being related to witchcraft. NOTE: Especially one of the players is highly investing in the salvation of him. What is at the stake?

a) Does the archpriest guards her without trouble until they may come back? If not, the witch will talk with him and he will be convinced again that he should protect her because it is the only way to stop the plague.

But we looked for another more interested conflict and stakes:
b) The witch will be guarded. But, does the archpriest grow stronger on his faith, rejectinghis his previous ways and support to the witch as a terrible sin he should and will expiate? Or does he begin to hesitate, getting confused by the witch talk, justifying his support to her and the using of witchcraft to stop the plague? Thus, if the players do not achieve later to reconduct him to the right-way they should accuse him of witchcraft and probably execute him.

This was much more interesting as the players were really investing on him. We turned a soft and uninteresting conflict in something really relevant for the players.

What do you think of this? Are we getting the point?

Thanks,
Arturo

[Arturo G.]

Hal said:

Just guessing here, but maybe you guys were rolling too much of the time. Many things you'd roll for in traditional systems should just be greenlighted with no roll in The Pool. But maybe that's exactly what you're talking about when you say "'bad' stakes".

I think you are correct. We were mixing real conflicts with typical task resolution which was mainly meaningless for the players (including me).

Yeah. In my (limited) experience, players are afraid to step on the GM's plot. Interestingly, I've had players be slightly disappointed (in other games) when they found out that the GM had improvised something rather than having foreseen the entire game by some magical process. Improvisation has something of a "cheating" vibe for some people, I guess.

But in the third session they finally got it as natural. Indeed, in previous play with PtA it was working more or less well. I think this time they got confused by my pre-worked story and probably by some bad attitude from me, probably "protecting" my plot in the older ways. We got free of this after the discussion of the second session.

Interesting - my players usually used all available dice (except after a crash) and just sort of accepted that there'd be dry runs.

After a couple of crashes they learnt to keep a couple of dice aside, just in case. But mainly I noticed it was coming from the level of the stakes. We begun to produce more balanced conflicts, where they were feeling that if the roll was a fail, there was still the possibility of a follow-up. When the climatic scenes and conflicts arrived they were rolling with everything. For the transition scenes we were using low stakes and they were risking no dice, enjoying the complications on their side-plots.

Regards & Thanks for the write-up,

My pleasure. You know, one of my players has phoned me yesterday to ask me where to find the rules of The Pool. He want to try to teach "the new way of play" to some other friends. For me it is really nice. It is the final confirmation that he really, really enjoyed the play, and perhaps the beginning of something. My group of "experimental" play on the Tuesday-evenings was an isolated thing. I had made some tries with other older friends occasional, but we meet very scarcely nowadays.

Thanks,
Arturo

[Calithena]

Another interpretation of 'easy': look for conflicts where the GM, either because he likes the possible outcome in your favor or because he thinks it's easy in terms of game-world logic, is likely to give you 2 or 3 extra dice. Then you've got those 2 or 3 plus 1-3 or more for your relevant trait and you're quite likely to hit a success, as well as having the GM narrate things basically the way you wanted them narrated anyway, maybe plus some extra twists to represent his enthusiasm for your proposed outcome. And you get your die.

Cool writeup, looks like a great game.

[Andrew Cooper]

2. In a detailed combat only a minor delay to the next roll, but adding a dramatic complication with no real mechanical effect:

During an open confrontation with a witch, one of the paladins draws his sword to attack her. One of the minions jumps on him and tries to stop him. What is at the stake? Does the paladin throw the minion away? If not, they will brawl, rolling on the ground, and the sword of the paladin will be broken under his body.
I think he got the roll, but even if he would have failed we knew that the next conflict would be a follow-up of this one and he could get rid of the minion even without the sword. From our point of view it would be really an add-on to the story if the sword would have broken.

There's a basic problem with the above bold statement.  I added the emphasis, btw.  I may be misunderstanding Conflict Resolution completely but here's my take on it.  If the Player failed in the roll "Does the Paladin throw the minion away?" then that Conflict is completely settled.  The Paladin does NOT throw the minion away.  Thirty seconds later the Player should not be introducing another Conflict to "throw the minion away" because for this scene that Conflict has already been determine.  He doesn't do it.  He might kill the witch.  He might capture the witch.  The witch might get away.  None of that has been settled yet.  However, any / all of that will happen with the minion hanging onto the Paladin because for this scene the Player lost that Conflict.

Now if the GM had the minion let go of its own free will and then later grapple the Paladin again, that'd be a new Conflict.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but that's how I've always handled Conflict Resolution.

[Darren Hill]

As I understand it, the Pool's resolution system isn't actually a conflict resolution system. It's a "take control of the story for a moment" resolution. When you roll your dice and get that monologue of victory, you can describe basically whatever you want, so long as it fits the game's social contract. ((it's a very subtle distinction.)
But it can be used, very easily, as a conflict resolution system. Even so, the quoted phrase seems fine to me. Here's my understanding.
Let's say, you've encountered an enemy in play, and you work towards meeting him and killing him. You make your roll, and fail - so you can't defeat him now. Does that mean you can't defeat him, ever? No, it means that you can't defeat him now, in this situation, in this way.
What you have to do to be able to try again, that will be determined by what exactly happened when you failed to defeat him. Did he escape, or did you pay some sort of price (losing a weapon, and possibly causing a penalty if you do try again - or forcing you to have an intermediate conflict: "get a weapon" before you can try again), or did the situation escalate in some way (he grabbed the princess, your lover - if you try again and fail, she dies).
As long as the players know what the scope is for a given conflict roll, as was the case in the quoted example, and there are meaningful consequences for failure (and the group thought the sword breaking was meaningful), it's good.

[Plotin]

Hello!

Being about to set up my very first game of The Pool, the question of what a roll resolves interests me.

1) Player successful, takes bonus die, declines MoV:
Is the referee justified in relating an outcome that that is unfavourable to the PC? I mean, the player had the chance to take control of the story but forfeited it.

2) Player successful, declines bonus die, makes MoV:
Is the player justified in relating an outcome that is unfavourable to the PC?

3) Player has no success, referee describes outcome:
Is the referee justified in relating an outcome that actually favours the PC or in even having him attain his goal?

What these questions boil down to is this:
Represents a roll more than just resolving who gets creative control over a scene?
That the number of additional dice given out by the referee for any roll is no measure at all of the task's difficulty lets me tentatively answer my own question negatively; it seems to me that the number of provided bonus dice and the number of gambled dice are only a measure of how important it is for player and referee to get or respectively retain creative control over the story at any given point.

Any comments of how you handle these issues would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael

[Darren Hill]

1) Player successful, takes bonus die, declines MoV:
Is the referee justified in relating an outcome that that is unfavourable to the PC? I mean, the player had the chance to take control of the story but forfeited it.

From the text: If you chose to add a die to your Pool then the GM will narrate a positive outcome to the conflict, but he will do so any way he chooses. This means things might not go exactly the way you wanted.
Before the roll is made, the player will say, roughly or specifically, what the the roll is for. The GM can't ignore that, but he chooses the details - and can add more of his own creation.

2) Player successful, declines bonus die, makes MoV:
Is the player justified in relating an outcome that is unfavourable to the PC?

This is a bit stickier. With a success, you can describe what you want - and that can be an unfavourable outcome. It's still the outcome you want.
This is the subtlety that makes the Pool not a standard conflict resolution system.

3) Player has no success, referee describes outcome:
Is the referee justified in relating an outcome that actually favours the PC or in even having him attain his goal?

Yes, he is. But generally, the GM's role in the pool is to use narration to provoke situations where the players want to roll to gain control of the situation. If the GM gives them what they want all the time, they have less incentive to ask for rolls, and you lose the engine that drives play of the The Pool.
So, the GM should actively seek to use failed rolls to complicate the player's characters lives - give them what they want once in a while, but not by default.
But also, the GM should remember to narrate things in a way that complements the character concept. If he's a great warrior and is faced with some orcs, he should win (actually, you probably shouldn't be rolling at all unless there's something else at stake) - a failure in this case shouldn't be narrated as weakness on the hero's part, but should be used to make his life more difficult: maybe the witnesses hail him as a hero, and in the victory celebrations he discovers he has inadvertently become engaged to the village headman's ugly sister.

What these questions boil down to is this:
Represents a roll more than just resolving who gets creative control over a scene?

As noted above, if the player wins the roll, the GM must respect that - but is free to choose the details. If the player wins, he has full control and can narrate downsides or upsides.

That the number of additional dice given out by the referee for any roll is no measure at all of the task’s difficulty lets me tentatively answer my own question negatively; it seems to me that the number of provided bonus dice and the number of gambled dice are only a measure of how important it is for player and referee to get or respectively retain creative control over the story at any given point.

In his review of The Pool on this site, Ron Edwards says that each GM must work out their own consistent method for awarding those dice, so that player expectations can develop. That review is well worth reading.
In my case, I award bonus dice to encourage the results I want to see happen, but also to heighten tension over things I think ought to be dramatic. I also keep in mind the character's concept. If that mighty hero faced a lowly orc, and for some reason it was decided to settle it by a roll, I'd give 3 dice because I think he should succeed. I want him to succeed. (Unless I have a sudden idea to introduce some special situation that would explain a defeat or setback.)

[Arturo G.]

Sean said:

Another interpretation of 'easy': look for conflicts where the GM, either because he likes the possible outcome in your favor or because he thinks it's easy in terms of game-world logic, is likely to give you 2 or 3 extra dice. Then you've got those 2 or 3 plus 1-3 or more for your relevant trait and you're quite likely to hit a success, as well as having the GM narrate things basically the way you wanted them narrated anyway, maybe plus some extra twists to represent his enthusiasm for your proposed outcome. And you get your die.

Darren said:

In his review of The Pool on this site, Ron Edwards says that each GM must work out their own consistent method for awarding those dice, so that player expectations can develop. That review is well worth reading.
In my case, I award bonus dice to encourage the results I want to see happen, but also to heighten tension over things I think ought to be dramatic. I also keep in mind the character's concept. If that mighty hero faced a lowly orc, and for some reason it was decided to settle it by a roll, I'd give 3 dice because I think he should succeed. I want him to succeed. (Unless I have a sudden idea to introduce some special situation that would explain a defeat or setback.)

I think we are still developing our own way. It is clear that my players were confusing previous to our discussion on the second day, as it was the spark which started the fire.

I think I was following the same lines as you. I was reacting to the players investment, rewarding their cool ideas. And the same time I was using it to create tension. In the transition scenes where they were replenishing the pools, using a lot their traits, I was most of the times given 3 dice. Except when they were asking for something really significant or when I really wanted them to fail to introduce an interesting side-plot. In the climatic scenes at the end I was more eager to give only one die, forcing them to risk their pools. But if I didn't think the fail was introducing an interesting twist or I didn't clearly know how to follow-up it, I was anyway given 2-3 dice.

I was almost always telling them why I was given 1-2-3 dice for the roll. Thus, at the end I was less erratic and a better understanding was produced.

Arturo

[Arturo G.]

Andrew said:

There's a basic problem with the above bold statement.  I added the emphasis, btw.  I may be misunderstanding Conflict Resolution completely but here's my take on it.  If the Player failed in the roll "Does the Paladin throw the minion away?" then that Conflict is completely settled.  The Paladin does NOT throw the minion away.  Thirty seconds later the Player should not be introducing another Conflict to "throw the minion away" because for this scene that Conflict has already been determine.  He doesn't do it.  He might kill the witch.  He might capture the witch.  The witch might get away.  None of that has been settled yet.  However, any / all of that will happen with the minion hanging onto the Paladin because for this scene the Player lost that Conflict.

Now if the GM had the minion let go of its own free will and then later grapple the Paladin again, that'd be a new Conflict.

I have not thought about it before you brought it up. Mainly I agree with Darren's explanation, but better I will elaborate a little more on our approach because I think you will find it somehow consistent with yours.

What we were doing was forcing the players to look for another way to deal with the trouble making the new complication meaningfull. In the original example, the follow-up of the lost conflict could not be to try to throw away the minion again. But we would accept something like "having lost my precious sword I find myself not so self-confident and a little scared. I grapple with the minion, trying to get free of him. Then I remember the cesspit at the middle of the room and I try to push him to it. If I fail he will brawl with me and I will fall instead of him. I will be hanging, grabbed with my hands to the border."
We will surely accept this as a follow-up because the conflict has changed. Andrew, I think this is in the same line as you were comenting.

But the thing is, that if the player gets the roll, he can narrate what he want. Including simply throwing the minion away and capturing the witch, plus anyother not related event, flashback or whatever. This is the reason you can finally get what you formerly want after trying some rolls to get a success. The interesting thing is to follow-up the complications of the failed rolls to create slightly different conflicts with increasing tension. This worked perfectly for us with fine-grained conflicts.

Arturo

[Andrew Cooper]

Arturo,

You're right.  We're on the same page.  I just wasn't sure since the original example wasn't quite as detailed as the follow-up.

Darren,

You're also right.  The Pool is a bit non-standard when it comes to Conflict Resolution.  I forget that sometimes because I tend to use it in a more standard way.