X-Games continued discussion

[Russell Hoyle]

Hiya Blake!

(2) Is there a less intrusive means of conveying the plot immunity of principal antagonists to the players than breaking into the narrative with a warning?

While I have *not* played The Pool, I do have an opinion (how unusual for the internet, someone with baseless opinion!)

I wonder if you as narrator could 'shanghai' the player's MOV, if the NPC in question has some degree of plot-related immunity.

My brain understands examples better than description, so here goes:

Aleph the warrior (PC) succeeds in diceplay to enable a MOV wherein he states: "...and I swing my sword horizontally, despite the pain of my wounds, cleaving his head from his shoulders."

Whereupon I, realizing the NPC has a degree of immunity, say something like: "The villain collpases back into the darkness, but what at first though appeared to be his head tumbling through the air was merely his [helmet/scalp/gout of blood/magic spirit that protects his neck]. He yet lives! He struggles to stand, but moves forwards inexorably...."

Is this a useful way of handling such a situation?
Yes, I relise it contradicts the MOV, but in couching it within the narrative, does it make it less jarring?

Just an idea, and interested to see what you guys make of it.

Rusty

[Buddha Nature]

Some thoughts from a guy who has read the pool and tqb, but has yet to run either (but is chomping at the bit to do so):

1) What about the almighty "period"?  I think it is mentioned in The Questing Beast, but the GM has the ability to put a period at the end of anything the player says in a MoV or Mod.  I am not sure if it would have worked in the decapitation example above, but if you see the Mov / MoD heading in a difficult direction, just apply the brake:

player: blah blah blah, and as Hrothgar swings his sword through the air he cleaves through the emperor's--

gm: period.

Maybe after the period the GM could narrarate a little.

2) IIRC there are veto rules in there (though I never liked them much), maybe they could be addapted to a vote of sorts, letting the other players decide if the NPC is slain.  Or maybe instead of the GM usurping the MoV / MoD you could hand it over to another player instead.

3) Finally there is the "fix it yourself" view.  They kill someone off, bring someone in to replace him, but in such a way that your players wish to God that they still had the other guy to deal with instead.  Or of course you could just generate horrible repercussions for killing your favored NPC's:

From the above example, instead of saying knocking off the helmet, leave the fact that the guy is dead but say instead:

"You feel the rush of blood slowing in you as you move to view your vanquished foe, but are struck with fear as you see that it was not just some unknown knight you had felled, but (insert important person here whom the player willl catch much shit for killing).

A mild digression on this point: For a brief time I played the Legend of the Five Rings CCG.  The reason I liked it over Magic was that in Magic tournaments they would have these banned and restricted lists, cards produced that could not be used.  In Lo5R though, they never banned or restricted anything.  All they did was create cards in the next series that would screw-over players trying to exploit specific cards.  They took a "fix it yourself" view instead of a banning point of view.

The only downside to this is that it creates more work for the GM, which can be a hassle.

Another option might be to, from the outset, say to your players:  If an NPC has a name and a personality and has come up a few times assume you may not kill him until I say you may, and just tell them when they can.

Just some thoughts from a guy who needs more sleep.

-Shane

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I split the above two recent posts from Blake's X-Games thread, as its last posting was in November 2001.

Best,
Ron

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi gents,

In retrospect, I think that although a plot immunity element could be a useful option in some Pool games, I also think that the issues we had in our X-games Pool vis-a-vis a "need" for such a feature stemmed from my focus on task rather than conflict resolution.  As our Pool experience represented the first time we'd made a substantial break from so-called traditional resolution systems, we brought across a legacy methodology of Fortune-at-the-End, round by round scene framing during what amounted to an ol' drug-out combat scene.  Fun, but not as satisfying as it could have been.

The Pool as written gives a lot of power to the players through the Monologues.  Plot immunity has the potential to frustrate this power in a way that essentially sabotages the elegance of The Pool's mechanic.  When engaged in Pool-esque games, I think the GM simply has to accept the probability that well-laid plans will almost certainly lay another way once the players dig into the narrative power of MoV's and MoD's.  I say this because our previous discussion on plot immunity level may have arisen in the first place because we were involved in a combat-oriented scenario.  It's a lot easier in action scenes for a hero to use the "I blow the boss villain's head off" type of MoV, said use appearing to short-circuit all of a GM's evil plottery.

Running the Pool reminds me of the scene in Star Wars, wherein Luke races down the Death Star's trench in his X-wing at the critical moment and shuts off his targeting system so as to trust in the Force.  Plot, you see, is essentially a linear construct, a series of events.  For me to require Plot Immunity of necessity means I'm thinking in a line toward a particular goal.  If I'm doing that, the risk of my disempowering or deprotagonizing the players is high.  Interestingly, their MoD's were substantially worse than I'd expected, which leads me to conclude I don't need to worry about preserving a plot, since the players will create one on the fly, the antagonism hand in hand with the protagonism.  So when I next run the Pool, I'm going to push that crutch of plot aside, fly naked down the trench, and trust my players.

Best,

Blake

[Buddha Nature]

So based on you former experience and what you know now, what would you say the best way of going about prepping to GM a Pool game would be?  Just come up with a bunch of npc's and a setting of some sort, maybe some sort of overarching idea (find the dark tower) and just let them go at it?

-Shane

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Shane,

The one remaining thing is the thing that traditional role-playing texts have rarely, if ever, modeled for the reader: an issue at hand into which the players invest emotionally.

I don't mean a logistic task! "Find the heir to the throne," "Re-unite the two aging ex-lovers," "Discover the great treasure." (I've been re-reading the Al-Qadim material lately, and the disconnection between its physical and intellectual beauty and its stupidity, in terms of enjoyable play, is phenomenal.)

The easiest version of such an issue is to let it arise from the characters themselves. Games like Sorcerer enforce this. A slightly more difficult way is to have it embedded in physical, social, and historical elements of the setting, as with Hero Wars. The Pool is "wide open" in terms of such an issue, which is why James was so careful to provide guidelines for constructing it in The Questing Beast.

But without such a thing, playing The Pool results in a big ugly nothing.

Best,
Ron

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi Shane,

Hmmm.  The way I did it the first time was clunky.  Thinking of it as a test session for the system rather than anything else, I didn't take the approach of finding something emotionally resonant for the players.   Instead, I created a somewhat generic fantasy setting -- one with embedded conflict -- and pushed the players into a basic search and retreive mission.  To be fair, I did try to encourage the players to come up with a group kicker to use as a kickoff point, but that didn't pan out.

So how would I do it now?  Assuming I used the Irongate setting, I'd come up with a premise I wanted to focus on, phrased in the form of a question, and tell the players prior to character creation.  Then I'd simply (!) make up a relationship map and give the players opportunities during play to tangle themselves in the map.  If you don't know what I mean by relationship map, dig into the threads on the Sorcerer forum or grab a copy of Ron's Sorcerer and Soul.  The "R-map" is a great tool for crafting setting and compelling NPC material.

But this is if I were going to run a longer game.  If I were testing again, and didn't need the detail for a few short sessions?  I would play off the players' concerns and motifs articulated on their character write-ups.  For example, all of my X-games players made characters who had tainted pasts.  I might try to find ways to link their pasts or bring the taint element into play and let the story go from there.  Monologues have enormous power to drive the story, so I don't think The Pool requires exhaustive prep.  It's enough if you set the tone and color from the outset, work up a clear general vision of the setting, and establish a definite premise.

Best,

Blake

[Buddha Nature]

So Blake, firstly I am waiting (with baited breath) for my copies of Sorcerer and Sorcerer's Soul to show up (ron's site says they ship monday, but they eneded up shipping on friday, ce la vie) specifically because of the r-map stuff.

So for a one-shot test you would say just come up with a clear picture of the settings and the feel, let the players make their characters, and just see what you can pull from there in the way of NPC's?  Or do you think planning NPC's ahead of time is even worth it?  Should you just trust your players to come up with the NPC's?  Just get the setting, the characters, and roll with it?

-Shane

[Blake Hutchins]

Well, I'd probably come up with a few NPC's -- or at least background figures that might become NPC's, but I'd look for opportunities to hook them into the characters' stories.  Even better, I'd craft 'em AFTER the players created their characters, but with an eye toward how each NPC might advance the premise.

But y'know, this is how I'd do it.  Doesn't mean in the least it's how it should be done.  My approach might not be the best one for you or anyone else.  Work to your own comfort level, but be aware that The Pool does things differently than your "traditional" RPG.  In the end, I didn't do much prep beyond what I established for the setting, and we had a great time.  If we'd stuck with it and run more sessions, I'm confident we'd have had plenty of NPC's and setting detail evolve from actual play.

Best,

Blake

[Mike Holmes]

So Blake, firstly I am waiting (with baited breath) for my copies of Sorcerer and Sorcerer's Soul to show up (ron's site says they ship monday, but they eneded up shipping on friday, ce la vie) specifically because of the r-map stuff.

So for a one-shot test you would say just come up with a clear picture of the settings and the feel, let the players make their characters, and just see what you can pull from there in the way of NPC's?  Or do you think planning NPC's ahead of time is even worth it?  Should you just trust your players to come up with the NPC's?  Just get the setting, the characters, and roll with it?

I'd say that this is anti-thetical to the R-Map concept. The R-Map is one of the GMs contributions to mixing things up. The idea is that the players come across a set of people with their own interrelated goals and feelings and, well, relationships. Then as the PCs get involved, stuff happens. And it works. But it takes some effort before hand to get it set up so that the outcome is interesting. The effort level is similar to, if not higher than, the amount of work that it takes to prep a traditional RPG "Scenario" or pre-plotted adventure.

In other words, in a Sim game, the GM prepares a plot for the characters to run through. In a R-Map driven game, the GM prepares a set of interconnected characters to run into so that the players can create themes based on how their characters interact.

Bangs are a similar tool. They are not part of a preplotted scenario, but just things that can happen that will again allow the players to have their characters react in an interesting manner.

Does that make any sense? It's really pretty simple, conceptually. I'd say that this prep is especially important for a one-shot. Given a longer game, the players and GM could come up with characters and a R-Map could occur, potentially. But in a one-shot, you need to have stuff ready to go to give the game a pulse.

Mike