[Cascadia] IndieRPG Toronto playtests an (anti-)Pool variant

Joshua, one of the members of IndieRPG Toronto has us experiment with a new game that adds a narrative structure and a linked resource management mechanic to the (Anti-)Pool variant.

It was a lot of fun and has a lot of potential. I don't know if Joshua wants to start posting the mechanics in detail, but I had a great time playing it and wanted to bring attention to several of its features.

The aim of the game: Players must guide a community FROM some troubled place, THROUGH a dangerous environment, TO a place that will give the community what it needs.

The set up: Each player creates a FACTION within the community. That faction is like a standard Pool character. The faction has 2 things it can do, and 1 flaw. Each player rolls 2d10. The highest of the two numbers indicates the men who belong to that faction, the lower indicates the number of women. The player with the most men is the defacto leader of the whole community. As the players encounter obstacles they may lose men or women. Loss of men indicates a loss of power in the community and without a balance of men and women that sub-faction cannot propagate itself.

So, you could have a game about a multi-generational struggle to cross the Bearing Strait and make it down to the Andes mountains.

In our playtest we were in a fantastic version of the Holy Land. As in one of the Arthurian tales, Joseph of Arimathea was the leader of a group of knights and damsels dedicated to spreading Christ's gospels and demonstrating their chivalry and puissance at arms. I split my personality and ran the faction of the Traders, a group concerned with profit and practical affairs. A third player ran the Clerks, who were dedicated to recording and spreading our gospel and our traditions.

The inter-group rivalry mechanics worked well. Joseph and his lot engaged in a lot of smashing and bashing. I feel that I dominated the action. However, I depleted my Pool. And although my knights won a few damsels to their faction, they lost a number of knights in their smashing and bashing. We did fight the Sirens and recovered the Tibia of Saint Paul from the Thessalonians. The Grail kept us well fed.

Joshua's faction-management mechanic seems like it would offer a good basis for multi-session play. The population management mechanic seems more suited for a story of a population of wandering nomads (or dinosaurs, or fish) rather than a story taking place over a short period of time but could have other applications.

Some might see it as sexist ...

But it was a functional and interesting premise.