The Pool: Dragons and Jasmine

[Ron Edwards]

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in any and all comments or questions about the following account of play. I think it has some relevance for several current threads.

About eight weeks ago, we played The Pool during a meeting of the campus role-playing club. I was the GM, two of the players were entirely new both to the club and to the game, and the third player was a founding club member and pretty experienced with similar games, especially The Questing Beast and Trollbabe.

The game
I'd brought some prepared material and brainstormed most of it not long before the meeting. It was simple stuff: a low-tech, middle-European look with an Anglo feel, basically vanilla-fantasy setting (didn't even have a name), with a strong emphasis on very dangerous, rare dragons. There's only a few of them, but boy are they big and significant. That turned into some dialogue about the culture (mainly modified feudal, without much hope for unification), about armies (most limited to 100 or 200 men), and about the dragons themselves (real big and snaky, very intelligent, very dangerous, but not very active; significant more through occasional impact rather than through numbers). We speculated that some communities preferred to play it safe around the dragons rather than rile them up, and others were pretty oriented toward regular dragon-killing attempts. One player suggested that some people even acted as turncoat dragon-agents, which struck me as a neat idea.

I presented a very brief scenario notion: in a province/area called Lockley, a woman named Jasmine is now the ruler. It seems that the local baron guy upped and died, and she, his commoner lover who was pretty much running things anyway, just kept running them. I suggested that she was a pretty good top dog, and now suitors were showing up hoping to marry her, hence gaining great power in the land. I tossed in that the Lockley Worm was an especially unpleasant dragon in the area who'd been inactive for a while. That's all I presented, trusting to some relationship-map prep and Pool character creation to provide more. You can probably sniff a hint of Pendragon and Alyria in all of this.

My notes included a fellow named Pergamon as the most likely suitor to Jasmine, but also that he was really just a stuffed shirt backed by the sinister Lord Dragar, not immediately present in the scenario, who had every intention of taking over the area by force. To this end, he simply planned to abduct Jasmine through the efforts of Leila, a witch (I speculated about now that Pergamon was actually just a magical construct, not a person at all, and after the first scene with him in it, I went with that). I also decided that Leila had thrown in with Oskar, an agent of the Lockley Worm, whose goal was to kill Koll the Slayer, Jasmine's right-hand-man. I also came up with a list of NPC names to use as needed: Frakes, Bertram, Marietta, Wilhelm, and Flick.

The players' choices for player-characters didn't surprise me at all. The veteran pervy-N player made up Kelmar, one of Jasmine's suitors (nice and close to the proffered story-material), de-emphasized combat stuff in favor of things like social rank, and pumped a fair amount of Trait dice into a flute that Clouds Minds (a very general, Pool-useful, open-ended Trait). But check these other two out: Galt the inn-keeper, who disliked Jasmine and stayed behind his bar most of the time, didn't go out doing things, and spent a lot of time fomenting trouble through gossip; and Elit the hit-man thief type in a black mantle, with lots of stealth and poisons. Neither presented any immediate connection or depth regarding any aspect of the setting/situation we'd just discussed. One turtle and one ego-trip, eh? Sprinkle with AD&D and serve. Ready for GM-plot-hook in the first scene, sir!

That didn't happen at all, of course. Instead, it went like this.

Part #1: the meetings and the hooks, such as they were. Kelmar simply showed up to the big gathering of potential suitors, so that was easy. Elit's player had already specified that he done some thieving and spying in Jasmine's castle already, but had been caught and imprisoned for a while. So I decided simply to offer him another job from Oskar, mediated by Leila, specifically to steal Koll's family crest with a strong implication to kill him (Oskar figures that Koll would die rather than give up the crest anyway). And Galt was easy too - I merely had him meet Oskar and set up some means by which Elit was going to get paid, basically including him as a part of the conspiracy.

I did some semi-hallucinatory time & space effects whenever Leila was in a scene, which is something I'm good at as a GM, established some stuff about the general culture at the castle, and enjoyed some playing-up of how thoroughly Oskar had manipulated Galt's friend Frakes. All of these were player-directed hooks, leaving each player-character quite a bit of room for decisions (Elit, for instance, was fully capable of informing on the job offer to Jasmine, but he didn't).

More substantively, I did a lot of camera-tracking from locale to locale. We followed Leila from a meeting with Pergamon, witnessed by Kelmar, to Galt's bar where she met with Elit. We got to follow Frakes across a few scenes as well as he set up and conducted the meeting between Oskar and Galt.

Part #2: Just playing. All I had in mind was a banquet, and I left it right there. The players had a bunch of stuff in mind, and I rolled dice to see how it went. Since the player-characters weren't coming into much direct contact, all I had to do was make sure everyone got air time. Suffice to say that various infiltrate-the-castle, bargain-with-conspirator, and polite-stuff-at-banquet events occurred.

The really fun part came when Elit failed his attempt to poison Koll's wine at the banquet, simultaneous with Kelmar succeeding in winning the admiration of everyone present with a "let's all be friends" flute-spell. Hence, I narrated (asking the player's permission) that Elit becomes Koll's best buddy. The player found this perfectly acceptable as long as it was OK for him still to try to steal the family crest from Koll's quarters, which seemed fine to me (I had no intention of limiting the player's future choices; furthermore, I told him the effect would wear off if he, the player, wanted it to).

Part #3: The triple-scene climax. As the GM, sittin' there and enjoying myself, I had no particular investment in Dragar's plot succeeding or failing, in Jasmine's marriage outcome, in Oskar's plan succeeding or failing, in Koll surviving or not surviving, or even in player-character survival or success or failure in any way. That's just not up to me in this game - I'm fuel, not light or heat. Here I am, three-quarters of the way through the session, and all I have to do is have Jasmine unexpectedly fail to show up at the banquet. I delivered it with a bang, too - the trumpets sounded, everyone at the banquet stood up, and the handmaiden appeared first as tradition would have it ... and pause. No Jasmine.

Simultaneously, I figure a Bang for one should be a Bang for all, so Leila confronted Galt in his bar, seeking to conver the conspirators' tracks. I first gave the player a chance to interact with her more positively if he wanted to, which he didn't, so she transformed into a green snake and attacked him.

Here's what happened in rapid succession:

- All the suitors are looking for Jasmine, so Kelmar heads up to the top tower and flutes for all he is worth to make everyone peaceful and drowsy (stated goal: keep Jasmine, wherever she is, safe from harm).
- Elit swipes Koll's family crest-thing but bungles his escape attempt.
- Galt pulls down his dad's sword from over the mantelpiece and does a Jabberwock-style snicker-snack.

All of these, and the events leading up to them, were conducted simultaneously with my quickie-cut GM method across the scenes; the dice were rolled simultaneously. Here's how all the narrations turned out (one was mine; not everyone took Monologues):

- Leila's death cancels the Pergamon-construct, so he goes "poof" in front of everyone
- Kelmar's flute-spell permitted Jasmine to escape her captors and to confront Elit in his escape - and offer him a choice between the dungeons (again!) and a job
- Galt wipes off his sword and is left wondering what to do with the body of this green-scaled snake and, also, what that was all about.

Through no machination of my own, Elit's attempt to poison Koll shifted from a kill to a gesture and then to full side-switching, and Kelmar's flute attempt succeeded - so bye-bye to Oskar's plot. I chalked up "Jasmine's saved" in my head for later. Then we're looking at Leila's attempt to cover the trail of Dragar's plot by killing Galt - which, again through no plotting of my own, now assumed maximum-risk, climactic proportions, and turned out to cement and even finalize Jasmine's rescue, through the destruction of the Pergamon-construct. This was a fast, fast realization on my part, part and parcel with the players' Monologues - which in this case, were gleefully produced in full enjoyment of the three scenes' cross-cutting impacts.

Consequences: Kelmar stands high as Jasmine's best bet for a husand, Elit is now Jasmine's "008" (as the player put it), and Galt - completely in the dark - turns out to be Jasmine's savior. All of the players chimed in in constructing these final-take interpretations. Notice, by the way, that "discovering Dragar's plot" and "defying the villainous Dragar" were never brought into play as character priorities.

So the outcomes, basically, incorporated actions, intentions, and consequences for all three player-characters. What I'm trying to say, probably badly, is that no one prioritized "story" over "character" (which I consider to be an oxymoron). By them enjoying their characters and providing input on how their actions affected one another, we all created a story. They ... just ... plain ... role-played; the Author Stance and some Director Stance did not substitute for role-playing, rather, they let them do it more effectively.

I'm especially happy with how the  turtle player-character was converted into a constructive and fun character for everyone to enjoy, in the sense that "the jerk is hoist by his own petard." From the bird's-eye-view, the turtle became the hero, and the more disgruntled the character was about Jasmine, the more satisying the outcome is to the player and to the group in general. I could never have planned or "enforced" that. All the GM-advice in rules text about "try to engage the characters in the plot" are useless toward this end, for this sort of player and this sort of character. But The Pool and a loose, fun Narrativist approach does it quite frequently - and I cannot over-emphasize this - without constantly re-working back-story or fudging Fortune outcomes.

Let's take a closer look at that fight between Galt and Leila. As it turns out, it was not even dictated by me that it was a fight! The player had full control over the conflict at hand! Sure, she turned into a snake and attacked him with lethal intent, but his successful goal in the dice-roll was completely up to him - whether it was indeed a fight to the death, rather than (say) seduction, or co-option, or negotiating a better deal for himself. It's possible that he simply didn't understand the degree of power he had in naming the conflict's goals. It's quite likely that he took the basic player-attitude that if X attacks me, the only thing to do is to kill X back. Which was fine, of course, but very interesting to observe and think about.

Never too old to be stupid
This next part is embarassing. Kelmar's player, as you can see, played a big role in the game through the Cloud Men's Minds, as anticipated (I pointed out the gender-limit of the Trait name, and the player grinned in acknowledgment, by the way). I did some poor GMing when he announced the character heading to the top tower of the citadel and fluting a spell as a blanket across the place: I started to bitch about reasonable extent of an ability. It was painful - here I was, Mr. Give It to the Players, and I was pulling every pseudo-argument in the book from the classic "you can't do that" jumping-the-chasm file. The player stuck to his guns, rightly.

See, I was looking at this guy's Pool, which happened to be pretty big at this point, unlike the other players' Pools. I was also thinking about the general importance of this scene, which in terms of time and the tightness of the connected scenes, was obviously climactic. I was also, in my defense, thinking about a few times this particular player had powergamed Drama mechanics in previous games (but forgetting all the times he hadn't). I was scared to give up the power of GM-contribution to "what happens" as a hole card.

You know what? He was right and I was wrong. His MoV served as the perfect framework for the other narrated outcomes, most especially the result that Jasmine's mind was not clouded and therefore her escape - and total social ups-person-ship of Elit, when they met - were locked solidly into play. He delivered that MoV with the full intent of tossing the other players as much protagonism as possible. As I keep saying, I couldn't possibly have engineered that in an Illusionist way without some fairly nasty railroading ... and yet here I was, cranking and objecting prior to the roll about "reasonable limits," right in front of two brand-new members of the group. Fortunately I realized my error in time and shut the hell up.

Illusionism and The Pool
Now for the general topic that I want to discuss: the difference between the decisions a GM makes in The Pool and those he or she makes in classic illusionist play (billed as "expert GMing" by many). I think the best way to present the point is by outlining some common misconceptions that get thrown around about this game.

Misconception: The Pool must be an "improvisation" game in terms of the entire content, especially the GM's input. There can't be any setup, all makin' it up as you go. This is grossly mistaken - The Pool demands a fairly solidly-prepped scenario, especially in terms of Fang's Genre Expectations and also in terms of Where & What along the lines of Alyria's storymapping technique from a GM-only perspective. The GM needs material to work with and stuff to present. I had a very strong aesthetic, visual, and contextual grasp of what I wanted to present in play for the above run, and after my pre-play prep, I didn't make up or improvise a damned thing.

Misconception: if the above misconception is not the case, then Monologues of Victory must be horrible terrible game-defining, overriding moments of play, so their extent must be limited sharply in any way possible. This is not the case either. As it turns out, MoVs play massive story-impact roles only once in a while, when a player wants them to, and such input is much like having someone else do all the donkey-work of GM-prep. Otherwise, they're usually just Color!

Misconception: The Pool must somehow still afford the GM role of "story direction." Such play is composed of (a) the GM gathers characters together, points the direction they must "look"; they do stuff and potentially scatter about; the GM gathers them again points the new direction they must "look"; repeat. You do have to do this in playing kill puppies for satan or Godlike. You don't in The Pool. How could one possibly do this? You can't nudge player input during a Monologue of Victory. You can't manipulate the IIEE of a given resolution. You can't even start the story at 91% of the way through!

What the illusionist-GM is missing, in saying and perceiving such things, is that playing The Pool relies on players' willingness to accept GM narration the majority of the time, and that that narration can be rich and contribute a great deal to play. All the attention and fear focused on the MoV's is totally misplaced - the attention in playing The Pool should be focused on how the GM-narration always opens doors to new characters and cross-cutting consequences, and (in my opinion) is also quite firm about failed rolls/goals, but never tells the player-characters what they have to do.

This point carries the shocking consequence, to some, that playing The Pool doesn't have to be some radical, whacked, transformative experience. It's solely composed of "I say X, and it makes the problem more relevant and interesting to everyone; you say Y, and it shows us all about your character's priorities and efforts; either of us may say Z, which resolves conflicts in play and leads to more (or a final) X and Y."

Here's where many people who play Narrativist with fairly non-specialized-to-Narrativist games (see older threads by Raven and Mike Gentry) might get confused: "But we do that anyway!" they say. My point is that, in playing The Pool, this is not what you do anyway, it's what you do, and all you need to do.

Best,
Ron

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi Ron,

Great transcript.  Together with the previous discussion about social contracts in The Pool, your approach to pre-game prep provides a solution to my only real stumbling block with The Pool, namely, that if the group wants a game heavy with intrigue and mystery, it's a challenge to set things up so as not to have MoVs break the background structure.

Let me expand on that a sec.  My players in The Pool Exalted game I ran last fall wanted a setting heavy with political intrigue, shadowy schemes and byzantine maneuvering, and so forth - you get the idea.   The problem we ran into was the potential for MoVs to blow a hole in the web.  Not in the context of railroading, because like you, I'm certainly not invested in the outcome, but in the context of the players wanting to uncover some sort of pre-existing political plot rather than to create that plot on the fly.  The latter concern kept coming up, and we didn't find a solid solution before real life events put the group on indefinite hold.

It seems to me that solid relationship web/storymap effort in tandem with an overt social contract agreement not to pull a Gordian knot style MoV would address the "preserve the mystery" concern nicely.

With respect to your game, it seems to me the cross-cutting technique was the key to embedding the players in the unfolding story.  I'm curious to know what your rule of thumb is for timing the moment of a cut.  I've done it quite often myself, but rarely with characters who are so far apart they never meet, and never with characters who aren't part of the same "group" context.

Best,

Blake

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the great, detailed post.

This sentence in particular jumped out at me:

"What I'm trying to say, probably badly, is that no one prioritized 'story' over 'character' (which I consider to be an oxymoron)."

Think of  how much bandwidth could be saved if only people understood this!

***

I do want to follow up on one point.  (I'll warn all now it might sound like I'm trying to catch Ron up on something. I'm not.  I'm just trying to make sure the meaning of a vital paragraph is clear to all.)

You point out that you had worked out your characters, setting and whatnot before play began.  After prep-play, you "didn't make up or improvise a damned thing."

Now, I might be wrong about this, but my guess is you did not know that Leila was going to confront Galt in his tavern and turn into a snake and attack him.  (You might have, but perhaps not.)

I wanted to point out that "improvisation" is not making up things wholecloth moment to moment.  Improvisation is building on what is already established.  Thus, even though the characters, setting and abilities were already nailed down, unless you had this specific moment already in mind before play began, you did improvise it.

It's a distinction vital for anyone trying out games like the Pool, I think.  The GM can't have everything ready.  But he can depend on his prep work to carry the day as he improvises new moments, actions and beats.

Clarify further as needed.

Take care,

Christopher

[Valamir]

Never too old to be stupid
This next part is embarassing. Kelmar's player, as you can see, played a big role in the game through the Cloud Men's Minds, as anticipated (I pointed out the gender-limit of the Trait name, and the player grinned in acknowledgment, by the way). I did some poor GMing when he announced the character heading to the top tower of the citadel and fluting a spell as a blanket across the place: I started to bitch about reasonable extent of an ability. It was painful - here I was, Mr. Give It to the Players, and I was pulling every pseudo-argument in the book from the classic "you can't do that" jumping-the-chasm file. The player stuck to his guns, rightly.

Was this the same player you wrote about in the earlier play example?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Here are some links that might interest people:
A demoralizing day (My post of 23 Apr 2003 09:09, on page 3, is what I'm aiming at, but lots of other people said lots of good stuff)
Plotless but background-based games
Is story arc and open-ended (scenarioless) play viable?
Making players more proactive
D&D with Kickers

Apparently I've confused people with my X's and Y's. I'm trying to describe what's often found in Narrativist play. I posed that algebraic babble as an exemplar of Narrativism.

Also, the references to Mike Gentry and Raven's games are based on these threads:
7th Sea: Illusionism in practice
Non-silly D&D
Raven's 3E game
More player-driven 3E

I referred to them because, as I understand it, both people did not especially consider themselves to be playing Narrativist, whether because of the systems involved or because they rightly perceived themselves, as GM, to be more active and contributory than they thought Narrativist GMs were "supposed" to be. My claim in these threads, as well as in this one, is that such a perception of Narrativist GMing is too restrictive, and that both posters were describing, as far as I can tell, very straightforward Narrativist play experiences.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Ralph, dunno what "previous example" you're talking about. Also, it doesn't seem relevant to identify the player in question in any way, by name or by association with any other posts or threads. If I'm not understanding your question, let me know.

[Blake Hutchins]

Ah.  AH.  Thanks for the references, Ron.  Very helpful and precisely relevant to my quandary.  I've obviously not read the recent discussion thoroughly.

Best,

Blake

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Christopher wrote,

I wanted to point out that "improvisation" is not making up things wholecloth moment to moment. Improvisation is building on what is already established. Thus, even though the characters, setting and abilities were already nailed down, unless you had this specific moment already in mind before play began, you did improvise it.

It's a distinction vital for anyone trying out games like the Pool, I think. The GM can't have everything ready. But he can depend on his prep work to carry the day as he improvises new moments, actions and beats.

I agree with you - but the terminology has been corrupted by gaming culture, in my opinion. In order simply not to run into trouble with that corruption, I now simply call what you describe "play" or perhaps "contributing." It's what I mean when I say the GM is a player too.

I also reserve "improvise" for Director-stance insertion of novel stuff into the game-world, whether publicly or privately, whether by player or by GM.

This isn't some kind of Forge jargon, but rather, as I say, according with the apparent terminological biases that I run into when trying to discuss this with people.

Best,
Ron

[Christopher Kubasik]

Okay.

[Valamir]

P.S. Ralph, dunno what "previous example" you're talking about. Also, it doesn't seem relevant to identify the player in question in any way, by name or by association with any other posts or threads. If I'm not understanding your question, let me know.

Oh, I just had a deja vu moment.  I seemed to remember you chastising yourself in a very similar way once before due to worry about what a player might do in the game...using almost exactly the same phrasing IIRC.  I was just curious if it was the same player causing you to balk this time around.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Ralph, you goofball. It's 'cause we talked about it when you were visiting last weekend. Here I was looking all over the forums ...

Anyway, I hunted up some more ancient Pool/MoV references for people who might be interested:

question: when the GM narrates in The Pool
Player power in the MoV
How often do you roll your pools?
The Pool question
And the rather fun Narrative sharing for gamists, which as it turned out had nothing to do with either Narrativist or Gamist play, but rather with organizing narration per se.

These are all pretty old threads, so it's interesting to see old controversies that were long-since resolved still in action. New people should bear in mind that any of the more abstract or terminological issues in them have probably been better baked since then.

Best,
Ron

[rafial]

Ron.  Thanks for this interesting example of Pool play.

You mentioned that at the climax you had all your players roll simultaneously.  I'm curious to know by what method then you allocated narration.  Did you have any mechanism for deciding who would get their MoV first, did anybody decline to MoV on this roll, and if they did/would have, at what point was/would GM narration have been inserted?

[Valamir]

Ralph, you goofball. It's 'cause we talked about it when you were visiting last weekend. Here I was looking all over the forums ...

<blink>  <blink>
heh.

Guess I should restock on the Ginko Biloba :-)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Rafial,

I had hoped that the links would help with questions of this sort, and I encourage you to read them if you haven't already. I'll also try to lay the answer out here as clearly as I can.

The first concept, which applies to any resolution in The Pool, is that a failed roll means failure in the stated/announced goal, and a successful roll means success at the stated/announced goal. Everyone at the table is expected to understand the stated goal prior to the roll. Not everyone plays The Pool this way - I do, and I strongly encourage it.

When people roll simultaneously in playing The Pool, here's the way to go.

1. Identify everyone who failed their rolls. Take away the gambled dice, and the GM now has narration-rights for those outcomes.

2. Identify everyone who succeeded in their rolls.

a) Some of them may prefer to add a die to their Pools rather than take a Monologue of Victory. Deal with all the dice, and the GM now has narration-rights for those outcomes.

b) Others may prefer to take the Monologue of Victory, in which they get narration-rights for those rolled outcomes.

Note that if everyone rolls or chooses options such that the GM narrates everything, then that is perfectly OK. The players' willingness to have this occur is precisely the same thing as the GM's willingness to have players take their Monologues.

3. Narration occurs.

a) If only one person is narrating, well and good. Similarly, if more than one person is narrating, but their scenes aren't affecting one another, then, well and good.

b) If more than one person has narration-rights regarding scenes in which their characters are affecting one another, then all these people get to contribute their notions about what should happen. The creative constraint is to keep all the successful actions/goals and all the failed actions/goals consistent - which is much easier than one might think.

The scene isn't considered narrated (done) until everyone agrees about what happens. People who cannot agree are considered to have broken the Social Contract (this is central to playing The Pool; it is "pervy," meaning that mechanics and Social Contract are very very "close" to one another).

A lot of people take pleasure in converting (a) above, with multiple narrators, into (b) above, by having the outcome of one scene affect the outcome or circumstances of another.

Best,
Ron

[rafial]

Hi Rafial,
The scene isn't considered narrated (done) until everyone agrees about what happens.

Ah okay, everyone rolls together becomes everyone talks together (if they want to).  I was misled by the term MoV to think that only one person should be speaking at  a time.  In essence, what you describe here is now a Dialogue of Victory.  Makes perfect sense!  Thanks!

[James V. West]

Excellent thread.

Since I'm now in a comics mode rahter than a gaming mode I haven't been keeping up with all the topics around here. My apologies. In another 2 weeks I'll be back in gaming mode again (is there a technical term for this disorder??).

See, I play The Pool and TQB much the same way as Ron demonstrates here. The only real difference is I'm not that good at it! Just ask Nathan, Bob, Raven, and Mike. Hehe.

Seriously, I don't understand how anyone could play The Pool without doing the cross-sectioning that Ron is talking about here. I try to cut back-and-forth between players' scenes at key moments and I find that it keeps everyone involved and it peppers players with ideas left and right and that all these ideas tend to converge on one another (in most cases). It really is just like playing in a friggin' band!

You know how certain films cut between scenes and have seemingly unrelated characters (frex: Snatch)? I think The Pool really supports play that generates stories of that type. Ron's transcript is a perfect example.

Again, excellent. I loved your whole set-up Ron.