Okay, most of the members of my gaming group are going to be out of town or otherwise occupied on our normal day to play this week. Thus, I thought, why don't I run a one off game of The Pool as a sort of change of pace with the 2 folks that are going to be able to show up. So, I've got the rules (very easy to understand and absorb) and I've got a buttload of d6's. Now what?

I'm normally a fairly Gamist (some by choice and some by group composition) GM and I'm experienced and good at that type of play. I can run Tomb of Horrors or a module of my own creation with the best of them. But I confess to be at a loss on how to prep for this upcoming session of The Pool. It's not a Gamist system and so all the things I'd normally prep for (NPC stats, locations, maps, etc etc) seem to be completely moot points. Plot stuff doesn't even seem to apply since the players share GM power in that game and can complete jump the plot and go off wherever they like. What's a poor Gamist GM to do?

I've read all the stuff on Scene Framing and I think I've got my head around that. That technique is in my bag of tricks. Still, should I have some scenes (or at least the framings of such) prepared before hand?

What about Relationship Maps? I've read somewhat about them here at the Forge but I've never actually seen one. What's on one? Do I need one? How do I make one? Once I make one, how do I use it? Okay, that's a lot of questions on that subject.

I need help. Any words of wisdom that Forgerites could throw my way would be appreciated. I'm sorta going out on a limb here gamewise and I'd really like for it to work out.

Hi Andrew,

Actually, before talking about all sorts of Premise-y techniques, I think you should consider a serious issue about playing The Pool in terms of straightforward resolution mechanics.

Mike Holmes and I differ very strongly in our interpretations of the rules for this game. He says #1 and I say #2.

#1. Success or failure at the dice roll determines who gets to narrate the outcome of the conflict, and that person gets full carte blanche for the narration, up to and including the success or failure of his character in that conflict. This option is most like the game octaNe.

#2. Success or failure at the dice roll determines success or failure of the character in the conflict. Narration is distributed as well, but whoever narrates must use the outcome (success or failure) as a constraint on what they narrate. This option is most like the game HeroQuest, with "narration" really being a fairly minor issue.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

My interpretation of The Pool was a bit more on the #2 side of things. The player indicates his intent and then rolls the dice. On a success, he gets to narrate HOW he wants to succeed... but he has to succeed (otherwise, why roll the dice or declare intent?). On a failure, the GM (me) narrates the failure and adds complications to whatever is going on in the game at the time.

Am I on target here?

Andrew

I seem to fall somewhere in between 1 and 2. I would agree with Ron, but add the qualifier that "success" and "failure" are not necessarily what they are in most RPGs, as traits can be positive or negative things. The way see it, "A weakness for gambling" is just as valid a trait as "Strength beyond strength." So it's not so much "can I jump across the chasm?" but more "does by character's lost love come up in the story at this point?"

-- Ben

Hi Andrew,

That's certainly compatible with #2, but my point is that whichever (or what combination) of the interpretations you prefer, you really need to know it and explain it as such to everyone else in the game.

Now, as for the other issues you've mentioned, they should be understood as fundamentally easy but also hard for habitual role-players. In other words, everyone but gamers finds them so straightforward as to be obvious and even perhaps expected/required, but self-identified gamers are often well-trained not to do them.

However, it strikes me that you might be thinking of The Pool as some kind of improvisational extravaganza, in which the landscape and situations of play are freely improvised moment-to-moment as you go ... the most unconstructed expression of what some people call "No Myth" role-playing.

I suggest that this is not the case. You will do well simply to prep up the landscape, NPCs, back-story, and so forth just as much as you would for any other kind of game. It's simpler (e.g. NPCs might be rated as 0-3 gift dice), that's all. All of your notions about "starting scenes" or playing NPCs can transfer over to The Pool with no hassle at all.

But what about the much-feared "player interference" with the Prepared Plot? You know ... it's not such a big deal. You probably permit such "interference" in your regular role-playing all the time, based on sudden informal interjections and suggestions across the table that no one remembers doing or receiving.

What it does do is remind you, the GM, not to set a concrete and expected resolution for conflicts into your head ahead of time. In other words, don't railroad outcomes ("when they kill the goblins, they will find the letter ..."), but rather permit outcomes really resolve conflicts. The Pool works best when every dice roll reveals characters' value systems and changes the immediate situation for good.

In other words, all the concerns about shared narration in The Pool are a tempest in a teapot; it just formalizes what's happening in most role-playing already. What the game really offers is, "resolve real conflicts and don't waste time."

So your next question ought to be, conflict about what? Easy.

1. Setting. Whatever it is, it needs to jazz the players and yourself up. Dim and dank rusty fantasy? Gleaming chrome? Whatever. Start with the basics and Color it up.

#1 needs to be (a) well-established prior to player-character creation but also (b) open to additions and inspirations that occur during that process.

2. Characters (NPCs) - they're doin' stuff and up to stuff, and they care greatly about their relatives, financial opportunities, reputations, secrets, lies, and romantic entanglements. Make up a bunch of them and prepare to glory in their depiction, and how they latch onto the player-characters.

#2 should be prepped fairly well before player-character creation, but be ready to revise it before play if necessary, depending on what the characters are like (one of them might make a prepped NPC redundant, for instance).

3. Situation: Bring everything so far to a crisis point, in whatever way makes most sense. It might depend on the nature of the player-characters (say a player takes "long lost heir" as a trait, e.g.), or it might depend on some aspect of the setting that you like ("the sun is flickering out!"). And yeah, I mean a crisis, not "goblins attack" or some shit.

#3 should begin as you consider the characters and extend into the first session.

See? Same old stuff, mostly, but with an emphasis on getting to the point, playing hard, like a real killer GM, but focused instead on providing meaty conflict to resolve and fun opportunities to contribute, with no wasted time.

Best,
Ron

Ben: Perhaps "success" was the wrong word to use. What I mean is, when the player rolls and gets a "success" then he can narrate what happens in alignment with his stated intent and in relation to whatever trait he used when rolling. Thus, "A weakness for gambling." could bring about negative (ie complications) to the story even though the player "succeeded" in the roll depending the players intent in rolling.

Ron: Thanks for the advice. I certainly can do all that. What about Relationship Maps? I keep hearing about them but as I said, I've never seen one or used one. How useful are they? Is there one somewhere I could examine?

Andrew

Gaerik,

Yeah, #2 is the way the text is actually written. (Now, anyway. The Pool has gone through many revisions.) I'm running my current (so far, one session) Pool game with the #2 method. I have used the #1 method in the past, and it works really good too. You just have to be consistent once you pick one.

WRT your other question, I suggest that the Pool is not entirely devoid of gamist-facilitating mechanics. Each player's dice represent his ability to exert control on the game. Skillfull manipulation (i.e., hoarding and spending) of the dice gives an arena for Step On Up - not in the sense of "he who has the most dice wins" but in the sense of "who can exert the most control over the story?"

We play this way quite a bit, with the additional friendly layer that we're always trying to outdo each other in terms of wowing the rest of the group with the coolest narration. In simple Narrativist terms, this means that the guy who comes up with a really cool dramatic way to address the premise gets majopr props from everyone else. It's not really supported by the mechanics, but it works well the other stuff that is supported by the mechanics.

Now, about prepping. The way to prep for the Pool is to have your players do most of the work. :) If you actually have a specific setting in mind, then have them mke characters for that setting. If you don't (which I usually don't, given that a lot of our Pool games are spontaneous pickup games) just ask them all what they're in the mood for.

You will eventually have to make a decision... okay *this* is what the setting will be like. Because everyone will have different ideas about what works with what, and, in general, setting creation will take all night if it's a democracy. (Try Universalis sometime, you'll see what I'm talking about. :)

It's important to have some idea of Setting before you start making characters, because the setting is the context in which the characters act - Situation is extremely important for Narrativist play.

When you do eventually make characters, it's OK if the players do it on their own. You don't have to hover over them every second. Let them do what they want. But, after they have made their characters, it's important to discuss with them. Especially if they haven't played the Pool before, you're going to want to help them adjust their characters. *NOT* to keep the characters balanced, or anything like that [1] but to make sure that the characters will be interesting and generate drama.

[1] Footnote: In my current game, one guy has the trait "Ultimate Cosmic Power," while another guy's only claim to fame is that he knows where something is. It doesn't matter. Both of these guys are potentially equally important, because both their players have the same ammount of dice. In the Pool, the dice measure the importance that the players assign to specific game elements.

Usually, I have each player come up with a kicker for his character to begin play. I don't count the kicker as part of the 50 word story. It's just a vector to home us in on interesting play. A kicker is some kind of conflict situation that demands immediate attention from the character. If the character can just walk away, or put it aside until later, it's not a kicker. This is probably where you'll need to exert the most influence over chargen... making sure that the players actually have urgent kickers.

Since the players are creating their own kickers, it's entirely probable that they will not have anything to do with each other. There usually is no "party" in the Pool. There can be, but more often there'll be a set of loosely related plot threads. In order to make this effective, you will need to use good scene framing technique. See this recent thread:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10776

I also encourage the players to use some of their traits as "Relationship" traits. Like "at odds with dad," or "looking for lost brother," "infatuated with Ron Edwards." (Haven't actually had that last one in a game. I keep watching for it, though. ;)

In the Questing Beast (which is sort of the Pool all grown up that costs money) every character gets a free "Animal Form" trait, which represents the character's anthropomorphic analogue. When I use TQB in a non-anthropomorphic setting, I tell everyone to use that free trait as a relationship trait.

An interesting side effect of relationship traits is that, especially if you play using #1, it allows you to make rolls and take MOVs in scenes where your character isn't actually present.

As far as NPCs and things go, don't invest too much effort in planing them out ahead of time. The players will be introducing their own NPCs and plot elements via MOVs. They may not like the NPCs that you've preplanned. The players will let you know what they consider important via the way they spend dice and narrate. You have to flow with that. If you've spent two hours writing a detailed background of an NPC that a character kills off in his first MOV, it's a good bet you're not going to be happy. So, don't spend two hours writing detailed NPC backgrounds. :)

Go with what the players do. Ask yourself what each NPC that appears might want, how far he might go to get it. Be carefull though... you don't want to plan too far ahead, because nothing actually happens until someone narrates it into the game. If you have it all planned out that an NPC is one of the PCs lost siblings, and then someone narrates a MOV that explains the NPC is the daughter of a god and a sea-urchin, you're out of luck. :) If you want something to be in the game, narrate it early, or just use meta-game discussion to explain to the players what you want.

Meta-game discussion is really important. You have to sound out the players, see if they're enjoying what's going on, see where they'd like to go, etc. Meta-game discussion is good for you to establish stuff outside of narration, as well. You can just say "I want this guy to be so-and-so's long lost brother," and they should abide by that. Mostly, I'm talking about social contract stuff, so it's important that you and your players go over this stuff ahead of time and know what to expect.

Hm. This is getting long. I'm sure there's more stuff you might find useful, but I don't want to innundate the thread. Let me know what you think of this stuff. :)

Chris: Thanks. All that helped a good deal and I'm actually feeling a little more relaxed about this game. It seems that it isn't too alien from what I've done before, at least mechanically. Does The Pool make a good multi-session (ie long running game) system? Also, have you or anyone else played the Anti-Pool variant and how does that work out?

Hi Andrew,

You wrote,

What about Relationship Maps? I keep hearing about them but as I said, I've never seen one or used one. How useful are they? Is there one somewhere I could examine?

Characters (NPCs) - they're doin' stuff and up to stuff, and they care greatly about their relatives, financial opportunities, reputations, secrets, lies, and romantic entanglements. Make up a bunch of them and prepare to glory in their depiction, and how they latch onto the player-characters.

I snuck the answer into my previous reply:

Characters (NPCs) - they're doin' stuff and up to stuff, and they care greatly about their relatives, financial opportunities, reputations, secrets, lies, and romantic entanglements. Make up a bunch of them and prepare to glory in their depiction, and how they latch onto the player-characters.

That's it! It is very, very useful to draw a chart of them focusing nearly exclusively on ties of sexual contact and kinship. (Trust me. I've seen all the usual kneejerk reactions about this. Just trust me, and leave information about who loves whom or who killed whom for the notes, not the chart.)

Hey Andrew,

I'm the REAL Chris. "Paganini" is Nathan Banks. ;)

I just want to emphasize the need for PCs to have traits that connect them in a visceral and emotionally engaging way to the game world (a.k.a. imaginary space). Relationships, goals, desires, real issues that will be meat for in-game conflict.

Not every trait has to be some obviously critical nexus for conflict. But if a player doesn't include at least one such trait I'd definitely discuss the matter with them and determine how to include such a trait that fits within their character concept.

-Chris

Its been mentioned above already...

Make sure everyone is on the same page conserning what type of genre expectations /setting you are playing in.

Doing this will help head off unhappiness in MOV narration between players.

'Western' is common example used... now some folks are thinking "Unforgiven", others are thinking "Lone Ranger", and others maybe "Blazing Saddles"... but probably none of the will enjoy the others Movs diverging from their expectations.

These are great replies. It's got me thinking about something. What is the limit in scope to what a player can narrate in his MoV? Let's say we've set the scene in an Inn where the characters are talking to some of the locals and during the conversation they learn that the Baron is a real evil nasty person. Can a player say, "Hey, I wanna kill the Baron! It ties into my 'Wants to destroy evil' trait. Lemme roll dem bones!" He succeeds in his roll and Narrates running over the 3 miles to the Castle, sneaking past all the guards and whacking the Baron.

It wouls seem to me in this case that the player went way outside the original scope of the scene there. Is this okay or should intent and MoV stay within the scope of the scene as framed?

Scope of the scene! That's what scenes are for.

And remember, the GM is still a GM in The Pool. You do have authority over what rolls can be about.

Jaws drop left and right. "But isn't The Pool all about maximum player wild-naked freedom??"

No. It's not. I don't know how that rumor got started unless it was the whole "roll determines narration, narration is wide-open" variant that somehow gets promulgated. That's why I was so careful to ask about that first.

The GM is still the GM. Frame scenes, call for rolls, judge when players' calls for rolls are valid, establish (and this is important) the scope of the action and the scope of success/fail effects prior to the roll. That last bit is where The Pool can break down, because it's only functional at the level of the Social Contract. Make sure you're working with a good one.

Best,
Ron

Ron,

Gotcha! I can go with that. I'll give everyone a synopsis of the session when it is over. We play on Sunday afternoon.