Hi all,

I'm thinking of running the Pool (first time) with a small group, however, because of the nature of the game, I'm a little baffled about prep. It probably doesn't help that I am thinking of a "Brotherhood of the Wolf" scenario either.

I want a horror/fantasy/noir investigation tone; you know, the good old beast hunts man thing. The characters enter a village that is being stalked by some unknown monster, everyday villagers go missing, despite the curfew.

So, I think it’s pretty cool that the Pool’s not good for railroading plots but instead takes a “throw toys in the sandbox” approach and lets the players develop the story.

How is this exactly accomplished though? Do I make a page of relationship maps and a list of ambiguous clues? (e.g. the mayor had blood on his shoes).

Do you think going by a heap of “random objects/people” the players will make a good story out of it and solve the mystery?

How have you prepped for a game like the Pool?

Hello,

My first and most straightforward answer is that you should prepare a simple but exciting situation for player-characters to encounter. The key is not to improvise the back-story, but to prepare it. If there's been a murder, then you, the GM, know who did it. If there was a war with goblins 100 years ago, you say so; if there wasn't, then you say so. The Pool is actually much more traditional in its preparation requirements than many people initially thought. It's easy to get distracted by the player-narration of conflicts' outcomes and become wrongly fearful that they might interfere with back-story content.

Anyway, my point is that preparing for the Pool requires some solid work from you in terms of immediate setting, your non-player characters who are currently embroiled in something tense and colorful, and opportunities for the player-characters to take action. In other words, what's going on. I recommend that you not prepare in terms of ordered scenes and a planned climax, because they don't work well with this game - in other words, don't prepare what's going to happen after the first couple of scenes of play.

Here some threads which might help. Although a lot of the discussion is more concerned with conflicts and dice, there's a fair amount of stuff about preparation as well.

[The Pool] Dragons and Jasmine (this one contains a number of older links too)
[The Pool] A very satisfying first attempt
[The Pool] Stagefright and questions (a lot like your questions)
Silent railroading and the intersection of scenario prep and player authorship (a big thread, but there's some Pool-specific talk that's relevant to your questions)

I know that's a lot of reading for what is, when all's said, a pretty simple question and answer. There are some really good points in there, though, so I recommend it.

Best, Ron

Thanks for the reply,

I’ve got some reading to do; thanks for the links. Perhaps I should read them first but a few initial responses:

If there's been a murder, then you, the GM, know who did it.

Hi Latreya,

I think you'll find the "Silent railroading" thread most relevant to your questions. This is what I was talking about for the difference between what's going on (who killed the guy) vs. what happens (what we do about it). I guess the best way to put it is that authority over how he tells me the truth is not the same thing as authority over what the truth is.

A lot of people think The Pool is like InSpectres, in which players make suggestions about what's going on via the actions and investigations of their characters, and if successful, they actually invent "the mystery" and its solution into existence through play. To repeat: The Pool is not like InSpectres in this way. "Player power" in The Pool does not include co-GMing regarding what is happening external to the characters, in terms of the larger scale of prep. It does have a lot of potential to make things move and change, but it doesn't have any power to alter where things start.

I was thinking about this thread some more and decided to change the way I would approach this conversation.

Latreya, please describe for me exactly how you prepared for the last game you GMed. It'd be good to know what game it was, how well it went, or anything like that, but I'd really like to focus on exactly what information and what planning went into it.

Given that, I know I can help make prepping for The Pool coherent for you.

Best, Ron

And what if a player gets a MOV and says “I pressure NPC X to confess to the murders”, when I had NPC Y in mind for the murderer?

I wrote a bit about my own prep for The Pool. As it's a large bit, I posted in in a seperate thread. Here it is.

- Frank

Hi all,

Sorry about the belated reply – I’ve got no internet at the moment and am relying on works (yay!)

I’m only half way through one of the links you gave me Ron, and haven’t got to yours yet Frank. Bare with me, I’m going to be slow.

Wolfen, I get your gist, but I probably gave a poor analogy. I meant to say; what if the players really do find the “real” (to them anyway) murderer when I have done all this prep. It’s still o.k. I guess but what’s the use in elaborate prepping then?

Anyway, about prep. I haven’t gamed all that much, last time was a few years back when I ran a few sessions of Heroquest. I prep like so; Firstly I look at the character sheets and mix and match a few abilities – I find a scenario can virtually write itself this way. Then I think of genre/tone; romance, intrigue, swashbuckler etc. (usually based on players character types), then I steal, steal, steal plots from other published adventures/tv shows/film etc. I think up 2 or 3 scenarios for the characters. I try to connect them, though sometimes they remain isolated. I make sure they have a “hook” that involves the characters. Sometimes I do a Boolean storyline eg. If/then (this is probably what you, Ron, are telling me not to do for the Pool), other times not. Then it’s a matter of presenting the players with these various scenarios/potential plots that are going on around their current locale and see what they want to do.

We were all adults and had a lot of fun in the few sessions we played, but I think if I am going to peak their interest again I will have to move away from the mythical Glorantha and the HQ fairly crunchy rules system. Flavour-wise my crew will prefer a little more darkness, mystery, perhaps even erotica (I’m thinking femme fatales). And system-wise I think the Pool could be easier, lighter, and hopefully more fun.

I’ve got some time now, so I’m going back to your threads.

- Latreya.

Hi Latreya,

I’ve been a terrible correspondent for you, and I apologize. This topic is important to me and I hope the slow pace of the discussion hasn’t killed it for you.

I’d like to jump in on your question to Lance (Wolfen), although that doesn’t mean I don’t want Lance to answer too. You wrote,

I meant to say; what if the players really do find the “real” (to them anyway) murderer when I have done all this prep. It’s still o.k. I guess but what’s the use in elaborate prepping then?

Anyway, about prep. I haven’t gamed all that much, last time was a few years back when I ran a few sessions of Heroquest. I prep like so; Firstly I look at the character sheets and mix and match a few abilities – I find a scenario can virtually write itself this way. Then I think of genre/tone; romance, intrigue, swashbuckler etc. (usually based on players character types), then I steal, steal, steal plots from other published adventures/tv shows/film etc. I think up 2 or 3 scenarios for the characters. I try to connect them, though sometimes they remain isolated. I make sure they have a “hook” that involves the characters. Sometimes I do a Boolean storyline eg. If/then (this is probably what you, Ron, are telling me not to do for the Pool), other times not. Then it’s a matter of presenting the players with these various scenarios/potential plots that are going on around their current locale and see what they want to do.

I’ll add that The Pool and its children are not particularly well-suited for very investigative adventures. In my experience, they work much more smoothly when you give the players a lot of informations early on and without conflict, so the interesting part isn’t “what happened” but “what do we do about it”.

- Frank

Frank wrote:
I’ll add that The Pool and its children are not particularly well-suited for very investigative adventures. In my experience, they work much more smoothly when you give the players a lot of informations early on and without conflict, so the interesting part isn’t “what happened” but “what do we do about it”.

Well, then maybe it's just me because I tend to find investigation boring anyway.

- Frank

Hi all,

Late again, sorry…

So there are lots of things here. I think first it would be better to define what a MOV means before thinking about prep – which is what we are doing. Going through those threads (man, what a head trip!) I get two distinct impressions:

• The GM has precepts before the game about players narration powers; “Don’t make up clues”, “you can’t kill this guy” etc.

and the more usual method:

• In the words of Ron: “the player’s narration cannot affect what you have prepared. It does not “create truth” in the game… It is important for everyone playing The Pool to understand this – a Monologue of Victory does not make the player into a temporary collaborator in preparing the back-story.

I’m starting to get a grip on number 2 and think perhaps I am needlessly worrying. I think I really need to just dive in and play the game, and see what happens.

Interestingly, with The Pool it is very easy that the players develop unexpected relationships with the NPCs, which may introduce really interesting possibilities and weird decisions when the players discover the facts and who were really those NPCs.

P.S. Frank:

Well, then maybe it's just me because I tend to find investigation boring anyway.

Aren't you running a game in the Potterverse? Fair bit of investigation going on in that thar setting! :-)

- Latreya

I think Harry Potter stories contain a bit of investigation, but they are not about investigtion. Therefore, in a role-playing adaption, investigation is pretty unimportant, at least when I'm running it. It's just a device to make sure the characters get the information they need, and then comes the interesting part: What do they do about it? But I don't want to derail.

- Frank

Hi Latreya,

First, your easy question. You wrote,

So do you always use settings that already exists?

Latreya,

I meant to say; what if the players really do find the “real” (to them anyway) murderer when I have done all this prep. It’s still o.k. I guess but what’s the use in elaborate prepping then?

Hi Latreya.

About the "what if they say that someone is the killer": the real problem is when they want to _create proof_ that someone is the killer, or when they think that they can designate someone as the killer in a game where they really don't have content (backstory) authority. It can be difficult to explain to players not used to have any authority in game the difference between narrating what happen during a conflict (and afterwards) and creating what happened before.It's something they always saw as something done by a GM and whey get that kind of "power" they think that it's always the same thing, "narrating what you want".

Explaining all the theory behind isn't always the best solution (and if you have to do it at the table, it never is...). It's better to explain the difference in a simple and direct way, tailored to the people at the table. This is the way I do it, as an example:

I make an example, using a dinner knife. And I say than, in a story, a dinner knife isn't always the same thing. I explain that, when you do a monologue of victory (or, in another game, you narrate an outcome) I can "create" a dinner knife to use as a prop.  If I win a conflict about killing someone in his home, I can say that I take a knife from the kitchen ad do it with it (but I could have used any other object in the house). If I win a conflict about framing someone with a crime, I can narrate that I, take a peculiar dinner knife from his home, and use it to commit a crime (but I could have narrated framing him in any other way). In any of these situation the dinner knife is a scenic prop.  But let's say I want to narrate that I find a dinner knife that was used for a crime and I want to say that that knife has over it the fingerprints of a specific character. In this case, that knife isn't a scenic prop, is object very important in the story, a turning point in the plot.  And I can't create it from thin air.

I specify that nor them, nor their character, has any "superpower" of creating dinner knives from thin air. It's not physics. It's narration. It doesn't  follow the laws of physics, it follow the rules of fiction. And they can create every scene props they want, but they can't create "the murder weapon with fingerprints over it". Any other knife in the scene yes, but not that one.

This is only an example, it worked for me and for the players I used it.  You should create a clear example that work for you and your players and make them understand that difference.

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. I guess I had some confusion generated by the rules: You can even focus on less direct elements of the conflict such as what’s happening in the next room or who’s entering the scene, but the guidelines make it clear: Keep your narration in synch with the established facts and tone of the game.

I'm a pretty casual gamer and haven't read a lot of "Forge philosophy" yet, so I'm going to delve into the deep water and check out some of those articles and posts. It looks like a good place to start for a clearer idea on how to prep and run the game.

- Latreya

Hi Latreya,

That post indicates to me that you are most of way! Many thanks for your patience. I think The Pool is one of the most important RPGs written since the 1970s, so I'm excited that you've been willing to talk it over here.

Best, Ron