[The Pool]
Frank Tarcikowski:
Well, then maybe it's just me because I tend to find investigation boring anyway.
- Frank
Latreya Sena:
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.
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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.
You see, I like that.
Regarding your setting question Ron, it’s a very good point. I haven’t given it a lot of thought thus far, but you’re right, players can’t be expected to flesh out characters without a basic setting.
So do you always use settings that already exists?
And another question on the side: Are there any good books/resources that really help you develop stories for RPG’s? As I said I use my own method, a bit like this: Genre/tone -> Basic plot themes -> PC’s Traits -> Scenario.
But I’m sure someone out there has thought of a more methodical and effective approach. Most RPG’s have a brief part about creating your own adventures but I wonder is there a book entirely dedicated to it? I guess the themes and tones of a particular setting lead to different types of stories but there does seem to be recurring genres and plot themes in storytelling so an overall view of it wouldn’t be out of the question.
- Latreya
Latreya Sena:
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
Frank Tarcikowski:
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
Ron Edwards:
Hi Latreya,
First, your easy question. You wrote,
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So do you always use settings that already exists?
For me personally, regarding The Pool, almost never. My Dragons & Jasmine game used a fantasy setting, but it was not a fixed and known setting in terms of sources. I was inspired mainly by the works of Lord Dunsany, but did not make any attempt to present or frame it in his terms. The role of dragons in the setting was as far as I know original on my part.
Others have used canonical settings with great success. My favorite example is Paul Czege's game of The Pool, which used the setting from a game that we both liked but had not played, called Sun & Storm. That thread can be found in the early discussions here.
The author of The Pool also wrote The Questing Beast, which uses a fairly drastic modification of the rules with an Arthurian setting, using anthropomorphic animal characters. It's very, very good, but I do think the rules differences are so important that a person should not try to learn the two systems at the same time.
Now for your hard question. I have dedicated perhaps twenty years to an active project to understand how stories may be created via role-playing. It began with an admission on my part that creating a story through play cannot be done by preparing the story first and "running the players through it." That's like making a cake together by presenting everyone with an already-finished or almost-finished cake. Relatively recently, I've used the terms Story Before vs. Story Now to distinguish the two concepts.
I wrote a series of essays to deal with this, and the topic necessarily expanded to cover all the various goals in role-playing, based on some great work done by others. You can find them in the Articles section linked at the top right of this webpage. However, you should understand that these essays are not a textbook for newcomers; they're milestones during the course of a multi-person dialogue and were addressed to the people who were already involved. Regardless, as far as I know, they represent the most developed discussion of "story" in role-playing to date.
If you want to check them out, then the best plan is to start at the end, with the essay called The Provisional Glossary, and reading only the first two pages with the diagram. There are only seven jargon terms to learn. The rest of that essay is not really important in comparison.
There are some other very good, recent works on role-playing, but as far as I can tell they are devoted mainly to the medium in general, and do not address story-creation so much as (to use my terms) SIS-creation.
Best, Ron
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