[The Pool]
Frank Tarcikowski:
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
Latreya Sena:
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.
Ron Edwards:
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,
Quote
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?
I think you might be missing the point that Lance and I are trying to make. Let me try a hypothetical example.
1. You have prepared a back-story in which an insane clown has killed somebody, let’s say, an ice-cream vendor. The clown is still free and seems to be innocent.
2. The player-characters question someone, let’s say a police officer, and given a winning roll, a player chooses to narrate the outcome. He says, “The officer tells me that a local homeless man murdered the guy!”
3. Nothing is changed by this narration. The homeless guy did not do it. The clown did. The player’s narration does not affect the back-story. It only affects what the police officer says! You continue to play the session based on these points.
4. In these circumstances, you may have to enrich your preparation. For instance, you might decide that the police officer was merely confused or had too much faith in an investigation that has gone poorly. Or, if this clown has terrible powers in your game, perhaps he hypnotized the officer.
My point is that the player’s narration cannot affect what you have prepared. It does not “create truth” in the game. It only describes what the officer says. 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.
It is often hard to describe the impact that a good Monologue of Victory can have on a session. If we are talking about what happens next, then the Monologue can be very important. In a game I played a long time ago, after a winning roll in a social conflict situation, a player narrated that a villain fell in love with her character. That is excellent. It means that I get to play the villain much more complex and fun way from that point on. Note that the player did not narrate that the villain was actually a good guy who was merely misunderstood.
Do you see the difference? To narrate that the villain falls in love, is to move forwards. To narrate that he was never a villain is to move backwards. The former is what the Monologue mechanics in The Pool are for, but not the latter.
To answer my question, you wrote,
Quote
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.
That helps me a little bit. It reminds me very much of how I prepared for Champions play. I even mapped out five-session plans for a given villain or scheme, what today would be called story arcs. I have several suggestions. I think we should talk about them one at a time.
My first suggestion concerns setting, which HeroQuest provides and The Pool does not. Your “firstly” step is only possible with some context provided by setting, or more generally, what have been called genre conventions. (They may or may not actually correspond to an existing genre in film or fiction.) I am referring not only to the visual and imagined physical qualities of a setting, but also to the seeds of engaging conflicts found in the circumstances there.
In HeroQuest, the setting is literally built to provide such circumstances. Put your finger onto any spot in Glorantha and you will encounter not only the scars of past metaphysical and military events, but the presence of powerfully-motivated persons and creatures who are still fighting one another in some way about those events.
As I’m sure you know, a group cannot play effectively when only one person, the GM, knows about and cares about those features of the setting. When you say “firstly,” you are already working with those features in mind. Therefore you need a new “firstly,” based specifically on setting.
You mentioned a Brotherhood of the Wolf type of scenario. That tells me a lot about the situation faced by player-characters, but not very much about the setting. Were you thinking of modeling the setting on the film as well?
Best, Ron
Frank Tarcikowski:
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
Arturo G.:
Quote from: Frank Tarcikowski on August 05, 2008, 02:04:40 AM
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”.
This really surprise me. I have tried The Pool with things similar to investigative scenarios. In terms of preparation it was very similar to any other kind of adventure. But you are mainly talking about the pace used to show the facts of the back-story. I would say the The Pool allows you as much control of it as any other game.
The only thing which is different is that the players will be adding behavior, fleshing the NPCs, even killing them before they really know the facts. But the back-story will be still there. You need to mix-up your preparation details with the new information introduced by the players to know what the NPCs could be thinking or doing now in the game, which is part of the fun for the master. But what they did, is not changing, and it will be revealed when it becomes appropriate. Following the player characters in their investigation is easy, linking their proposals and clues to the real facts dynamically.
The only thing that could not work is to include an assumption about what is good or bad, or an already preset morality choice in the back-story, expecting the players to react in a given way when they know what was going on.
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.
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