Ludoverse Lab: The Pool by James V. West, Part 2

We wrapped up our sessions with The Pool with three returning players and one new addition. To watch the video of our session (with post-game debrief, click here.

We were able to get a taste of how the game’s advancement system works. In brief, after playing a session, the players get an additional 15 words that they can add to their character descriptions (or, if they want, they can bank those words to deploy them later). They also get 9 points in their “pool” which they can use in turn to add points to their bonus traits. As with all matters, the approach is streamlined and elegant.

This week, we were joined by Linnea, who is the creative director of a video game design company living in Sweden. It didn’t take long to get her up and running with the game. The fact that everything is grounded in those character descriptions made it easy for her to get quickly oriented.

This is, to say the least, a group that attacks the game from an array of perspectives. You have a college undergraduate majoring in English and psychology, a college professor specializing in philosophy and ethics, a high school government teacher, and me (a high school English teacher).

I decided this week to “go Memento” on the players by starting things off with the scene that would chronologically END our narrative and then work our way backward in time. The streamlined system of The Pool hummed with this approach. The trick is for the GM to begin by describing a scene that is happening in medias res and to weave in abundant specific details from the previous session and the character descriptions. But the special sauce is to leave things open. You don’t have to explain everything that’s going on: That’s for the game play to determine. You can also allow the players to insert the characters into the scene as they see fit.

I could explain things, but really the better course of action is to direct you to 6:45 of the video. There, you’ll see me framing things up and letting the mayhem rip. Role-playing games are best experienced from the players’ side, but even as an observer, you will quickly pick up on the energy and creativity that The Pool and this kind of hard scene framing generate. With one session under the belt, the players quickly lean into their character traits, and the resolution system works hand-in-hand with the weaving of the narrative tapestry.

As a GM, I felt like my main role was to keep the spotlight moving around. After establishing the crazy setting, my job is quite easy and loads of fun. I add a detail to the scene, ask one character what they are going to do, resolve a conflict, and then move onto another character. The elegant system gives the players just enough to work with, and the swinginess of the dice rolls adds to the fun.

I’d again point out how the failures end up inciting more creativity from both the players and the GM. This week, we see the players sometimes failing and opting to deliver a Monologue of Defeat instead of grabbing another die for their pool. And they are also much more quick and eager to take the reins when they are delivering their Monologues of Victory.

I was also happy to see characters volunteering dice from their pools to help their companions. One stipulation I made is that they had to explain what their character was doing to offer assistance within the fiction, and this became another way of moving the spotlight around and of enhancing the descriptive richness of the narrative.

If you have never tried running a role-playing game in reverse order, I urge you to try it out. The approach will allow your session to take off from the opening moment, and it will also challenge the creative thought process of your players. It also forces the mind to think about narrative organization in a more intense and deliberate manner. When you start to step back in time, everyone at the table has to think about how they are going to get the new scene to END where the previously played scene BEGAN. This gives the players and GM a focused objective to chew on as they consider their decisions since they need the action to move toward a determinate end point (which is also a beginning point).

We end the session with some reflections on the game and our experiences. The Pool remains a vibrant gem in 2020, and I encourage educators to study it. Weighing in at only 4-pages, it is like the superfruit of rpgs. I don’t think you could find a game that provides more bang in such a small package. You will find it readily adaptable to varied classroom contexts, and if you are looking for an easy way to introduce a group to role-playing games, The Pool is a perfect place to dive in.

Introducing the Ludoverse Lab: The Pool by James V. West

I’m excited to introduce the inaugural “broadcast” of the Ludoverse Lab.

The core purpose of this project is to experiment with innovative role-playing games with an eye towards education. Beneath that general goal are nested a constellation of exciting possibilities:

• I hope this series contributes to the general conversation about gamification and game-based learning in the classroom.
• I’m openly inviting other educators—regardless of prior experience—to join in either as participants or as observer-commentators.
• I’d like to hone my own skills as a “role-playing gamer” and a teacher through these experiments, and I hope those who join me are similarly sharpened. I would argue that much of the rpg skill set is transferable to teaching.
• I want to analyze game systems and actual play from multiple perspectives.
• Finally, I want this experience to be fun and generally enriching for all involved.

A few comments about this opening experiment in the Ludoverse Lab.

We are playing James V. West’s The Pool, which came out in 2001. Though many today are unfamiliar with the title, one would be hard-pressed to find a game that has exerted more influence with such a short set of rules.

And the influence continues. It is now so deeply ingrained in the DNA of today’s role-playing games that I suspect some designers use its ideas without even realizing the progeny. Just last week, I was introduced to Alien: The Role-Playing Game, and the impact of The Pool was there, though unstated.  In under four pages, West managed to crystallize a number of key ideas about character-based narratives, conflict resolution, player-facing authority, intentional dialogue at the table . . . . I could go on, but so much of what I would say has been more masterfully handled by Ron Edwards in his essay “Understanding The Pool.” I highly recommend that you go there for a deep dive into the game from both a historical and an analytical perspective. You can also look at an earlier piece I wrote for Ludoverse last year.

The Pool does not define a setting or a genre, so, as a GM, it is critical to focus the players by providing them with a skeleton setting. Appropriately enough, I opted for a fictitious modern-day educational institution, which I named Palmer Eldritch High School (credits to Philip K Dick) set in the Appalachian foothills of western Virginia. I provided these additional details to let the tone sink in:

• Mascot: The Luna Moths
• Motto: “Dreaming of tomorrow.”
• School Colors: Blood Orange and Reddish Green (the latter being one of the so-called “impossible colors”)

Our players consisted of a university philosophy professor, a high school government teacher, and an undergraduate student interested in education and psychology. So I had a good mix of disciplines and levels of education represented.

I won’t bog you down with details of the game play itself. The video has been edited, and I’m impressed by the tightness and creativity that the group brought to the table. I invite you to watch it by clicking this link.

I did introduce a few twists to the rules, some of which are derived from the so-called anti-Pool variants. Here’s a summary of the changes which I provided to the group in advance:

1. Character creation. Before the first session, write a 50-word character sketch, following the rules of The Pool. The 50 words should detail your characters' talents, profession, quirks, weaknesses, skills, personality traits, special objects, a signature item, relationships, etc.—anything you imagine as being important or interesting to play with in the game. This sketch provides the traits for the player's character sheet, and the 50 word limit is firm--so you have to be efficient!

Give your character a name and a “kicker” or goal. These are for free--they don’t count towards the 50-word limit. The kicker or goal should be something that sets your character in motion: It should be something specific and concrete. Examples of kickers: Your character enters the parking lot and finds that her new car has been sabotaged (tires slashed, sugar water in the gas tank, etc.). Or your character hopes to gain a college scholarship by leading the basketball team to the district championship.

2. Traits and Bonuses. Follow the rules of The Pool. In brief, you pull traits from your character sketch. You may list a trait with no bonus attached (leaving it available for later advancement). You start with 15 points. To assign a Bonus, spend dice from your starting Pool. The cost is the Bonus times itself. Thus, a +2 would cost 4 dice and a +3 would cost 9 dice and so on. It is very important to leave some dice in your Pool--at least 3 or 4.

3. Casting the Dice. Follow the rules of The Pool with these important modifications:
On a successful roll (i.e. at least one of your dice came up a “1”), you LOSE any dice you gambled from your pool, but you GAIN a Monologue of Victory! Rolling multiple 1s will add to the impact of your success.

On a loss (i.e you rolled no 1s) you get your gambled pool dice back, and you get a choice. You may either ADD an additional die to your pool or you may GAIN a Monologue of Defeat [Note: The Monologue of Defeat must stay true to the fact that you failed your dice roll.]
Other players may contribute dice from their pools to your effort if they can explain how their character is contributing to the action in the fiction. The total number of pool dice gambled cannot exceed 9.

4. Success and Failure. These follow the basic rules of The Pool save the reversal regarding the loss and gain of pool dice (see above). Note the stipulation that multiple 1s magnify the degree of success. Note also that the GM may interpret a failure as a short term success but accompanied by nasty side effects. For example, you fail your roll to climb over the fence. The GM might allow your character to make it over, but notes that your character lands hard on the other side and thinks they might have sprained their ankle. Oh . . . and there’s a guard dog that heard them when they crashed to the ground.

5. Continuing the Story. These follow the rules of The Pool, but you may deduct any previous points invested in a trait to raise that trait. In other words, a +3 costs 9 points. But if that trait is currently at a +2, you have already spent 4 points to get the trait to that level. So now it will only cost you 5 additional points to raise it to a +3. Note also the rule that you may add or increase bonuses to traits at any point.

6. At Death’s Door. Should circumstances require it, we will follow the rules of The Pool.

There are many instructive elements of our game that deserve particular note:

After sending them the skeleton setting, I gave the players the 50-word character sketch as a pre-game homework assignment, and this included the requirement providing me with a “kicker” or goal. Some might prefer to accomplish these tasks through a conversation at the table, but my mind likes to chew over what the players are signalling me in advance of the opening session. I’m better able to weave their kickers and traits into the opening scenes when I have the time to reflect. The value of this strategy is apparent in the scenes we work through.

Also deserving of study are the moments of victory and failure that occur throughout the session.

With my variant, when a player achieves success on a roll, they get a Monologue of Victory. You will see the players initially surprised by the narrative power that this gives them, but once they wrap their head around the concept, it sparks tremendous creativity and enthusiasm. They realize that they can, within reasonable limits, dictate where the fiction goes, and they obviously are jazzed that they were able to throw something back at me, the GM, which I would run with.

The moments of failure are also instructive. The players hesitated to use my “Monologue of Defeat” variant in favor of adding a die to their pool. But even so, the failures resulted in some creative and unpredictable swerves in the narrative. As a GM (and as a teacher), it is important to view failures as opportunities to move things forward in creative and exciting ways. This doesn’t mean treating failures as though they are successes. But it does mean considering failures as swerves that might lead the story into new, unplanned paths. In retrospect, sometimes these trails can lead to some of the most memorable and fulfilling moments of the session.

One notable highlight is how the players are quickly leaning into their traits and abilities. This perhaps is not surprising given the fact that all of these elements derive from the character sketches that they players wrote. Designers, GMs, and players should take note of the psychological investment (and improved game play) that this type of character creation element generates.

The video ends with some of our reflections on how The Pool might be put to use in the classroom. I’ll have more to say about this in a later post, and I invite anyone interested to offer their thoughts.

The group was enthusiastic about this inaugural experiment, so we will be moving on to a second session with the game. So expect a second installment of the Ludoverse Lab as we take another dive into The Pool.

And if you want to join in on an upcoming lab, drop me a note. I’m looking forward to taking others on the ride.