Adept Play
The Pool is a content-customizable game by James V. West, composed of several sequential versions, first presented in 2002, published by his company Random Order Creations.
It’s been a very full six months for reconnecting to the physical and social activities here in Norrköping. Getting to GothCon turned out to be too demanding, but otherwise, I participated in various ways at Närcon (spring), Lincon, a service/play event for Ukrainian kids, Närcon (summer), Augustifesten, and just now, Kulturnatten. Only some of it…
I’ve recently started my first game of The Pool with a few friends in a tabletop Discord. The setting we all decided on was very mystery focused, with a supernatural influence in the background, and source of many colourful descriptions from people I’ve described the game to. One of my players made a detective kind of character,…
We’re six sessions into the game first described in Bad doings in Bulwark, set in the fictional city of that name, continuing with the misadventures of (1) gangster widow and former cult member Gratitude and (2) and shaky, increasingly shady white-collar schnook Willy. Their troubles lie in the rising political star of one Amos Zag.…
We move on to the third and last species-specific story (or sequence or whatever you want to call it) for the Galactic Peace game, now concerning the Hive/Hivers. Jerry is of course revisiting his character from the initial story set during the peace conference, Hiver, and Helma is playing her new character Hiver, and Renee…
We finished our game of the Pool set in an alternate magical/fantasy Napoleonic era India/Afghanistan. We played 18 sessions. The final confrontation saw Brigadier General Jean-Jacqyes d’Espoir defy his superior (Lord Lumley, Albion’s Governor General of their Mountain Kingdom colony; also the husband of Espoir’s unrequited love interest) and attack Shah Durani, a diabolist and…
This game of The Pool began with the peace conference as presented at Galactic peace Pool, in which the player-characters were various aliens conceived by the players: the Avix, the Murkcap, and the Hive. That was four sessions. We decided to continue playing by focusing on each of those alien species to see what happened…
Jon made the mistake of musing online about playing The Pool with a Sin City, To Live and Die in L.A., Haven: City of Violence way, and like two predators spotting the straggler, Sam and I struck. Jon’s introductory sheet is attached, and so are our starting characters, created after reading it. As you’ll see…
So you can consider this a follow-up to my earlier post describing nuances in and action gaming with the Pool. I had the chance to try out my ideas with a couple of excellent players. The backdrop to the game was a “Demon Hunter” idea, set in contemporary times in my home city of Seattle. I…