Fiasco Friday – Sharing Cool Stuff

“You want to find an outlaw, hire an outlaw.  You want to find a Dunkin’ Donuts, call a cop.”
- Leonard Smalls, Raising Arizona

Take a collection of individuals connected in the most tenuous of ways, throw in something that they want, concoct an ill-conceived plan, then toss in some unfortunate circumstances.  Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.  The resulting brew is a Coen brothers movie.  Or a game of Fiasco.

This is not your father’s rpg.

Fiasco is the new role-playing game from Jason Morningstar of Bully Pulpit Games.  If you’re a veteran of one of the more mainstream rpg’s like Dungeons & Dragons or World of Darkness, then Fiasco is probably nothing like anything you’ve ever played before.  Like those games, it does use dice.  A whole pile of them.  That is probably the biggest thing Fiasco has in common with its more mainstream brethren.  One of the biggest differences is the lack of a GM (game master).  Unlike most traditional rpg’s, there is no mechanic for conflict resolution.  Characters are not collections of numbers representative of traits.  There are no skill checks.  There isn’t even a combat mechanic.  All players take turns establishing and resolving scenes, while the narrative direction emerges as a result of the players’ choices.  Fiasco is a Structured Freeform game.  Very few of the details of a Fiasco game are determined prior to gathering for play.  Characters are developed cooperatively at the gaming table.  There is no advance preparation needed before the gaming session begins and the game only lasts a single session.  An average session takes about 3 hours or slightly less.  These last points make the game even more attractive to me, as they are a better fit for the hectic pace of my life right now.

Putting the structure in a freeform game…

“I’ve been to prison once, I’ve been married – twice. I was once drafted by Lyndon Johnson and had to live in shit-ass Mexico for 21/2 years for no reason. I’ve had my eye socket punched in, a kidney taken out and I got a bone-chip in my ankle that’s never gonna heal. I’ve seen some pretty shitty situations in my life, but nothing has ever sucked more ass than this!”
- Willie, Bad Santa

Players begin by choosing or creating a playset for the evening’s session.  A playset is a modular structure that plugs into the extremely simple rules of Fiasco and gives the barebones of a sample setting, along with some charts for the determination of character and situational details.  After the playset is chosen, the players roll a bunch of dice into the central pile and choose dice from the pile to represent details like relationships, needs, locations and objects.  I love that players can set details about other players’ characters, causing players to have to come up with personal details about characters on the fly from circumstances not necessarily of their design.

After the details are mapped out, play begins with Act One.  Each act consists of a series of scenes determined by each player in turn.  Players can choose to establish or resolve a scene, but not both.  So, if you set the scene for your character, the rest of the players get to determine if the outcome for your character is positive or negative.  Or you can elect to have the other players set the scene, allowing you to choose a positive or negative outcome from whatever fucked up set of circumstances your fellow players throw at you.  Oh yeah, and the rules contain profanity.  A lot of profanity.  If you’re playing the game, you’ve probably seen your share of Coen brothers (or similar) movies anyway, so you’ll survive.  But your character may not.

“Not easy to do. Many reasons. Practical ones. Quiet neighborhood, sleepy town. Reasons of moral repugnance. A harmless woman, a deed conceived and executed in cold blood. Oh, no, Gawain, would that it were simple.”
- Professor G.H. Dorr, Ladykillers

After Act One, when half of the dice in the central pile have been used, we come to the Tilt.  The Tilt, ladies and gentlemen, is where the shit hits the fan, the goose gets cooked, and the horse wanders out through the open barn doors.  The players with the highest dice totals after Act One get to use the dice to determine the complications that are introduced during the Tilt.  There are many possibilities, from “Death, out of the blue” to “A stupid plan, executed to perfection” and everything in between.

Once the monkey wrenches have been thrown into the mechanism, Act Two begins.  Act Two proceeds much like Act One, with only slightly different consequences for positive and negative outcomes in each scene.  Act Two ends when all the dice in the central pile are gone.  The game is concluded with the Aftermath.  In the Aftermath, players use their dice to determine the resolution for their character, each narrating a brief scene or montage based on the dice they possess.

“If you ever carried out your proposed threat you would experience such a shitstorm of consequences my friend your empty little head would be spinning faster than the wheels of your Schwinn bicycle back there.”
- Osbourne Cox, Burn After Reading

It’s a great deal!

The PDF of the game rules is available for download at places like RPGNow for only $10.  The playsets that I mentioned before?  There are a metric shit ton of them available, both on the Bully Pulpit website and RPGNow.  Best of all?  They’re free!  Also, the layout of the game’s ruleset is perfect.  Everything is easy to find, easy to understand, and visually appropriate, not to mention attractive.

As I said earlier, the differences between Fiasco and more traditional rpg’s are many.  For this reason, along with how freakin’ fun this game looks, the appeal of the genre, and the brevity of the format, I think that Fiasco is perfect for people who may be new to role-playing games.  With the right crowd, Fiasco could be the ultimate party game.  My wife (not a gamer) even suggested that it seems natural to watch a genre appropriate movie after the session is over.

“So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day.”
- Marge Gunderson, Fargo

My suggestion to you is this: Grab a copy of Fiasco ASAP.  Then get some friends together and play.  You won’t be sorry.  And if you live in or near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, drop me a comment and let me know if you’re interested in playing.

If you’ve played Fiasco, hit me up with a comment and let me know what you think.  If you haven’t played it yet, fix that.  And then let me know what you think.

Oh, and by the way… In case you were wondering, I didn’t receive any compensation or anything to write this glowing little review of this game and I’m not affiliated with the makers of the game in any way.  I just like sharing cool shit.