Details are always explicitly tied with Relationships – if there’s a mink farm, it’s a mink farm connected to the preacher and his secretary or the two cops on the take, not an individual character. It’s perfectly acceptable to lay down a Relationship between two other players if it’s still undefined. It’s also totally OK to add a Detail to one of your own Relationships.
As you rotate around taking turns adding information, eventually you’ll have two index cards per player, and every index card will have two dice on top of it – one for its general Category, and one for its specific Element. The only rules are:
One Relationship between each pair of neighboring players at the table.
One Detail attached to each Relationship.
At least one Need, one Location, and one Object.
The last remaining die is wild, and can be any number.
The first rule ensures you have a circle of interrelated characters. The second rule ensures that everybody has a connection to something cool and colorful (chances are you’ll do this anyway). The third rule ensures that you have something to motivate misbehavior, and interesting things to misbehave with and around. The last rule ensures that the final die is actually fun to use.
You’ll have precisely one Relationship between each pair of neighboring players (so one with the friend on your right and one with your friend on the left), and one Detail latched onto each Relationship. You must have at least one Object, Need, and Location. In a four or five player game, you’ll have more Details – I suggest a second Need for four players, and then a second Location or Object for five. Once you’ve played a few times, feel free to ignore this advice. A five-player game with three Needs could be pretty fun.
As you build up the web of Relationships, talk about what you see and where it’s heading. If you begin to flesh out the situation as it develops, that’s fantastic – but don’t think too hard about characters at this point. You should start to get a strong sense of inter-connectedness and see points of friction and potential mayhem. The Setup is pretty entertaining in its own right!
Once all the bits are in place, you should have a clear fiasco in the making. Somebody wants something they don’t have, at a minimum. That’s a good place to start. For more information about Needs, Objects, and Locations, and why they are cool, see the Details section. For an example of this in play, see the replay.
Create characters attached to those Relationships and Details.
At this point you have a big pile of intermingled Relationships, a dangerous obsession or two and some tasty places and things to wrap them around. At some point you might cry out “of course! I’m the librarian who is selling dope to the Board of Aldermen!”, but it’s also possible that your character remains amorphous. Now is the time to get it into focus, because leaving things to be fleshed out in play weakens them. Work as a team − everybody needs to define who they are, based on their particular pair of Relationships, and quite often these will be unequal, freighted by differences in power and status. It may make more sense for you to be the drug dealer, rather than the guy who also has to be the preacher – but maybe not!
Once you’ve firmed up the situation and everyone agrees it is solid, you are ready to play! You should have a pair of Relationships shared with the players on your right and left, some interesting Details associated with some of the Relationships, and a character that has emerged from the web of information you’ve generated as a group.
Give your character a name! It’s helpful to write this on an index card, folded like a tent in front of you for everyone to see. Feel free to use the Relationship cards to add notes, names, and other information you want to keep track of.
Put all the dice back into a central pile.
This is the last thing you do before starting Act One. Clear off those cards and dump all the dice back into the center – number, facing and order don’t matter. You’ll be grabbing dice throughout the game, so keep them within easy reach.
Things to Look For
A burglar broke in intending to loot the place, uh, repented, became despondent over his lifestyle and shot himself.
Freddy Bender, Intolerable Cruelty
Characters
As you engineer the fiasco, talk about what sort of people your characters might be, why they are in the Relationships they find themselves in, why the Details are important, and what’s going on. Just don’t pre-play the game or get fixated on a particular character too early. You don’t have complete control over who your character ends up being, and you’ll be defining him based on Relationships and Details that won’t be fully fleshed out until near the end of the Setup. So don’t think too hard about who your guy is just yet – concentrate on choosing interesting and perhaps challenging Elements as you put the fiasco together. Once all the glorious pieces are in place, then you’ll have a chance to build up a great character. So cool it at first and see what happens.
Here’s an important point − your guy may not be in trouble. The game’s central dilemma may not be about your character at all − maybe he’s a distant relative, or a do-gooder, or just collateral damage. If it turns out your guy isn’t in a jam as the game begins, focus on making the jam more intense until it touches him, too. Trust me, eventually it will.
Some Relationships are balanced and others are not. Some are very specific and some are amorphous. You may find yourself with a pair of oddly competing Relationships – this is strictly awesome! Feel free to interpret loosely if that helps. Many Relationships imply a power differential – con man and mark, for example – and it may be helpful to work out who is who based on the two characters’ other Relationships.
Situation
As you gradually build the game elements up, bits of situation will start to emerge – encourage this and go with it. You have unlimited freedom in interpreting the meaning and positioning of the Elements that are brought into the game. At a minimum you’ll need to sort out who is who if the Relationship is unequal, and some adjustment will probably be necessary to make all the Relationships mesh well. For example, if one character is the mayor, and he has a Relationship with his son-in-law, it makes sense for the son-in-law to in turn be in a Relationship with the mayor’s daughter – his wife. That said, just because two characters are co-workers doesn’t mean you can’t just decide they are also husband and wife as well − and the Chicken Hut can also be a meth lab. Adding Details will change things in surprising and cool ways – again, The Setup is a collaborative process so have fun and be flexible. When in doubt, make characters related!
Sometimes it might take some creative monkey-wrenching – in one game I had a guy who had a Relationship and Location that clearly demanded he be a high school student, but his other Relationship was “corrupt official and local big shot”. My teenager might make a very strange corrupt official, but in a small town the captain of the football team is definitely a local big shot…
Relationships and Details
True fiascos revolve around Details, which are expressly tied to Relationships – for example, (stay with me here; I’m sketching out an entire session) Val and I have characters with a Relationship as co-workers, and we share a Location − the Quik-Pik. My Quik-Pik manager and Glenn’s drunken kid have a Relationship as father and son, and we share an Object − a vintage car. Glenn’s drunk and Val’s Quik-Pik employee have a Relationship − lovers − and they share a Need − to get even with a rival. It’ll be our job to stitch the Details and Relationships into a fun and messed-up situation. Don’t make the mistake of locking a Detail very tightly to a single character − lock it to the Relationship instead!
See how that works? With a little imagination the example above becomes pretty interesting. I’ve got a hard-working dad who has rebuilt a muscle car with his son to keep him off the sauce, and the kid and his girlfriend (who works for me and steals booze right under my nose) are using it to try to beat her ex-boyfriend in illegal street races for pink slips – a pink slip Glenn’s charac
ter doesn’t have. So everything is cool as long as he keeps winning…
Needs
All I ever wanted was to measure up to my father.
Ed, L.A. Confidential
Needs stem from unmet desire. Somebody wants something (or someone) they do not have. The “wanter” might be one member of the Relationship, it might be both, or it might be a third person they both deeply care about. Regardless, both members of the Relationship stand to benefit or suffer equally. For a Need to really kick, both characters need to be heavily invested in it − possibly at cross purposes, but always invested. Obsessed, even! Is your guy’s Need to get respect from a family member by rescuing them from ruin? It’s perfectly acceptable for one half of the Relationship to be the family member in need of rescue. It’d also be fine to make the person on the brink of ruin external to the Relationship − maybe your two characters are parents out to save their child. The key is that if it all goes wrong, they both get dragged down.
Somebody needs to Need something problematic to have a genuine fiasco, but it’s important to note that not every Relationship needs a Need − in fact, the game is more fun if Needs are a little thin on the ground. Let some characters start the game removed from destructive motivation − maybe they will be a force for reason and good throughout the game, or maybe they will be caught up in the spiral of failure and destruction that will surely touch them at some point. Some questions to ask:
Is the Need capable of being the obsessive core of the Relationship?
Is the Need alive with possibility, both good and bad (but mostly bad)?
Is the Need producing nods of appreciation and excitement from your friends?
If the answer to each is a resounding yes, you’ve got a fun Need.
Locations
Well, here we are in a room with two manky hookers and a racist dwarf.
Ken, In Bruges
Locations should be metaphoric extensions of characters. These are places that serve as windows to the souls of the people associated with them, and you should return to them again and again. You can shape both the character and the place in partnership with the player you share a Relationship with. Does a married banker keep his mistress-secretary in a split-level duplex? That’s more than a building, that’s a way of life, and says a lot about their relationship. During the game, if you’re looking for a place to have a scene happen, scan around for existing Locations. If somebody cared enough to author the Chicken Hut out by the interstate, it ought to be a hub of in-game activity. Where else are you going to find an industrial fryer? Some questions to ask:
Is the Location capable of being absolutely central to the Relationship?
Is the Location able to backdrop lots of characters in different ways?
Is the Location sparking ideas for scenes before it hits the table?
If the answer to each is an enthusiastic yes, you’ve got a great Location.
Objects
Fifteen million dollars is not money. It’s a motive with a universal adapter on it.
Joe Sarno, The Way of the Gun
Objects also make statements about characters and will help drive play. Think of them as physical stand-ins for the Relationship to which they are tied. Do the frowsy laundromat attendant and her live-in boyfriend share some legal records? Maybe they are adoption papers, or maybe they are a bequest. Either way, those papers are going to show up in the first part and – count on it – probably result in somebody’s death by the end of the story. Don’t be afraid to introduce an Object tied to another Relationship into your scenes, further entangling your character in their lives. Some questions to ask:
Is the Object capable of being equally important to both sides of the Relationship?
Is the Object a clear magnet for trouble of various types?
Is the Object clearly going to have a life of its own, rather than being useless color?
If the answer to each is a fist-pumping yes, you’ve got a perfect Object.
Some Final Thoughts on Details
Bind Details together, and come back to them again and again. Once they’ve been defined one or the other should crop up in pretty much every scene. However innocuous a Detail seems, it should be a fountain of trouble – and often, the most mundane Details are the strongest choices. In one game we had a property deed – pretty boring stuff as Objects go, right? Turns out the whole game hinged on that deed, and two people died over it. Every character was connected in some way to it – a father and daughter both wanted it for their own reasons, a hapless ex-husband had it fair and square, and the deed was to the house the cute southern girl in love with the ex-husband rented.
On a related note, sometimes a Detail won’t gain much of a narrative foothold. That’s OK, let it go. As long as the game’s kicking, one weak Detail won’t hurt anything. In the same game with the property deed, the father and the cute southern girl shared a Need that was largely ignored from start to finish. No big deal, ultimately. That said, if tweaking a Detail a tiny bit will make it fit the game and come alive, don’t be shy – tweak away. If “To get the truth about what she did...” really ought to be “To get the truth about what he did...” well, just change it already.
You’re Good To Go
The Setup is over at this point – Act One awaits. Once you’ve finished The Setup, actual play is structured in two acts. These consist of scenes, which are the meat and potatoes of the game, so we’ll discuss how those work first before moving on to the over-arching structure. You’ll use the rules for scenes during the majority of the game.
Scenes
Scenes exist so we can ask and answer questions − sometimes directly, sometimes not. Each and every one should result in something cool and interesting happening. Your character’s stories will move forward based on the strange and tragic outcomes of your scenes.
The Basics
When it is your turn, your character is in the spotlight. Choose to Establish or Resolve the scene.
If you are Establishing, create a scene. If you are Resolving, ask your friends to create a scene for your character.
Begin the scene. At some point during the scene, determine the outcome.
If you Established, your friends will give you a white or black die signaling a positive or negative outcome for your character. If you chose to Resolve, you pick the die and the outcome.
If it is Act One, hand the die you are given back to another player. If it is Act Two, keep the die you choose.
Finish the scene, informed by the color choice.
How It Works
Look honey, I’m going to be working some strange hours over the next week or two, so don’t ask me what I’m doing because I don’t want to lie to you.
Terry Leather, The Bank Job
When it is your scene, your character is in the spotlight. Choose to Establish or Resolve.
When your turn rolls around, your first choice is which part of the scene you want to have control over – how it begins, or how it ends. You can Establish a scene or Resolve it, but not both!
If you are Establishing, create a scene.
If you choose to Establish the scene, you have the privilege of acting as director. Who is present? Do any Objects or Locations factor into it? Does it address a Need? When does it take place – is it a flashback, concurrent with other scenes we’ve already played, or at some other time? Establishing scenes is the most common and direct approach. Maybe you absolutely, positively, want to confront the Mexican gangster who is terrorizing your boyfriend. Awesome! Put your guy in the middle of the action, frame the scene, and play it out. Look at the cards on the table, consider the emerging story, and pull some elements together. Tap people to play side characters as needed, but be as economical as you can with stuff that wasn’t authored during the Setup – always use what you have unless you absolutely need to bring in something else. For an example of Establishing a scene with an obvious conflict, see the replay.
If you are Resolving, ask your friends to c
reate a scene for your character.
Your other option is to Resolve the scene. Maybe you want more control over your guy’s destiny. Maybe you are just out of ideas! Choosing to Resolve the scene means that you are putting the director’s responsibilities in the hands of your friends. It’s their job to make the scene about something you, as a player, want – or maybe don’t want. Rest assured they will surprise, delight, and horrify you. You can make suggestions, but the composition of the scene − who, what, where − is out of your hands. Asking to Resolve is a signal that you also want an obvious conflict. For an example of choosing to Resolve a scene, see the replay.
Begin the scene. At some point during the scene, determine the outcome.
Fiasco Page 2
