JEFF: I really like how innocent and kind you are making Pete, Mona.
STEVE: It’s excruciating.
JEFF: We’ve established that Pete’s a wonderful guy and that I hate my son-in-law. I love it! So is it positive or negative for Pete?
JOEL: I’d say negative overall.
MONA: For sure. Defending Stephen Caney? That doesn’t bode well.
They take a black die from the pool and give it to Mona. Since it is still Act One, she can’t keep it and sets it in front of Joel.
JOEL: Thanks. I was hoping for nothing but white dice for my drug-dealing cretin tonight. Oh, well! Anyway, Jeff, you’re up.
JEFF: Could my scene just continue the one you started?
MONA: I don’t see why not. Is that legal, Steve?
STEVE: Sure! Do you want to literally keep rolling, or would you like us to change things up so you can Resolve?
JEFF: The latter, I think. Surprise me.
They begin the fourth scene, which sees all four characters interact in Royall’s. Since its Dr. Futrelle in the spotlight, Joel has Stephen Caney force Joy to approach her father and apologize for their fight earlier, demonstrating the humiliating and scary hold he has over her. Jeff takes a black die, almost gets the nerve to confront Stephen Caney, and backs down. He gives the die to Joel, whose scene is next.
Two more crazy scenes are played out – some half-assed gunplay, and a comedy of errors involving Joy, the El Salvadoran gangsters and Pete Branch’s Ford Escort– until it is Mona’s turn again.
MONA: I don’t actually have anything in mind, so I’ll Resolve. Set me up, guys.
STEVE: A scene for Pete Branch.
JOEL: I’ve got an idea. Let’s have Joy make her first move at Sunday school.
STEVE: OK by me. Are you cool with that, Mona?
MONA: Definitely, since I get to decide whether Pete falls for it or not.
STEVE: So it’s a flashback to a few days before everything started getting really crazy. Shady Grove is a Baptist church, up on a hill, picture perfect. There’s a little rec room for Sunday school and all morning Joy’s been brushing up against him, making meaningful eye contact, that sort of thing.
JEFF: She’s looking good, too − a little too good for Sunday. She smells nice.
MONA: The last kid has just been picked up. It’s just the two of them, tidying up, a moment Pete’s been dreading.
Mona and Steve play out the scene in character.
MONA: Glad you’re here, Joy. An extra set of hands helps a lot with the Hudspeth twins.
STEVE: Oh, I know it! It was fun, though. Like old times. Remember youth group?
MONA: Oh, man, those were the days.
STEVE: We had a lot of fun, didn’t we, Pete?
MONA: We sure did.
STEVE: I miss those good times.
MONA: Well, you’re a married lady now, you’ve got certain responsibilities. You can’t go running off to the swimming hole whenever you please.
STEVE: No, I sure can’t. I sure can’t.
MONA: Aw, Joy, you look so glum! Stephen’s a nice fella. You’re lucky.
STEVE: Am I?
MONA: Sure you are. I mean, look at me. What do I have to show for myself? Nothing.
STEVE: That’s not true. You’re still a good man, a decent man, Pete.
Steve grins.
STEVE: OK, Joy sidles up and touches his face. She looks in his eyes and gets really close.
Mona grins and picks up a black die, choosing for her character, Pete, to fail.
Pete can feel her warmth, smell her perfume − the same perfume she wore in high school.
MONA: And he turns away and grabs a broom, beet red and flustered. And she follows him, backs him into a corner.
STEVE: Pete, I’m so lonely.
MONA: And against his better judgment, against every instinct, he kisses her. Then he runs away.
JOEL: I’m so happy right now. This is all going to end in a terrible tragedy.
MONA: Oh yes.
Mona and Steve share a high-five. Mona gives Jeff the black die to go with the white die he already has in front of him.
STEVE: We’re down to the final die before the Tilt, and Jeff, it’s all yours.
JEFF: I want to Establish! Here’s the deal, if it’s OK with you, Joel.
JOEL: Bring it.
JEFF: Stephen Caney has a garbage bag full of fentanyl patches and a bullet wound in his calf. It’s swollen and his shoe is full of blood and he can barely walk.
STEVE: Joy is still God knows where.
JOEL: Cool. So he’s going to pay his father-in-law a visit.
JEFF: Stephen Caney wants to find out just how far he can push the old man − he wants his leg patched up, but more than that, he wants the man subordinate to him − a quavering minion, at least for the moment. He shows up at the Futrelle’s upscale home late at night, filthy, bleeding, and carrying a pump shotgun.
JOEL: Fantastic. We’re Resolving, too. You’re so hosed, Jeff...
Joel and Jeff drop into character.
JEFF: Where is my daughter?
JOEL: I’m hurt bad.
JEFF: Where the hell is Joy?
JOEL: She’s fine and I’ll take you to her, but you gotta stitch up my leg first.
JEFF: What’s in the bag?
JOEL: Fentanyl patches, loads of ‘em.
JEFF: My God, you are the worst scum I have ever met.
JOEL: Well likewise and so forth. Now get the bullet out of my fucking leg.
JEFF: OK, Dr. Futrelle clears off the kitchen table and gets to work.
STEVE: It’s a clean wound and the bullet comes out easily.
JOEL: While Futrelle is disinfecting it and putting on a bandage, Stephen Caney is ripping open a patch and slapping it on his shoulder. Then he points the shotgun at Futrelle and says, get your keys and your ATM card, old man, we’re going to find Joy.
JEFF: I thought you knew where she was?
JOEL: Well, I got a good idea anyway.
JEFF: I’m not going anywhere with you, son.
Mona, Joel and Steve exchange some furtive glances and Steve reaches for a die − a black die. It’s a good call, and everybody nods in agreement. Joel and Jeff look at the die and take their cue to play out a failure for Dr. Futrelle.
JOEL: Maybe you ain’t and maybe you are. Maybe you’ll stand up and be a man and I’ll find your little girl all by myself and just take her someplace far away. Maybe without you and her Momma and all the nice people at Peace Haven church she’ll fall into some kind of disrepute. Maybe the fact that you just aided and abetted a known felon will come back to cause some kind of problem, who knows? I sure don’t. And he hands the doctor the shotgun.
JEFF: Dr. Futrelle’s brave front collapses, he gives in, his head hung low, and the two of them roar off into the night in his big white SUV.
Steve hands the die to Jeff, who can’t keep it − he gives it back to Steve.
STEVE: Man, if you’d decided to Resolve, I totally wanted to have Stephen Caney show up at the hospital while Doc Futrelle was on duty. That’d be a different set-up entirely. That was great, though!
JEFF: Ugh, I hate your guy so much, Joel!
JOEL: Thanks, I think.
The Tilt
See the rules for adding complications between acts in the Tilt chapter.
STEVE: Half the dice are gone. What dice do you all have? I’ve got one white and one black. Dang.
JOEL: Three black. Thanks for screwing up my white die dominance plan, you guys.
MONA: You asked for it. I’ve got a single white die.
JEFF: One black and one white.
Everybody rolls their dice. Steve rolls a six and a one, for a total of five black. Joel rolls a measly total of four black. Mona rolls her white die and gets a one. Jeff rolls a pair of sixes, one black and one white, for a grand total of zero.
JOEL: What just happened?
STEVE: You and I get to decide the Tilt, Mona.
JOEL: I rolled three black dice! How could I lose?
MONA: Sucks to be you.
STEVE: All right, we get to decide what Tilt Elements to introduce in Act Two.
The eight unused dice, rolled after The Setup, show 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 6. Their colors don’t matter for calculating the Tilt.
JEFF: What’s it going to be, you two?
Mona looks at the Tilt table.
MONA: Can I go first?
STEVE: Absolutely.
MONA: I want something from Paranoia. That seems appropriate.
Mona puts forward the five.
STEVE: OK, I’ll use a six for Failure. And something specific from the Paranoia list. I like “A sudden reversal”, so that’s a four.
MONA: Excellent...
Mona looks at the Failure sub-list.
...I’m leaning toward either “A good plan comes unraveled” or “A stupid plan, executed to perfection.”
JEFF AND JOEL: Stupid plan! Stupid plan!
MONA: Tell me how you really feel, guys! OK, a stupid plan it is.
Mona takes a 1 die, and she and Steve write up two new index cards with the complications on them: “Paranoia − sudden reversal” and” failure − stupid plan”.
STEVE: Cool new Elements, guys. Remember that these are community property, and we can all think about how they could be incorporated into the story. OK, we’re done with Act One. Let’s take a break! Who wants a root beer?
They all relax − stretch, get snacks, use the restroom and talk about the game. When everyone is ready, Act Two begins with the dice from Act One still in place – Joel has three black, Mona has one white, and both Steve and Jeff have one die of each color.
Act Two
See the rules in the Act Two chapter.
So far eight of the sixteen dice have been allocated. Act Two plays out in the same fashion as Act One, with scenes in rotation, and a die allocated after the conclusion of each. Unlike in Act One, players keep the outcome dice throughout Act Two.
The unfolding disaster escalates as Pete Branch tries to defend Joy from a gang of hardened narcotrafficantes and Stephen Caney and Dr. Futrelle try to enlist the help of the sleepy local sheriff. Eventually, Mona grabs the final die, declares it a failure (the final die always being wild), and Act Two ends with a bang as Stephen Caney’s shotgun goes off.
MONA: Hooray! What a train wreck. In a good way.
The Aftermath
See the rules in the Aftermath chapter.
STEVE: OK, you know what time it is. What dice do we have? I’m looking at two white and two black.
JOEL: Three black and two white.
JEFF: Two and two.
MONA: Two white and one black.
STEVE: All right then − what we need to do now is roll our dice and add them up by color, subtracting one total from the other. You don’t want to get zero. I’m looking at you, Jeff.
JEFF: Why don’t I want zero again? Because I’m… going to get zero.
STEVE: Zero is the worst possible outcome. A high number in black or white is a good outcome. A happy ending. That’s why you don’t want the same number of dice in each color.
MONA: Uh oh.
They roll, adding each color and then subtracting the low total from the high total. Steve rolls a three and a two on white and a six and two on black, for a total of five white and eight black; his end result is three black. After rolling, they consult the Aftermath table.
STEVE: Three black. “Harsh” − that’s about right.
JOEL: Two black. Ouch. “Brutal.”
JEFF: Unbelievable. Dead even again. Holy crap, what’s the worst thing in the universe to Dr. Futrelle?
JOEL: Going to jail for killing his son-in-law maybe?
MONA: Huh, look at that, two white threes and a one black − five white. Miserable and humiliated but not too bad, makes sense. So Pete’s going to skate out of this mess, minus his good name. Who would have figured?
STEVE: Looks like we’re hip-deep in the Aftermath. Ready for the montage?
JEFF AND MONA: Yes!
JOEL: OK, we know what to do.
Jeff takes one of his four dice.
JEFF: This is Dr. Futrelle, his eyes closed, shooting Stephen Caney in the back with the shotgun.
JOEL: That was quick.
Mona takes one of her three dice.
MONA: This is Pete emptying the till at the pharmacy into a duffel bag.
The players continue picking up dice and narrating.
STEVE: Nice! This is Joy nervously smoking a cigarette, waiting for Pete in the car.
JOEL: This is Stephen Caney writhing in a pool of his own blood, struggling to breathe and mouthing the word “why?”
JEFF: Flash-forward, This is Dr. Futrelle in a courtroom, nodding his head as a judge berates him.
MONA: This is Pete in the darkened pharmacy, calling the police.
STEVE: This is Joy in handcuffs, spread out on the hood of her car, with a detective talking with Pete.
MONA: I really need more dice.
JOEL: Have some of mine.
MONA: Is that legal?
STEVE: Go for it.
MONA: This is Pete retrieving the duffel bag from the dumpster the next day.
JOEL: Awesome.
JEFF: This is Dr. Futrelle, in prison, learning that his daughter was sentenced to five years for a drug-related robbery.
STEVE: This is Joy, in a bare knuckle brawl in the prison rec yard.
MONA: And this is Pete Branch back at his old job at Royall’s, like nothing had happened. He’s changed though; he’s got a dark aspect about him. He’s a bad man now − everybody in town knows what happened, even if the law never caught up with him. He’s sort of a pariah.
STEVE: Cry me a river.
MONA: Holy cow. Yep, I think that’s a wrap, guys!
JEFF: I love these people. Good game.
Designer’s Notes
I’m gonna buy a set of Lexus convertibles in every color.
Troy Barlow, Three Kings
Thanks for playing Fiasco. I hope you really enjoy it, and that you’ll share your misbegotten capers with me − I’d love to hear from you!
Part of Fiasco’s design process was to think pretty hard about GM-less play, the role of authority at the table, and how to communicate procedures in a clear and effective way that leads to great play. Some of these ruminations didn’t have a place in the rules, but I wanted to share them anyway.
A role-playing game is a social activity that employs a weird and volatile mix of creativity, cooperation, and competition. Some games handle this stuff by clearly dividing authority − the usual model is a bunch of people reacting to the schemes of one guy in charge of creating the situation and providing the adversity. As far as I’m concerned the guy in charge has all the fun, so in Fiasco the authority is evenly divided, and everyone is making stuff up and putting pressure on their friend’s characters all the time. For some people this is a very friendly and natural arrangement, but for others it might seem a little crazy. Here’s some advice if you find yourself in the crazy camp:
Authority means both freedom and responsibility − you’re free to invent new people, places, and situations, but you have the responsibility to listen to your friends and make them look good. If there’s any real competition in Fiasco, it is the competition to offer the most interesting, satisfying stuff for other people to work with. Usually, the most entertaining elements are the ones that cause the most trouble. If you listen carefully, you’ll probably hear your friends tell you what the perfect complications will be for their characters. The choices they make as you set up the game, the sorts of scenes they choose, and their actions at the table are all flags they are waving, telling you where to apply pressure and offer them difficult choices. I can’t stress enough how important it is to listen.
While you have wide-open authority to introduce plot twists and new characters, you don’t need to endlessly introduce new stuff. In fact, don’t! Once the g
eneral outline of the game has emerged, it’s much better to build on what’s already been established. Return to and amplify things that have already been touched on and your game will get very intense. If you’re ever unsure how to proceed, there are a couple of tricks I use all the time. The first is to review previous scenes and see if there’s something fascinating that happened that could be reincorporated, maybe in new ways. The second is to glance at the Relationships and Details in play, and match up a couple that have not been used together. The third − heartily recommended and more or less in constant use when I play − is to throw up your hands and ask for suggestions. Chances are good that somebody has seen an interesting way forward that you would never have thought of.
Of course it’s important to check in with your friends and make sure everybody is on board with your ideas − seek consensus and work together to craft the most engaging and exciting story you can. You’ll want to be on the same page when it comes to issues like character ownership (can I say that your guy does something? Can I “make” him do something if I choose to succeed in a conflict?) and framing scenes (Can I jump in with a good idea? Can I introduce something that totally changes the plot?). Wherever you and your friends want to come down on these issues is fine, as long as you are in agreement.
One last note about this style of play − Fiasco (and all games without a GM, really) benefits from a facilitator. If one player has a firm grasp on the rules, let them be a procedural resource during play. They’ve probably got a good handle on how the game should be paced, so let them move things along or encourage folks to linger over a particularly juicy scene as appropriate. A facilitator doesn’t get any extra authority, but they can be very helpful in nudging the game in the right direction. This tends to emerge naturally, but there’s nothing wrong with calling it out in advance.
Thanks again!
Jason
[email protected]
Filmography
There are a zillion films that are inspirational for Fiasco. Here are 54 of my favorites.
Fiasco Page 8
