A while ago, my friend brought round a roleplaying game called Fiasco. She told me it was a story-telling game based on improvisation, which has got to be one of the worst words an introverted soul can hear. Making stuff up on the spot? No one to guide the plot but our imaginations and a few gentle cues?
The theme of Fiasco is dark and gritty, an underworld of crime and corruption that the players can take wherever they desire. Intended for 3-5 players, dice and card cues loosely guide players through an increasingly bizarre and dangerous series of scenes, where much is at stake…
For starters, once our character relationships, locations, objects and needs were set, we were free to drive the story wherever we wanted by taking it in turns to narrate scenes. Scenes can have good or bad outcomes – in our game, a bad outcome was my friend’s character actually dying, whereas another scene had a good outcome when two old friends reconnected.
To set the scene initially, my character Jack met with May in a park late at night. As my friend Anna and I were new to the game, our meeting was vague as we were exploring our roleplay dynamic (and just generally getting our confidence up!). We made some general comments about a “situation” that was unresolved, that I hadn’t liked what had happened during that incident, and I was also handed a paper crane as an offering from May, which apparently held great significance to me. The rest of the game was about finding out what the heck all of that actually meant. We flashed back to the past, realised that we were all one way or another wrapped up in the same crime, and that things had got way out of hand since then. Drugs had been stolen. A man had been killed.
(Cynthia is meeting with a man she knows wants to kill her at the swimming pool his son was murdered in)
Cynthia: I guess we’ll see this through. Come hell or high water.
Man: (Gestures to the pool) Well, we’ve got the water
Cynthia: And I’ll be sure to bring the hell (pulls out gun)
The hardest part was integrating our ‘object’ into the game – this is something decided early on that needs to somehow be crowbarred into the ploy. Our object was “100 feral cats”. Giggling over how we could have 100 feral cats feature quite literally, it ended up being used more creatively as the name of a new drug.
For those who don’t have the energy for long RPG campaigns, Fiasco offers a really light roleplay experience that was surprisingly relaxed and fun. It is a great stepping stone for those wanting to explore more complex roleplay games, without having to commit to multiple meet-ups – the whole thing is over within hours! Besides, if the session was a good one, you’ll be asking when you can next meet up for a game of Fiasco anyway.
