Nerd Alert: Fiasco Review

Winner of many independent RPG awards, so hipster nerds love it.

I am going to nerd out here a little bit and introduce you to a fine new purchase I made recently: Fiasco, an RPG published by Bully Pulpit Games, and created by Jason Morningstar.

RPG, for the uninitiated, means roleplaying game. As in a game where you take on the role of a character, and play as them. Roleplaying game! The most well known RPG in history is unquestionably Dungeons and Dragons, but this game really isn't anything like that. There are no battles, no monsters, no complex dungeons to adventure through.

Instead, Fiasco is based on small-time caper films like Fargo, The Ladykillers, and Small Time Crooks. The game falls into a few sections. First, the 3-5 players roll some dice, and die by die determine their relationships to each other. Once that is settled, the players take away dice and act out scenes until no more dice remain, and an aftermath of their disastrous situation is resolved.

A big part of the fun is that during each scene that is acted out, the players who aren't in the scene determine whether the scene goes positively or negatively for a player by giving them a white (for positive resolutions) or a black (for negative resolutions) die part way through the scene. So things never quite go the way you plan for them to.

We didn't have enough black dice, so we had two groups:
"Whites Only", and "Coloured". Didn't think that one through.

So that's the stuff you would need to know. Sounds pretty nerdy, right? Well, what's really cool, is that I've found how amazing the game is as a storytelling tool. Take the way the relationships are established:

Through tables provided in the Fiasco handbook, and with the dice your players have rolled, you determine your relationships together. These each fall into two sections- Relationships ie. how you know each other, and Details ie. a shared Location, Object, or Need. Basically you roll a bunch of dice, and based off of the numbers that come up, one by one you pick a die to correspond with a detail on the tables. Easy.

You share these traits with the person to your right, and to your left. And that's what makes it so interesting.

So you aren't rolling up and determining your own character; you are discovering your relationship to two other people. And they, in turn, are also getting relationships with the two people next to them. Thus, a five person game is going to start to have a deeply-weaved web of intriguing characters.

Our story centered around a store much like this one...

A game I recently played broke down like this:

A.J. and Ricky shared a crime relationship together, which was determined to be centered around a small drug trade. I played the naive cousin of Ricky, the small-time crime lord the suburbs, and we worked together at the Tile Hut in the mall (which turned out to be a front for his drug game). To my left was Robin, and it was determined that we were a recent couple.
Then we found out that A.J. and Robin's relationship was that of a dark past: a drunk driver and next of kin of victim. The four of us talked it out, and determined that A.J. had killed Robin's sister who had been getting into the drug game with A.J..
One of the final details was determined that though Robin and I were a new couple we shared a need together to get rich through ripping off drug lords. Soon our story was becoming clear: somehow I would have to use my contact with Ricky to get into the drug game and either provide vengeance for Robin by getting even with her sister's killer, or somehow screw both the drug guys out of lots of money.

But that was just me. Every other player also had their own different motivations and special interests. It keeps the story moving as their is always some situation that needs resolving and the action never stagnates.

I highly recommend it to RPG players everywhere, but as an improv coach, I have to say it is an amazing tool for just telling stories in general. If you are in any sort of creative medium and want to hone your craft, it's at the very least worth a play-through. It's fun, it's simple, and it's social, so grab a group of friends, plop down $25 for the book (or $12 for a pdf version) and play a game. You won't be disappointed.

Revisiting Predictions

This is a repost of my entry on September 5th. Looks like prediction number one is good. I can't wait for number two. I wouldn't be surprised if we get some quotes tonight of pundits and maybe even politicians throwing Romney under the bus. I'll update with those quotes if they happen. Interesting to see my (and I presume others) mindset going from the convention to the debates. Lots more changes happened than I anticipated, but ultimately, it looks as though my electoral college prediction will still be right.



Predictions for the 2012 US Election



The Democratic National Convention is going on right now, and we are just two months away from election day. So what better way to make things go by faster than by throwing out some predictions!

1) Barack Obama will win a second term as President of the United States.

Not the boldest prediction at this point, but it seems pretty reasonable. Even if Mitt Romney gets Florida and Ohio, he will still have quite a long way to go, and I just don't see the campaigns trending that way.  The Republican National Convention didn't give him a huge boost, so really all Romney has left are the debates to win over undecided voters. But the debates look to be a place where Romney will be confronted head on by issues that he has been able to hide from behind a timid media.

2) Once Mitt Romney loses, the right wing media will throw him under the bus.

Do you remember how harshly the right wing media came down on Justice John Roberts when he was the tie-breaking vote for the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care for America Act? They are not a forgiving bunch. And it's my feeling that if Romney loses you will see a movement even further to the right.

All the defences they've put up to protect him and push him forward will come crumbling down. Do you recall during the primaries how reluctant they were to embrace him? The voters too, yes, but the media played a big role in that as well. Everyone else was getting their chance to be the anti-Romney candidate in 2011. Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich (twice), Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Herman Cain.

Look at this graph from Media Matters:

The left side coincides with his official announcement to run for president. Follow that link (or this one) and you'll see that everyone got their chance on Fox News to audition for the chance to be the nominee. And they all rose up, and then fell back down, one after another. And finally it was Herman Cain's sexual harassment scandal that they had had enough. It was clear no one else was going to take it from Romney, and it was like the changed overnight, defending him from attacks from far more conservative nominees because he actually had the most realistic chance of challenging President Obama.

That allegiance, once the election is over (and thus there is no more use for him), will come crashing down, and Romney will be hung out to dry as "not conservative enough."All the defences they have for him now will turn into attacks on why he actually wasn't the right candidate. They will "discover" that Romney actually wasn't the hardcore conservative he said he was, and now if they just find that guy (or girl) then they'll have a real shot for 2016.

3) The Republican Party will shift further to the right.

George W. Bush, love him or hate him, is conspicuously absent from the campaign trail. And good for him, saying he wants to "stay out of the spotlight." Since leaving office, he has remained silent on President Obama's policies for the most part, made an appearance on Oprah, and has enjoyed retirement. He even found time to combat AIDS in Africa.

But what is the real reason George W. Bush is not around? Is it because he is an easy target for blame for the recession? Partly, but I think it is mainly because George W. Bush is no longer a hardcore conservative to the current Republic (Tea) Party. Government did not get smaller under Bush, it got bigger. He proposed immigration reform that was supported by Democrats, but not by his own party. And look at No Child Left Behind. Bush worked with the Democrats to create the act which actually increased education spending nationwide. This kind of talk is absolutely unheard of in today's GOP.

So we will come to whole new 8-year cycle in 2016, and I believe the party will shift even further to the right. Will poster-boy Paul Ryan take the helm? He is a tea-party favourite, but being tied to a losing candidate for President could hurt his image, and he might not do well against Joe Biden in the debates. Jeb Bush? Or someone new? The field is going to be wide open. You won't see all of these big name candidates declining to run for personal reasons like Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie. It is going to be every man for himself, and you are going to see some very different ideologies come forward as the Republican Party tries to shape itself into a modern conservative movement.

Regardless of who the next nominee is, if you hated the endless primary season this time around, you are going to absolutely loathe it next time.



Let me know what you guys think in the comments below. Am I way off? Do you see something different? I'd love you hear all of your opinions!