The FIASCO game
Jan. 23rd, 2013 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasI said that the best part of my weekend was the FIASCO game.
FIASCO is a co-operative improv storytelling game, in which you collectively create a Coen Brothers/Guy Ritchie kind of story. A bunch of people who are nowhere near as smart as they think they are figure out some plan to get rich, or get revenge, or SOMETHING, and then everything goes wrong horribly and, ideally, hilariously. Think FARGO, LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, KISS KISS BANG BANG, or that sort of movie.
It is, of course, dependent on having the right group of players -- and William is a standup comic, and Andrea and Erin also do improv. They also brought their friend Andrew, I think his name was. But I could be getting that wrong. Heck, I might be getting "William", "Andrea", and/or "Erin" wrong, too. Because I was paying attention to the characters they were playing.
Our first step was to choose a "Playset". A "Playset" defines the genre you're playing in. It's a set of tables of characters, relationships, needs, objects, and locations -- once you have those set up, you have a better idea of where you are, who you are, and what's going to get things going.
We chose the Western Playset. And we began setting up.
We sat around the table, William, Andrew, me, Andrea, and Erin. You have a Relationship with the people on either side of you, and each Relationship has a Detail -- an Object, or a Location, or a Need.
First, here's what the dice and our choices gave us:
Andrew - Ian:
RELATIONSHIP: THE PAST
Bad Family blood
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- NEED: TO GET EVEN
... with this town and its small-minded inhabitants
Ian - Andrea:
RELATIONSHIP: COMMUNITY
Church Volunteer
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- LOCATION: ACROSS THE TRACKS
Town jail
Andrea - Erin:
RELATIONSHIP: THE PAST
Together back East
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- NEED: TO GET FREE
... of a family obligation
Erin - William:
RELATIONSHIP: FAMILY
Parent / Son- or daughter-in-law
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- OBJECT: INFORMATION
Contract with the Pinkerton Detective Agency
William - Andrew:
RELATIONSHIP: WORK
Tradesman / customer
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- OBJECT: UNTOWARD
Mortician's bag and a jug of acid
By the time we finished, we had the following:
Andrew: Edison Folson -- an apparently well-to-do gentleman from St Louis, who had to kill his wife before she found out just how badly he'd squandered her fortune. Although he and his brother hated each other, he still felt that his best plan was to go to Snake Hollow to find him -- played by:
Me: "Jack Cooper" (a fake name; actually Thomas Folson), a drunk wastrel, working as a gravedigger, and living in the town jail with his best -- and only -- friend,
Andrea: "Nettie", an older, and equally drunk, gravedigger, who also lives in the town jail, but, in the past, was once upon a time the nanny of:
Erin: Vicky Templeton (she had gone back to her maiden name), a well-to-do and potentially vicious woman who had followed her untrustworthy husband to the town, where she would find a man that she did not know was her father-in-law --
William: Dr Phineas T Fozzwazzle (a fake name), doctor, mortician, and snake oil salesman. Avaricious, slimy, absolutely amoral.
At this point, we would play ten scenes -- two for each character -- then add in two more complications, and play an additional ten scenes.
Andrew asked to have an additional scene something to set the mood, something that would have to happen at some point during the game. It wouldn't be the first thing to happen, but just something to get our brains going. We liked this concept. He explained that, at some point, he'd have a tradesman/client relationship with the mortician. Being the client of the mortician implied something about his metabolic state, so he described Vicky Templeton dragging Edison's bloody corpse into Dr Fozzazzle's mortuary...
And then the game started.
It was amazing. There were double-crosses, triple-crosses, betrayals, blackmail, killing friends, bribing enemies, and everything else you'd expect from a good crime caper involving incompetent criminals who are completely over their heads to start with, and sinking fast. We didn't feel compelled to use everything in the setup -- Jack and Edison never got around to needing to get even with the town, for instance.
I'm going to put the story in approximately chronological order, which isn't how we played it. Given that we knew that Edison was going to die at some point, we felt that we were going to play fast and lose with flashbacks.
We start with Dr Phineas T Fozzwazzle hawking his new Virility Potency Elixir, based on a combination of Indian knowledge and the most advanced medical science known to man! Edison Folson finds him, and explains that he needs poison, and quickly -- he needs to get back to St Louis before the end of the week, to kill his wife before she looks over the household accounts, and realizes that he's lost most of their money. At which point, of course, she'd divorce him, and leave him with nothing. If he kills her before then, however, there's enough money for him to buy that diamond mine that is a totally sure thing, and become rich. Even richer than he would have been had he not been in the process of losing the Templeton family fortune. Incidentally, one of Folson's prior attempts to get money was bounty hunting for One-Eared Frank, which would have netted him a cool $10,000 reward. He was as successful at that as he was at all his other money-making schemes. However. . . Fozzwazzle happens to notice that there's enough similarity with enough creative damage, Edison could pass for One-Eared Frank. . . Fozzwazzle provides Edison with a tincture of arsenic, which, unfortunately, looks EXACTLY like the Virility Potency Enhancer, and also like the nitroglycerin.
Unfortunately, Vicky looked at the books earlier than Edison thought she would, and followed him to Snake Hollow. She lets him know that he'd better start running now, because her family lawyers are now on his trail, and it's going to be bad for him. If he doesn't disappear, he's going to lose everything and be in prison for fraud. If he DOES disappear, well, he'll just lose everything. She's hoping he doesn't run, because she wants to see him crushed.
This changes Edison's plans ... he can't poison her back in St Louis, because she's here now. So Edison finds his brother and enlists him to kill his wife. Jack/Thomas, naturally, enlisted his best friend's help. (We're so literary! Two alcoholic gravediggers hired as incompetent assassins! It's totally Shakespeare!) Even though Jack still hasn't forgiven Edison for stealing the affections of Lucy back home, the prospect of "lots of money" is persuasive. However, he will need help: the whole "killing people" is really more Nettie's thing.
Jack wakes Nettie up and explains that his donkey-f*** of a brother has a job for them, which will get them money. Nettie wants to clarify if Edison actually f*** donkeys. Jack isn't sure, but, "dunno. MIGHT have done," which is good enough. Upon being told that the target was Vicky Templeton, Nettie explains to Jack and Edison the plan for how they are going to kill her. They are going to lure Vicky to the alley behind Fozzwazzle's office, where Nettie will be waiting to stab Vicky. Then they will drag the body to the graveyard, where Jack will have already dug a grave. But that it's VITALLY IMPORTANT that Edison NOT be armed, because they don't want to alarm Vicky. Edison and Jack both agree that this sounds like a fine plan. Edison clarifies that Jack did say that she had experience with this "killing people" thing. Nettie looks blank and confused, but agrees that, well, dunno, MIGHT have done.
Nettie then tracks Vicky down, and apprises her that her donkey-f*** of a husband wants to put her in, y'know, a hole. Vicky explains that he's ALREADY put her at least $50,000 in the hole if she can't get out of the idiotic contracts he's signed, but Nettie explains that she means an ACTUAL hole, in the ground. They agree that they ought to keep the plan much the same, but with the minor change of who gets killed. Nettie also explains that her husband f*** donkeys, which doesn't surprise Vicky much.
Vicky goes over to Fozzwazzle's place, and explains that she is aware that he was involved in a plan to poison her. But she doesn't take it personally, if he's willing to help hide a body. Fozzwazzle asks if he can keep it, and explains about the reward poster. Vicky agrees that that seems like a reasonable plan.
It's time. Jack is sent off to dig the grave... but he begins to get cold feet. When he's off on his own, it finally occurs to him that he actually doesn't know if he's going to get paid -- if this all works out, Edison doesn't actually have any REASON to pay him. He decides to go off to the person he knows who's best at getting paid: Dr Phineas T Fozzwazzle. He explains to Fozzwazzle that Edison is his brother, and finally gives the Doctor a name, which means that Fozzwazzle is finally aware that he's involved in a plan to kill his own son. This bothers him not at all, of course. Phineas assures Jack that he's totally covered, because, if Edison decides to stiff him, Jack can just blackmail him. Or, for that matter, just kill him, since Jack is Edison's next-of-kin, so if Vicky dies, Edison gets the money, then, if Edison dies, Jack gets the money. This makes Jack feel much, much better, and he goes back to the grave.
Edison manages to lure his wife into a dark alley next to the doctor's/mortician's office. He is not at all startled to find Nettie there with a knife, as they planned. He IS, however, startled to be stabbed to death, and Vicky drags his body into the morgue.
It was now halftime in the game: time for the Tilt. At the halfway point in the game, everyone takes a break, goes to the bathroom, grabs a drink and a snack and everything, everyone talks about how everything is going, and then two additional complications are added.
THE TILT:
COMPLICATION 1: FAILURE
Something precious is on fire
COMPLICATION 2: TRAGEDY
Death, out of the blue
We discuss this.
What do we have that is precious, to be on fire? Well, we have a corpse worth $10,000.
And death out of the blue? We come up with an idea for that, too...
So, the beginning of Act 2:
Edison's body is on the slab. Phineas is looking at the body, and the reward poster. He saws off one ear, and then grabs a bottle from behind himself, in order to disfigure the face with the acid scars. He laughs as he notices that he accidentally grabbed the bottle of Virility Enhancing Elixir, and picks up the bottle next to it.
The nitroglycerin blows the body, and much of the back of the shop, up. No, Phineas isn't the death out of the blue -- he crawls out of the rubble, uninjured, looking at the flames engulfing the shop, and the body that was SUPPOSED to be of One-Ear Frank. There goes his $10,000. If only he had another shot at that money -- someone else who looked like One-Ear Frank -- like a brother of Edison's who had a significant family resemblance to Edison, and therefore to Frank...
Nettie has gone back to the grave to talk to Jack. She's going to have to explain to him that the plan has changed, and that there was a small problem with their employer ending up dead. Jack's not as upset as she expected. He explains that that's no problem. With Edison dead, all they have to do is kill Vicky, and then the money goes to Edison, who's dead, and then to him, and then he'd share it to her. Oh, by the way -- Edison had implied that Jack and Nettie had been lovers at one point. Was that true? Nettie looks blank, and says that, dunno. MIGHT have done.
Well, anyway. Jack is going to get right on the whole killing Vicky thing. Nettie looks at her only friend and asks him to check out the grave, if it's good and done for them to put Vicky in. He looks, Nettie picks up the shovel, and Jack falls into the grave.
Some time later, a bloody and confused Jack digs himself out of the grave. He's not clear how he got there. But he's got a huge headache, and blood all over his head. Looking at his situation, he decides to go over to the doctor's office to get fixed up.
Jack explains to the doctor that somehow, he accidentally fell into a grave, and evidently hit his head. The doctor looks at the smoldering back of his office, and the destroyed corpse of Edison, and diagnoses Jack with a concussion. "You should go ahead and have a drink, and these pills, and then take a nap. Sleep is the great healer, after all!" Jack takes the advice, and, when he fails to die, Phineas walks up behind him with a garrote.
Finally, Dr Phineas finds Vicky, and explains that, well, he is actually her father-in-law. This gives him a claim on her fortune. They agree that she will pay him an allowance, and that he will go far away and never see her again.
It was now time for the Aftermath.
The results?
Edison: DREADFUL.
His montage: an unmarked grave out in the woods. And then, the diamond mine that he had a line on -- actually paying off.
Jack: BRUTAL.
His montage:
His father cutting his ear off and mutilating his face. His body being turned over to the Pinkertons. And finally -- his body being displayed in a travelling show as the body of the notorious criminal One-Eared Frank.
Phineas: FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC
His montage:
Opening a check from Vicky Templeton. One-Eared Frank showing up in the middle of the night, shaking his hand and thanking him for getting the Pinkertons off of his trail. His Virility Enhancement Elixir becoming popular and making him a very wealthy man.
Nettie, Vicky: AWESOME, FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC
Their montage:
Moving to St Louis together. Vicky negotiating with creditors, shaking hands, smiling. Looking at the surveyor's report for Edison's diamond mine, and smiling. Nettie looking in awe at the bar in the Templeton home, covered in actual GOOD booze -- high-quality scotch, brandy, rye, bourbon. . .
FIASCO is a co-operative improv storytelling game, in which you collectively create a Coen Brothers/Guy Ritchie kind of story. A bunch of people who are nowhere near as smart as they think they are figure out some plan to get rich, or get revenge, or SOMETHING, and then everything goes wrong horribly and, ideally, hilariously. Think FARGO, LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, KISS KISS BANG BANG, or that sort of movie.
It is, of course, dependent on having the right group of players -- and William is a standup comic, and Andrea and Erin also do improv. They also brought their friend Andrew, I think his name was. But I could be getting that wrong. Heck, I might be getting "William", "Andrea", and/or "Erin" wrong, too. Because I was paying attention to the characters they were playing.
Our first step was to choose a "Playset". A "Playset" defines the genre you're playing in. It's a set of tables of characters, relationships, needs, objects, and locations -- once you have those set up, you have a better idea of where you are, who you are, and what's going to get things going.
We chose the Western Playset. And we began setting up.
We sat around the table, William, Andrew, me, Andrea, and Erin. You have a Relationship with the people on either side of you, and each Relationship has a Detail -- an Object, or a Location, or a Need.
First, here's what the dice and our choices gave us:
Andrew - Ian:
RELATIONSHIP: THE PAST
Bad Family blood
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- NEED: TO GET EVEN
... with this town and its small-minded inhabitants
Ian - Andrea:
RELATIONSHIP: COMMUNITY
Church Volunteer
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- LOCATION: ACROSS THE TRACKS
Town jail
Andrea - Erin:
RELATIONSHIP: THE PAST
Together back East
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- NEED: TO GET FREE
... of a family obligation
Erin - William:
RELATIONSHIP: FAMILY
Parent / Son- or daughter-in-law
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- OBJECT: INFORMATION
Contract with the Pinkerton Detective Agency
William - Andrew:
RELATIONSHIP: WORK
Tradesman / customer
ASSOCIATED DETAIL -- OBJECT: UNTOWARD
Mortician's bag and a jug of acid
By the time we finished, we had the following:
Andrew: Edison Folson -- an apparently well-to-do gentleman from St Louis, who had to kill his wife before she found out just how badly he'd squandered her fortune. Although he and his brother hated each other, he still felt that his best plan was to go to Snake Hollow to find him -- played by:
Me: "Jack Cooper" (a fake name; actually Thomas Folson), a drunk wastrel, working as a gravedigger, and living in the town jail with his best -- and only -- friend,
Andrea: "Nettie", an older, and equally drunk, gravedigger, who also lives in the town jail, but, in the past, was once upon a time the nanny of:
Erin: Vicky Templeton (she had gone back to her maiden name), a well-to-do and potentially vicious woman who had followed her untrustworthy husband to the town, where she would find a man that she did not know was her father-in-law --
William: Dr Phineas T Fozzwazzle (a fake name), doctor, mortician, and snake oil salesman. Avaricious, slimy, absolutely amoral.
At this point, we would play ten scenes -- two for each character -- then add in two more complications, and play an additional ten scenes.
Andrew asked to have an additional scene something to set the mood, something that would have to happen at some point during the game. It wouldn't be the first thing to happen, but just something to get our brains going. We liked this concept. He explained that, at some point, he'd have a tradesman/client relationship with the mortician. Being the client of the mortician implied something about his metabolic state, so he described Vicky Templeton dragging Edison's bloody corpse into Dr Fozzazzle's mortuary...
And then the game started.
It was amazing. There were double-crosses, triple-crosses, betrayals, blackmail, killing friends, bribing enemies, and everything else you'd expect from a good crime caper involving incompetent criminals who are completely over their heads to start with, and sinking fast. We didn't feel compelled to use everything in the setup -- Jack and Edison never got around to needing to get even with the town, for instance.
I'm going to put the story in approximately chronological order, which isn't how we played it. Given that we knew that Edison was going to die at some point, we felt that we were going to play fast and lose with flashbacks.
We start with Dr Phineas T Fozzwazzle hawking his new Virility Potency Elixir, based on a combination of Indian knowledge and the most advanced medical science known to man! Edison Folson finds him, and explains that he needs poison, and quickly -- he needs to get back to St Louis before the end of the week, to kill his wife before she looks over the household accounts, and realizes that he's lost most of their money. At which point, of course, she'd divorce him, and leave him with nothing. If he kills her before then, however, there's enough money for him to buy that diamond mine that is a totally sure thing, and become rich. Even richer than he would have been had he not been in the process of losing the Templeton family fortune. Incidentally, one of Folson's prior attempts to get money was bounty hunting for One-Eared Frank, which would have netted him a cool $10,000 reward. He was as successful at that as he was at all his other money-making schemes. However. . . Fozzwazzle happens to notice that there's enough similarity with enough creative damage, Edison could pass for One-Eared Frank. . . Fozzwazzle provides Edison with a tincture of arsenic, which, unfortunately, looks EXACTLY like the Virility Potency Enhancer, and also like the nitroglycerin.
Unfortunately, Vicky looked at the books earlier than Edison thought she would, and followed him to Snake Hollow. She lets him know that he'd better start running now, because her family lawyers are now on his trail, and it's going to be bad for him. If he doesn't disappear, he's going to lose everything and be in prison for fraud. If he DOES disappear, well, he'll just lose everything. She's hoping he doesn't run, because she wants to see him crushed.
This changes Edison's plans ... he can't poison her back in St Louis, because she's here now. So Edison finds his brother and enlists him to kill his wife. Jack/Thomas, naturally, enlisted his best friend's help. (We're so literary! Two alcoholic gravediggers hired as incompetent assassins! It's totally Shakespeare!) Even though Jack still hasn't forgiven Edison for stealing the affections of Lucy back home, the prospect of "lots of money" is persuasive. However, he will need help: the whole "killing people" is really more Nettie's thing.
Jack wakes Nettie up and explains that his donkey-f*** of a brother has a job for them, which will get them money. Nettie wants to clarify if Edison actually f*** donkeys. Jack isn't sure, but, "dunno. MIGHT have done," which is good enough. Upon being told that the target was Vicky Templeton, Nettie explains to Jack and Edison the plan for how they are going to kill her. They are going to lure Vicky to the alley behind Fozzwazzle's office, where Nettie will be waiting to stab Vicky. Then they will drag the body to the graveyard, where Jack will have already dug a grave. But that it's VITALLY IMPORTANT that Edison NOT be armed, because they don't want to alarm Vicky. Edison and Jack both agree that this sounds like a fine plan. Edison clarifies that Jack did say that she had experience with this "killing people" thing. Nettie looks blank and confused, but agrees that, well, dunno, MIGHT have done.
Nettie then tracks Vicky down, and apprises her that her donkey-f*** of a husband wants to put her in, y'know, a hole. Vicky explains that he's ALREADY put her at least $50,000 in the hole if she can't get out of the idiotic contracts he's signed, but Nettie explains that she means an ACTUAL hole, in the ground. They agree that they ought to keep the plan much the same, but with the minor change of who gets killed. Nettie also explains that her husband f*** donkeys, which doesn't surprise Vicky much.
Vicky goes over to Fozzwazzle's place, and explains that she is aware that he was involved in a plan to poison her. But she doesn't take it personally, if he's willing to help hide a body. Fozzwazzle asks if he can keep it, and explains about the reward poster. Vicky agrees that that seems like a reasonable plan.
It's time. Jack is sent off to dig the grave... but he begins to get cold feet. When he's off on his own, it finally occurs to him that he actually doesn't know if he's going to get paid -- if this all works out, Edison doesn't actually have any REASON to pay him. He decides to go off to the person he knows who's best at getting paid: Dr Phineas T Fozzwazzle. He explains to Fozzwazzle that Edison is his brother, and finally gives the Doctor a name, which means that Fozzwazzle is finally aware that he's involved in a plan to kill his own son. This bothers him not at all, of course. Phineas assures Jack that he's totally covered, because, if Edison decides to stiff him, Jack can just blackmail him. Or, for that matter, just kill him, since Jack is Edison's next-of-kin, so if Vicky dies, Edison gets the money, then, if Edison dies, Jack gets the money. This makes Jack feel much, much better, and he goes back to the grave.
Edison manages to lure his wife into a dark alley next to the doctor's/mortician's office. He is not at all startled to find Nettie there with a knife, as they planned. He IS, however, startled to be stabbed to death, and Vicky drags his body into the morgue.
It was now halftime in the game: time for the Tilt. At the halfway point in the game, everyone takes a break, goes to the bathroom, grabs a drink and a snack and everything, everyone talks about how everything is going, and then two additional complications are added.
THE TILT:
COMPLICATION 1: FAILURE
Something precious is on fire
COMPLICATION 2: TRAGEDY
Death, out of the blue
We discuss this.
What do we have that is precious, to be on fire? Well, we have a corpse worth $10,000.
And death out of the blue? We come up with an idea for that, too...
So, the beginning of Act 2:
Edison's body is on the slab. Phineas is looking at the body, and the reward poster. He saws off one ear, and then grabs a bottle from behind himself, in order to disfigure the face with the acid scars. He laughs as he notices that he accidentally grabbed the bottle of Virility Enhancing Elixir, and picks up the bottle next to it.
The nitroglycerin blows the body, and much of the back of the shop, up. No, Phineas isn't the death out of the blue -- he crawls out of the rubble, uninjured, looking at the flames engulfing the shop, and the body that was SUPPOSED to be of One-Ear Frank. There goes his $10,000. If only he had another shot at that money -- someone else who looked like One-Ear Frank -- like a brother of Edison's who had a significant family resemblance to Edison, and therefore to Frank...
Nettie has gone back to the grave to talk to Jack. She's going to have to explain to him that the plan has changed, and that there was a small problem with their employer ending up dead. Jack's not as upset as she expected. He explains that that's no problem. With Edison dead, all they have to do is kill Vicky, and then the money goes to Edison, who's dead, and then to him, and then he'd share it to her. Oh, by the way -- Edison had implied that Jack and Nettie had been lovers at one point. Was that true? Nettie looks blank, and says that, dunno. MIGHT have done.
Well, anyway. Jack is going to get right on the whole killing Vicky thing. Nettie looks at her only friend and asks him to check out the grave, if it's good and done for them to put Vicky in. He looks, Nettie picks up the shovel, and Jack falls into the grave.
Some time later, a bloody and confused Jack digs himself out of the grave. He's not clear how he got there. But he's got a huge headache, and blood all over his head. Looking at his situation, he decides to go over to the doctor's office to get fixed up.
Jack explains to the doctor that somehow, he accidentally fell into a grave, and evidently hit his head. The doctor looks at the smoldering back of his office, and the destroyed corpse of Edison, and diagnoses Jack with a concussion. "You should go ahead and have a drink, and these pills, and then take a nap. Sleep is the great healer, after all!" Jack takes the advice, and, when he fails to die, Phineas walks up behind him with a garrote.
Finally, Dr Phineas finds Vicky, and explains that, well, he is actually her father-in-law. This gives him a claim on her fortune. They agree that she will pay him an allowance, and that he will go far away and never see her again.
It was now time for the Aftermath.
The results?
Edison: DREADFUL.
His montage: an unmarked grave out in the woods. And then, the diamond mine that he had a line on -- actually paying off.
Jack: BRUTAL.
His montage:
His father cutting his ear off and mutilating his face. His body being turned over to the Pinkertons. And finally -- his body being displayed in a travelling show as the body of the notorious criminal One-Eared Frank.
Phineas: FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC
His montage:
Opening a check from Vicky Templeton. One-Eared Frank showing up in the middle of the night, shaking his hand and thanking him for getting the Pinkertons off of his trail. His Virility Enhancement Elixir becoming popular and making him a very wealthy man.
Nettie, Vicky: AWESOME, FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC
Their montage:
Moving to St Louis together. Vicky negotiating with creditors, shaking hands, smiling. Looking at the surveyor's report for Edison's diamond mine, and smiling. Nettie looking in awe at the bar in the Templeton home, covered in actual GOOD booze -- high-quality scotch, brandy, rye, bourbon. . .