Review: Fiasco—Not Your Pappy’s RPG
“A game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control.” That’s the tagline for Fiasco by Bully Pulpit Games, and boy does it fit. Alternatively, I’ve seen it described as the “make-your-own-Cohen-brothers-movie game.” That also does a pretty good job of encapsulating what this game is about.
In Fiasco, the players create characters with an interrelated web of relationships and needs. Those will inform the story and help create a framework as the players fill in the plot, subplots, and create more mischief as things seem to get increasingly out of hand. This game is frantically fun and deserves its nomination for the Diana Jones Award.
Follow me past the cut for the full review of this GM-less RPG.
(This review will deviate from the usual board game format to better address the RPG elements)
What’s it about? Fiasco is less about characters and conflicts than traditional RPGs. There are no stats, no contests or struggles resolved by dice rolls, and no character sheets. In fact, Fiasco is more about facilitating a story than about gaining achievements and powering up. But the players tell the story through the actions of their individual character.
The players begin by selecting a Playset. Each Playset has a list of relationships, locations, objects, and needs to create for the characters. Fiasco comes with four: Main Street, Boomtown, Tales from Suburbia, and The Ice. But, not content to give you only four options, the good folks at Bully Pulpit have made new Playsets available on a monthly basis which can be downloaded for free. And, even within the same playset, the options are varied enough that games should be very different.
It's the 'burbs. What could go wrong?
Each player is related somehow to the player on his left and right. So, you might be the coworker of the player to your right, and the lover of the player to your left. In turn, they might be father and daughter. Ah, the possibilities already emerge. Similarly, needs, objects, and locations will crop up between each of the players.
Fiasco does a great job of filling in just enough detail to get your ideas flowing, without ossifying it and stifling the creativity of the players. Once those relationships are set, the players are free to fill in the details about the extent of the relationship and how it impacts the game. And, best of all, much of that is done during gameplay.
Once the setup is concluded, the game proceeds in a set number of scenes which usually focus on or highlight one character at a time. Each player gets to do four scenes (and it plays from three to five players) and the group decides which scenes will end positively, and which badly with them being split roughly 50/50. By the end, it is not uncommon for all the characters to get into such a mess that they die horribly, are run out of town, or otherwise experience tragedy. Don’t get attached to your character. They likely won’t be there at the end of the play session.
The Rulebook. Having been quite used to more stat-driven RPGs, it was shocking to pick up Fiasco and find that it was about the size of a trade paperback. The art is very minimalist and restrained to just the beginnings and endings of chapters for the most part.
However, the booklet packs quite the informational punch. It provides sample play sessions, a wealth of information, and ample encouragement to make it happen. After reading Fiasco, I was zealously eager to get it to the table and worked with some pretty uncooperative schedules to make it happen.
Interesting Silhouette-Style Art Throughout the Book
What works. Fiasco.
Seriously. This game is darn near flawless. It provides an engaging and entertaining role playing session, with no preparation needed, in about two to three hours depending on players. And that’s really the best part. There’s no required time poring through books and crafting brilliant plot lines for the week’s game. No, it all comes out at once. And it does so in a collaborative body with no Game Master. That means all the players are equally invested in having a good time.
Plus, the game is a hoot. It is great to craft someone out of whole cloth that is ready to lie, cheat, steal, and pillage to get what they want. Or help someone else do it. Or try to take credit for someone else’s lies and cheating. If you are a fan of movies like Fargo, Burn After Reading, and the like, then Fiasco should be a go-to RPG for you.
The one danger, especially for long-time RPG players, is getting attached to your character. The D&D player invests so much in his character, that if he died, or lost a limb, or even just lost a level, there could be table Armageddon. The attitude in Fiasco has to be closer to the attitude in Paranoia (though Fiasco requires even more detachment). Your character is there to advance the plot and tell a story ]—but don’t expect them to be around for too long. If you can see your character as merely a story element over whom you have slightly greater control, then the game will move smoothly.
Fiasco says to use black and white dice. But I've always been a nonconformist.
Pitfalls of Gaming. So, Fiasco is spectacular, but there are still a few minor drawbacks. It does a great job of creating a GM-less game, but that also comes with its own challenges. There is no one to arbitrate disputes, make referee calls, or resolve conflicts between players and anything else. While Fiasco does a good job of avoiding much of that in the setup of the game, it also means that if the players get stuck, there’s no one there to provide that prompting.
Fiasco relies a lot on improvisation and its techniques. The whole story is being created in the moment and the vague ideas that the players have may be very different from each other. The Fiasco Companion, which debuted at Origins, talks about one player taking on the role of a “facilitator.” The player with the most experience helps to make suggestions here or there to keep the game running. If everyone gets into the spirit of the game, this shouldn’t be a problem.
The other potential concern is for the less enthusiastic role-players among us. My group in particular is about evenly split between those who love to roleplay, and those who fear the ways of the RPG. Fiasco requires engagement from all the players. But, it also allows players to sit back a bit if they aren’t in the scene. For a less enthusiastic person, this could allow them to ignore the story when they aren’t “on camera” and then provide a less than stellar performance when their turn comes around. So make sure you have a gung-ho group for the best experience.
The closest thing to a character sheet.
Final Analysis. I feel a little bit like a broken record in singing Fiasco’s praises over and over. I really wish I had something a little more critical to say, but the truth is that I’ve had an amazing time in each and every game. The whole RPG experience plays in just a few hours with no preparation. There’s no need to come up with a lengthy backstory and stat out a character. And the stories that the game fosters—both through use of the Playset and as the players just get into the feel for what they are doing—are thoroughly enjoyable. This is role-playing as it was meant to be.
My Overall Experience: 5 of 5.
(A special thanks to Bully Pulpit Games for providing a review copy of Fiasco)
This RPG has sure allot of dice. I would try to play it I wonder where you buy such a game.
Actually, it’s very dice light. It only needs ten dice (or fewer with fewer players) and they are only every rolled a few times per session.
Compared to D&D or most traditional games, there’s hardly any roll-play (see what I did there?)