Fiasco! is a table-top role-playing game in which the players generate story elements, create characters, and act out a story in the vein of Office Space, Fargo, and The Ice Harvest. Played over the Setup, Act I, the Tilt, Act II, and the Aftermath, Fiasco sessions devolve into the madcap misadventures of people with grand ambition and poor impulse control.
During the setup, players roll a pool of dice to randomly generate story elements, including character relationships, details, locations, and needs. During Act I and Act II, dice are assigned to indicate positive and negative outcomes. In between the two Acts, the Tilt elements are chosen, which introduce chaos, obstacles, or left-turns to further drive the story into nonsense. The Aftermath closes, which outlines each character in a short montage, and ends the story.
The playset for this session was Mission to Mercury, which is set on a scientific observation colony atop the surface of the planet Mercury. Here's what happened:
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Bernard Kilganon - Xenoarchaeologist Director, Bernie is fairly no-nonsense and resents being assigned to this rock. At best he'd hoped he would find his way onto the Satellite station to avoid having to deal with the stress of Mercury's surface. His department's recently discovered a potentially-sculpted obelisk on the planet, and the possibility of Mercurial life is exciting!
Quinoa Rover - Child of earth hippies, Quinoa took the chance to escape her parents by becoming Chief Robotechnician on Mercury Base. Also fairly no-nonsense, Quinoa finds herself over-worked and under-appreciated.
Aldo Smith - Custodial engineer and volunteer handy-man, Aldo is confident in his competence, despite his relative lack thereof. As part of the more blue-collar workforce aboard the base, Aldo often finds himself embroiled in shenanigans.
Martian Luther - Another custodian, Martian Luther was struck by Mercury's stark beauty and soon grew involved in the burgeoning religious presence on Mercury Base. He and Aldo have been close friends for some time, to the irritation of the rest of the station.
ACT I
Scene I - A disaster recently struck Mercury Base: part of the rover garage located at the Chao Meng Fu Crater has collapsed. Bernie Kilganon and Quinoa Rover are taking a vehicle across the surface to see what they can salvage or repair. The conversation is occupied by Bernie trying to convince her one of the custodians - Martian Luther - has been sneaking into his office and taking things. She's not convinced.
Scene II - After arriving at the garage, Rover meets with the base's handyman, Aldo Smith, and attempts to diagnose what caused the issue. It seems there's an issue with the robot software, but she can't quite figure out what it might be.
Scene III - Later on, Aldo and Luther are shirking their duties in the custodial break room. The two discuss the garage collapse; Luther is convinced it's a sign their search is going well- the planet is reacting to their presence. They just need to keep probing.
Scene IV - Kilganon returns to his office to find Luther rifling through his things. The custodian doesn't put forth a convincing excuse, so the director calls up a security guard who takes Luther and puts him in the clink for a bit to think about personal space.
Scene V - Kilganon talks to the security chief, who's concerned about this cult which the staff has started taking seriously. Out of the 250ish folk on Mercury Base, maybe 50 have been seen filtering in and out of their sermons, with half of that making regular attendance. The chief says he'll keep an eye on it, and when Kilganon goes to check his desk, he finds that something very important is missing.
Scene VI - Rover finds Kilganon in his office and tells him there's something drastically wrong with the base's robots. They're all coding out with little >:-( faces on their displays. Kilganon, who isn't a techie, says it's corresponding strangely with how the crew's getting into this new star cult.
Scene VII - Aldo Smith is checking on the crashed rover and makes sure no one else is around...then he reaches into the engine compartment and removes a janitorial robot which has been retrofitted to resemble a human female. Out of nowhere appears Martian Luther, who laments that Aldo crashed the rover while using the department sexbot. He also tells Aldo he believes he's found proof that Jesus arrived on Mercury, and gets Aldo to come with him to church.
Scene VIII - Luther's not only taking him to church, he's leading the service. There are about thirty people in attendance, and the message is pretty clear: there's going to be a rapture in a week, and Mercury used to be Heaven, so everybody's going to show up on the planet, after which it will turn into a paradise.
THE TILT
The Tilt elements were decided by Kilganon and Rover, and they were:
Guilt: Greed leads to killing...
Paranoia: What you stole has been stolen...
ACT II
Scene I - Kilganon decides he should probably help with the robots, so he uses his Director Line to contact Corporate aboard the Satellite Office. He talks to the boss's dad, who says that they'll send down some CorpoTechs to see what they can do.
Scene II - Rover is in her office when she gets a call from Corporate. Thanks to her ineptitude, productivity has dropped drastically, and she's going to be audited. Whoops.
Scene III - Aldo's intrigued by the cult, though he's still a little skeptical. He meets up with Luther, who's carrying the item he stole from Kilganon's office: it's a piece of cloth, which he's convinced is the Mercurial equivalent to the Shroud of Turin, proving Jesus's presence on the planet. They take a rover and embark onto the surface in order to go see this strange obelisk which has everybody talking.
Scene IV - As Aldo drives, Luther outlines his plan: once the rapture brings everyone to Mercury, he's going to be the new Space Pope. As they drive further out, the box containing the blanket starts to vibrate slightly, and they believe it's reacting to the nearness of the Obelisk. Excited, Luther opens the box to reveal...not the blanket, but the malfunctioning sexbot! Someone's tricked them!.
Scene V - Kilganon's also in a rover. He's been following the two custodians and doesn't like how they stole the blanket out from his desk. It was important to him. He pulls up to find the two dragging a malfunctioning sexbot across the planet's surface towards the obelisk. After a bit of a physical confrontation, Kilganon convinces the two to return to the base with him.
Scene VI - Aldo visits Rover as she's performing system maintenance on the station robots. He discovered the source of the bug, which doesn't make Rover very happy. After he leaves, she snaps a bit and breaks out the Robotic Override Codes. When they're uploaded they'll fix the robots...by wiping their programming entirely and leaving blank slates. She does this.
Scene VII - Somehow Aldo wound up with the blanket, and he and Luther are scanning it in the Custodial Supply Room. The blacklight shows an outline of a human person on it...which Luther takes as a sign of it being the Shroud, and despite Aldo thinking it's probably just Kilganon's personal blanket, he takes it as a religious sign. He admits to collapsing the garage, and agrees to accompany Luther to church.
Scene VIII - The impending corporate visit and presence of thieves causes something in Kilganon to snap. He'd just gotten his blanket back, and then it vanished once more. With corporate on the way and a cult burgeoning, it's really gotten to him. He goes to where Luther is delivering his sermon, storms the stage, and pushes the man. Luther lands awkwardly and snaps his neck, just as the corporate reps arrive.
THE AFTERMATH
This is Bernard Kilganon. After murdering a man in front of a crowd of witnesses, there's a speedy trial. Kilganon is replaced as Director of Xenoarchaeology, and spends the rest of his life in space prison.
This is Quinoa Rover. The reset robots go haywire after she programs them to disrupt the Corporate visit. In the chaos she makes off with a vac-ship and the blanket, which she's convinced holds the secret to alien DNA.
This is Aldo Smith. With the death of his one friend and destruction of his work, he takes the malfunctioning sexbot and gets himself an earthside apartment. From the comfort of his couch he watches as a new space religion takes off.
This is Martian Luther. His martyring in front of his followers has secured his spot as the head of a new space religion. The crowd takes away his body and places it in a reliquary, which serves as the focal point as they spread his beliefs across the stars.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Friday, November 9, 2018
Fiasco Session Write-up: Main Street, USA
Fiasco is a role-playing game designed by Jason Morningstar, with a heavy emphasis on improvisation and story-telling over statistics and dice rolling. Played over a single 2 to 3 hour session, players roll a pile of six-sided dice to generate relationships, objects, needs, and locations, develop a convoluted web of interactions, and set the story in motion. The characters are individuals with great ambition and poor impulse control, which often leads to stories similar to Fargo, Office Space, and No Country for Old Men.
We get to meet the characters over Act I, which then ends with the Tilt. The Tilt introduces two additional story elements to further complicate, threaten, or divert things in Act II. The second Act sees character needs fulfilled, disasters caused, and stories resolved. In the Aftermath, players roll their accumulated dice to determine the outcome for their characters, and narrate short scenes to give them an exit.
We played with the Main Street, USA playset, in the small Louisiana town of Grand Isle in the year 1973. There were seven players, which is two more than recommended by the rulebook; Act II did drag towards the end, but it was getting late by virtue of the time required to give everyone the spotlight. Ultimately, Fiasco proved a good one-shot, and it felt like a nice change in pace from the regularly-scheduled D&D campaign.
Here's what happened:
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Mayor Thomas Reckoning - Three years into his first term as Mayor of Grand Isle, Tom Reckoning is a Midwester who moved to Grand Isle for a new start. After three years he's grown quite comfortable, despite his shaky professional relationship with his highly-religious assistant, Ms. Destiny Rodriguez. Recently he's been carrying on secret business negotiations with one Al Fredoschitz, a big-city man with big-city dreams.
Destiny Rodriguez - Long-suffering assistant to Mayor Reckoning, Ms. Rodriguez has served as Assistant to three Grand Isle mayors now, and she's grown tired of it. When she's not getting Mayor Reckoning out of trouble, she's a member-at-large of the local church, where she regularly torments other congregation members for their lack of piety.
Roy Bernstein - Local entrepreneur and owner / operator of the New Outlook Tanning Salon and Weight-Loss Center (We Also do Hair), Roy's carved out a little business empire in the little town of Grand Isle. His drive to gain respect by finally making it big has caused him to bump shoulders with local leaders and degenerates, though if they serve a purpose, who can criticize?
Samwell Pennington - Scion of the Grand Isle Penningtons, Samwell is a burnout druggy loser who spends his days doing drugs in his family's mansion along Hickory Terrace. Despite his substance abuse, the recipe for Grandma Pennington's "Potato Salad" is an item of local renown...which is why he's courting Mr. Bernstein for distribution rights...assuming his old flame doesn't distract him.
Derek Rust - Pronounced "Dirk" (Dirk, with two E's), Mr. Rust is a city councilman with a hunger for various illicit activities. Erstwhile lovers with Samwell Pennington, Derek has taken to illicit poodle breeding to boost his bank accounts and put his past behind him, to middling success...
Genevieve Armstrong - Attorney at Law, Ms. Armstrong is the best lawyer this town's ever seen (also, the only lawyer this town's ever seen). She provides legal advice and services to the population of Grand Isle, while only skimming a little off the top. She was also Ms. Texas '68, a fact which neither she, nor the town's citizens, ever let her forget.
Al Fredoschitz - A big-city businessman with big-city dreams, Al came from...somewhere, in an attempt to be the big fish in a small pond. His current plan involves locking Mayor Reckoning into a real-estate contract for a shady island while coordinating with Ms. Armstrong to skim some cash off the top.
ACT I
Scene I - Thomas Reckoning is in his office, downing a beer, when he realizes he's made a terrible mistake: he's scheduled his shady secret back-dealing meeting with Fredoschitz at the same time as the big town council meeting on Sunday. He calls in his assistant, Ms. Destiny Rodriguez, to arrange for his absence. Being a stand-up woman, Ms. Rodriguez reminds Mr. Reckoning that, as Mayor, he has a duty to perform, and so he has her drop off a letter for Fredoschitz telling him he'll be late.
Scene II - That evening, Destiny is at church, where she meets with Roy Bernstein, local business owner. The two bicker about tithes and piety, and it soon becomes clear that Roy's not so into the whole church thing. Satisfied that she's proven her conviction, Destiny leads the final prayer and the church service ends.
Scene III - After the service, Roy meets up with Samwell Pennington, potential business partner, at the New Outlook Tanning Salon and Weight-Loss Center (We Also do Hair). The two discuss the Pennington "Potato Salad" recipe, and arrange for Pennington to hand over the recipe for distribution in return for a lump sum payment.
Scene IV - Samwell returns to his mansion to get the recipe. He meets up with Roy once more and sells the recipe for $5000, plus a portion of all proceeds in the future. The two part on good terms, and Samwell goes back inside to do some drugs.
Scene V - It's the big town council meeting, and everybody's in attendance. Derek opens with some glowing words for the town's sole lawyer, Ms. Genevieve Armstrong, which draws some confusion from the crowd. The Mayor, flustered as always, is torn between executing the powers of his office, or fleeing and going to his meeting with Fredoschitz. He leaves, which lets Derek run the show for a while.
Scene VI - Ms. Armstrong leaves the council meeting and goes to get her hair done by Mr. Bernstein. The two bicker about things, in which verbal jabs are tossed about, but Ms. Armstrong's dealt with worse, and doesn't leave a tip after.
Scene VII - Al Fredoschitz is waiting at the J & K Gravel quarry on the outskirts of town when the Mayor drives up, forty-five minutes late. It soon becomes apparent that the Mayor's desperate to keep his office, and what better way to do that than buy the town of Grand Isle an actual island? Fredoschitz has the Mayor sign a contract deal and Reckoning promises to deliver the $2.5M next week (Sunday).
Scene VIII - Tom Reckoning's in a tough place. He may not be the brightest, but he's fairly certain he won't be able to come up with $2.5M in cash by the next week. In need of legal advice, he goes to Ms. Armstrong to see how legally binding a signature on a contract is...it turns out, very. He leaves, a sudden sense of doom hanging over his head.
Scene IX - Destiny Rodriguez goes to her boss - she's caught on to Al's plan, and she convinced Tom to find a contract loophole - after all, it's only Tom who'd lose out.
Scene X - It's four days later - Roy is in his office finalizing business. He goes to meet with Samwise and buys the "potato salad" recipe for $5,000.
Scene XI - Still aglow from his financial success, Samwell calls up his old flame, Councilman Derek Rust. After a brief reconnect, the two retreat into the mansion to partake of some of the famous Pennington "Potato Salad" and rekindle the embers of a cooling relationship.
Scene XII - Councilman Derek Rust comes to in the middle of the night, nude, walking down Main Street, Grand Isle. He doesn't remember much: just the limp body of Samwell Pennington where he hid it in the closet. Unsure whether he's a murderer, Mr. Rust goes to the office of Genevieve Armstrong and starts banging on the door. Destiny Rodriguez, who lives across the street, sees Derek and promptly calls the police.
(At this point Samwise's player left, so we continued as if the character had as well.)
Scene XIII - Genevieve Armstrong meets Al Fredoschitz at his car, where he's got it parked along Hickory Terrace. The two commiserate, in which we learn they're scamming the mayor; Genevieve because she cannot stand the man, and Al because he wants to become mayor himself and rule a little corner of the world. Genevieve breaks Attorney - Client privilege and tells Al that Reckoning is worried about the contract. She promises to draw up a second one, in order to double down on the legality of it all...you can't really expect Ms. Texas '68 to know much about law.
Scene XIV - Al calls up the Mayor's office, but Tom pretends he's not there. Destiny listens to his pitch regarding the island, but sides with her boss and convinces Al of the Mayor's absence before hanging up.
THE TILT
The Tilt Elements for this game were chosen by Mayor Reckoning and Destiny Rodriguez. They were:
* Mayhem: A dangerous animal escapes...
* Paranoia: What seems like dumb luck isn't...
ACT II
Scene I - Tom has spent some time in the library, and based on his research learns that a contract which no longer exists is technically void. He resolves to find and destroy the contract.
Scene II - Destiny goes to see Derek Rust in the drunk tank. Despite her honeyed words and fancy speech, Derek's mind is clouded by the event of the evening, and he's decidedly not interested in accompanying her to the house of God. Destiny leaves him to sober up.
Scene III - Roy calls up the Mayor. The two discuss the political state of the town and set up a meeting time on Saturday to discuss the Mayor's options. Tom Reckoning doesn't really care - come Saturday he'll have either left town or died.
Scene IV - Derek has another visitor - this time it's the Mayor. Tom Reckoning looks flustered. The two talk about Derek's issues and how they might affect his seat on the town's council. In order to keep his spot safe, Tom threatens to expose Derek's illegal poodle breeding business he's undertaken with Ms. Armstrong. In exchange, he'll have Derek's vote in the next council meeting, and his charges will be reduced.
Scene V - Genevieve Armstrong arrives at the Mayor's office with a second contract. Some legalese and twisty words convinces the Mayor to sign the document, and the town's only lawyer leaves.
Scene VI - Al calls Armstrong - he's celebrating the sale of the island to the Mayor, which will get him off the hook for what's buried there. While on the phone with Ms. Armstrong, she tells him she can't help run his campaign for town Mayor. Slightly deflated, but no less ambitious, Al calls up local businessman Roy to manage his run for election.
Scene VII - Tom's contemplating what Derek told him. If Samwise Pennington is dead, it stands to reason someone outside the town killed him - after all, the Grand Isle Penningtons are local royalty. Considering everything was nice and calm before Al arrived, it only makes sense that Tom's realtor is the murderer.
Scene VIII - Destiny Rodriguez, seeking answers, corners Tom in his office and forces him to admit to embezzlement, taking the law into his hands, and not reading contracts. Considering he's the worst Mayor she's ever served under, she resigns.
Scene IX - It's Saturday, and Tom Reckoning goes to meet with Roy Bernstein. The businessman seems to have come into quite a bit of cash, because he cuts Tom a check for $2.5M in a bid to help him win reelection. After all, Pennington's Patented "Potato Salad" might not sell so well underneath a more nosy Mayor.
Scene X - Derek visits the Mayor once more and delivers what he promised - the meanest poodle he's bred, with the worst temper. The Mayor isn't exactly sure what he's going to do with it, but it'll work out at some point, probably.
Scene XI - We flash back to when Genevieve gave Derek the poodle. He doesn't tell her what it's for, but she's more than happy to get rid of the beast.
Scene XII - Al talks with Roy and learns he's backed out of the deal. In a fit of rage he calls the police to report an island riddled with the remains of poodles who flunked his lawyer's breeding program...which so happens to be held in the name of the Mayor, Thomas Reckoning.
The Aftermath
In the Fiasco! endgame, each player rolls their collected dice and narrates short scenes in a montage style to close out the story. The accumulated totals are checked against a chart of outcomes and used to usher out each character. Due to the size of the table for this game, we did one short scene each, rather than a full montage.
This is Mayor Thomas Reckoning. When the police knock on his home's door, he answers their charges with copies of the two contracts and recordings of his talks with Genevieve Armstrong, proving his innocence and implicating Al Fredoschitz in the whole situation.
This is Destiny Rodriguez...several years later. After a successful book tour promoting her work as a faith-based assistant, she eventually works her way onto the daytime talk-show circuit and, after some time, secures her own Christian television show called Detect the Faith.
This is Roy Bernstein. The recipe for Pennington's "Potato Salad" is a hit in the area, and the substance has appeared in nearby large cities. Business is booming...but along with the increase in business comes the increase in notoriety, and Grand Isle soon attracts the eye of crime.
This is Derek Rust. Having caught his taste of crime and finding it bittersweet, he takes the more authentic path of being a legally-licensed dog breeder.
This is Genevieve Armstrong. After having committed contract forgery, fraud, and breaking Attorney-Client privilege, Ms. Armstrong is stripped of her license to practice law and spends the rest of her life trying to coast as Ms. Texas '68.
This is Al Fredoschitz. With the whirlwind calming and the police closing on his position, he realizes he only has one out if he wishes to stay out of prison...and so, he hooks up a hose from his car / house's exhaust, feeds it into the window, and turns the ignition...
We get to meet the characters over Act I, which then ends with the Tilt. The Tilt introduces two additional story elements to further complicate, threaten, or divert things in Act II. The second Act sees character needs fulfilled, disasters caused, and stories resolved. In the Aftermath, players roll their accumulated dice to determine the outcome for their characters, and narrate short scenes to give them an exit.
We played with the Main Street, USA playset, in the small Louisiana town of Grand Isle in the year 1973. There were seven players, which is two more than recommended by the rulebook; Act II did drag towards the end, but it was getting late by virtue of the time required to give everyone the spotlight. Ultimately, Fiasco proved a good one-shot, and it felt like a nice change in pace from the regularly-scheduled D&D campaign.
Here's what happened:
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Mayor Thomas Reckoning - Three years into his first term as Mayor of Grand Isle, Tom Reckoning is a Midwester who moved to Grand Isle for a new start. After three years he's grown quite comfortable, despite his shaky professional relationship with his highly-religious assistant, Ms. Destiny Rodriguez. Recently he's been carrying on secret business negotiations with one Al Fredoschitz, a big-city man with big-city dreams.
Destiny Rodriguez - Long-suffering assistant to Mayor Reckoning, Ms. Rodriguez has served as Assistant to three Grand Isle mayors now, and she's grown tired of it. When she's not getting Mayor Reckoning out of trouble, she's a member-at-large of the local church, where she regularly torments other congregation members for their lack of piety.
Roy Bernstein - Local entrepreneur and owner / operator of the New Outlook Tanning Salon and Weight-Loss Center (We Also do Hair), Roy's carved out a little business empire in the little town of Grand Isle. His drive to gain respect by finally making it big has caused him to bump shoulders with local leaders and degenerates, though if they serve a purpose, who can criticize?
Samwell Pennington - Scion of the Grand Isle Penningtons, Samwell is a burnout druggy loser who spends his days doing drugs in his family's mansion along Hickory Terrace. Despite his substance abuse, the recipe for Grandma Pennington's "Potato Salad" is an item of local renown...which is why he's courting Mr. Bernstein for distribution rights...assuming his old flame doesn't distract him.
Derek Rust - Pronounced "Dirk" (Dirk, with two E's), Mr. Rust is a city councilman with a hunger for various illicit activities. Erstwhile lovers with Samwell Pennington, Derek has taken to illicit poodle breeding to boost his bank accounts and put his past behind him, to middling success...
Genevieve Armstrong - Attorney at Law, Ms. Armstrong is the best lawyer this town's ever seen (also, the only lawyer this town's ever seen). She provides legal advice and services to the population of Grand Isle, while only skimming a little off the top. She was also Ms. Texas '68, a fact which neither she, nor the town's citizens, ever let her forget.
Al Fredoschitz - A big-city businessman with big-city dreams, Al came from...somewhere, in an attempt to be the big fish in a small pond. His current plan involves locking Mayor Reckoning into a real-estate contract for a shady island while coordinating with Ms. Armstrong to skim some cash off the top.
ACT I
Scene I - Thomas Reckoning is in his office, downing a beer, when he realizes he's made a terrible mistake: he's scheduled his shady secret back-dealing meeting with Fredoschitz at the same time as the big town council meeting on Sunday. He calls in his assistant, Ms. Destiny Rodriguez, to arrange for his absence. Being a stand-up woman, Ms. Rodriguez reminds Mr. Reckoning that, as Mayor, he has a duty to perform, and so he has her drop off a letter for Fredoschitz telling him he'll be late.
Scene II - That evening, Destiny is at church, where she meets with Roy Bernstein, local business owner. The two bicker about tithes and piety, and it soon becomes clear that Roy's not so into the whole church thing. Satisfied that she's proven her conviction, Destiny leads the final prayer and the church service ends.
Scene III - After the service, Roy meets up with Samwell Pennington, potential business partner, at the New Outlook Tanning Salon and Weight-Loss Center (We Also do Hair). The two discuss the Pennington "Potato Salad" recipe, and arrange for Pennington to hand over the recipe for distribution in return for a lump sum payment.
Scene IV - Samwell returns to his mansion to get the recipe. He meets up with Roy once more and sells the recipe for $5000, plus a portion of all proceeds in the future. The two part on good terms, and Samwell goes back inside to do some drugs.
Scene V - It's the big town council meeting, and everybody's in attendance. Derek opens with some glowing words for the town's sole lawyer, Ms. Genevieve Armstrong, which draws some confusion from the crowd. The Mayor, flustered as always, is torn between executing the powers of his office, or fleeing and going to his meeting with Fredoschitz. He leaves, which lets Derek run the show for a while.
Scene VI - Ms. Armstrong leaves the council meeting and goes to get her hair done by Mr. Bernstein. The two bicker about things, in which verbal jabs are tossed about, but Ms. Armstrong's dealt with worse, and doesn't leave a tip after.
Scene VII - Al Fredoschitz is waiting at the J & K Gravel quarry on the outskirts of town when the Mayor drives up, forty-five minutes late. It soon becomes apparent that the Mayor's desperate to keep his office, and what better way to do that than buy the town of Grand Isle an actual island? Fredoschitz has the Mayor sign a contract deal and Reckoning promises to deliver the $2.5M next week (Sunday).
Scene VIII - Tom Reckoning's in a tough place. He may not be the brightest, but he's fairly certain he won't be able to come up with $2.5M in cash by the next week. In need of legal advice, he goes to Ms. Armstrong to see how legally binding a signature on a contract is...it turns out, very. He leaves, a sudden sense of doom hanging over his head.
Scene IX - Destiny Rodriguez goes to her boss - she's caught on to Al's plan, and she convinced Tom to find a contract loophole - after all, it's only Tom who'd lose out.
Scene X - It's four days later - Roy is in his office finalizing business. He goes to meet with Samwise and buys the "potato salad" recipe for $5,000.
Scene XI - Still aglow from his financial success, Samwell calls up his old flame, Councilman Derek Rust. After a brief reconnect, the two retreat into the mansion to partake of some of the famous Pennington "Potato Salad" and rekindle the embers of a cooling relationship.
Scene XII - Councilman Derek Rust comes to in the middle of the night, nude, walking down Main Street, Grand Isle. He doesn't remember much: just the limp body of Samwell Pennington where he hid it in the closet. Unsure whether he's a murderer, Mr. Rust goes to the office of Genevieve Armstrong and starts banging on the door. Destiny Rodriguez, who lives across the street, sees Derek and promptly calls the police.
(At this point Samwise's player left, so we continued as if the character had as well.)
Scene XIII - Genevieve Armstrong meets Al Fredoschitz at his car, where he's got it parked along Hickory Terrace. The two commiserate, in which we learn they're scamming the mayor; Genevieve because she cannot stand the man, and Al because he wants to become mayor himself and rule a little corner of the world. Genevieve breaks Attorney - Client privilege and tells Al that Reckoning is worried about the contract. She promises to draw up a second one, in order to double down on the legality of it all...you can't really expect Ms. Texas '68 to know much about law.
Scene XIV - Al calls up the Mayor's office, but Tom pretends he's not there. Destiny listens to his pitch regarding the island, but sides with her boss and convinces Al of the Mayor's absence before hanging up.
THE TILT
The Tilt Elements for this game were chosen by Mayor Reckoning and Destiny Rodriguez. They were:
* Mayhem: A dangerous animal escapes...
* Paranoia: What seems like dumb luck isn't...
ACT II
Scene I - Tom has spent some time in the library, and based on his research learns that a contract which no longer exists is technically void. He resolves to find and destroy the contract.
Scene II - Destiny goes to see Derek Rust in the drunk tank. Despite her honeyed words and fancy speech, Derek's mind is clouded by the event of the evening, and he's decidedly not interested in accompanying her to the house of God. Destiny leaves him to sober up.
Scene III - Roy calls up the Mayor. The two discuss the political state of the town and set up a meeting time on Saturday to discuss the Mayor's options. Tom Reckoning doesn't really care - come Saturday he'll have either left town or died.
Scene IV - Derek has another visitor - this time it's the Mayor. Tom Reckoning looks flustered. The two talk about Derek's issues and how they might affect his seat on the town's council. In order to keep his spot safe, Tom threatens to expose Derek's illegal poodle breeding business he's undertaken with Ms. Armstrong. In exchange, he'll have Derek's vote in the next council meeting, and his charges will be reduced.
Scene V - Genevieve Armstrong arrives at the Mayor's office with a second contract. Some legalese and twisty words convinces the Mayor to sign the document, and the town's only lawyer leaves.
Scene VI - Al calls Armstrong - he's celebrating the sale of the island to the Mayor, which will get him off the hook for what's buried there. While on the phone with Ms. Armstrong, she tells him she can't help run his campaign for town Mayor. Slightly deflated, but no less ambitious, Al calls up local businessman Roy to manage his run for election.
Scene VII - Tom's contemplating what Derek told him. If Samwise Pennington is dead, it stands to reason someone outside the town killed him - after all, the Grand Isle Penningtons are local royalty. Considering everything was nice and calm before Al arrived, it only makes sense that Tom's realtor is the murderer.
Scene VIII - Destiny Rodriguez, seeking answers, corners Tom in his office and forces him to admit to embezzlement, taking the law into his hands, and not reading contracts. Considering he's the worst Mayor she's ever served under, she resigns.
Scene IX - It's Saturday, and Tom Reckoning goes to meet with Roy Bernstein. The businessman seems to have come into quite a bit of cash, because he cuts Tom a check for $2.5M in a bid to help him win reelection. After all, Pennington's Patented "Potato Salad" might not sell so well underneath a more nosy Mayor.
Scene X - Derek visits the Mayor once more and delivers what he promised - the meanest poodle he's bred, with the worst temper. The Mayor isn't exactly sure what he's going to do with it, but it'll work out at some point, probably.
Scene XI - We flash back to when Genevieve gave Derek the poodle. He doesn't tell her what it's for, but she's more than happy to get rid of the beast.
Scene XII - Al talks with Roy and learns he's backed out of the deal. In a fit of rage he calls the police to report an island riddled with the remains of poodles who flunked his lawyer's breeding program...which so happens to be held in the name of the Mayor, Thomas Reckoning.
The Aftermath
In the Fiasco! endgame, each player rolls their collected dice and narrates short scenes in a montage style to close out the story. The accumulated totals are checked against a chart of outcomes and used to usher out each character. Due to the size of the table for this game, we did one short scene each, rather than a full montage.
This is Mayor Thomas Reckoning. When the police knock on his home's door, he answers their charges with copies of the two contracts and recordings of his talks with Genevieve Armstrong, proving his innocence and implicating Al Fredoschitz in the whole situation.
This is Destiny Rodriguez...several years later. After a successful book tour promoting her work as a faith-based assistant, she eventually works her way onto the daytime talk-show circuit and, after some time, secures her own Christian television show called Detect the Faith.
This is Roy Bernstein. The recipe for Pennington's "Potato Salad" is a hit in the area, and the substance has appeared in nearby large cities. Business is booming...but along with the increase in business comes the increase in notoriety, and Grand Isle soon attracts the eye of crime.
This is Derek Rust. Having caught his taste of crime and finding it bittersweet, he takes the more authentic path of being a legally-licensed dog breeder.
This is Genevieve Armstrong. After having committed contract forgery, fraud, and breaking Attorney-Client privilege, Ms. Armstrong is stripped of her license to practice law and spends the rest of her life trying to coast as Ms. Texas '68.
This is Al Fredoschitz. With the whirlwind calming and the police closing on his position, he realizes he only has one out if he wishes to stay out of prison...and so, he hooks up a hose from his car / house's exhaust, feeds it into the window, and turns the ignition...
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