Fiasco is a role-playing game about characters with grand ambition and poor ambition control. Players roll dice at the start of the game to establish story elements like relationships, objects, locations, and needs; these elements help the players establish a tilting house of cards ready to tumble when the game begins.
Fiasco is played across five stages:
The Set-Up, in which players choose a playset and roll on tables to choose character relationships. Each relationship also features a detail, which is either an object, location, or need which is crucial to that relationship.
Act 1, in which players act out scenes featuring their characters. Players collect dice which represent positive or negative outcomes and ultimately determine how their story ends.
The Tilt, in which two players with the strongest narrative lines choose Tilt Elements, which introduce chaos, unexpected twists, or other events in order to shake up what's happened thus far.
Act 2, which plays similarly to Act 1, with another two rounds of scenes to ramp up the action. Guns go off, fires catch and spread, and animals are set loose.
The Aftermath, in which everyone rolls on a specific table to get a vague outline of tone for their character, and then montages the end of their respective stories.
The playset used for this game was Boom Town, included in the Fiasco core book. The setting is a small town in the Wild West gripped by settlers, gold fever, and mild racism against the Chinese. It leans much more towards Deadwood than Bonanza...
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Sandy Dick - Owner and Madam of the Dicksyland Tavern and Whorehouse. A strong woman in a hard town, she does her best to look after her girls while furthering her own fortune.
Mayor Tammy Teakles - Placeholder's first woman mayor. She was a former miner who stole a minor fortune to establish her political career. Wed Thunder Teakles as a matter of politics.
Thunder Teakles - The mayor's husband, and a seller of antiquities. Currently in possession of a large number of magical monkey paws, and employer/abuser of Jeremy Smith.
Jeremy Smith - A Chinese immigrant adopted by the Teakles. Currently helps operate Thunder's antiquities stand, and is the victim of much abuse at his hands.
Benjamin Chang - Another Chinese immigrant and owner of a local restaurant. Runs an opium distribution operation out of the back of the business.
Though-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Jameson - One of ten children, Mr. Jameson works as Placeholder's surgeon/barber/dentist, despite the fact that he has no formal education or training in any of the three practices.
ACT I
Scene I - Jeremy and Benjamin meet outside town. Chang has been working with Jeremy to secure his foothold in the town, and they set out on a plan to rob Thunder and use the money to secure Chang's opium trade - a first step to becoming mayor himself.
Scene II - We flash back to Chang's third month in Placeholder - in which the sheriff quit, the mayor vanished, and the preacher drank himself to death. Chang stepped up to fill the absences, but was passed over when it came to replace each of the three. Thus began his plot for vengeance.
Scene III - Jameson is working on Tammy's teeth when Chang shows up. After the mayor leaves, Chang bullies Jameson into revealing the dentist has come into possession of a bundle of TNT from a deceased former patient. He's buried the explosives at the Hanging Tree - the only landmark outside the town.
Scene IV - The mayor meets up with Sandy Dick and the two discuss matters in the town. Part of the mayor's campaign was healthcare for the townsfolk, but there's no budget for it. Tammy reveals her husband is in possession of a 12-pounder howitzer cannon from his service in the Civil War. The two plan t steal it and use it to rob a stagecoach taking money between banks.
Scene V - Tammy meets up with her husband and plies her feminine wiles to get his cannon. She claims it's for her sudden interest in pigeon hunting. Unfortunately the two get into a fight about his antiquities cart and he refuses to give her the cannon.
Scene VI - Thunder catches Jeremy sneaking back from meeting with Chang and verbally berates him for poorly stocking the monkey paws. With his temper sated, he goes to the dentist to discuss his wife's jaw and her gold teeth, which the dentist pulled earlier when they caused her pain.
Scene VII - Later that evening, Jeremy takes the box of monkey paws and buries it under the Hanging Tree, thinking he'll tell Thunder that he successfully sold the entire stock.
Scene VIII - Chang storms into the mayor's office. He's caught wind of her plan and wants in. In exchange for a cut of the profits from their stagecoach heist, he'll be her alibi to make sure she's not accused of the robbery.
Scene IX - Jameson's feeling pretty stressed about being a useless fly caught in everyone's web. He goes to Dicksy Land and lets everything out to Sandy - that he's got a bunch of gold teeth, that everyone's plotting things, and that he's buried a bunch of TNT at the Hanging Tree.
Scene X - We cut to the aftermath of Sandy successfully robbing the stagecoach. She hides the howitzer at the Hanging Tree, then goes back to the tavern with a box of gold. Thunder comes by drunkenly berating Jeremy - turns out he's found out about him burying the monkey paws.
Scene XI - Thunder leaves the tavern, and he's mistakenly taken the box of gold with him instead of the monkey paws. When he gets back to his home he realizes he's taken the gold and goes to bury it at the Hanging Tree.
Scene XII - While burying the gold, Jeremy falls out of the back of his wagon. He apologizes profusely, but Thunder sees an opportunity to take further advantage of him. Despite the fact that he's got gold, he's sold up, and he's back in his wife's good graces, Thunder tells Jeremy he has to make up for the lost profits by selling the rest of his inventory.
THE TILT
Tragedy - Magnificent Self-Destruction
Paranoia - What You've Stolen has been Stolen
ACT II
Scene I - Jeremy's desperately attempting to sell Thunder's wares, but the market in Placeholder is pretty saturated. Thunder comes by and is unimpressed by his efforts - he says he'll have to restock their inventory of monkey paws, and doesn't care how Jeremy comes into their possession.
Scene II - Chang goes to the hanging tree to dig up his share of the stagecoach robbery, but it's been taken. In revenge, and an attempt to take over as mayor, he dumps his stash of opium down the well after warning Sandy about his plan.
Scene III - Jameson notices the people in town have started acting strange - and eventually recognizes it as opium dosing. He knows Chang deals in the stuff, so he confronts the man, who blames Jeremy.
Scene IV - Sandy meets with Chang. They're the only two sober folk in the town and have decided to simply duck and leave Placeholder. Sandy's got a soft spot in her heart for Jameson, however, and decides she's going to try and get him to leave.
Scene V - Tammy's high as heaven, and she's wandering around Placeholder with her chest of gold clutched tight. She eventually makes her way to the Hanging Tree, where she meets up with Thunder, who is also incredibly high.
Scene VI - We flashback to Thunder in the morning. He takes a drink of opium-dosed water, goes to the Hanging Tree, and strips naked. Jeremy shows up and takes the howitzer in order to hunt monkeys. Then Tammy shows up and the two argue for a bit before reconnecting, emotionally and physically.
Scene VII - Jeremy, high on opium, sets up the howitzer on a hill overlooking Placeholder. He hallucinates the townsfolk as monkeys and starts blowing up the town in an attempt to please Thunder.
Scene VIII - Chang watches Jeremy's rampage from a distance and decides to let it happen. After Jeremy runs out of ammo, Chang goes to the hillside and tells Jeremy he can get him to safety, but he'll need to talk to his boss back east. In the meantime, he goes to Tammy's abandoned office and sets up shop as Mayor Chang.
Scene IX - Jameson goes to the hanging tree and sees the chaos unfolding. During a moment of clarity he decides he's going to leave, and simply wanders off into the wilderness.
Scene X - Sandy sees her tavern has been destroyed, but most of her girls have survived. She takes them, steals some guns from nearby corpses, and leaves with them in tow.
Scene XI - Tammy's dug up the TNT and accidentally covered herself in TNT chemicals. Her and Thunder, high on opium, decide the only way for her to survive is to amputate.
Scene XII - Thunder amputates Tammy's hands, but he's not a surgeon and it's the 1800s. Things go poorly.
THE AFTERMATH
This is Sandy Dick. She's left with her girls to take up a life of banditry. Unfortunately, none of them are trained to fight or shoot, and most get sick or shot. While resting at a town she's recognized for her links to the Placeholder disaster, and is subsequently locked up.
This is Jeremy Smith. He's been taken in by Chang's druglord allies. Used as a mule and general enforcer, he spends most of the rest of his life wishing he was orphaned again, or at least employed by Thunder. At least Thunder's abuse was only verbal.
This is Benjamin Chang. He's mayor of what remains of Placeholder, Colorado. Under his thumb it becomes a crime town, which delivers immediate returns. Unfortunately, the trade between it and other crime dens draws the attention of other cartels, and Chang finds himself fighting for his position as never before.
This is Mayor Tammy Teakles, dead of opium overdose, major physical trauma, and fire.
This is Thunder Teakles, dead of opium overdose in the (handless) arms of his wife.
This is Though-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Jameson. He's left for another nearby town and received formal dental training. While working on a patient he learns Placeholder has recovered from its troubles, but shrugs it off, as that life is behind him.
Facilitator Thoughts
The Boom Town playset offers a very strong tone and setting most people are familiar with. As such, it's a good one to use for those who have never played before.
