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Fiasco Classic
by Brian H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/30/2011 16:00:41

Fiasco is one of those games without a lot of overhead management. Each Playset is designed to be played for just a single session rather than a whole campaign, but there us an unlimited amount of replay value in each of them. The best part about the Playsets is that there are a lot of them to be had and they're (at the time of this writing, though I don't expect this to change) free.

Fiasco is a great game to get non-gamers into playing. All you really have to do is get them over the hurdle that dice are used (though I'm sure you could devise a way to go without them) and appeal to the part of their psyche that likes to see bad things happen comedically happen to characters.

Mechanically the game is set up randomly by rolling a pool of dice and using them to set up Relationships, Needs, Items, and Locations. You'll need an even number of d6's in two colors because that will come into play when you or the other players determine whether or not a scene will go well or poorly for you and just because you might be doing well overall your ending might not be so rosy. As long as you embrace the comic side of tragedy then you'll enjoy this game.

In a word, Fiasco is fun. It's not about heroics or high adventure, it really is about deeply flawed characters getting themselves into trouble for your entertainment.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Fiasco Classic
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Fiasco: The Jersey Side
by Michael H. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 05/03/2011 13:28:40

A great playset for a great game: The Jersey Side produces some very cool, story-laden set-ups. The first game we ran using it resulted in a blood-smuggling ring that revolved around the city morgue, along with a ME and an assistant DA who were working for the mob. Great stuff.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Fiasco: The Jersey Side
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Fiasco Classic
by Bob S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/29/2011 11:19:06

I really just can't say enough good things about Fiasco. As long as you've got a group of people willing to role play characters that may or may not end up being despicable people, or noble people who just get the shaft...you're going to have a good time. I guarantee it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Fiasco Classic
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Fiasco Classic
by David R. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/28/2011 12:06:10

I have to say I enjoyed this game very much. This is a very free form roleplaying game where the players make the game and story up as they go. The scenario's are very open ended and allow you a lot of room to improvise when creating the story. You characters are rewarded at the end of the game by being either really nice and decent or absolutely horrible. If you don't participate you are in real trouble. One of my players in our "Small Southern Town" game was eaten by the crazy cat ladies cats because he was contsantly trying to keep things low key during the game. While the Meth Addicted School teacher and Gambling Addict Real Estate king made off with most of the towns money and rode off into the sunset. This is a great game for people who enjoy roleplaying and storytelling. Dice rolling rule mongers may want to stay away from this one, if you need a lot of rules to make you feel comfortable this is not a game for you. If you like the thrill of roleplaying and collective storytelling then this game is for you. Also Bully Pulpit gives away for free a ton of add in scenarios. This is a great game for the price.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Fiasco: Quest for the Golden Panda
by Tim R. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 03/26/2011 14:52:53

Fiasco is one of the best games out there right now. And the fact that it has been continuously updated with playsets such as this one are the proverbial thick luscious cream cheese icing on the red velvet cake. Or in this case, Mooncake. The original launch for the Quest for the Golden Panda kicked off a firestorm of creativity in the podcast-o-sphere around the Jennisodes podcast as the Eponymous Jenn held a contest to promote the playset, Fiasco, and the upcoming Fiasco Players Guide (hint: sneak preview content is included here!). Quest for the Golden Panda is the first playset that is set in Asia, and the first that I'm aware of that introduces distinct new variant rules options. I have had a wonderful time playing this playset, and I could easily see playing it again and again. It captures a certain set of wuxia film elements, primarily those that are particularly fantastical and a little more goofy. This isn't the grittiest playset, but it certainly doesn't need to be either. One last note - "Six String Samurai" is the out-of-place movie in the Movie Night list. It's one of my favorites, but has nothing to do with this genre.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Fiasco: Quest for the Golden Panda
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Grey Ranks
by Erathoniel W. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 12/04/2010 10:02:48

I don't really know what to say about this product. Poignant, moving, touching, and emotional, with more of a focus on survival rather than winning, Grey Ranks is not a game for everyone, but a mature, sophisticated audience will see that it is one of the most artistically crafted games.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Grey Ranks
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Fiasco: 1913 New York
by Tim L. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/24/2010 07:10:32

I'm not sure. Maybe I was hoping for a bit more of a link to 1913 NY but except for some of the street names it felt very generic. Instead it is a list of names, places, events, etc. set up in a d6 random list. So you can have (6) Tommy from (3) East Side with (1) No Family and (1) Rum running. I think I was hopping for more color description of the city, life, street scenes.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Fiasco: 1913 New York
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Fiasco Classic
by Megan R. [Featured Reviewer] Date Added: 08/15/2010 10:59:53

The underlying concept to this game seems simple: you set up a situation in which things will go wrong, disasterously so, and then play it out as a collaborative story-telling game, taking the part of the main protagonists. That's straightforward enough, but bolted on is a complex resolution mechanic that jolts you out of storytelling mode to administer - while giving structure to what could otherwise dissolve into chaos around the game-table (as opposed to in the situation you're playing, where you WANT chaos!) it detracts from the interactive no-holds-barred narrative flow of the game.

Designed for 3-5 players (no GM required) and to take about three hours to play out, even the design process is very structured. Called The Setup, you start by determining when and where the game will take place, and then insert relationships and details to engineer your situation. But it's not done by purely throwing out ideas until your mix feels explosive enough to begin, but through a system called a Playset. As a scenario-design system, it's quite a beautiful mix of creativity and randomisation. Each Playset comes with lists, you see, and once you have chosen a published one or made up your own, you roll a whole bunch of dice and take turns to choose items from the lists, each time using a die that's rolled the appropriate number. Key to the procsses is ensuring the involvement of each player's character, by creating a relationship between him and the characters of the player sitting to either side of you, even before everyone has decided precisely who their character is going to be. The concept is sound, but it can be a bit pedantic in detail, mechanical in its requirements which are stated quite precisely. Care has also to be taken that you don't actually start to play the game until you have everything laid out.

But once you have, it is time to start. Whilst this is collaborative story-telling, it follows a prescribed patter than is very precise - and, being a GM-less system, everyone playing has to buy in to the artificial constraints or it will get away from you. Each player takes a turn when his character is in the spotlight, in which he gets to either set the situation or decide the outcome for his character - he cannot do both. Everyone else contributes to the part of the turn that he does not choose. The outcome can either be good or bad from the character, just what that means is decided by the player. The act of decision is handled by dice - but not by rolling, just by picking one of two colours, preselected to mean good or bad. In the first half of the game, the player gives the die to someone else.

Dice are important, and potentially intrusive, in this game. As well as being used in the Setup, you place four dice (two each being 'good' and 'bad') per player in the centre of the table once you start to play. (Unlike some story games, you really do need to be round a table to play this one!) As described above, one is handed to the spotlight player to resolve his scene; and once done is given to someone else in the first half of the game and kept for the second half.

For this is a game of two halves. Once each player has had a couple of turns in the spotlight, you stop for the Tilt. This time, dice get rolled and the mathematics can get a bit complex - this game might be best played sober. Each player rolls whatever dice he has in front of him, which may be ones he retained during his turns and ones given him by other players during his turn, and of either colour. The two people who get the highest results with dice of each colour, calculated via a formula, choose the Tilt elements - things which are disruptive, which will send what is already an unstable situation headlong into... well, fiasco.

It's recommended that you take a break at this point. Things have probably got quite intense, and you might want a chance to think about what you intend for the rest of the game... and you'll want to be making sure that everyone is having fun (even if their characters are not!). Then, on with the second half of the game, played pretty much like the first part only this time you keep all dice handed to you during your turns and the game ends when all the dice in the middle of the table have gone. The last die is 'wild' in that it can be good or bad for the final spotlight character irrespective of what colour it actually happens to be, the players decide. But then it reverts to what it is to determine the overall flavour of the endgame, the Aftermath.

To begin the Aftermath, roll all the dice in front of you and perform a calculation - just like the Tilt at the halfway point. Then you consult a table to find out how the game ended for your character, and the whole group tells their tale. It is supposed to be a quick montage, rather than the more involved and interactive bits that came earlier, with players making one observation per die that they have about what has happened to their character.

That's about it as far as the rules for playing the game are concerned. Generic tables for Tilt and Aftermath are given (you can have Playset-specific ones but it's not necessary to derive them unless you think it will work better) and there are a few optional rule tweaks you might want to try out. The rest of the book consists of sample Playsets (a nice southern town, the wild west, a suburban community and in an ice-locked research station) and an extensive example of the game in play.

Overall, it's an intriguing mix of free-form storytelling within some tight constraints that keep it focussed. Working better once all involved are familiar with the mechanics, they can still sometimes intrude to a level where they threaten the willing suspension of disbelief, pull you back out of the story into the real world of a group of people around a table. If you enjoy intense character-driven games, but don't want a long-term relationship with your character, and have a group willing to collaborate within a formal structure, this has great scope for some epic evenings.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Fiasco Classic
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