Category: Student Posts

 

Is Fiasco a game or an exercise in writing collaborative fiction? It is a game, in that it is run according to a formalized set of rules, composed of discrete parts, including a beginning, middle and end, and involves staples of game design such as dice rolls. On the other hand, there is no winner nor loser, not truly, and the most compelling part of the game takes place entirely in the collaborative creation of narrative. As players we used our imagination, and each other, to inject meaning into the experience through a type of conversational writing. In short, I consider Fiasco an exercise in collaborative fiction guided and structured by a formal set of game-like rules.

Before I was able to formulate high-level thoughts on Fiasco as outlined above I actually had to play the game which was an exercise in muddled confusion for the first thirty minutes as we attempted to make sense of the rules. In our game Brian, Nick, Jay and I elected to play in the “Suburbia” playset. I thought this would lead to small, meditative character stories but as with most (of mine at least) attempts at amateur storytelling, of which this certainly was, our plot got out of hand and became increasingly absurd. I had imagined stories à la “Mad Men” in the sense of getting insights into characters from their actions in a fairly mundane, though by nature of our given biographies somewhat scrupulous, lives. We ended up with something far nearer a thriller with wall-to-wall action reaching dizzying stakes and absurdities such as a escaping to Canada and then Britain, a deadly helicopter chase, being captured by and escaping from El Chapo when he and all other immigrants died from doctored drugs and so on and so forth. My character was a high-end drug dealer who wanted to “get revenge on the dirty immigrants” (hence their later deaths). With my pals Nick, on the right, with whom I had a drug manufacturing relationship and Jay, on the left, my closeted, gay lover. We fleshed out these roles, my connection to Nick went back to our childhood and the beginning of our drug trade in middle-school and we decided Jay was the Mayor’s son and college burnout. Finally, there was Brian who had connections to other players, but not myself, and was some sort of police officer monitoring Jay’s parole.

Playing through Fiasco, as with any time I attempt fiction, gave me greater appreciation for the skill and technique involved in creating compelling stories. While it was extremely enjoyable to play through our story it seems doubtful others would care about from the outside looking in as most of the enjoyment came from the actual creative process rather than the story that resulted from it. In addition to appreciating those who craft stories far better than I ever have, I also found myself reflecting on certain learning outcomes. In particular, writing as a process, where each turn was a chance to reflect on how I had controlled or affected the narrative previously and whether that was good or bad, something I now needed to correct, or an exciting direction I wanted to choose. Whichever of those I ended up landing on I implemented and improved my storytelling methods as I went along. And secondly, but not less importantly, collaboration. The reason I think so many people feared, or had concerns at a minimum, about this game was not only that they wouldn’t know how to play but that they would be opening up their minds to others and connecting ironically while working together. Many of us, myself included, keep an ironic distance as a coping mechanism which can often lead to worse collaboration. However, we were all able to relax and enjoy the game fairly quickly, getting caught up, as evidenced by the plot, in indulging each other’s ludicrous plotting.

 

Before we met together to play the game, I ‘studied’ the instructions a lot and read many reviews online. However, I still did not really understand how to play it because every review is different in terms of content( every one has a distinct and unique story), but that is the core  element of this game, giving the players unique experience in a new world.

When we started to play the game, we were confused by the number of dice and how to set up the scene by choosing locations and other details. We spent about half an hour sitting there and figuring out the procedure. Fortunately, we took a look at other group’s script and roughly had the idea to continue. Since it is a game, everyone was trying to pick the most weird details such as drugs and murders and ridiculous characters whose names are like Deerboom, McDiggity and Badass to make it fun. We had a very pleasant time setting up all the elements we need and proceed to Act 1. After a pause for 10 minutes, we wrote plots in our head and played them and connected them to  really direct a film. Even though everyone only has a small piece of scenario, we combine them altogether to an integrity which contains intro, complication, climax and conclusion. And as we proceed, the characters are given more detailed personalities through their actions and dialogues in the game. We are in THE ICE, a place of nowhere and a place where all the weird things happen. McDiggity and my ex-boyfriend badass want to kill me to get the one kilo of drugs. I am so afraid of that, so I dig a hole to hide the drugs and kill myself (tilt). And in the end, we all die in the aftermath, which is a bad ending as how the game is designed.

Fiasco is my favourite game in this semester so far (my favourite list is always updating because the games in this class keep giving me surprise). Throughout the game, I was so engaged in our stories and nothing else distracted me from them. The absurd elements throughout the game enable us to create a new world where we can do everything we want in Act 1, screwed up everything in Tilt, going far away from what we originally expected in Act 2 and probably we all die at last in the Aftermath. It is a game which enable us to laugh a lot when someone is died again and also think a lot when coming up with a new scene. The process of gradually figuring out how to play the game with others also made me addicted to RPG, role playing game which I can collaborate with others and have an open ending. The video games I played earlier in this semester only have designed and limited endings and which bored me to play the second time, such as GONE HOME or freshman or the Stanley. Compared to them, the unexpected results are more engaging and compelling because I am able to play different games each time I play, with or without the same players I played together before. In addition, the interactions with friends during the game make the scenarios more real than playing with fake people online.

I learned how to collaborate with others to create a complete story, like reacting to their stories and to relate everyone to my stories. Besides collaboration, I realized that I also need to work on thinking as process. When I was thinking about my plot, sometimes I was unable to proceed based my previous plots. At this time, I listened to their stories first and then went back to my plots and revise it. It is similar to writing process. When I am stuck on one point, I can study other works and improve my own process, which will largely help me to streamline my writing process and flow.

 

Fiasco is a tabletop role playing game, that involves creating your own story, developing a plot and deciding your own ending. There is some guidance with story sets and a set amount of choices based on 6 sided die. Other than that, the players are left to develop their own story. Playing this game allowed me to view myself and what I look for in RPG’s because of the story that me and my group created.

My group decided to create a crime based story-line that involved a drug dealer his partner, the drug dealers son and separated spouses. Since we only had three players, some of us had multiple relationships which made for an even more interesting story line. We decided to choose one central conflict since we only had three players and that was that we wanted to get rich quick through robbing our boss, the owner of a super-market. Through just the choice of story, I realized that I myself really enjoy crime stories. From here, we began to develop our story even more by creating the most random scenarios possible. This consisted of drug deals and eventually murder scenes which by the end resulted in everyone being either killed or sentenced to many years in prison. Its safe to say that the plot unfolded into one big disaster centered around a bunch of small disasters that built up. It was interesting to see this because we had control over our own story and we could have made it end in a very ideal and unrealistic way but instead we chose to end it with my character going to jail.

Looking back, I personally am not extremely proud of the Fiasco story I helped create. I think that the story could have been more sophisticated in the sense that we could have developed the plot deeper than we did. It was too basic for what the developers appeared to want. One of the elements that I think made our story too basic was the fact that we kept a similar chain of events through-out. Looking back I think that there was room for small side stories to form but, in the interest of time we decided to keep moving forward. Despite the simplicity I did enjoy the game overall.

The experience of playing a tabletop RPG was completely different from a video-game RPG. One of the major difference that I disliked was the fact that everything was imaginative and there was no visible setting. I like to have images of the setting and characters in front of me, mostly because its what I’m used to in terms of gaming. The other reason is because it’s more fun when you can actually view the actions you choose to take as opposed to simply stating them in words. The time it took to play was also very dis-pleasing because I’m used to being able to play games for a short time and then taking a break. Fiasco takes a while to get used to and creating your own stories takes a lot of thinking.

After all the hard work that was put in to figuring out the rules of the game and developing a somewhat coherent but simple story, I enjoyed experiencing my first tabletop RPG. I don’t think I would play Fiasco again on my own with other friends simply because it is too time consuming and difficult but the experience was worth the time that was put in.

This class continually surprises me. There was no way I would enjoy playing video games every week, but I do now. I didn’t think I could create a podcast, but now I have produced one with over eighty views. Most recently, I didn’t think a role playing game would be fun, but how wrong I was. Unlike other tabletop role playing games, Fiasco focuses on storytelling and a collaboration among the players. With only a couple of tips to get you going, it is completely up to you to create your very own Fiasco.

The gaming experience was interesting. Unlike my classmates who all played amongst each other, I played with my family at home. It was difficult to start in the beginning because I was playing with people who were not as invested in the game as I was nor were required to be. I was apprehensive as to how it would all turn out. I ended up playing with my brother and friend Willi. With some storytelling madness and inside jokes in mind, Diego and Willi became drug friends who ran a drug circle together, Willi and I became friends with benefits, and I attempted to enact revenge on my former coworker Diego. Our story was one of total revenge. As the driving force behind our whole story, I did everything I could to try to put Diego behind bars for making me lose my job. I was very interested in the progression of my own character instead of developing the whole story. In simplest terms, Diego was jealous of my progress at work and, using his drug lord connections, planted marijuana at my work place which eventually led to my termination. Finding out that Diego and Willi knew each other, I planned to use Willi who was enamored with me to get close to Diego and murder him. At first, I thought I was going to be successful in carrying out my plan; keep in mind that I really had to set things up and keep the ball rolling. Eventually though, Willi and Diego threw the game some curve balls. I was impressed. In the end, I was really proud of the story we crafted. One of my biggest problems when trying to write poetry or short stories or even painting is not knowing where to start or where to draw inspiration from. I appreciated that we were given freedom in choosing how the story played out but were given some starting points. It was just a matter of putting it all together. This experience really gave me insight on the writing process as a whole; it made me realize how every character is important for a story.

During the whole game, I mainly looked out for myself. I consistently made choices that would advance my character’s story without regard to anyone else. As the mastermind behind the whole story, I took it upon myself to try and make things happen as I wish. Throughout this process I definitely achieved the learning outcome of rhetorical composition. I learned to write a story using a game instead of a keyboard. It was weird in the beginning, but I really got into it. It was different than other things I have done in this class because I was collaborating with real people and trying to come up with an interesting story. Overall, I really enjoyed this experience.

 

 

 

 

Never having the pleasure of taking part in a tabletop role playing game I must say that Fiasco was an interesting experience. My group, group 3, met up in the Starbucks at 7:00 P.M., awkwardly sat down and brought out our laptops to try and make sense of Fiasco’s rules. This was more challenging than anticipated. We spent over half and hour trying to set the darn game up! But this frustration was well rewarded: we wound up with whacky scenarios, weird settings, and bizarre characters to manipulate and play as. As a mainline and rather vanilla human being I laughed my butt off when the group member to my left set up our relationship as the drug dealer/manufacturer. I had no idea how to carry myself or handle myself in that role and it was fun for me to try and channel my inner Breaking Bad in order to create a more authentic character.

At the beginning of the game there was a general air of confusion and unease. We were all fidgety and had difficulties coming up with scenes and ideas; nobody had any idea how to react to each other or how to incorporate others into their plotlines. After we all gained more confidence and became more comfortable with one another we established our characters more and our scenes became more detailed. As the other characters and relationships came together and the plot began to solidify it was clear that there was some strange stuff happening in Antarctica. Also, we stopped being timid and began screwing each other over: There were stabbings and affairs and injuries, people lost limbs! Our plot was rather far-fetched but extremely entertaining. Anyone was perfectly capable of messing with everyone and we took full advantages of that, and in the end everyone died.

To me, this RPG is a step past a videogame. This is a game where you go beyond just navigating a character you become the character. You mold them, then assume their identity, and then, instead of just typing responses to other players or characters like one does in a videogame, you have to actually interact with the other players. Arguments get heated, fighting words are exchanged, and you can actually see how the actions and consequences affect all the people in the game. You have to look them in the eyes as you attempt to wreck their lives in order to better yours. This aspect of the game caught me off guard, I did not know how personally offended I would be when some imaginary character my character had a dysfunctional relationship with stabbed me in the back and tried to lead me to my doom. I also underestimated just how satisfying it was to come out on top, there was something about the claim that my character’s life sucked the least and that I was, in fact, victorious because I died last.

Fiasco definitely stressed the importance of learning objective Critical Thinking and Reading Results in Writing but in a very unconventional way. The definition of this objective on the website is “As they undertake scholarly inquiry and produce their own arguments, students summarize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the ideas of others.” Though I was not dealing with a piece of literature or a videogame in this situation I had to focus and analyze and evaluate my opponents. Are the outcomes of their turns displaying any patters? What was their though process behind that last move? What’s their endgame? What does their character want? Once I came to a possible answer to some of these questions I would develop counter measures that I could institute in order to combat the actions they executed against me.

Fiasco, once I got past the frustratingly tedious task of setting up, was one of the most interesting things I have done in Read Write Play as of yet. I would like to take this moment to state for the record that I was extremely proud of myself though, because I died last! I rolled a black 11, which is a very good role by the way, so I did not just die, somebody did not come by and just kill me, I murdered the drug dealer and then decided to off myself as to avoid trouble with the authorities. (So to the fake RPG police in Mactown, mwuahahaha you can’t convict me of anything because I’m dead!)

 

Photo: Courtesy of Mady Arles

When first playing this game, my group members and I were extremely confused. None of us had a clear idea of how the game worked (as the game is very free-willed based on the players).

Some issues that came up:

• The rules said 4 dice per player while we only had 8 total.
• After looking through other groups’ playthroughs, some had more than one tilt.
• A little confusing about the needs, wants, and location (didn’t know if people shared those or everyone had their own).

Looking back at our crafted story, it had the key elements of every action movie: suspense, romance, violence, a bag of weed, and the inevitable death of all players. Of course there were a lot of plot holes that we never thought to fill in (Why were we in the Arctic on top of an iceberg in the first place? Why did Deerboom even have the kilo of marijuana to begin with? How did Deerboom and Badass Bandito meet and why did they break up?) Although our individual characters did not possess all the literary vocabulary, the combination of the needs and motivations of former lovers, crime partners, and tour guides somehow meshed together very well and helped build a story that could truly be termed “Fiasco.”

Our scenario played like a movie scene in my head. It starts in a cave atop an iceberg, the least likely place you’d expect a shady deal to be taking place, progresses into learning the motivation behind each character, initiates the climax (aka the tilt where fear is so present in Deerboom that she decides to kill herself) and actually ends in everyone dying in the aftermath. I’ve always enjoyed storytelling and making up a variety of stories, so this game was right down my alley. Although a little confusing at first, I think Fiasco does a great job helping to develop characters, their relationships, and their motives because this is a role-playing game where YOU, the player, get to decide everything. Often when I play and RPG on a computer, I’m left figuring out who my character really is. I don’t hate it, but being able to directly control my character’s motives and actions makes the storyline so much more interesting. In many ways, I feel like Sean in Wolf in White Van when he got Chris Haynes and Lance’s written decisions on what to do rather than follow his set of choices. When my fellow players threw unexpected Resolves at me (such as having me run into the mafia where I get killed), I became a little pissed off, but also more intrigued in the game, as I wanted to repay the favor in the form of revenge.

In addition to having to collaborate with each other by contributing ideas to the story, playing Fiasco resulted in using creative juices that have been idle for quite some time. After middle school, teachers rarely asked for a creative writing piece. It was mainly just “Here’s a book. Write an essay on it.” Creating a story with others really felt more engaging rather than reading a story as a class.

Fiasco really takes advantage of the different creative thought processes each individual player possesses. For our group, it was really interesting to see just how different of paths we took in terms of character relationships (ex. crime, former lovers, etc.) and needs. Also, I felt that setting up the scene was much more intriguing than actually playing through it, because the setup provided the “toolbox” for creation of the scenes in each act.

However, for me the game was very frustrating at times. Even after reading the rulebook our group seemed to have a very difficult time beginning the game. I feel that for many players it may be a turnoff if the setup itself seems very strenuous. Maybe this was because none of us were used to tabletop games (I’ve played very few), or maybe it’s because some elements of the game were missing (ex. 8 die were missing). Because we were so unsure about the set up and it’s components it made playing through the acts and making up the scenes seem so tedious and, more importantly, less “real” feeling. On top of that, there was a central tendency to try and make the story more and more ridiculous and unrealistic, a trend I feel most players end up following.