? 10 min readIt's not like we, the Townsfolk, haven't seen travelling bands of (so-called) heroes before. After all, many of us rely heavily upon their lucrative trade. It's just that these ones in particular, more than any others, had...
With each new group of 'dragon horde coveting' strangers came its challenges. Yet, when they eventually built up the courage to travel north and 'save' our town, we would never hear from them again... and life continued on in relative peace.
This time was different, though. We got what we dreaded the most. Word had reached us that The Dragon was defeated, and now, so was our main way of making a living. To add insult to injury, those potty-mouthed, blood-thirsty, patronising (not in a good way) out-of-towners, turned up on our door steps to rub our noses in it too.
Thank the gods they hated each other more than they paid any attention to us... or we, too, might have become ash, along with most of our town. What did we ever do to deserve heroes like these?
It took a while (years), but I managed to get a game of Fiasco RPG back on the felt again and run it at a NoBoG evening. If you are unaware of what Fiasco is, then please let me quickly fill you in.
Fiasco is a games master'less, dice'less storytelling, tabletop roleplaying game for 3-5 players. Each player will 'star' in a total of 4 'scenes' over 2 acts of play. The aim is to improvise a story together; setting up highly incendiary situations, testing relationships to destruction, and grabbing what we want when we can... and all just for the fun of it. A typical game of Fiasco begins quite conservatively and then rapidly descends into mayhem and hilarity, lasting usually between 2.5 - 3 hours.
To kick this game off, the players discuss and collectively choose one of the 3 Playsets available in the core game box. Each playset is a backstory, genre, and micro-environment from which the players get to draw inspiration from and roleplay within. Mechanically, each playset comprises a deck of 54 cards full of thematic story-telling devices to wet our creative whistles with. During the set-up, which is an enjoyable part of the game too, all players are invited to choose a relationship with one of their neighbours to the left or right of them. Once complete, they are all then invited to take a moment to discuss their roles and character ideas. Those connections are then added to with needs, objects, and locations. All of this is meant to build up and facilitate the flow of ideas in order to weave a story and (hopefully) reach an explosive/surprising conclusion.
What was not entirely obvious to the townsfolk was how this mismatched band of travelling clowns managed to best a literal dragon; let along our Dragon in her own lair. She had made short work (or so we were told) of all previous 'heroes' who used our town as a base camp. That's not to say that the provisions and equipment we sold were subpar. So, if at any point a vicious rumour about us wafts your way, try not to be too judgemental. We're good folk, trying to make an honest living. Unlike the 'heroes' of this story.
Like I said, we heard that The Dragon was defeated. A party of locals were being organised to locate what was left of the dragon's horde when 'they' finally turned up; in the evening at our one and only tavern. First, a pair of disgruntled elves, spouting xenophobic cuss words, named Zadkiel the Spellweaver and Dagan the Aloof. Now, our town was a diverse mix of folk from all over the land. However, this fact was completely lost on them spiteful little elves. Word had it that they were plotting to accumulate as much of their companions loot as possible before fleeing with it.
The other 'pair' appeared to be human in ancestry and of magical means. Some of our town's tavern-goers nicknamed them the 'Rain Dancers'. This stemmed from witnessing them waving their arms around a lot in close proximity to one another, looking to the heavens in exasperation, then concluding with gormless looks of concern when nothing happened, or indeed zilch was going their way at all. The robed and more worrisome looking one screamed, "Alan!" quite a lot, to which Alan responded with "yes, your Mighty. " They both smelt of death and despair.
Lastly, and by no means least, was a brute of a dwarf who we believed to be the groups 'meat-shield', as described by modern-day adventuring parlance. Gwarl the Deadly had a penchant for harassing a bewildered Alan for elven biscuits and murdering our orc neighbours who lived just down the trail. We caught wind of this fact when our very own town mayor made an impromptu visit to one of her cousins for mid-afternoon tea and to open their new orphanage.
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| Beware an elf bearing gifts. |
All in all, it was quickly decided that if this murderous, ill-tempered, lying bunch of back-stabbers didn't kill each other soon, we would probably have to send for help from The Big City for reinforcements. Or face the very real possibility of the total destruction of our homes and businesses.
As rumours of their plans spread, our finest townsfolk minds began to formulate plans of their own. Our very own Town Merchant, who happened to be elven, was contacted by the adventuring party's elves. For some insane reason, they bartered away the rights to the dragon's skull for elven crackers! What idiots!! We immediately went to work, following both Zadkiel and Dagan, in the hopes that they would lead us to the dragon's horde. Unfortunately, late the next afternoon, we lost contact with our comrades who were involved. However, reports say that the pair of disgruntled elves turned up at our tavern with some crackers, in a sack splattered with blood. Perhaps we had underestimated them somehow.
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| Arundel and Alan. Winning. |
It was at that point that several reports came back of buildings spontaneously exploding or setting themselves alight. We're not entirely sure what happened, as most of us were too busy grabbing our children and elderly, and running for the foot hills. In time, though, what really occurred was reliably passed back to us. The dwarf had suddenly come down with an acute case of flammable breath and explosive farts - apparently confirming that he indeed had eaten a dragons egg. In the midst of setting fire to our tavern and adjacent properties, Arundel the Mighty had decided to use a magical staff's abilities on the dwarf, in an attempt to reincarnate and regurgitate the chewed up remains of the dragon embryo. This was a time critical objective, since Gwarl had not yet had a chance to sit down and dispose of it at the khazi.
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| Gwarl needed to lie down for a bit. |
While a confused and fiery baby dragon destroyed the rest of our town, what was left of the adventuring party piled on to Dagan and tore them apart for their treacherous behaviour. We're not sure how many of the treacherous acts already carried out so far constituted an execution in their eyes... but apparently stealing stolen treasure crossed a line somehow. May the gods have mercy on all of their souls. If they still have a soul, that is.
After a few days of rough travel, we, the Town's refugees, arrived at the Big City gates for food and shelter. We passed onto the authorities the whispers which had circulated regarding what remained of those so-called 'heroes'. They were last seen wandering off into the wilderness, however, we could not be certain. For all we knew, they might have infiltrated our travelling party for protection in numbers and we unwittingly granted them access to the City.
Never have I met such a sorry bunch of accidental dragon slayers in my life. Worse, they are still out there, unquestionably oblivious to the mayhem and destruction they are leaving in their wake.
My beloved husband never did return from his last shift at the tavern that afternoon. Leaving behind four young children. Maybe he was the lucky one? However, I doubt it, as he was last seen having his face pecked off by that fowl bird and then spontaneously popping out of existence. If you ever read this account, my darling, please remember us, and come find us. Together, we'll exact our revenge...
Ok, so our final thoughts.
I have played Fiasco over 20 times by now, to a varying degree of success and intensity. The feedback from our first time Fiasco players this time, was that the game really makes you think. Which was later clarified to mean, that there was little (by way of mechanics) in the game to help new players to prepare for being put in the spot-light so early on. If I recall, I experienced this on my first few games too. Having to work with only 'creative vapours' can feel very intimidating, and may cause a small amount of stress.
Fiasco is a rules light game, and the driver of the current scene is an individual player who uses their time to try and forward their character's agenda. Other players may and will jump in from time to time with helpful suggestions, it is in fact recommended! However, players, who are only experienced in roleplaying in games where the story is driven and underwritten by a sole person - a Games or Dungeon Master; could easily feel a little abandoned and uncomfortably short of ideas.
Over all, the game was really fun, with plenty of belly laughs - especially around our failing and flopping magic-using apprentice Alan... who (of course) eventually went insane.
Story telling and improvisation is a skill, there's no doubt about it. So if you are lacking in that department or are in need of some practice... or you want to show-off your quick thinking, razor-sharp wit, give Fiasco a go. It's an experience to behold.
See you later.