Holy crap, Fiasco

Right when I finally figured I had my game of petty crime and revenge gone bad all sorted out and statted up for A Dirty World, along comes Fiasco, which is specifically designed to play games of petty crime and revenge gone bad. And, if the internet is to be believed, is damn good at it. Damn the luck. I mean, yay.

The most interesting thing about Fiasco is that it's barely an RPG (as we understand it) at all. There are a grand total of three dice rolls in the entire game, and only the last one actually determines success or failure - the other two are just used to choose set dressing from a set of tables. The resolution mechanism, such as it is, consists of each player in turn declaring whether they want to establish or decide a scene involving their character. If they establish, they have control of the scene setup (although other players can chime in with their ideas) but all the other players get to collectively decide whether they succeed or fail. The opposite happens if they decide - the other players define the scenario, the active player only decides the outcome. There is, of course, the usual improv-group tension here, and always the concern that the deciding player(s) will try to completely ignore the established scenario, but that's a universal concern of the rules-light game anyway.

As mentioned, Fiasco uses tables to determine set dressing, ranging from relationships between characters (defined, interestingly enough, before the characters are), to needs, to objects (like the inevitable briefcase full of cocaine). This means that the players collectively define the scenario, and obviates the need for a GM to create one: Having tried and failed to build a suitably byzantine Coen Brothers knockoff by myself, I can believe that it's a matter to be entrusted to the diabolical imaginations of the group as a whole. Once I can get the players to understand that their guy will most likely end up dead and that's fine, I think it'll go like a bandit.

Plus, while Fiasco doesn't have set scenarios per se, creating a new "playset" (Usually, but certainly not always, centered around a geographic location) is a relatively simple matter of coming up with a mere 144 clever ideas to work into the tables. It's actually quite freeing - You can simply hurl all your ideas at the page, and it's up to those poor saps the someday player group to make them fit together.

I'm thinking of inflicting Fiasco on my Tuesday night gaming group to see how it goes down - after-action report to follow.