We played Fiasco last night and it was fun. The game lasted two hours, which is right on target for some experienced players (only Clinton hadn't played before, and he caught on immediately). I saw an unusual tie that I need to account for in the rules, but otherwise the current draft is pretty solid. One interesting thing about this session was that we all chose less action-oriented elements, which made the game more introspective and relationship-focused. Nobody died. There was one fist-fight off screen. It was a pretty mellow love traingle, with some hippie eco-terrorism overlaid on it.

The setting was McMurdo station, in Antarctica, which everybody was really jazzed about. It's a solid play set, but because of the insular location, I think the relationships tend toward less physicality and more emotional interplay. I'm OK with that.

We had:

Dr. "Murph" Winkel, the Earth Sciences boss, who started out as a nice guy with serious concerns about environmental problems on the Ice and turned into a real power-hungry bastard after the tilt.

Dr. Andrew Ward, Deputy Director for Infrastructure and Logistics, a career bureaucrat being blackmailed by Murph and having an affair with Dr. Jones. Joel played this guy with some sympathy, which was remarkable. He was sort of sad, but also evil - a minion of the petroleum industry.

Rusty Jones, a PhD candidate, kitchenhelper, and part-time postal worker. Also an eco-radical and environmental extemist burning to "teach the corporate tools a lesson" - he spoke for the trees, or, in the absence of trees, the penguins. Olivia's ex-husband, and still in love with her.

Dr. Olivia Jones, a geologist and Rusty's ex-husband. having an affair with the Deputy Director. Working for Conoco-Phillips to do some "research" involving petroleum deposits in the dry valleys.


Oliva Jones and the Deputy Director had been in a horrific accident where two other guys had died, illegally drilling a test well in the dry valleys. Murph and Rusty wanted to get to the bottom of that, and Murph had some racy snapshots of the (married) Deputy in flagrante delicto with Rusty's ex-wife. There was blackmail, jealous rage, a misfired murder attempt, jockeying for power, and a lot of sex. After the tilt, we discovered that Murph wanted the Deputy Director 's job and wasn't as big a green activist as he let on - and Olivia fell in love with him (awkward!). When Rusty clumsily resorted to "direct action" with some explosives, Murph ratted him out and played the hero, getting him busted and betraying the cause. The game ended with Rusty in jail, Murph confirmed as the new Deputy in Washington, Olivia under his thumb, and Dr. Ward retiring with his wife and kids.

So not a lot happened, on a physical level - it was an interior drama, very soap opera-ish, not as huge a clusterfuck as is typical, with the action resolving to focus on Murph and Olivia. This is one of the things I love about Fiasco - you can look at the web of relationships, but you never know who will be central, and who will be supporting, until things start to move.

Oh! Also of note - there was only one NPC - a mouth-breathing radical named Ivan who was basically a foil for Rusty.

The r-map thing is something you set up at the beginning of the game and is (somewhat) randomly generated from the setting sheet/placemat.

I like Fiasco. I also like penguins. The relationship map is fun to complete and works well in play.

Graham

Oh, and to back Chris up, the only things present at the beginning of the game are the blue and green items in the diagram above - you pick those, and interpret them as a group to make the black ones (characters). Then halfway through you add the red ones. Then everything goes to hell.

(I am peeing my pants with excitement about this game)

One towel is not nearly enough for Jason.