TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS
FIASCO! EP. 1 DIRTY POLITICS PT.1
It all began in a strange place; the youtube channel GeeksandSundry. I've been watching the, Tabletop, hosted by Wil Wheaton, since its inception a few months ago. Every episodes begins with me being curious about the games they will play and ends with me wanting to buy/play said games as soon as possible. The show's presentation mixed with my love affair with board games and role-playing make it the perfect hobby program for a nerd like me. The nexus for today's subject and one of the best game nights I've ever had began in their Fiasco episode. Click to watch it below.
To quote Bully Pulpit Games website, "Fiasco is a game about ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor
impulse control. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won’t
go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably all
go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination.
It’s designed to be played in a single session, usually around two and a
half hours, with no prep." After you buy the main component to the game, either in soft cover book or pdf form, make sure to download some of the additional set-up available.
I knew I needed to have this game and when I found out you could download it in PDF format, and get the scenario will helped create for free, I downloaded it. Conveniently enough, about half of our friday night party for D & D / Pathfinder shenanigans were unable to make it and, with four people and simple enough rules, we were able to create a story using the rules set out by Fiasco.
So, now that you guys have got a general idea of what the game is about and how we winded up playing it, hit the link below to check out the breakdown of our first game, which I've given the title "Dirty Politics".
FIASCO! EP. 1 DIRTY POLITICS
Alrighty, so we're gonna start by giving you a little breakdown of the characters involved, their motivations before the get-go, and then break down each scene, across two acts, before a final aftermath montage. As we go, I'll explain the components that went into the creation of our original and collaborative story.
We decided to go with the Tales from Suburbia setting ( it was a tie between that and "A Nice Southern Town" town and came down to a dice roll) and got to work with rolling up the details to work into our story in the setting we made up for it, based on a Moral Oral reference, Donner, Statesota (the good parts are called Appleton). Our Locations were the Apple Valley Super Market and the Fancy Cuts hair salon, our Object was a Revolver, and our need was to "To get away with murder". Once we had those elements and our character's relationship details, we worked out the characters. Here is the cast of our tragic farce of ill-fated fellows.
NAME: ADAM HALFCOQ (Zach Stanifer)
AGE: 41
OCCUPATION: Owner of Apple Valley Supermarket/Meth Manufacturer/Veteran Peacekeeper
RELATIONSHIPS: Married to his loving wife Eve for ten years, devoted father of four boys, and a pillar of the local community, Adam Halfcoq puts on a facade of perfect husband, perfect father, perfect community man, and this facade is tiring. The way he deals with the stress and earns extra money on the side with the help of Radu Smirinov. The two have been making and dealing meth for about a decade and their relationship is one of boss/devoted partner. He doesn't know that his wife had a short-lived affair or that one of his sons isn't his own, but his wife doesn't know about his dealings with Radu. The two have been hiding a secret from each other for a decade.
MOTIVATIONS: Adam wants to run for Mayor in the Fall, but is struggling to find the best way to deal with the scenario; juggling his wife, his kids, his partner/friend Radu, what to do with his super market, and all the while protect his squeaky clean image.
NAME: EVELYN "EVE" HALFCOQ (Katherine Qualls)
AGE: 32
OCCUPATION: Hairdresser
RELATIONSHIPS: Married to Adam for ten years, this former beauty queen is a loving mother to four boys, John, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and loves her job as a hair stylist. She is a little clueless, because of her naive nature; she trusts Adam and thinks she knows him better than anyone. She had a short affair with Andy Vorchev, when her husband was a peacekeeper in Europe, and has hid the secret that her son, Luke, is actually Andy's son. This is her only sin and, compared to the other characters, is an innocent in all of this.
MOTIVATIONS: She is devoted to an image of the perfect family, whether it is her perfect marriage, her perfect husband, or her perfect quartet of boys.
NAME: RADU SMIRINOV (Sean Barnes AKA implejr)
AGE: 36
OCCUPATION: Meth Dealer/ Ice Cream Man
RELATIONSHIPS: A young man involved in the in-fighting during the Bosnian War for Independence, the war brought out the worst in Radu, after the death of his four brothers, and the several war crimes he committed. He helped himself and Andy escape Europe. Years later, the two ended up in the same small town of Donner, where Radu developed a drug business relationship with Adam. Radu has a lot of respect for Adam Halfcoq, but is certainly not beneath throwing the other under the bus for his own profit and skin. Taking advantage of Andy, Radu has been feeding him information about other criminals in the area, and leading him to bust several drug dens (eliminating the competition). Radu is a lonely, frustrated, and manic personality that generally had earned him a reputation in Donner's Little Bosnia.
MOTIVATIONS: Radu wants to eliminate his competitors and start making the meth himself; for that he needs Andy's help in eliminating enemies and Adam's "original recipe".
NAME: "ANDY" VORCHEV (Justin Shavers)
AGE: 34
OCCUPATION: Police Officer
RELATIONSHIPS: Andy has been running from his past ever since he escaped Bosnia, but Radu has a special pull on him as a friend/brother figure. A lone figure, Andy has no friends and lives a very lonely life; its easy to see why he would turn to the criminal Radu for friendship and why he went through with the short-lived affair with Eve (the only love of his life). He is Luke's father. Also, noteworthy is his partner, Charlie, who he has worked with for a few years. His image in the local community has earned him the reputation of "Super Cop"; if only they knew the horrors he has seen or the crimes he has committed.
MOTIVATIONS: Andy wants to get a promotion; he'll commit acts of derring-do and crime if that's what it takes to get what he wants.
And that ends PT. 1 "The Set-Up" if you will. To check out PT. 2, hit the link below.
