FIASCO

What is Fiasco?:
A cooperative storytelling game, involving hubris and the inevitable trainwreck that follows. 

For context, you could map an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode to a session of Fiasco.

Officially:
        
buy fiasco! - https://bullypulpitgames.com/products/fiasco

base rules - https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0638/2190/6133/files/fiasco_revised_rules_layout_20211025.pdf 
playsets - https://fiascoplaysets.com/
quick ref - https://cdn.1j1ju.com/medias/b4/cc/26-fiasco-rulebook.pdf

playthrough podcast examples
Gosh Darn Fiasco - https://goshdarnfiasco.simplecast.com/episodes
The Tilt - https://rpggeek.com/rpgpodcast/27385/the-tilt-a-fiasco-podcast
unexplored places



Unofficially:
This is a webpage I made to help run fiasco without basically anything on hand.

There are two ways to use this webpage. Rules only or interactive.

# Rules Only
Per player you will need
three index cards, 2 dark-coloured tokens, 2 light-coloured tokens
plus 2 more index cards and a pen/pencil

1.0 - Sparking the Imagination (choosing or inventing the Playset)
Playsets are the film you're acting out. It has setting information, some tables to spark your character development, and additional rules for what might be neat to play out. 

Ideally, this based on a few specific movies or pieces of media that keep everyone in the same headspace.

1.1 - the Score
This is a paragraph describing the vibes of the game. Think of a sleepy summer camp with vastly irresponsible councelers probably no dead kids :) Or a man accidentally time traveling to important times in his past, indirectly bumping them out like billiard balls.

2.0 - Laying the Groundwork
Sit around a table, or arrange yourselves in a queue.

2.1 - making our protagonists
Start from genre staples to keep the fiction grounded in its roots. If you're at a camp, at least one of you needs to be a counceler. From there though, you will need to add details about them that inspire or attract trouble. This positions things for later.
Each player takes an index card and writes their protagonist's name and a tagline for what they are as an archetype.

2.2 - relationships
Each protagonist will have two existing relationships (one for each player you sit beside). That means there's the same amount of relationships per player. A relationship often illustrates a dichotomy between the two characters or a chain that painfully binds them together. 

Think:
Regular at the coffee shop vs the barista who takes their order
Summer fling vs first love
Guy who got locked up for the crimes their friend commited
A dark secret two both share

With dice, you tend to use 1 die to establish a category of relationship (love & loss, crimes & schemes, secrets, friends, romance), and the second to specify it (in love vs years of regret, with a plan vs with the means, not who they appear, friends from childhood, once drunk at a party...)

Aim for different categories between each (specific generation rules to follow)
Something like, Loyalty | Novelty | Irritation | Danger 

Don't embelish the relationships, just write the tag down an an index card and place it beside each relevant person (if possible).

2.3 - needs/locations/objects
At least one of each. 4 players get a second need, 5 players get a second non-need.

Example Needs: to get respect, to get rich, to get laid, to get in, to get out, to get even
Example Locations: the lake, the woods, home base, the bank vault, the four seasons hotel
Example Objects: secret, dangerous, embarassing, ominous, useful

For a 4-player game, you would record two needs, a location and an object on a respective index card (4 cards).
Then on each, you can specify a detail (by asking What, How, from Who, or so forth).

E.g. To get respect from this specific coffee shop regular, the walk-in freezer in the local restaurant, underwear from an ex-lover, the security room in the bank, the need to get even with a rival bank robbing team, a pen that explodes if you click it 3 times quickly

Assign one card to each relationship.

In the process of assigning these, you may start to flesh out who each character is and why these details are so important.





3.0 PLAY TIME
Every player gets two scenes per act.
The player with the worst ideas goes first.

3.1 How Scenes Work
Scenes involve two major decisions: Establish and Resolve
Establish
set the scene, what's the reason these characters are about to interact, what's something you want to answer about these characters?

Resolve
For the given protagonist's attempt, do they succeed or fail? At any point you may give that player a light or dark token accordingly. Characters will fare better if they have mostly one color, so resolve carefully.

No player can both Establish and Resolve. 

3.2 Playing a Scene
Scenes involve a few minutes of freeform storytelling. You can talk out how a movie or tv show might display that information (including pans and dramatic zooms), or just stick to dialog like a radio play. Add some details to the world, and have fun exploring the characters! At some point the scene should come to a point of ambiguity - a character has made their move and we don't know if it's worked for them. That's when a player Resolves the action.

Once a scene is Resolved, it may be useful to help steer it in that direction to clean things up. The next player gets first choice in the following scene. 

Note: if the scene really truly calls for it, an additional player can play an "extra" to help a scene play out more naturally.

3.3 The Tilt
After Act 1 (remember, 2 scenes per player) ends, it's time for some destablization. 

Interesting or tragic themes that should arise in act 2. 

Choose one major good outcome and one major bad outcome. Try to tie this detail in the second act where it makes sense

Act 2 is otherwise played inedical to Act 1  

4.0 The Aftermath
Every character should have a set of tokens based on the scenes the survived. Light tokens and dark tokens will cancel each other out, and a happy character outcome requires a higher number of a single token type.

You may give one of your tokens to another player if you really think that character deserves that ending.

Once duplicates tokens are removed, your turn order is most tokens to least. 5 or more and you're unscathed, 1 token you probably end up dead. 0... and let's just say you should have sat this episode out.