Monthly Archives: September 2020

Fiasco – Part 2

This week we continued playing Fiasco from where we left off last week. Overall the game went well. I have to thank my group as I had wisdom teeth surgery the day before this class and so wasn’t feeling great and they supported me in that. They let me take a smaller role in Act 1, the Tilt and Act 2 and I mostly utilized the chat function while I iced my face.

The hardest part about this week was once again getting started. While we had our background from the prior week, actually starting Act 1 was challenging. I think we were all nervous to actually dive into the acting portion of the game. This ties to leadership because we needed someone to be brave enough to lead the game in discussion in order for the game to really get started.

I personally didn’t love the game Fiasco. I had a really hard time being creative and making my story lines interesting. However, I would suggest this game to my sister as she is extremely creative and I can imagine her succeeding in this role.

Fiasco Part one

For the previous week, we started to play Fiasco. At the beginning of the game, we rolled the dice and start to create our relationships, it is fun to create our relationship. Most of our relationships are drinking buddies and coworkers.

While we create a weird background story that we are on the ice land and I and my drinking partner Yaxin were drinking beers while driving the helicopter, and of course, the helicopter crashed. Morgen was taking a day-off and drinking with Anna, but since the helicopter crashed and it is an emergency, so anna has to bring morgan with you on the fire truck to try to save me and Yaxin, on the ice land.

Well, the background story is pretty interesting and we haven’t yet to approach the tilt in the first week of the fiasco. But overall it is already pretty fun to just create a background story and I am looking forward to playing the game. We explained a lot about our relationship because there was a bunch of twists when we create our story. However, I am still feeling good about our good start and hopefully, the story will end well.

Tabletop Thursdays, Week 2: Fiasco, Part 1

For week two of gameplay in EDL 290T, our class played Fiasco. Fiasco is a game where players roll dice and work together to create backstories for characters and then throw those characters into improvised scenes based on the rolls of their dice.

In class, we broke out into Zoom groups of four and started playing. For the first week, we were told to get the storyline that we wanted to work with setup and to start the gameplay if there was time remaining. Since none of the group that I was in had played the game before, we ended up needing the full time for backstories.

The hardest part for this week was coordinating the game. The Tabletop Simulator UI was hard to use and of the four people in our group, none were familiar with the app. Because of this, the group had to coordinate what we could to set up our backstories, which we did by using Google to roll dice and then reading out the potential pieces of the plot line to make our story come together. The most fun part was coordinating within the group to create backstories for the characters based on dice rolls. For example, most of the relationships between players were drinking buddies, and the story that we create over the next two gameplay sessions will have to involve a firetruck in Antarctica and a crashed helicopter. I’m not sure how this will go, personally, but it should be interesting nonetheless.

The scenarios given within Fiasco tend to involve a lot of things that might bring up sensitive or uncomfortable topics for players, such as drugs, violence, and alcohol. Personal values that came into play for me were setting limits on what I was comfortable with my character doing in the backstory – for example, I would be fine with a character that drinks alcohol but I would be less comfortable with a character that does illegal drugs. Knowing this helped me be comfortable playing the game while stretching me out of my comfort zone because of the room for improvisation.

One of the ways this ties into leadership is that leaders sometimes have to make quick decisions on their feet and respond to the unexpected; when my group meets up again to start acting out the scenario we’ve created, we will have to respond quickly to what our scene partners do and say. Additionally, as we get further into gameplay, we will have to deal with unexpected elements, and a good leader is one that can remain level-headed in the face of the unexpected. Because of the amount of improvisation involved, I think that some of my high school friends that did improv comedy with me would enjoy playing this game.

Fiasco (Week 1)

The first week of Fiasco was interesting to say the least. I love the idea of a game that isn’t centered around winning, rather relying the creativity of the players to build a crazy story. It took me back to my days when I used to do theatre in high school. The game requires a lot of improvisation and cooperation to create a wicked storyline that you’d only find in a fiction book or movie.

Though I’m still having fun, this game would play out much better if we were all in person seated around a table. It’s a bit harder to feed off each-other and have fluid scene when conducting it online, but again, what are ya gonna do. It is what it is. I’m looking forward to the second part of Fiasco where we really get to dive deeper into our characters and build up to the story’s climax. It’s a lot of fun and I definitely think I’m going to show this game to some of my peers back at home.

Fiasco Week 1 Reflection

This week we played the first part of Fiasco and we only have time to complete the first section which is roll dice and select relationship with other players. The special part of Fiasco is that it is a storytelling board game and it also requires some creativity. Since we need to set up a relationship, need, object or location with neighbor, Fiasco gives us large extent of freedom to play. It is also a roll player game but different with the last one, we can choose our character and then create our own story which is very entertaining.

For me, I think the first part of Fiasco is easier to getting start because we only need 4 players and six-sided dice. The first impression that Fiasco brings to me that it is like a preview of a drama or a movie but it is our own responsibility to create the script. So I think it is easier to play compare with Roll Player because we do not need a lot of processes to do on table simulator. The thing we should do is roll the dice and decide and create our story.

With the freedom of setting, our team had a pleasant discussion time, each of us chooses the favorite character and relationship. For example, I choose to be a drinking buddy with my neighbor. However, it doesn’t happen in real life, because I don’t drink. With the platform in Fiasco, I can imagine a different life experience and it is very funny. I do not think our team has a difficult part about the first part of Fiasco, since our process is very smooth and I like the idea of freedom of creation. So I would definitely recommend my friends back in China to play Fiasco.

Lastly, the most important takeaway from the first part of Fiasco is we all need to respect other people’s like or dislike. It is essential when we discuss leadership because respect people’s idea, do not force people to accept thing which is not aligned with their personal value it is indispensable when we create a pleasant discussion environment. Also, a good leader should always consider freedom of creation, let the team member create a surprising result.

Game of the Week- Fiasco

this week we played Fiasco, which to me seems like a role-playing game. people design the relationship with each other by rolling dice. there are six basic relationships, and my favorite one is crime relationship because i can make lots of stories on this role. relationship is the most important thing in this game, at least, it provides us the foundations of how to develop the story. the hardest but also the most interesting part is making stories. i have to brainstorm, but it does not mean i can make whatever i want. still, i need to make the story logical and appealing.

this game would be funny if you play with your friends, especially for those who you are the most familiar with because you do not have to be shy to tell the story at least. moreover, this game is quite difficult for international students because sometimes their expressions will cause misunderstanding, or the logic is not as perfect as native speakers. However, telling a story is also a good way to practice speaking.

the play session went well and everyone is willing to share the story and try hard to make the story funny but logical. i have to admit that sometimes it is quite hard to understand the implied meaning behind the story told by my American teammates. but my American teammates are always willing to help me out. there is one thing that my group did that is different from other grounds. that is we were using excel to play the game instead of going to the table simulator. here i need to thanks to Grayson because she brought up this idea. why did not we use table simulator? because my steam was broken during the class time and i had no way to fix it. i feel sorry to my group.

my favorite part in Fiasco is telling the story and guessing what logic is implied behind the story told by other people. Although i lost the game, i learned some things from the game. first, do not be shy to tell the story. everyone is here to hear your wonderful story. second, helping others when they have trouble. if you have some ideas and you want to share with your group, do not hesitate. because I got a Chinese groupmate who was not quite sure of the rule of the game. i helped him out when he got trouble. in my opinion, when i helped people, my personal value came out. moreover, personal value also ties to the leadership. when people are afriad of telling story, all you need to do is encouraging. i think leadership can be illustrate from many different perspectives and is not limited to lead people to do something.

Fiasco – Part 1

This week we played the first session of Fiasco. This was a game I was very timid to play as I have never played a role playing game and the idea of it really intimidated me. I am not a very creative person, so I was nervous about having to make different scenes. The hardest part about the game was getting started. My group personally struggled with using the Steam platform itself and moving things around in the simulator. Getting started was difficult because we all were pretty quiet and this game revolves around speaking. Once we got into it the game flowed pretty smoothly. 

I think this game ties to leadership because you have to be a leader of discussion. In order for the game to be successful you have to be a strong speaker and really play the role you have chosen for yourself. I like this game because I really don’t believe you need materials to play. It would be easy to just play this game anywhere as long as you had dice and pictures of the playing cards. However, I didn’t enjoy this game because it is a little too open ended for my taste. I am someone who enjoys strict rules and guidelines for games and this game did not have a lot of that. 

Throughout the game I played a drinking buddy to two different people. This doesn’t fully align with my personal values as I do not drink very often. I also made some decisions I typically would not make in real life. This was easy for me to act in this role, even though it didn’t personally align with what I believe in. 

I think my mom would really enjoy this game and I would love to teach her how to play. She has always been the creative one in the family and I think could make a really strong story line. She has a great sense of humor, so I would enjoy hearing what she would be able to come up with.

Roll Player

I’m very excited to be in this class because I’ve always loved playing board games and card games ever since I was a kid. In fact I still get together with friends during breaks to play games like Monopoly, Risk, and Clue. After seeing our professor’s one of many game shelves in his house and looking through Tabletopia for the first time, I realized I don’t know as many games as I thought.

The first class was around the game Roll Player, a game in which I had never even heard of. I had also never played a role playing game before (Clue is the closest game I could imagine). The game was surprisingly very interesting. I didn’t understand all the rules, but I can see how the element of strategy plays a huge role in winning. There’s a lot you can do to build and embody your character to carry him or her to victory.

I know that in-person classes would make the flow of these games much easier. However, I think I am starting to understand how Tabletopia works. It’s fairly user-friendly but gameplay is still at a snails pace. I’m glad I was able to communicate with my classmates to ask questions whenever I was stuck or didn’t know what to do. I’m looking forward to what other games the class has to offer, but as far as the first week, I think overall it was a success (despite the virtual circumstances we are under).

Roll Player

In the previous week, we played the roll player. At the beginning of the game, even I read the rules, it is still hard to keep track of what an individual’s skills are. And because we are playing the game virtually, it is also hard to keep track of orders, usually after one round of the game, we need to figure out the sequence again.

Overall, the roll player game it’s pretty fun. We figure out our ability and skills, gain golds and purchase armor and weapons. At the first, the rules were confusing for me, but as soon as I started to play, the rules become clear, and to use class color matches with the purchased cards could help players create more advantages and match the color dice. The game ends pretty quick that I haven’t had enough fun, so I encouraged my other friend to play with me at the weekends, they all loved it.

At last, I think that when we play the game, it is important to understand the game rule and if you want to help other people, you have to build your own “perfect” class set before helping others. It helps leadership in tabletop games because after you set up your setting, to help people who do not know how to set the game it’s important. To keep the game running, keep tracking orders, and to be able to explain the rules to other players is what leadership needs and contains.

Roll Player

I am very happy that we can play board games together. Because I think it is a good way to meet some new friends, since play board games is relax but also needs to focus on the process of the games. For me, I really enjoy playing Monopoly, UNO, Jenga with my friends at Friday night. 

It is the first time I play the game Roll Player through Tabletopia. It is different than what I think of a board games, so it took me a lot of time to figure out the rules and the process of how to play the game. In my perspective, I think the game is very difficult to follow and understand at the first time because it is a lot to keep track of. However, after the first round, I can gradually follow the rules and work with my team member. Because my team member are so great and they teach me how to play at the first round. I didn’t understand at the beginning, but I found a lot of interesting later. So I will recommend Roll Player to my friends, and play with them through Internet. The games ends so quickly, before we have the final winner of the game, but I love playing it with my team member. 

Finally, for the first time used Tabletopia, it is easy to follow, but the Roll Player game is difficult to keep track of. And you need to understand and choose who you are, and then you can help other people. I was very lucky our group members are familiar with the game, and they help me go through the first round, and then I found that it is interesting to play board games online. Otherwise, without the leader in our group help me, I will lose the confidence to play board games online. So I think the first game we played is very interesting, I am looking forward to the rest of the semester to play more board game together.