In the second and third week of games, we played Fiasco. I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of the game, some of the most fun stories that are told are those of criminals and how their plans go awry, so I was excited to try and have a similar experience. I think one of Fiasco’s strengths is also one of the parts of the game that is hardest to master, that being the improvisational nature of the storytelling, with each scene and the direction of the story being entirely up to the players, with no facilitation from a designated game master. It was difficult to get into the flow of the game, but by the time my group hit the tilt, we seemed to have a pretty good grasp of how it worked.
For Fiasco, the ties to leadership are most prevalent in establishing the scenes in which the game is played. The player needs to take a lot of initiative in crafting their own game world and in establishing the story, there are no real rules for what you can and can’t do within a scene. It’s a very amorphous and free-flowing game, where the players’ choices will control not only the narrative but also the rules to some extent.
For the first week of Fiasco, the important task was to understand how one’s values would come into play over the course of the game. Over the course of the first session, I found more and more that I was allowing myself to play the character and set my own personal values aside. Personally, I am not someone that would engage in sports gambling or other types of acts, and yet I was perfectly fine to play the character of a bookie. I think the important thing to remember in the case of role playing games, like Fiasco, is to allow yourself to separate what you do from yourself because you are playing a character.
During the second week of Fiasco, the “tilt” took place. During the tilt, my character was taken hostage by organized crime. And while the game did not end well for my character from a consequences perspective, the flow of the game was greatly improved and expedited. Overall, my experience was incredibly positive. This is a game that I would recommend for team bonding exercises.