Author Archives: graeteke

Fiasco! among the stars

Shenanigans among the stars

THE SCORE

Reach for the stars

Faster than light travel has been discovered and commodified. Everyday people can get jobs piloting between planets or even upon stars. The stars were always pretty from Earth but who knew they could be even more pretty when you’re rocketing past them. We’ve explored every inch of the galaxy by now. It’s not the most common of jobs but it really gets you away from the life at home and out there. We’ve always had our eyes on the sky and now we’re there. Space is a fresh start for many. Is this your chance to start anew? What all can you find out there beyond the stars? Maybe you can do some good for everyone? After all, what’s there to lose?

Relationships

1 partners

  1. Lab partners
  2. Captain and second mate
  3. A scientist and their helpful robot assistant
  4. On a honeymoon trip
  5. In crime, in life, in death
  6. For however long that lasts

2 coworkers

  1. Working in the bowels of the ship
  2. Assigned reluctantly
  3. Who bunk together
  4. The two who know the ship best
  5. A scientist and their helpful robot pal
  6. The only 2 who can communicate between 2 groups

3 friends

  1. Since day one of the assignment
  2. Traveling the worlds together
  3. From back in college
  4. At a time that isn’t right now
  5. Who share a secret
  6. For as long as this is mutually beneficial

4 shady

  1. Captain and head smuggler
  2. Dealer and druggie
  3. Blackmailer and blackmailed
  4. Person onboard officially and the person they smuggled in
  5. Mercs hired to oppose the rest
  6. Dealt together in the distant past

5 intrigue

  1. Alien and scientist
  2. Mysteriously ill and doctor 
  3. You recognize each other but you have no memory of meeting
  4. Recently you two agreed to a risky deal
  5. Detective and suspect
  6. You both suspect each other of something nefarious

6 rivals

  1. Vying for the captain’s notice
  2. In scientific discovery
  3. In owning the smuggling world
  4. Captaining the two best ships in the galaxy
  5. Siblings assigned to the same ship
  6. Captains of the two fastest ships in the galaxy

Needs 

1 scientific discovery

  1. You want something named after you before you die
  2. you need more patents than your sibling
  3. You need to cure this disease
  4. You need to make the first contact
  5. You need to crack this code
  6. You need to invent something great

2 truth

  1. Something here isn’t right
  2. These glyphs mean something
  3. Your father disappeared in this sector years before
  4. Everyone needs to know this before I die
  5. They told me one thing before they disappeared
  6. They died and you need to know why

3 to get out

  1. Of a bad situation with worse people
  2. Of debt 
  3. Of the country with no way to track you
  4. Of this ship and away from these people
  5. And finally make something of myself
  6. Of this part of the galaxy

4 to get money

  1. And live life as stress free as possible
  2. To get your parents off your back
  3. To bail out a buddy
  4. To rid yourself of your past
  5. And start a new life half-way across the galaxy
  6. By any means necessary

5  to gain respect

  1. Of the crew
  2. Across the galaxy
  3. Of another person of science
  4. And accolades for my abilities
  5. From my family by finally doing something good
  6. Of that jerk who dismissed me

6 surviving

  1. This trip to the end
  2. To see someone one last time
  3. Because you promised them
  4. To prove them wrong
  5. To live a better life
  6. In spite of the situation

Objects

1 Tech

  1. The trustworthy AI aboard
  2. Bug codes on a zip drive
  3. Malware infecting something
  4. Robotic prosthetic or necessary accessory 
  5. A new invention you want to test out
  6. Your spaceship has just been fixed up

2 Alien

  1. Egg that might have just hatched
  2. Weapon accidentally activated
  3. Glyphs appearing on your arms
  4. Plant that just destroyed the observation room
  5. Baby smuggled aboard
  6. Parasite that just bit someone

3 Useful

  1. Wrench got from the engine room
  2. Fire Axe broken out of its box
  3. A single spacesuit
  4. The last functioning escape pod
  5. A medkit with all the works
  6. 3 days worth of rations

4 Dangerous

  1. item never meant for zero gravity
  2. Illegal weapons the captain doesn’t know about
  3. Deal with the mob that better pan out in the end
  4. Modifications done to a ship
  5. Meteorite headed straight for you
  6. Notification appearing with no sender

5 Secret

  1. Experimental drugs
  2. Smuggled goods ready for the market
  3. The last message from Earth
  4. An extra person
  5. Instructions from the local gang
  6. Part of an alien ruin still untranslated

6 Brings back memories

  1. Picture of a lost lover
  2. A personal journal
  3. Locket that won’t open
  4. Letter from a former friend
  5. A switchblade from dad
  6. A stuffed animal you still can’t sleep without

Locations

1 Past the milky way

  1. On a trip to the furthest star
  2. On the galaxy super highway
  3. In an alien blackmarket
  4. In an observation tank
  5. At the biggest space auction house this side of Pluto
  6. On an ordinary mining operation

2 in our galaxy

  1. Exploring Martian ruins
  2. Observing earth
  3. On a mission to Venus
  4. Escaping Earth
  5. Headed straight for the sun
  6. And leaving as fast as possible

3 Onboard a spaceship

  1. Owned by the US government
  2. On its maiden voyage
  3. Doing a cargo run
  4. Not necessarily your spaceship
  5. Hidden with the supplies
  6. Trapped in the medical center

4 in the middle of nowhere

  1. In an asteroid belt
  2. Far from anyone who could help
  3. Caught between two ships
  4. Found by smugglers
  5. Ready for a deal
  6. Hiding from the mob

5 Wrecked

  1. In hostile territory
  2. On an inhospitable planet
  3. And tied up by masked people
  4. Trapped in the ship
  5. On some random comet
  6. With your translator dead

6 lost

  1. On a planet not on your star charts
  2. Way off course
  3. Somewhere that has oxygen at least
  4. On a strange green planet
  5. With enough gas for one jump
  6. On an empty hunk of rock

fiasco week 2

This was week 2 of playing fiasco and I really felt the progress and got into it this week. It was so much fun that I decided to do the fiasco playset assignment. I’ve been on a bit of a kick for both westerns and space things so  it works out that I got to play the western and make a space fiasco. It went a bit less smoothly than I expected and the instructions on the tilt were a bit messy but it was so much fun the entire time!

It took a bit of effort to start the story-telling aspect. I think it was a bit easier for me than the rest of my group as I’ve been a dungeon master for my friends for I think about 3 years give or take. I’m used to setting the scene, building up the characters and giving motivation, it’s a requirement for DMs to be able to do that. Fiasco was even easier because I didn’t need to plant things for others to find or set up things before and after, it was just the one scene. Once we went once around the table we all got really into it and came up with some elaborate and engaging ideas. We were even talking about it during the tilt and where we thought we’d go with act 2.

The leadership aspect in this game is knowing when to take the lead but also knowing when to step back and let another person shine. I think everyone thinks that leadership inherently makes others follow, and while yes to an extent someone will be “in charge” I think leadership is really about coming together and finding each person a part to take charge of in a given project. Fiasco really highlights this idea in a way beyond words.

fiasco week 1

This week we played fiasco! At first I wasn’t too interested in it but once I watched the videos and read a bit it really got my wheels turning. It is a fast-paced diceless RPG which revolves around snap choices and improv. It seems more complex than it is at first glance but we really hit a stride and found our groove eventually.

Online connection was still a struggle but we got together in 15 minutes instead of 30 this time! Progress! The most difficult part of the game was following the dice guidelines, we really wanted to use some specifics but we were really limited by the dice we rolled which was a little disappointing. I also think we had some organizational issues and that concerns me for our next round of playing.

I think this game has an interesting view on leadership, that being co-leadership and collaboration. The entire game needs you to lean on the other players and to work with them and build the story. This has its predicted troubles and successes like having difficulty with having different motives or ideas but also the success of working together and having different viewpoints.

week 1 roll player

This week we played Roll player! It is a really fun game with the goal of creating a top notch character by the end of it with dice. Most of the game is strategizing your next moves with how to maximize the points the dice and cards will give you. The game seems simple with 3 phases however the longer you play the more intricate you realize it is. 

We had a lot of issues with getting online where 2 of us continued to disconnect throughout and the steam version of the game would not work properly. Eventually we got around them but I feel like that really affected our gameplay. The most difficult part of the game for me was focusing on all the different aspects I needed in order to maximize points. I think I started to get a handle on it near the end of the game but we ended right as I realized that I had to rethink my whole strategy. Honestly it seemed pretty fun, even though it was confounding at times and I really want to play again because I think I could prioritize the aspects that would yield more points better if I would play again.

I think this game showed an often overlooked side to leadership, that being juggling tasks and prioritizing certain jobs over others. In the game certain tasks gave more points, like getting the right attributes to the right level, but other tasks like matching the colors of the dice, were easier to do but yielded more points. It is the job of a leader to figure out which task is going to show the best results and I think this game did an excellent job of illustrating that point. In class near the end of the game it definitely hit me that I had been giving some tasks far more importance than I should have and I am almost certain that if we kept playing I would have lost.