Category: Student Posts

In our Fiasco game, my group chose the Main Street and Willow Road playset since that most accurately embodied Emory’s quaint, southern location. I established my relationship with Cherie and Rachel, the players to my left and right. Cherie was my gambler and bookie and to Rachel, I was a current co-worker. Even while creating our relationships, I was struck by how quickly the players embodied their roles. Right when a relationship had been established, it was almost like a light switch went off and we each stepped into a new persona. With this new identity, I felt a new sense of control. I have a clean slate and I can make whatever I want to happen try to happen. 

Our Fiasco story was one of ups and downs, surprise, romance gone-wrong. At the start of our story, the main conflict was between Austin and Cherie’s characters, who were ex-lovers. Austin kicked Cherie out of their house because she never did anything productive and stole his money. During scenes, many characters gave their opinions on the matter of their toxic relationship, and I ended up setting Cherie straight and helping her gain self-independence. In retrospect, in most of my scenes, I tried to take the upper hand and help out my friends even if that meant losing a potential opportunity to make money. For instance, I could’ve convinced Cherie to continue gambling and make a profit off of her, but in her best interest, I told her to stop gambling and instead focus on making a steady source of income so she could acquire a new home and live a comfortable life. I felt that my role in the game was not necessarily moving the plot forward but reacting to the actions of others. My character was more of an intermediary than one associated with large plot points and drama. When the tilt happened, I was destined to suffer and be locked up in jail but also make it out with dignity intact. During the game’s aftermath, Giovanni killed Austin’s grandmother’s friend at the elderly home and got away with it but I ended up in jail for helping him commit the crime. I had dignity, though, because I taught the other prisoners how to aid in a crime. 

A strategy I employed was not doing anything too controversial but rather helping players work through their own issues. I found this effective because I highlighted the problems in the actions of my peers, which helped me win all of my rounds. My tactic in this game taught me that one of my strengths is conflict-resolution but not creating conflict of my own. I think that is a valuable asset because I am not a very contentious person but rather like to help others work out their problems. Playing Fiasco differed from other work we’ve done this semester because it required us to perform a task that was constantly shaping and moving, rather than completing one task and the assignment ending. I enjoyed the unpredictable aspect of Fiasco, which kept me constantly thinking about the next move. I can apply the skills used in crafting my Fiasco story to future writing projects by compartmentalizing which aspects of the writing topic I want to focus on and which I should “stay out of,” like I stayed out of certain issues during our Fiasco game. Overall, the game session and reflection helped me fulfill the learning objectives for this course because I’ve learned to write and reflect on a non-written genre, which is a very important life skill. Many of the “texts” we need to analyze in the professional world are not written but rather analyzing real situations that took place and drawing conclusions from those interactions. During our Fiasco game, I took this these situations and truly made them my own, forging the path of our story.

Greg Lawrence

3/3/2020

Prof. Morgen

Fiasco Reflection

The journey Michael, Winslow and I went through during our play-through of Fiasco were interesting in the sense that initially, our background knowledge of the rules was somewhat helpful but we still struggled to set up our game. Our understanding of multiplayer RPG games was different from Fiasco because you really needed to pay close attention to the rulebook. The assignment of characters was awkward yet funny due to myself not really having known my two mates who I was playing with at the time. The characters we derived were ex-lovers and father and son which brought a communal laugh. My character was Russel Cooper, a gambler who was destined for a glorious death. Michael was the character Edward Anderson, who is my ex-lover and the father of Collin Anderson(Winslow). From my first reading of the rulebook, I got the sense the game was set up to engage our creative minds. The fun aspect of the game comes from your decisions on character roles and actions. My group of players consisted of three boys who more or less wanted an action-packed scenario with death and violence. When we decided on the relationship between Collin and I was that we were gamblers, we almost immediately went to have the problem of being in debt to loan sharks who want their money back. This could have come from past experience from other games or just a common interest in this sort of plotline. The aspect of using two different color dice to determine characteristics and relationships between players provided us with a sense of structure we needed to justify our story. The game does a good job of incorporating our imagination within the guidelines of the 134-page rulebook. The story we told was between three players who were father and son with an ex-lover to the father who has a gambling problem with the son(Collin). We started with the dilemma of deciding how to pay back the loan sharks who were threatening to kill us and we came up with a plan for a heist to steal a large quantity of gold. The dice we rolled, made us incorporate a train and a handrail train car. Our minds related this potential storyline to one like a mission from Red Dead Redemption II, which is personally one of my favorite games and involves the robbery of a train. The robbery went successfully due to a white dice being given to me when it was my scene. It was interesting to see our excitement levels rise when the climax of our story came closer when we knew in a way what was going to happen. Throughout the acting of our story, I was laid back in deciding what happened unless when it was my turn to develop a scene. Then I tried to make it interesting with a good setup for the next person’s scene. At the start of setting up the game, I felt sort of overwhelmed by the size of the guide to playing and the fact that I was working with people I haven’t really had a conversation with before. As we set up the game and came together in deciding to incorporate or leave out certain actions/relationships I grew in the sense that my opinions wouldn’t upset the other players or affect the game in a negative way. So in a sense, as I became more comfortable with my fellow players the game became increasingly enjoyable. 

Fiasco is an exciting role-playing board game that is surprisingly portable, requiring only several dices and rule books to play with. The setting up process for the game was rather quick. We used Main Street and Willow Road play-set. After rolling the dices, relationships between each neighboring player, locations, needs, objects were settled. The game Fiasco requires a great story-telling ability as well as a creative improvisation skill.
Our game took place in the Woods up around Hickory Terrace. My relationship with Austin, on my left-hand side, was the former spouse. However, the relationship between Sadie, on my right-hand side, and I was a gambler and bookie. The “double identity” of each player makes the game hard but fun to play that everyone has to keep the scripts of settings in mind and to develop reasonable plots accordingly. For instance, in the first place, I failed to set up the connection between my divorcing problem and gambling habit. The opening scene started up with Austin and I arguing and breaking up due to mundane money issue. I was expelled from our house in the county. At that point, the arguing was just about domestic duties and financial problems. Moving to my round, because of my implied relationship with Sadie as friends in the previous rounds and at the same time she being my bookie, the story was messed up a little bit. To make more sense for the divorce and gambling, I suddenly decided to make up the story of I stealing money from my ex-husband and would like to bet my future life no gambling. As my bookie, Sadie could offer me the game; however, as my best friend, Sadie tried to persuade me to keep out of it. The unexpected pieces of information due to the rash decisions formed small conflicts lead to the unsettling feature of the first scene. In Act One, although each conversation was somewhat independent, we were trying our best to combine the two needs and the objects. For example, the hoodlum murdered an elderly lady; the hoodlum and my ex-husband planned on stealing a purebred animal; and the nurse in the hospital tried to develop an affair with my ex-husband.
After getting the tilt, we realized that Fiasco, as a game building up disastrous situations, emphasizes more on the dark side of humanity, greed, lust, jealousy, and insanity. Even the player with the largest number of white dice got degraded and defamed hint that pushed players towards a more chaotic ending in Act Two. Players more actively involved themselves in the crime, even if they are not at all evil figures in the first scene. At the same time, whereas, we failed to keep on track with the details. I remembered almost every single one of us got a “bad” ending. For me, I was publicly humiliated and suffered permanent injury, and the money I stole was mysteriously stolen according to the tilt. That is to say, I ran away from the conversation in the senior care and came across the hoodlum Giovanni, hooking up with him. However, the police came up to us after a few days, and Giovanni hit-and-run, which causes my permanent physical disability. Therefore, I am also humiliated over stealing money from ex-husband and betraying him on his best friend.
The genuinely intriguing part of Fiasco is its flexibility and unpredictability. Every player contributes their idea to the overall story. It is each one of their decisions that leads to the ending of the game. The interactive mechanism makes it more engaging and fun to play. Overall, the gaming experience is a little bit struggling for me because of its chaotic nature and the mismatched expectation. I would like to try Fiasco with a better-prepared mindset if there is another chance.

I played the main street game set in Fiasco and was Keita’s father, gambler with Ruohan and professional/employer with Kathy. The game theme combined crime, murder with betrayals. Characters that had conflicts with other characters are willing to kill each other in exchange of monetary interest.

The story started with Kathy getting into jail for stealing after her thief friend Wenyi left her at the crime scene. The suitcase they stole turned out to be extreme valuable and everyone in town wanted to have it. Me and Ruohan decided to meet with someone who claimed to have the case at a secret gambling table behind a Mexican restaurant and won this case with our gambling skills. Next day, I went to visit Kathy in jail since she was my client and had no intention to bail her out until she threatened me to report hidden drugs in my gravel store. Hearing about the secret of suitcase from Kathy with more details and names, I called Ruohan that the suitcase was in someone else’s hand, my son’s former spouse Wenyi. I never liked her and the fact that she threatened to kill my son recently exacerbated my resentment. This became a great chance for me to make her disappear. Ruohan was willing to kill Wenyi for the case but only willing to give me 30% of the share for the suitcase. I wasn’t satisfied and contacted Wenyi in secret about Ruohan’s assassination plan in exchange for 50% of the share. Meanwhile, I also reminded Kathy about Wenyi’s betrayal and told her about Wenyi’s show-up location next day, promising her mother’s life insurance in exchange for the assassination. Next day, Ruohan was killed by Wenyi, who was killed by Kathy soon after. I took a photograph of Kathy at the crime scene to silence Kathy then took the suitcase by myself. Unexpectedly, Wenyi put a poisonous snake in the case and killed me as soon as I opened the case.

The story line is determined largely by the group decision about whether the ones having conversations would be able to achieve the object/goal he/she wanted to, which can be difficult for the story to unfold the way each player imagined. I planned the plot based on the conversations and background information established as the story unfolds and tried to use the conflict for the characters to turn them against each other and achieve my goal of getting the secret suitcase. The role playing in real person is definitely more immersive and interactive than video games and planning my next moves as I hear more about the other players brings more variabilities and uncertainties to this game. I enjoyed setting other players against each other without them knowing my real motive and became the villain in the game. The aftermath is something I cannot choose and my ending of dying when others brought the new challenge of fitting the plot into that ending. Overall, this is a really interesting and interactive experience.

One strategy I frequently used in this game is convincing people to do something that benefits themselves and me without giving out my true intention. That also makes the game more mysterious and adds more turning points as the story unfolds. I became much more aware of what the other players are saying and understood they wanted in return. This game encourages me to become a better listener and mind reader in order to be better. In true writing projects, especially novels that needs character creation and descriptions. This kind of skill is extremely important for the writer to create a vivid, complete, and human-like character in the book. Predicting what each character’s thought process and decision making is the first step towards making a unique and great character in books. By putting my mind in other character’s mindset and simulate their thinking and decision making, Fiasco gives me a glimpse of what I need to do in order to create a character in books.