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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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I played Fiasco for the first time on Saturday night, and had a blast. I was very impressed with the story we created. At the table of 5 there were 2 newbies, of which I was obviously one, and we hardly spent any time going over rules. However now that I'm reading the rules afterwards, I find that the designer says you can Establish or Resolve in a scene, But Definitely Not Both. This was not a rule we observed.
My question is, do you think that rule is a fundamental principle of Fiasco, or do you think it's a guideline for opening up the game and preventing one player from inserting faits accomplis into the story? I know when I presented a scene that I generally tried to leave open questions for other players to work with (e.g. when the library caught fire in my scene, I fainted from the heat so didn't know what happened next) - is that basically the point of the rule?
I would like to teach Fiasco to some other people, and I'd like to make sure I understand the spirit of the rules, even if I don't necessarily intend to follow them.
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Scott Slomiany
United States
Unspecified
Unspecified
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I think that it's fundamental from the standpoint of:
A) Keeping everybody "in the game" when they don't have a character involved in a scene.
B) And, as you've mentioned, you can define either "what your character wants" but it's up to the other players to decide if it's successful, or you can let everyone else "throw something at your character" giving you the escape clause of letting yourself decide how well it goes. But you can't be greedy and ever, EVER get both. It allows a lot of "oddball" things to happen that the current player wouldn't think of happening by ensuring input from others. Which adds a lot to the surprise of how a scene plays out.
However, but I don't think it's a hard and fast law to follow. Especially as the story is winding down at the end on the last few scenes, it sometimes seems like the scenes just write themselves, and players shouldn't feel required to input outside wackiness. Which is fine, too. The rules are intended to be mildly ambiguous in that fashion.
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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There's a game design rule out there that basically says its fun to establish conflicts and its fun to resolve conflicts but its boring if you set up a conflict for yourself and resolve it. I'm too sick and tired to remember who's rule it is but 10 points whoever has a source.
Also, yeah, I think the rule is fundamental to the design.
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Dave Wilson
United States
Pleasanton
California
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The Czege Principle
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Marshall Miller
United States
Medford
Massachusetts
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10 points!
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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Cool, but resolving one conflict and establishing another is still following the principle.
"Madame, I wish to report good news and bad news! The bandits have been defeated single-handedly by Brushing Tiger and the temple is saved! But Brushing Tiger has been wounded and hovers between life and death!"
"And the bad news?"
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The Harnish
Germany
Duisburg
NRW
Cult of The Harnish Leader
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In that case though you're resolving a scene and then establishing a future scene which is just fine. The rule applies to establishing and resolving the same scene.
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Jaime Lawrence
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
See Below.
Evil Bob: Lawful good since 2038!
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In my mind, if you choose to resolve, it's up to the table, including you, to decide on the scene. It is going to be most entertaining to put you in trouble, so if you suggest something bad and entertaining, I see no reason to say no or exclude your ideas.
On the other hand, if you establish, you don't really get much of a say. When we played the other night, Benj and I were leading the 'I think that went well/badly' discussion and we both tend toward seeing how a player feels about the outcome of the scene, rather than judging it for him necessarily. Strictly speaking, we probably should occlude that person, but in practise, even if they chose to establish, they have the best sense of the outcome's impact on their character.
So overall, my opinion would be that these are functional mechanisms that need to be observed, but the actual execution of them is fluid, dynamic and meant to keep the game moving.
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John Farrell
Australia
Aspley
Queensland
Averagely Inadequate
Buster Keaton from 'Go West'
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I haven't yet finished reading the rules (I passed them onto my kid to see if I could get him enthusiastic), but I didn't really follow the went well / went badly distinction. From the beginning of the game there was little doubt that my elderly character was going die, naturally or unnaturally, but I did have a preference as to how it happened. When I've read all the stuff about white dice / black dice I reckon I'll grok their purpose in keeping the story alive.
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Jaime Lawrence
Australia
Sydney
New South Wales
See Below.
Evil Bob: Lawful good since 2038!
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It's about dying at the right moment for entertainment... As you did...
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