Author: emshortif

Last night, per Dan Fabulich’s recommendation, I checked out the Seattle story games meetup and played through a game each of Shock and Fiasco. Shock is about exploring social issues (whichever ones the participants choose) in the context of a science fictional future; Fiasco is about emulating the wacky, everything-goes-wrong misadventure plots typical of Coen Brothers movies. I’d heard about Fiasco before from Stephen Granade (here’s a play report of his as well as an academia-themed playset he wrote). Both were a lot of fun and went in rather goofy, unexpected directions.

Our particular play group went back and forth between actually role-playing scenes out and doing quick narration, and was really cooperative in terms of trying to get interesting, narratively satisfying outcomes for the story. Quite a few times, one player had the opportunity to help or oppose another player’s character and made the decision based on what would generate the most aesthetically effective scene. That was a lot of fun — the spirit of collaborating towards a common (if not always clearly perceived) outcome is a standout feature of this kind of play. Our group seemed to tend towards the tragic or bittersweet, preferring outcomes that were mixed success and failure for our characters.

Continue reading “Tabletop Storygames: Shock, Fiasco”