Fiasco

Dangerously unbalanced people with poor impulse control and ambition put their bad ideas into action!

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Fiasco is explicitly designed for one-shot play. It’s also designed for a particular sort of adventure, one in which deeply flawed characters reach beyond their abilities and fail in spectacularly interesting ways. Think of the films Fargo and The Way of the Gun and you get the idea.

With no gamemaster, low-complexity rules, and a narrative structure that mimics that of a play or a film, a game of Fiasco usually takes about two and a half to three hours to play. There are a wide variety of playsets (one-shot scenarios) for the game, spanning settings as diverse as medieval fantasy, World War 2, and modern day Hollywood.

Here’s how publisher Bull Pulpit Games describes Fiasco:

During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust. It’s like making your own Coen brothers movie, in about the same amount of time it’d take to watch one.

Three Things About Fiasco

  • Plans Gone Wrong – This is a game all about creating stories in which people with big plans get in way over their heads
  • No Gamemaster – Built for collaborative storytelling, the characters use playsets (scenarios) to set up and run the session
  • Made for One-Shots – There is no way to run a Fiasco campaign; the rules are tightly focused on one-shot play

Reviews

  • “This is a great one-shot game, that has honed its ability to be used on the fly. ” — Jared Rascher, Gnome Stew
  • “I can happily recommend Fiasco 2nd Edition as a rules-light game, and believe it will become a staple of my own gaming group.” — Catherine Hanlon, Zatu Games

See Fiasco in Action

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