Fiasco Reflection

Let me preface this reflection with saying that I have never played a role playing game up until playing Fiasco. This experience was entirely new to me and as a result made me incredibly skeptical about the whole thing. I know many people who play in person RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons but I never seriously considered the merits of the game. This being said, I was pleasantly surprised by the game experience that ensued once our group gained momentum.

As I mentioned, I entered the game with an arguably unhealthy skepticism to the concept of a dice based role playing game. I understood that we were supposed to treat this as a sort of writing experiment but it was unclear to me how I would benefit from participating in the game. Regardless of these feelings I tried to immerse myself in the game. We chose the Boontown playset and progressed into the character relationship development. I sat between Alex and Ashley. My relationship to Alex was of an opium dealer to an addict and my relationship to Ashley was co-workers as ranch hands. It was during the final steps of character establishment that I began to realize the importance that these relationships held for the entire storyline.

Our first instincts were to establish and then immediately resolve scenes however that proved to be somewhat of a losing strategy for creativity as a whole. Instead we began to introduce many aspects of the plot without resolving them. This allowed us to come up with more creative twists and developments that intertwined with other characters and plotlines. Our story would probably be characterized as a drama since there were many interpersonal conflicts. Something that surprised me about the nature of a storytelling game is the effect that it has on its players mentality. I found that our group did a great job at becoming their character and immersing themselves in the experience of playing. I think that this has important implications on the value of role playing in the process of creative writing. I would almost equate it to method acting as a strategy for actors to become their characters. This type of play allows the writers to become the characters and thus they take a more realistic but also creative tact on their story.

Overall this was an excellent experience. Fiasco was a simple enough game to allow us to play without much hesitation. But it also was very dynamic and kept things interesting. This brings me to my final point about what I found most interesting about telling a story through a game. What was most illuminating to me was the effect of cooperation and forced improvisation on creativity. I found that Fiasco puts people on the spot to produce something and this pressure almost eliminates “writers block”. Everyone in our group was able to contribute something interesting or creative on a consistent basis throughout the game. I even surprised myself multiple times when I thought I had no interesting ideas. The collaboration within  the game structure allows everyone to contribute and help each other through difficult moments to ultimately create an entertaining and unique story.