Only 24 Hours Left!
over 4 years ago
– Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 01:04:53 AM
One Day Left! Do you Know Where Your Shovel is?
We now have less than 24 hours to go until this campaign ends. Will your last card be positive or negative? You know what, it doesn't matter- either way, you'll get a great game full of nonsense and trouble!
More Fiasco Reviews
Rob Weiland wrote a piece for Forbes about Why Fiasco Is A Game Everyone Should Play. Check it out, especially if you want to read about a penguin being weighed.
The Dragon's Demize team did a really sharp video for their review of the game, listing "5 Things We Like about Fiasco in a Box and One Thing We Don't".
Design Updates!
For those of you that are excited to play our 3-5 player game with 6 or more players, we've got good news! We've done some slight redesign of the Engine deck, and it will now include 36 Outcome cards, which is enough that you could run two 4-player games at the same time. You'll share the Aftermath cards when the time comes, and you can either use different playsets or split one playset deck to make your games two sides of the same story!
(For more ideas about how to mix up your Fiasco with more than one group of players, check out our still very relevant advice in the Fiasco Companion, which will be available as an add-on in BackerKit!)
Thanks!
- The Bully Pulpit Crew
$200k Stretch Goal Unlocked! And Check out our Retail Backers!
over 4 years ago
– Tue, Sep 03, 2019 at 02:23:26 AM
Stretch Goal #3 - UNLOCKED
We've passed $200K thanks to all of you, so the "Build Your Own Fiasco" stretch goal is unlocked! We are extremely excited to create tools that will help you build your very own Fiasco!
As promised, every backer will receive the form-fillable card PDFs and the printable blanks PDF, and in addition we'll include a free copy of the blank expansion pack with every print reward of $90 ("Street Racer") or above.
Support Your Friendly Local Game Stores!
We have the enormous pleasure of being able to say that 40 retail stores have joined this campaign in order to bring Fiasco to their stores! We're really pleased with this because we believe brick-and-mortar stores are essential to growing the tabletop hobby and building communities around our games.
In order to help promote these stores, we've asked them for some details so that we can share them with you. If you or a friend misses your chance to get Fiasco now, these stores are where you'll be able to find it!
We plan to post this list again later with more details, but we wanted to let you know about them now in case you'd rather just get your copy of Fiasco from them instead!
United States
CA
Crazy Squirrel Game Store - Fresno, CA
Games of Berkeley - Berkeley, CA
GA
Tyche's Games - Athens, GA
IL
The Gaming Goat - Geneva - Geneva, IL
MA
3 Trolls Games & Puzzles- Chelmsford, MA
MN
Tower Games - Minneapolis , MN
OK
Gamemasters Guild - Ponca City , OK
OR
Rainy Day Games- Aloha, OR
PA
Six Feet Under Games - New Holland, PA
TX
Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy - Austin, TX
Rogues Gallery Comics & Games - Round Rock, TX
WI
I’m Board! Games & Family Fun - Middleton, WI
United Kingdom
Tea@hart - Hartlepool
Leisure Games - Finchley, London
Comics Games and Coffee - Chichester West Sussex
Europe
Snydepels - Vejen, Denmark
Sphärenmeisters Spiele - Herzogenrath, Germany
Asia
Battlefield Bangkok - Bangkok, Thailand
The Dice Latte - Seoul, South Korea
If you are one of our retailer backers at the "Family Business" reward level and you're not on this list, check your Kickstarter messages! We'd love to get some info from you!
-- The Bully Pulpit Team
A Few Words from our Playset Authors
over 4 years ago
– Sun, Sep 01, 2019 at 11:08:11 PM
It Takes a Village to Make a Fiasco
Many of the official Fiasco playsets were written by Jason or Steve, but this isn't just our game- many people have contributed to it over the last decade, and we've included several of those other playset authors in this campaign. We asked four of them to write about their experience with the playsets they made to share with all of you!
Logan Bonner - Dragon Slayers
"I think it’s established fact at this point that any group of fantasy adventurers would be pretty screwed-up individuals. All those gamers who caused strife at their tables made the rest of their groups miserable, but they were being true to their characters in some weird way. Dragon Slayers grew out of some of the worst impulses of old-school adventure game characters, now mapped to a system where you were supposed to act like that!"
"When I wrote it, I was a freelancer full time, between stints working on D&D and on Pathfinder. Having a break to deconstruct those genres was pretty satisfying. The end of a too-successful adventure fits that Fiasco mix so well. A sudden means of massive upward mobility, and some messed up power dynamics that could be turned on their head. I’m happiest with the bits that get at that: the sorcerer/apprentice relationship, the need to overindulge in forbidden rituals, and, of course, the cluster-of-bottle-rockets-in-the-wrong-hands that is the Sword of Cataclysmic Combustion."
"I’ve heard many times that Dragon Slayers became a good gateway playset for Fiasco—an easy sell for folks used to the setting and the particular moment the playset captures. The setting is far enough outside of the real world that it can be easier for some people to... accept the motivations of these characters more easily. I’ve proud that it’s had a chance to show so many people what’s deeply wrong with them!"
James Gabrielsen - Camp Death
"Camp Death was my first playset and my love letter to campy '80s slasher flicks. I loved the setting concept, as characters notoriously make poor decisions when being stalked by a masked killer in the woods, but I couldn't get it to feel right."
"The missing piece came in the form of Stunt Dice from Jenn Wong's playset Quest for the Golden Panda - instead of forcing the villain into the playset elements, I could write a playset about camp counselors gone wild and let the killer strike whenever a stunt die was used. Then I rounded the playset off with a few more horror movie tropes and let players take it from there. In true Fiasco fashion, some people want to uncover the secret behind the villain's motivations, and some people just want to get laid. And in either case, most of them will die."
(Note: In addition to making Camp Death and other great playsets, James also created the invaluable resource fiascoplaysets.com, which you should totally check out.)
Tom Gurganus - News Chopper Six
"Dateline: Durham,NC 2006 - Three men accused of creating a FIASCO at Action News 6! Several years ago Chris Norwood, Ken Coble, and Tom Gurganus started devising a plan, a plan to create havoc. They had just playtested Bully Pulpit Games's newest game, Fiasco. They were amazed. It was fantastically fun, with just enough guidance from the rules and play set to allow them to create a game they never expected. Here was a nearly perfect RPG. And Fiasco encouraged them to make their own playset. And they did - Action News 6 which became the News Channel Six playset."
'We really, really enjoyed Fiasco and want to try our hand at creating a playset. Brainstorming sessions finally landed on a theme, a local TV news station. Now we needed to fill out all the Fiasco categories - Needs, Objects, Relationships, Locations. We imagined all sorts of things that could be found or happen at a small TV station. Like the need to get famous by going out with a bang. Or the Action 6 chopper. And a whole bunch of stuff that was way off the wall, but could be super fun. Stuff like an out of control animal brought in from the local zoo, or connections like shooting an 'art' film after hours using the station's equipment."
"So this was the fun part. Game days full of fun throwing out ideas. Lots of emails and phone calls. I know we threw out tons of cool things. And tons of bad ideas. We spend many hours playing this playset, making sure that it worked. This was really fun and strengthened our friendship. Chris and Kenny are two of my best gaming buddies. Building this play set contributed to that. Fiasco builds fantasy relationships. And real-life ones as well. Thanks Jason, Steve, and the whole BPG crew. This is Tom Gurganus reporting."
"Man, I really want to play Fiasco now."
Anna Kreider - Heroes of Pinnacle City
(Note: Heroes of Pinnacle City is in our plans for the next run of playset Expansions, for public release in 2021)
"Perhaps my favorite thing about Heroes of Pinnacle City (besides the weaponized accordion) is that it kind of started as a dare. I mentioned to Jason in passing that I'd played a number of games of Fiasco with the same group of friends and we'd batted around the idea of a superhero-themed playset. Jason said he didn't think it could be done, and... well. What could I say but challenge accepted? Jason gave us some great advice for what makes for compelling playset elements, though, which was extremely helpful in making the finished product. (I don't think I can take credit for the accordion, but I'm pretty sure that Abraham Lincoln's still-living brain is mine.) We knew we had a hit on our hands after we ran a first playtest that included a trio of superheroes named Truth, Justice, and The American Way; naturally during the Tilt, The American Way murdered Truth and Justice for a whole lot of money."
"Heroes of Pinnacle City was one of my go-to con offerings for many years; I've never gotten tired of how (like Dragon Slayers) Pinnacle City effectively have no upper limit on the consequences of your failure, making it possible to actually end the world if you fail hard enough. I've also always loved seeing how it reproduced exactly the sort of weird C-list comic book heroes you'd get in Silver Age comic books, from Asshole Superman to The Paisley Pimpernel to the Purple Archon (think Green Lantern, but with purple and also a sentient tyrannosaurus rex)."
"I'm delighted to see Pinnacle City getting a new lease on life in this edition of Fiasco, and I hope you fine people enjoy it as much as I have."
Thanks!
Thanks to these creators for sharing their thoughts with us, and thanks to you for reading! We hope you enjoyed this peak into the authors' minds, and that you're looking forward to trying out the new version of these great playsets soon!
-- The Bully Pulpit Team
More Drunk Cowboys and... Improv?
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Aug 30, 2019 at 05:50:26 PM
New Limited Rewards Have Dropped!
A dozen more Drunk Cowboy reward tiers have been released for your backing pleasure, friends.
Now's your chance to get some weird stuff sent to you by Jason Morningstar, himself. We've seen his plans, and well, they are classic Jason- we had to remind him that certain things are illegal to send through the mail.
One illustrious (or infamous?) backer will get a custom designed playset and the option to keep it all to their greedy self. This reward is... wait, it's already gone? Holy crap! Let a fool type some text out! Just kidding, we continue to be delighted and grateful for your impressive support.
Fiasco + Stage = Fun
If you're near Schenectady, NY tonight 8pm EDT you should check out Camp Death at the Mopco Improv Theater, which you can find out more info on here.
The pitch:
Each completely different performance inspired by a Fiasco playset (that you can play at home!)
Small-time capers gone disastrously wrong! Inspired by the award-winning board game, Fiasco. You decide who has secret desires, passions, and flaws. Our actors weave together troubled relationships, strange locations, and potentially dangerous objects, to create a side-splitting tale of powerful ambition and poor impulse control before your eyes!
Will our heroes achieve their big dreams and grand schemes, or will it all crumble into a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination?
I think you know which ending we're hoping for.
-- The Bully Pulpit Team
Designing Playsets for Cards
over 4 years ago
– Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 08:54:34 PM
A Little Design Nerdery
One big difference between classic Fiasco and the new, shiny version is the possibility space implied by the assortment of Setup elements in the playset.
In the classic game you have 144 separate items that can be combined, and in the revised edition that's been pared down significantly to 49. For some hardcore Fiasco-heads the much broader range is more fun, and there's some advantage to having every player pore over many elements to mentally set a certain tone that is minimized in the revision. But the advantages of the smaller number of elements definitely outweigh these factors!
Writing 144 elements can be a slog, and not every element is pure genius. As an example, in classic Boomtown you might Need to get rich by robbing a stagecoach, or a business, or through violence, and these are all functionally identical. In the revised Playset deck, only the most interesting of these (robbing a business, which might well be a stagecoach and will probably include violence) survives. Net quality increases and the resulting playset, while smaller, is tighter and more focused.
The second point, that absorbing 144 elements as you choose a few really communicates theme and tone well, is definitely true. But what we found is that a dozen discrete elements work nearly as well, particularly when they are really good, precise elements.
The smaller number of elements also lessens the effect of decision paralysis, where players (especially those new to role-playing) would get stuck, unsure what to choose. Too many options can really slow the game down!
So from a design standpoint we consider it an improvement, with the gains from using cards completely overrule any concerns about cool side effects of the classic system. We love the new version for its speed and precision, and we know you will too, but if you ever pine for the old days of index cards, dice and 144 elements, nothing is stopping you from playing Fiasco that way, too.
Naming Names
Another fun new aspect of making playsets for cards is creating your list of names. Because these are custom for each playset, you can fine tune them for the setting and use them as additional inspiration for the tone you want to set.
In our case, we made sure that our lists of names were broad and representative of different cultures, while also being fun and evocative. There are nicknames to choose from, and odd combinations that beg for a story to be told about them.
Are You the Collector?
Reminder that we are dropping a brand new, limited to one reward tomorrow, along with more spots for the Drunk Cowboy reward level. Wu Tang Collector gets you your very own custom playset, along with the power to keep it all for yourself.
Be here tomorrow, Friday August 30th at 12:30pm Eastern for that!
-- The Bully Pulpit Team
