Pre-Fiasco Brief: How Logan Helped Me Love Fiasco

I played Fiasco for the first time at Norwescon 34, in 2011. NWC’s in SeaTac, which puts it in my backyard. The last day of con, Ryan (Macklin) rounded me up, found Logan (Bonner), and we played Fiasco. I played Fiasco again with Logan a few months later, at GenCon. Then we played it again during PAX.

I’ve loved my Fiasco experiences because of  Logan.

So, to explain: last year was the first time I attended conventions that weren’t academic, and played games with people I’d literally never met before and stood a good chance of never seeing again. That strikes me as having some room for seriously uncomfortable gaming. Logan starts out Fiasco with a quick “Hi my name is ____”, name tents get made, rules are given a skinny rundown with brief stops of visual (and spoken) demonstration. Logan’s patient, he answers questions, he takes time to make sure you understand enough that he can explain the next step. All great qualities in someone facilitating a game.

Before we dove into Fiasco, Logan laid out what he was and was not comfortable with in terms of content. I think he did that the most firmly at GenCon, but we also had five people at the table that time. Being up front first, he turned that opening over to everyone else to share what content they couldn’t deal with. No having to explain why, just letting people know what was off limits. Fiasco’s got a lot of potential for content that might be upsetting (many types of violence can be really emotional for people, so can some sexual content), so once we had the ‘what we can’t deal with talk’ done, the general vibe seemed more relaxed, but also way more amped. There were fade to black moments, but I’d say they were 50/50 between ‘this is a great place to stop’ and ‘beyond this point I would not be comfortable with this scene.’

When we were at PAX, it was a four person table. One person had never played Fiasco. The pre-Fiasco brief that Logan does was a little more quick and dirty, but it was still there. So, something happened during play that was really unusual when compared to my role-playing experiences in general. People would stop and check in to make sure they hadn’t pushed a content barrier. At one point, someone is revealed to be a Nazi.

Sidebar: I’m Jewish.

The guy who threw the Nazi reveal into play checked, ever so briefly, that it was okay for me, emotionally. I don’t know if he’s a courteous player in general, but Logan’s pre-game talk is what I’m willing to credit with that kindness extended to me.  I think Logan’s pre-Fiasco briefs have made playing the game a lot more fun for me than I’d ever thought it would be, but I’m hoping that more people will apply the same sort of tactful pre-game period to their games, whether or not they take place at conventions.