Quote from: StormBringer;422665If you are arguing so vehemently that RPGs are barely games, then you can't possibly think that Fiasco is a game at all.

I'm not arguing vehemently, I'm playing Devil's Advocate about whether trad RPGs are games, because if they aren't by broader game theory, the divide between D&D as a game and Fiasco as a non-game becomes irrelevant.

StormBringer, I didn't chime in merely contradict you and be all "ha ha take THAT, I helped win the thread for my team!". I was reading this thread because Fiasco is a favorite game of mine, and it was impossible to miss the fact that you are saying lots of concrete things about the game that are not true.

I have played Fiasco a number of times. I'm guessing you have never played it, and probably will say you never wish to. While that's your choice, why should anyone listen to what YOU say the game is like, instead of what I say the game is like? You've never even played it.

Quote from: Bill White;422676Let me help you: You mean "cast aspersions," not dispersions.

Call me a douchebag all you want, it doesn't change the basic fact that you're not making any sense. And you can call my post "content-free" all you like, it doesn't change the basic fact that I am making an argument that it is (a) wrong to say Fiasco isn't a game, and (b) inappropriate to say it isn't a role-playing game here in this forum, and wrong anywhere else. That argument wasn't perfect, and there are plenty of ways that you could have grappled with it that would have made sense and forced me to defend my position.

I was surprised at your refusal to engage with my argument rather than descending into insult and vulgarity, but then I remembered that you're just a guy on the Internet.

Wait a minute, you are getting pissed off because I posted essentially the same kind of response to your post as you did to mine?

Curiouser and curiouser.

EDIT:  Epic failure to comprehend before you scold:  I didn't call you a douchebag.

Quote from: BWA;422764StormBringer, I didn't chime in merely contradict you and be all "ha ha take THAT, I helped win the thread for my team!". I was reading this thread because Fiasco is a favorite game of mine, and it was impossible to miss the fact that you are saying lots of concrete things about the game that are not true.

I have played Fiasco a number of times. I'm guessing you have never played it, and probably will say you never wish to. While that's your choice, why should anyone listen to what YOU say the game is like, instead of what I say the game is like? You've never even played it.

Well, I thought the smiley would indicated that I was only kidding, but that was lost in your zeal, apparently.

On the other hand, I have also not put my hand in a fire.  Should people not take my advice to avoid putting their hand in a fire, also?  Is it only possible to have valid evidence through personal experience?

Quote from: Peregrin;422696I'm not arguing vehemently, I'm playing Devil's Advocate about whether trad RPGs are games, because if they aren't by broader game theory, the divide between D&D as a game and Fiasco as a non-game becomes irrelevant.

Don't play Devil's Advocate, please.  It is really, really annoying, and you are not particularly good at it.  Your conclusion is also lacking; two things that are not games are not therefore similar, or even more similar.  Cars and boats do not fly, but that doesn't make either of them more like the other.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;422680Hey Stormbringer,

People are gently correcting you in this thread, which is very kind of them, because you're arguing loudly from a position of ignorance.

In fact, no one has corrected anything yet.  All I have gotten so far is a bunch of 'nuh uh! because I say so!'.

So, if you have a play report where all the players' intentions were not tripped up and everything worked out well for the entire group, please post a link to that.  That is how you 'correct' someone.  Even better, find more than one, and best of all, show the majority of play reports are of a like character.

In the meantime:

QuoteFiasco is a GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed to be played in a few  hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. 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.

QuoteTouring Rock Band is an over-the-top collection of iconic rock and roll  glories and unwholesome lunacy. It’s about golden gods rising to fame  and falling back into addiction, stupidity and squalid failure.

QuoteBoredom and low morale led to crime and foolishness. The black market has never been blacker.  It was, in a word, a fiasco.

QuoteAdding some pitch black and blood red to the great white north ...

QuoteWith corn and soybean fields stretching for miles in every direction,  the endless sky punctuated only by enormous grain elevators, things can  get a little squirrelly.

QuoteCorruption is the coin of the realm, and the desperate, despicable and insane all look for an angle.

Quote...this tight playset focuses on the claustrophobic confines of a small,  run-down Kansas hotel full of odd mysteries and desperation.

QuoteYet for all that the strife of the age claims to be about crowns and  kingdoms, so much comes down to the common quagmires of coins and cons,  jealousy and greed, love and spite. Petty gripes and dirty designs  conspire to determine the fate of England. Some folk may hang or burn  and some may slip away smelling of roses.

Oh, and of course, the biggie:

QuoteKeep your Fiasco train-wreck on the tracks with this colorful and handy  reference sheet.

Why, exactly, are you arguing against the very design goals that are so clearly stated on the page and in the playset descriptions?  Why is it being touted as a Coen brothers' movie over there, but over here, you are desperate to give it a mainstream, 'anything goes' appeal?


In fact, everyone over here defending it is doing their level best to make it sound as utterly mundane as an evening of working out trade routes in Traveller or a trip to the local village to equip the party for the next dungeon crawl.  Why is that?


Why isn't it being promoted as 'the best laid plans of mice and men always go awry', since that is clearly the type of play that is supported?  Instead, there are desperate ploys using every logical fallacy at hand to insure that Fiasco is not only considered a game, but a role-playing game like any other.  Why not just go with the 'story telling/writing exercise' as Cole suggested?


I suspect you won't be answering any of those, but evasion seems to be your strong suit.

Anyone who buys Fiasco expecting Lamentations of the Flame Princess is going to be disappointed (Buy them both! They are excellent). I have no interest in pitching Fiasco as a substitute for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, because I want my customers to make an informed purchase and be happy with the result. To suggest otherwise is ... well, we'll get to that in a minute.

Remember way back when I was saying, over and over, that Fiasco is a focused game that does one thing really well? That is still true, and your marketing copy highlights illustrate what it does perfectly. That's what it is for. I can't show you AP reports of Fiasco that read like AP reports of Lamentations of the Flame Princess, because they do totally different things, by design, as I've been saying over and over. What isn't true is what you said:

QuoteThe sole game play element that can be derived from Fiasco is that your plans will fail. Period. I mean, it is in the title.

as I explained, and as various people have told you. People like Insufficient Metal:

QuoteFiasco's rules as written don't result in universal, disastrous failure for all involved. A given disaster is the centerpiece of gameplay, but you can say that of most RPGs. The character's fates are not a fait accompli. There are people who get screwed over and people who walk away whistling, just as in a lot of Coen films and such.

Here's BWA with some actual play:

QuoteThe last time I played Fiasco my character ended up rich, became the governor of Maryland (this was in the late 1800's), and died a peaceful death at home at a ripe old age. He was kind of a bastard, but his plans certainly worked out beautifully.

And here's me again, because I am patient:

QuoteOutcomes in Fiasco vary for each character, and range from brutally tragic to wildly successful. It's possible, although statistically unlikely, for every character to have a positive outcome at the end of the session. Typically, and by design, one character emerges in excellent shape, the better to contrast the ignominious failure of the others. There's a tactical component to engineering these outcomes for yourself and the other players.

Your most recent post has a paranoid tinge to it. Why indeed are people telling you, based on their experience with reading and playing the game, how it actually works? Why would they do that?

As far as how the game is positioned, I'm obviously comfortable calling it a roleplaying game. That's a semantic and perhaps ideological rabbit hole I'm utterly uninterested in going down.

Quote from: StormBringer;422768Wait a minute, you are getting pissed off because I posted essentially the same kind of response to your post as you did to mine?

Curiouser and curiouser.

EDIT:  Epic failure to comprehend before you scold:  I didn't call you a douchebag.

No, you're wrong. I said that your objections to Fiasco's end-game were trivial, because to the extent that they are true (bad things do happen to characters in the game) they don't seem problematic, and to the extent that they are false (the same thing doesn't always happen in the game) they aren't worth worrying about. Beyond that, I said that you don't seem to have a firm conceptual grasp on what makes something a game or not a game, beyond special pleading for the way you like to play. And you didn't call me a douchebag in exactly the same way I didn't call you an asshole just now.

I think Stormbringer's made it clear he considers sharing first-hand experience with the game to be an attack on him personally, so there's not much point in bringing up actual play, or quotes from the full game, or anything save Stormbringer's personal and inviolate conclusions gleaned from a gloss of the preview materials. So, productive thread, I guess.

Insufficient Metal, have you played Fiasco?

Quote from: Bill White;422803No, you're wrong. I said that your objections to Fiasco's end-game were trivial, because to the extent that they are true (bad things do happen to characters in the game) they don't seem problematic, and to the extent that they are false (the same thing doesn't always happen in the game) they aren't worth worrying about. Beyond that, I said that you don't seem to have a firm conceptual grasp on what makes something a game or not a game, beyond special pleading for the way you like to play. And you didn't call me a douchebag in exactly the same way I didn't call you an asshole just now.

Wait, so you are pissed that I used your posting style against you.  I mean, you just said that you used a mealy-mouthed comparison to some other discussion you had to impugn my argument, but you are furious when I cited an example to point it out, going so far as to now try to show my actions as some kind of underhanded ploy to simply call you names?

Let me drop a hint for you, sparky, since you don't seem to have been reading too many posts around here:  I am not the least bit shy about vigorously launching invectives against other posters.  If I wanted to call you a douchebag, I would flat out call you a douchebag.  We aren't on tBP, here, slick.  We get to do that kind of thing.

So, prior to this response, you were just being a whiny little pussy.  With this latest missive, however, you have crossed the line in to total douchebag territory.  

I think I have shown more than adequate patience, and it has (once again) not paid off.

Quote from: StormBringer;422810Wait, so you are pissed that I used your posting style against you.  I mean, you just said that you used a mealy-mouthed comparison to some other discussion you had to impugn my argument, but you are furious when I cited an example to point it out, going so far as to now try to show my actions as some kind of underhanded ploy to simply call you names?

Let me drop a hint for you, sparky, since you don't seem to have been reading too many posts around here:  I am not the least bit shy about vigorously launching invectives against other posters.  If I wanted to call you a douchebag, I would flat out call you a douchebag.  We aren't on tBP, here, slick.  We get to do that kind of thing.

So, prior to this response, you were just being a whiny little pussy.  With this latest missive, however, you have crossed the line in to total douchebag territory.  

I think I have shown more than adequate patience, and it has (once again) not paid off.

Hey, SB, if you want to throw down some invective, go ahead and go for it. It won't hurt my feelings. If I feel like it, I might even throw some back your way. But I probably won't, because it won't be any fun. I think you're a bad arguer who doesn't even seem to understand what other people are saying. It's just sad, really.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;422805I think Stormbringer's made it clear he considers sharing first-hand experience with the game to be an attack on him personally, so there's not much point in bringing up actual play, or quotes from the full game, or anything save Stormbringer's personal and inviolate conclusions gleaned from a gloss of the preview materials. So, productive thread, I guess.

Of course there isn't much point, because people from the future traveled back in time to warn the posters here about that.  This must be true, because no one has provided actual play reports or quotes from the game!  Wait, that one guy actually provided some official quotes...  who was that...  Oh, yeah.  Me.  I provided numerous quotes from the first thing any new player would likely see:  the web page where the game itself is offered.  Are you saying those quotes are wrong, or not useful?

As for 'sharing first hand experience', I didn't really get a response for that, did I?

Quote from: BWAThe last time I played Fiasco my character ended up rich, became the  governor of Maryland (this was in the late 1800's), and died a peaceful  death at home at a ripe old age. He was kind of a bastard, but his plans  certainly worked out beautifully.    

Quote from: meI assume you mean that your plans worked out beautifully at the expense of all the other players.

And all I got in return is complaints.  Are these 'first hand experiences' just as inviolate as you accuse in the case of my opinion?  Shall they not ever be questioned?  And where are all the other play reports, if this is such a common experience of the game?  I would expect people to be literally tripping over themselves to provide links, if there are so many examples of the game ending amicably for the whole group.

Of course, that does rather set up a double bind, doesn't it?  Provide these numerous examples, and it demonstrates the game isn't generally played the way it is promoted:  game design failure.  On the other hand, if those examples don't exist, then the game really is designed with a too narrow focus: RPG design failure.

Quote from: Bill White;422825Hey, SB, if you want to throw down some invective, go ahead and go for it. It won't hurt my feelings. If I feel like it, I might even throw some back your way. But I probably won't, because it won't be any fun. I think you're a bad arguer who doesn't even seem to understand what other people are saying. It's just sad, really.

And yet, you are unable to stop yourself from responding.  Responses, I might add, that are not supportive of anything you have previously said.

Here, I will give you an assist:

Quote from: meWhy, exactly, are you arguing against the very design goals that are so  clearly stated on the page and in the playset descriptions?  Why is it  being touted as a Coen brothers' movie over there, but over here, you  are desperate to give it a mainstream, 'anything goes' appeal?

In fact, everyone over here defending it is doing their level best to  make it sound as utterly mundane as an evening of working out trade  routes in Traveller or a trip to the local village to equip the party  for the next dungeon crawl.  Why is that?

Why isn't it being promoted as 'the best laid plans of mice and men always  go awry', since that is clearly the type of play that is supported?   Instead, there are desperate ploys using every logical fallacy at hand  to insure that Fiasco is not only considered a game, but a role-playing game like any other.  Why not just go with the 'story telling/writing exercise' as Cole suggested?

You can start with those, because I know Mr Morningstar isn't going to be answering them.

Or, my guess is that you will continue on your current path of pissing and moaning because all you have to go on is your personal affinity for the game.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;422798As far as how the game is positioned, I'm obviously comfortable calling it a roleplaying game. That's a semantic and perhaps ideological rabbit hole I'm utterly uninterested in going down.

In fact, you are desperate to go down that rabbit hole, because if Fiasco started being considered a 'story creation exercise', it will fall into utter obscurity within days.  You absolutely need this to be a role-playing game to continue the coat-tail ride into anyone at all knowing it exists.