So, I got a copy of Bully Pulpit Games’ popular tabletop RPG game Fiasco, which was created by Jason Morningstar, for the university library. After all, I’ve long been interested in how RPG games can be used in language-teaching, and in fact I’ve long had a similar exercise that I use in English conversation courses (which I’ve recently posted here, after Fiasco inspired me to expand the exercise a little). In that exercise, students plan out a heist, con, scam, or other crime of some kind–usually with a set goal and set rules they cannot break in their plan–as an …

Note: This is the second post in my series on our first experience with Fiasco, and why I designed a new playset for our first game. It makes sense to start from the beginning of this series of posts, though. That’s here. One of the things I’ve been thinking about a lot in terms of my recent brushes with gaming is the idea of design. I don’t mean game design, because after all in the last two games I’ve tried, Dread (written up here) and Fiasco, we’ve used rule systems designed by someone else. And those rules systems have worked …

Note: This is the third post in my series on our first experience with Fiasco, and why I designed a new playset for our first game. It makes sense to start from the beginning of this series of posts, though. That’s here. Also, apologies for the delay. I had a lot of grading to do last week, and some other responsibilities to take care of. I meant to get this posted sooner, but anyway, here it is now! So far, I’ve discussed what led me to Fiasco as a game, as well as preliminary thoughts on scenario design. Then I …

Note: This is the fourth post in my series on our first experience with Fiasco, and why I designed a new playset for our first game. It makes sense to start from the beginning of this series of posts, though. That’s here. In my last post on this series, I left off just after the Tilt part of our playthrough: that is, at the moment when things start to go wrong, the Tilt section of Fiasco. Well, we pressed on without taking a break, because we were short on time. I would have preferred a short break, like the rulebook …