Thursday, May 26, 2011

Players: Marc, Shuo, Pat

We chose a custom Fiasco playset themed toward American Civil War Reconstruction. Our game took place in a fictional town in Virginia, just a couple years after the end of the war. As we began building our relationships, we realized the potential this set had for a very dark story, with high levels of racial and class-based tension. Thankfully, things never got awkward, and we actually dodged most of the topics that might've caused discomfort.

Our tale began with a very familiar snake oil salesman pulling a small cart--brimming with elixirs and tonics--up to the front door of a once-beautiful plantation home.

Dr. Rhett Farnsworth (Pat), previously seen in a past game of Fiasco (Hell Hath No Fury, played Oct. 28th by Shuo, Pat, Marc, and Martin), was the same slimy, lying, greedy snake oil man he'd been in Dodge, but this game took place a year or so before he ever arrived there. A slightly younger Farnsworth was on the prowl for a new buyer, and he just might've found one in...

Mrs. Scarlette Debarauex (Shuo), a Southern lady who wanted nothing more than to restore her fallen home to its past glory. With the abolition of slavery, she now had only a tiny fraction of her previous workforce. On top of that, her husband was killed in the war, Union soldiers have moved into her house, and she's being harassed by the (admittedly charming) doctor with a "revitalizing tonic". But an encounter at Mt. Zion Baptist Church tears her world even further apart, for it's there that she encounters...

Clement Barlay (Marc), former slave to both Mrs. Debarauex and (as was later revealed), Dr. Farnsworth. He and his wife Clara are expecting their first child. They now live as free blacks, but this life isn't much better than the one they had at the Debarauex estate. Clement, however, remains enamored with a woman whose touch he once knew...

The adventure contained a number of unlikely and often disastrous scenarios: Dr. Farnsworth purchased a KKK Wizard robe from Scarlette, only to later sell it for three times the price. He then decided that she'd make a suitable "long con" and began seducing her.

Meanwhile, she and Clement rekindled an awkward friendship, and Clement and his family returned to the estate to work as paid servants. Farnsworth continued working on Scarlette, and once he encountered his old "friend" Clement, tried to enlist his former slave in the game. Clement refused.

Meanwhile again, Scarlette decided (after a dinner party only made her reputation worse) that the best way to get her life back would be to marry Farnsworth. She began seducing him. The two shared a tense evening, which resulted in Scarlette's legs becoming paralyzed thanks to a mistake during experimental acupuncture (gleaned form the Far East, so promised the doctor).

Things truly came to a head when Clement and Scarlette renewed their physical relationship, only to receive the ire of Farnsworth when his spy in the home (another servant whom he was blackmailing) told him the secret. Clement tried to tell Scarlette about his history with Farnsworth, but when she found out, she banished him from the estate. Clement's wife Clara discovered the truth as well and left him. Now broken and alone, Clement found Farnsworth in a bar and threatened to kill him. Farnsworth sweet talked his way out... until he revealed that--contrary to past impressions--he did not sell Clement to make ends meet, but instead lost him in a game of Poker. Blows were struck, a gun went off, and Clement fell as Farnsworth fled.

In the end, Clement reflected on his life: no wife, no mistress, no home, former friend betrayed him, and no possessions. He survived the gunshot and went North hoping for a new life.

Scarlette, aided by her one faithful servant Rosemarie, gifted Farnsworth a huge chunk of the family heirlooms before burning down the once-glorious manor and heading West to try again (and hopefully find a cure for her paralysis).

And Farnsworth... made off with a huge fortune and a new stagecoach. He rolled into the Whiskey Capital of Texas in rare form, laughing and cheering over his newfound wealth and prosperity. Little did he know what awaited him in that fateful town (hint: nothing good).

Favorite moments:
- *points to mouth* "These lips..."
- If you read carefully, you'd note that we did, in fact, include paraplegic sex in this game. Another Story Games first!
- "I cann feel my legsh!"
- 15th level KKK Wizard attending magic school
- "I would never risk our friendship on any worse odds, Clement... but I couldn't have predicted four-of-a-kind!"
- "I bid you adieu, Scarlette. Or as they say in the Orient, au revior."

Thanks for a really great game. It was fun to revisit the themes from our very first adventure together!

Great write-up, Marc! This game was a real pleasure. The idea to bring back Dr. Farnsworth from our previous game was coaxed along by us some, but several factors just sort of fell into place. I was initially worried because Farnsworth is such a comical character, and the Reconstruction setting was loaded with a lot of not-so-funny racial and societal themes. Since we'd settled into the concept of a nostalgia game though, I decided I had to play Farnsworth true to form. As a group, we pretty much committed to the notion of a humorous tone, and as Marc said, that included side-stepping any serious treatment of slavery.

I think it worked well, and there were plenty of laughs. I also had the most dice-friendly game of Fiasco ever. Since we all knew that this game took place before our later game, we all wanted Farnsworth to make it out in one piece to preserve the canon. As a result, I ended up with 3 white dice at the end and rolled a ridiculously optimistic 14. While that'd normally be a pretty boring Fiasco conclusion, the fact that we all knew the pitiful end Farnsworth would eventually meet made it pretty darn satisfying.

Thanks for the great game, guys!

I love bringing back the same guy in the prequel. Knowing he's going to get it later makes the high white epilogue so wonderfully ironic. Nicely done!

(I rolled a flat 18 on three white dice in one Fiasco game. Most unexpected happy ending ever)

This was a great game. Scarlette's and Clement's unspoken requited love and the pain of Clement and Farnsworth's shattered bromance were both very compelling relationships—I had a lot of fun watching everything unfold. I'm really glad we didn't make the game too dark with racial overtones too. There was room in it for some humor which makes a difficult time piece like the Reconstruction much easier to handle.

All in all, I don't think I have laughed that hard since our first Farnsworth Fiasco game. Thanks to Marc for the great write-up and to both Pat and Marc for a wonderful evening once again!