Players: Brenna, Steve, Myra, Tim

Playset: Touring Rock Band

Tonight we bring you the story of Flying Panther, once legends of prog metal, now a cautionary tale on the dangers of drugs, infighting, drugs, abuse of power, underage sex, and drugs.

(Warning: This is going to be long)

Character #1: Pepper Simone, bassist. Greedy for a bigger cut. Secretly planning to break off from the band (taking Spunk, the lead guitarist with her) and start her own solo career. Has a side business dealing drugs to....

Character #2: The Box (real name: Seymour Gilligan), vocalist. Unrepentant egotistical drug addict. Originally from Chadwick, Idaho, where he still holds half-share in an illegal dog fighting ring behind a trailer park along with his sister...

Character #3: Gretch Gilligan, head of security. Guards the band along with her trusty pitbull Henry (veteran of numerous canine gladiatorial battles). Secretly believes her brother is a toolbag and is working behind the scenes to bring him down. When she's able she tries to look out for...

Character #4: Jeremy Swift, 14-year-old fan. Loves the rock-and-roll lifestyle and filled with a deep desire to do DRUGS! Touring with the band (unfortunately for his childhood) due to a court-ordered Big Sister relationship with Pepper Simone.

First Act: Jeremy manages to sneak some cocaine during a show! It is believed by some that this is The Box's fault, since he left the cocaine out on a mirror near the stage, but Pepper is the drug dealer...so, you know. After losing an argument with her brother over paying his part of the expenses for the dog fighting ring, Gretch does the responsible thing and convinces the band's manager to invest in some shoddy fireworks to be attached to the Box's mic and set off during the show. Jeremy has a big interview coming up with Teen Magazine where he has such innocent enthusiasm to tell the TRUTH, but is talked out of this foolishness by Pepper and a free band t-shirt (limited edition, and he gets the first one ever!) Pepper goes out drinking with Gretch, and a little bravado-esque complaining leads to nearby fans discovering about her impending solo career. As can be expected, they leak that to the internet.

At the next big concert, The Box attempts to quell these "rumors," since they obviously aren't true. Starting in to his big fireworks-launching number, he is interrupted by Gretch and Jeremy shutting his mic off and raising the volume on Pepper's mic--as she (and all the other band members) launch into one of her new original songs. The Box sets off the fireworks anyway, and ends up seriously burning some of the fans in the balcony seats. A few days afterward, there is a press conference--in which Pepper makes clear her intention to pursue a solo career, Gretch takes advantage of a few opportunities to mud-sling her brother, and The Box attempts to push blame for the fireworks incident on the manufacturer. This press conference does not make The Box look good.

The Tilt: (1) Guilt - Someone panics, (2) Mayhem - Dangerous animals get loose.

To continue reading, please see the first reply below...

Second Act: The night after the press conference, The Box is drunk/high/wired/doped/etc in his specially built room in the back of the tour bus. Jeremy comes looking to score some drugs. The Box is more than obliging, and gives him some pictures of him with dead dogs from the dog fighting ring and some pictures of himself "enjoying" various fans as well...all in an effort to screw over Pepper by contributing to the delinquency of her ward. Pepper finds out about this (well, actually, only about the drugs...the pictures have...ahem..."disappeared") and storms into The Box's room to put him in his place. This leads to The Box attempting to stab Pepper...but instead falling on his own knife and needing to be rushed to the hospital. But the show must go on, so Pepper takes over the role of lead vocalist while The Box is recovering. When The Box returns a little earlier than planned from his hospital stay, he finds that his dressing room is now Pepper's dressing room...and all his drugs are gone. Pepper tells him he is cut off, and in a rage he throws a lamp at her...missing. He begins to ransack the various dressing rooms/sleeping quarters of all the musicians and tour staff, looking for drugs. While ransacking Jeremy's room, he is caught in the act by Gretch. Surprising, Gretch is not convinced that he is there in an attempt to look out for Pepper's ward's welfare. They also discover, attached to Jeremy's wall, a picture of The Box mid-sex with what is rather obviously an underage girl. The Box attempts to re-appropriate this, but Gretch manages to get it from him. Jeremy has now returned, and surreptitiously offers The Box drugs. They both sneak out, leaving Gretchen in Jeremy's room.

Returning to Jeremy's room later, Jeremy shares with The Box HIS GREAT IDEA! Figuring you can't let a name like Flying Panther go to waste, Jeremy has drawn up a sketch of live panthers being flown out on wires over the audience. The Box thinks this is a wonderful idea, so wonderful that it shouldn't be shared with the band's manager...or actually anyone else except for two of the tech guys who can be trusted to make it happen and keep it a secret. A while later, after a long day of interviews and press conferences promoting her new solo career, Pepper comes back to the tour bus to a big going away celebration. Everyone is so proud of her and wants to wish her well. Even The Box is ready to let the water go under the bridge. They decide that it her big farewell concert, the Box will sing the first five songs, she will sing the last five, and in the middle they will have two duets. It's actually pretty heartwarming.

The night of the concert, The Box has Jeremy tell the tech guys to let the panthers go (with their "special" harnesses) during the 8th song. Unfortunately, FP's tech people apparently can't count. During the first big duet with The Box and Pepper, a touching ballad about Love, the panthers are shuttled out. As planned, the harnesses fail around the time the panthers fly back over the stage. Not as planned, The Box is on that stage, and is mauled to death by one of the panthers...he is mic'd at the time. Our final scene is the Box's funeral in Chadwick, Idaho, where everyone gets to say their tearful goodbyes in front of 50,000 fans crowding the graveyard of (pop: 6000) Chadwick, and in front of millions as the event is being telecast live. Gretch has a breakdown on stage and begins to confess to rigging the fireworks, running a dog fighting ring, etc. Pepper tries to calm her down to no avail. The band's manager hurriedly starts the memories of the deceased photo show in the hopes it will distract everyone. As it happens, though, Gretch was in a not altogether rational state when she handed over the pictures for that photo show...and an extra photo, one she found in Jeremy's room with The Box all that time ago, accidentally got handed over with the rest. And so a picture of The Box, giant grin on his face, doing something not known to be a particularly good PR move got projected forth on giant 50-foot television screens around the graveyard (and simulcast worldwide).

Aftermath: Gretch spent a long time in the wilderness to find peace. After returning, she sold everything (including the land where the dog fighting ring used to be) and wrote her memoirs: "I, The Monster." Eventually she became an international television personality and symbol, similar to Oprah.

After selling some very incriminating pictures to the National Enquirer, Jeremy starred as The Box in the re-creation scenes of the VH1 documentary on Flying Panther. This launched his acting career, and he became Robin in the new Batman movies! Eventually he was doing more drugs and having more sex than The Box ever did.

The Box was dead. However, that didn't mean bad things couldn't happen to his memory. First, the VH1 documentary was released, revealing all the sordid details of what he really did with his fame. The dog pit was purchased by the ASPCA and turned into a memorial for victims of animal cruelty. His grave was repeatedly vandalized in a number of creative and less creative ways. Finally, years after his death, his estate was sued for plagiarism by a songwriter whose lyrics he had stolen.

Pepper's solo career got off to a great start. Taking all the (living) previous members of Flying Panther with her, she got two top 40 hits. Some time later, she met a woman and fell in love. She gave up the band life, married her soul mate, and started a rock school for kids. Years later, she would be interviewed on Gretch's show.

This was the first game of Fiasco I have ever played where 3 of the 4 players got awesome endings on their final dice rolls. This made for a very different sort of aftermath. It is also the first Fiasco game I have played where one of the PC's died during the game (which you'd think would happen more often).

Anyway, I for one had a really good time. This summary was sort of written from The Box's point of view...since that was my character and his skewed version of reality colors my memories of the game a little. If any of the other players want to give their thoughts below, please do.

Thank you to Brenna for facilitating. Thanks to Myra, Steve, and Brenna (again) for playing and creating a delightfully degenerate story with me!

Great write up - I had a blast playing.

-steve

This was very fun! Awesome write up, oh man!!