Nearly a year ago, a friend of mine who lives a couple states away pinged me on discord asking about how to start a D&D campaign with a group of people who had no experience running or playing the game. Being the person that I am, the first question I asked was “is it D&D you want to play? or an intro to TTRPGs more generally?”
Plenty of folks have it in their head that they want to play D&D specifically. It’s the thing that’s in the culture! You can throw a rock in a suburb and probably hit a white guy who knows a thing or two about D&D and wants to run a campaign for you. But this particular person and his particular friends weren’t coming from a laser-focused fandom interest or some other big cultural inroad that I’m aware of; they were simply interested in the hobby in general and seeing what all the fuss was about. I saw it as a chance to pitch some other options that might get up and running faster than D&D, or more easily provide different kinds of tone and setting. He was receptive, and asked for recommendations.
A few weeks later, he bought a copy of Monster of the Week at his local game store, got a group together, and found a willing Game Master (“Keeper”, in Monster of the Week’s parlance). They got together and made their characters, then set the game down with plans to dig in properly in the next session.
They never actually got to pick up those characters. Life interceded and the volunteer GM became distracted by other things. My friend who had reached out to me just shrugged, figuring it would have been better to try something they could play in a single evening. For whatever reason, I felt a bit guilty; should I have directed them elsewhere? Should I have run something for them myself over discord?
The hobby is pretty small outside of D&D’s wide umbrella. I always feel a (probably unreasonable) sense of responsibility when I introduce people to RPGs, even just by recommendation. So when my friend came into town this past week, I was delighted when he still wanted to try playing something with me while we could play in person. But I was also determined to get it right, to find something that would make up for the false start he had with his home group.
I put out a few options, including Monster of the Week (I had some pre-generated stuff on hand for a oneshot). But there were only three of us total, and the other player he brought along was similarly new to the hobby. I felt that the occasion called for something that could distribute our attention better than a game with a GM. In the end, they deferred to me to choose. That was where the real fiasco began.
Which is to say: I picked Fiasco, by Jason Morningstar. Fiasco is kind of antithetical to the way that traditional RPGs are popularly played in media that draws folks into D&D (like Critical Role, Dimension 20, etc.). It’s not a game about heroic blorbos at the center of a grandiose plot; it’s a game about normal people who probably kind of suck and are about to have a pretty bad time. It leaves space for so much irreverence and absurdity, and its structure is too simple to get caught up in. I hoped it would be perfect. Amusingly, we ended up playing the Dragon Slayers play set by Logan Bonner, a send-up of fantasy tropes that asks “what happens to the heroes after they slay the dragon?”
I've not written all that much about Fiasco, but it’s very near and dear to my heart. It's a one-shot storytelling game that invites players to create losers, assholes, and in-over-their-head failures, self-interested people just trying to get a slice of what they think they deserve. It leaves room for brushes with heroism, reconciliation, moments of connection or triumph… but in the end, it’s all going to fall apart. It's a game that's not about heroes, anti-heroes, or even villains; just regular dipshits getting into trouble they're not equipped to handle.
Crucially, Fiasco is built around freeform scene play, providing just enough intrigue during its setup phase (and excellent play sets that add specificity) for the players to build upon. When it’s your turn, you choose between establishing a scene or resolving one. If you establish it, the rest of the table chooses whether it ends positively or negatively for your character. If you resolve it, you let them set the scene, but you get to choose the outcome for yourself. The only other details to think about are your characters, the fiction, and the cards on the table. It leaves players with plenty of mental bandwidth to focus on who they’re portraying (and getting them into more trouble). At times it feels too simple to work, and yet it consistently does.
It’s fun to introduce people to roleplaying games via something like Fiasco, because it tends to get responses like “oh, I didn’t know these games could be like this.” It’s certainly not for everyone, and the sheer darkness of its endings can blindside folks (something I’ve been careless about in the past). But I love how simple and approachable it can be, despite revolving around the daunting notion of freeform collaborative scene play. And who doesn’t love to make up a guy to be mad at and portray their downfall?
I knew I had chosen well when my fellow players and I quickly established a love triangle, an arranged marriage, an enchantment spell, and a bounty hunt. Our chaotic trio consisted of a wealthy aristocrat-adventurer hoping to escape the burden of familial responsibility, another wealthy aristocrat-adventurer desperately trying to sow sympathy and affection, and a bounty hunter whose memory and motives were scrambled by the aforementioned enchantment spell. It was classic, goofy Fiasco fun.
Overall, it seemed like all three of us had a pretty good time. Regardless of whether my visiting friend gives TTRPGs another try with his home group, it’s always an immense privilege to welcome my friends into the hobby. Let's play together again soon!