Fiasco game playset poll

[Noa Reese]

Choose your top three!
The poll is gonna lock at 11:59pm (EST) on the 29th.

Fiasco playsets (alphabetically!):

Alma Monster:

Parties, sex, drugs, booze, studying... and a touch of the weird. In a well-regarded “public ivy” university, secluded away where most students are not allowed cars and there are no commuters, students and faculty have the same problems as anyone at college. Only, there might be a strange house or rumors of a mysterious society. No way any of that will interfere with finals.

If you take Animal House and set it at Miskatonic University, you’ve got the makings of this particular fiasco.

a couple potential relationships: Witnesses to the unexplained, Awkward stalker / Oblivious stalked

a couple potential needs: To party ...to keep my friends distracted from what they’re doing, To get the truth ...about the squirrels

a couple potential locations: The dorm right next to the power plant, Broken elevator of the Psychology Building

a couple potential objects: School supplies - Administrator access to a Facebook group with thousands of members, Weird - Golden idol, vaguely looks like a squid

Back to the Old House:

The House Has Been Calling You
It’s dead dust breath seeping though splintered doorways. The dark hiss of long forgotten stations. Endless nights huddled in the death shed, and tears at bedtime. The house is calling, but you don’t pick up.

You’ve tried to forget, to make a fresh start and be somebody new, but it’s all bullshit. Everything that counts for anything went down in that fucking house. Bad things happened, and you were a part of it. You left unfinished business. That’s why you need to go back. To finish it. To end it all.

You would rather not go back to the old house.

But you will.

a couple potential relationships: Clown and machinist, “We dream the same dream”

a couple potential needs: To build …a bridge that might take us truly home, To be loved …by your victims

a couple potential locations: Darkness ...in the little box, Old burnt-out car in the woods

a couple potential objects: Appliances - Camera that puts the dead people back, Hidden - Diary that should never be read

Break a Leg

All the World's a Frickin' Stage
The director slept with half the cast, your lighting designer is homicidal and that bastard from the Daily News just panned the show in his column. You’ll be lucky on opening night if the cast remembers their lines, nobody mentions the Scottish Play and the scenery doesn’t fall down mid-performance. But hey, the art is all that’s important, right?

Break A Leg! is a tribute to the grand traditions and superstitions of the Theatre – from the casting couch to the Great White Way.

a couple potential relationships: “Apparently they’re cousins but don’t mention it.”, Diva and ingénue

a couple potential needs: To get laid …once a show, every show, To get more revenge …on the playwright that keeps cutting your scenes

a couple potential locations: Van parked behind the theatre, Michelle's Tavern - “Holy shit, there’s more tequila back here!”

a couple potential objects: Weapons - A totally safe grenade, Sentimental - Security blanket

Camp Death

Ki... Ki... Ki... Ma... Ma... Ma...
So, here's the deal. Camp Clearwater's been abandoned since some grisly, "unsolved" murders 20 years ago. Or whatever. The new owner probably made that up as some creepy story to tell the campers and scare up business.

What I know is that we've got a couple weeks to get this place set up before any campers arrive, and most of the hard work is already done. We've got enough booze, pot, and distance from authority to make this the greatest summer ever.

What could go wrong?

a couple potential relationships: Fellow social outcasts, Promiscuous partner and desperate virgin

a couple potential needs: To get respect … by sleeping alone in Cabin 13, To get even … by embarrassing him/her in front of everyone

a couple potential locations: Rickety lifeguard tower, The woods - Lost

a couple potential objects: Useful - Hatchet, Information - Dusty old video reel and projector

Dragon Slayers

"If You Want To Keep Those Hands, Get Them Off My Magic Cloak."
The bumpkins in this pissant mountain town could never have taken down that dragon. Their biggest hero hasn't seen battle since Drozzek rode down from the Smoking Mountains three wars-to-end-all-wars ago. That old fuck they call their town wizard fried his brain with one too many "elixirs of awareness" and can't even light a campfire with all his spells combined.

So yeah, we rode into town, a bunch of outsiders ready to solve that problem. Solve a motherfucking dragon. And no, we don't care what they think. And yes, we're fucking heroes. These yokels should worship at our feet. They didn't blast those mummies to dust or make a deathtrap built with technology lost centuries ago their bitch. And they sure as hell didn't slay that dragon.

That's our dragon, and its gold is our gold. So unless you're bringing us ale and whores, get the fuck out before we transform you into a turkey and serve you for dinner.

a couple potential relationships: Master / defeated foe turned into servant, Vicious scoundrel / pacifist healer

a couple potential needs: To crush your enemies ...just to get a moment’s peace, To overindulge ...with wenches

a couple potential locations: Wood elf camp, Wizard mentor’s cottage (looted after his death)

a couple potential objects: More weapons - Soul-stealing scepter (scepter of severed souls), Magic items - Mystery potion (nobody knows what it does)

Go Team Superscience

It's a world of superscientists, boy adventurers, arch-villainy and globe-trotting action.

Big inventions and bigger egos. If you're not running the show, you're henching and biding your time. Or worse, sidekicking. Superheroes, super-spys,and super failures when you blow it. Saving the world, destroying the world;sometimes it's hard to tell what will do what.

Them's the bad breaks.

a couple potential relationships: Doctor/Subject, Hero/sidekick

a couple potential needs: To get rich ...through a cunning plan, To get the truth ...after your amnesia

a couple potential locations: Villain HQ - “The Bridge”, The Vegas Strip - Poolside at the Treasure Island

a couple potential objects: Shameful - Pills, pills, pills, Superscience! - Shrink ray

Los Angeles 1936

"I needed a drink. I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.”
– Raymond Chandler

In Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, circa 1936, the sun-blinded streets would just as soon put a knife in your back. And all the diamond-edged glamor of a Hollywood starlet can’t save you from a fall off a 30-story building.

Enter the black and white world of smoky nightclubs and faded apartment hallways, where every crime is shot “on location.”

There are many grand dreams waiting to be unraveled.

Are you ready to enter the labyrinth?

a couple potential relationships: Working stiff / client, Dirty cop / patron

a couple potential needs: To get respect ... from a family member, by rescuing them from ruin, To get the truth ... about someone’s criminal past

a couple potential locations: An unused RKO backlot, Frankie’s boxing gym

a couple potential objects: Valuables - Gold bar stamped with a swastika and the number 30422, Information - Imprint of address left on writing pad after top sheet was ripped off

Manna Hotel

An Oasis For Weary Travelers
The Manna Hotel is three miles north of Manna, Kansas, population 1,200.

The Manna Hotel is a twenty-room motor lodge with its own in-ground swimming pool, now unused. The hotel burned down and was rebuilt in the fifties. Wood paneling and window-unit air conditioners were installed in the seventies, and it looks like that’s the last maintenance anyone did to the place.

Business has been slow ever since they moved the Interstate, so ten of the rooms are closed all the time now. The other ten rooms are rented and cleaned by a manager who lives on the premises.

a couple potential relationships: “You let me down when I needed it most!”, Together, planned and executed a daring, drunken theft of the badger from its pen in Manna’s tiny zoo

a couple potential needs: To get out ... of a promise you made, To get rich ... but no one can know it was you

a couple potential locations: In the dry swimming pool, currently filled with dead leaves, There’s just enough room for one person to squeeze between the fuel-oil tank and the outside wall of the office

a couple potential objects: Untoward - A long, blond wig, matted with blood, Transportation - An ambulance

News Channel Six

When The News Breaks, We're There To Fix It!
Times are tough at Action Six News. We're last place in an already small market and losing ground all the time. It's not like much news-worthy stuff happens in this crappy little town anyway, and those bastards over at Action News Eleven always seem to be one step ahead of us! With advertising revenue drying up and people turning more and more to that blasted internet, sometimes you've got to get a little creative in reporting the news.

The Action Six News team could be from any small city around the United States, filled with people who desperately seek notoriety, fame or-- just occasionally-- a better world.

a couple potential relationships: Tired mentor/ambitious protégé, “Secret” lovers only to yourselves

a couple potential needs: To get famous ...by going out with a bang, To cover our asses ...by destroying that freaking file/tape. So, so stupid!

a couple potential locations: In the pointless live coverage of that severe weather event, Under the news desk

a couple potential objects: Where's the Warning Label? - Bag of peanuts and someone’s well-known peanut allergy, Props - “Happy Bear” costume

The Penthouse

"Call Me Sal"
Salman bin Nasser al Saud is a Saudi prince, he's twenty-four years old, and he is heir to one of the biggest fortunes on the planet.

Sal's pride and joy is his penthouse. It's the most expensive penthouse he and his people could find. It's in the heart of downtown, has a breathtaking 360-degree view that encompasses the entire city skyline and harbor, and has been the site of some of the most extravagant parties in living memory.

In some respects, tonight is no different than any other night at Sal's place. The world's most moneyed, famous, talented, ruthless, intelligent, and charismatic people--plus those who profit from them-- have packed themselves into Sal's penthouse, and the beats are bumping.

And here comes Sal at the stroke of midnight: drunk, not a care in the world, with a crowd of shrieking underage girls trailing behind him.

But what Sal doesn't know is that this is the last party he'll ever host at his penthouse. After tonight, everything changes... one way or the other.

a couple potential relationships: Friendship ended after one humiliated the other, Debtor and repo man

a couple potential needs: To get even …and everyone must know you did it, To get the truth …about how to make these fantastic drugs

a couple potential locations: Balcony with a superb view (and a telescope), Natural Sevens Casino—straight out of a Bond movie

a couple potential objects: Untoward - Thomas Kinkade painting of a sad-faced clown beating a child, Sentimental - Pornographic ice sculpture

Science Comics

Second String at Best
"For every successful superhero who was belted by gamma rays, injected with magic ginseng or... for instance... bit by a radioactive spider like Spiderman, there are many, many more who are not so spectacular."
- Flaming Carrot Comics, by Bob Burden

Somewhere out there, Solarman is saving the world from an invasive alternate reality full of insect-men. Somewhere else, the Wonder League fights for truth and justice against big name villains like Baron von Violence. And somewhere else, the superscientist Professor Chrysalis is discovering a cure for all known diseases.

That's not here, though. Sure, you work in the same "costumed aggression" industry as those guys. But you aren't the big name heroes or villains. You aren't even the henchmen of the top tier villains. You're down with the dregs. Third rate heroes, has-been villains and minions who couldn't even get hired as cannon fodder. These are a bunch of people with poor social skills, terrible impulse control, giant ambitions and access to deadly superscientific doomsday devices. When their personal lives get all muddled up into their professional hero and villain routine, it's sure to be a fiasco.

a couple potential relationships: Clones, Bowling rivals

a couple potential needs: To get laid ...by an honest to goodness superhero, To get respect ...from the bureaucrats at the Global League of Villainous Enterprises who classified you as a ‘D’ class villain

a couple potential locations: A long forgotten fallout shelter deep beneath the earth, Onboard a pirate ship, out at sea

a couple potential objects: Doomsday Devices - A single vial labelled “extremely deadly nerve toxin”, Valuable - The alchemical formula for turning lead into gold

Vegas, Baby!

What Happens in Vegas…
It always sounds like a good idea. A few days in Vegas to blow off steam before the wedding, or to celebrate closing the deal, or just for the hell of it. Check responsibility at the door, you’re in Sin City, baby!

But so are the grifters and the hookers, looking to fleece tourists. The mobsters looking for prey. Showbiz lowlifes and corrupt officials, all looking for a better deal. Desperate locals with an eye out for a quick score.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists a day, from all over the world, rub elbows with the locals. Sometimes it’s champagne and caviar. Most times, it’s not. And, sometimes, it’s about burying the bodies in the desert.

a couple potential relationships: Siblings, Plastic surgeon and patient

a couple potential needs: A little time away from …the correctional facility, To return …the favor

a couple potential locations: A room with no camera in the bowels of a casino, A not yet completed suburban house

a couple potential objects: Fauna - White tiger, Mysterious - A missing memory