Salvador Dali, a prominent Spanish surrealist painter, once said that “Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” I say that ambition without intelligence is like a bird who smacks into a window at high-speed. Ambition can blind a person and drive them forward like a hot poker. While goals are important, one must not forget to stop and observe to ensure they know where they are going and avoid pitfalls.
Fiasco, by Bully Pulpit Games, is not a role-playing game in the traditional sense. It is comprised of a single rule book (just shy of 130 pages) and contains no stats, tables, or enemies for the players to use. Instead, Fiasco is a role-playing system that contains a very small rule-set and lists that builds on a few basic necessary plot components (characters, setting, etc.) and then plays itself out like improvisational theater. Without the stage acting, of course, but with all the drama you can imagine. All that is needed to play the game is the core rule book (discussed here), 4 six-sided standard dice per player (2 black and 2 white, or just 2 different colors), a small pile of index cards or Post-It notes, pens or pencils for everyone, and 3 to 5 players who are comfortable acting as really strange and hopelessly lost people.