There's more to Oz than the Yellow Brick Road

A bit of good news this time.

My schedule at work finally allowed me to attend the monthly gaming meetups that I have been missing the last few months. As usual, I debated what I was going to run before settling on Fiasco. Though I did mix it up a bit and used the card-based version.

I typically use "Fiasco Classic" with notecards and dice for a couple of reasons.

1) Familiarity. I had been playing Fiasco Classic before it was classic and that's what got me excited about the new Fiasco when it came up on Kickstarter.

2) Convenience. I have a "portable gaming kit" in a small backpack. Fiasco, Fate Accelerated, Microscope and InSpectres all ready to go at a moment's notice. The notecards and dice that I have included in the kit can be used for the other games as well as Fiasco.

3) Saltiness. Here's the deal. During the Kickstarter, I was enthusiastic. A new version of something I already liked! The pre-printed cards would save on index cards (I hadn't upgraded to the reusable ones I have now). I quickly signed up for the maximum reward tier to get all of the stuff!

Then the stretch goal hit. One of the stretch goals was a new collection of playset decks beyond what had been planned for the initial set.Yay stretch goal, right? But that meant that the "maximum reward tier" I had signed up for suddenly wasn't the maximum anymore and I had to decide if I wanted to cough up extra in order to make sure I did in fact, get the maximum reward.

In practice, it was something like a $15 dollar difference, and it did get me more physical product. But having to re-assess my pledge in the middle of the campaign was something that I didn't enjoy. It's something that I look out for in all the Kickstarters I've backed since.

Someone in the meetup group suggested that since the new version only really needs the Engine Deck and whatever playset deck you're using, and not the whole box, it could fit easily into my portable gaming kit, either replacing or supplementing Fiasco Classic. Not a bad thought, necessarily, but it did mean confronting my feelings about that Kickstarter.

Though I'm now realizing that another part of my reticence is that I strongly dislike breaking up a set. I have all my Fiasco card decks in that box and taking them out for play is fine, but leaving the box at home and only taking a couple of deck with me makes me anxious. Might be a neurodivergence thing. Not diagnosed, but I feel like it fits a pattern.

Now that I've psychoanalyzed myself for all this time, the point of the story is that I decided to bring the card-based version of Fiasco (the whole box) to try to dilute some of that saltiness. We used the Poppleton Mall playset and had a wild ride of drug deals and potential extramarital affairs. All in all, a good time.

We'll see if I'm able to attend next month and if I'm able to prepare an actual one-shot.