Fiasco: The Golden Panda
Thursday, 8 pm: Fiasco: The Golden Panda
First, everyone rolls dice and uses the result and tables to create:
- 5 people
- 5 relationships
- 2 objects
- 1 location
- 2 needs
The tables are customized, as folks create new genres for Fiasco. We were using a semi-wuxia genre here.
There is no GM in Fiasco. The players were:
- Jennifer Wong: Do Lynwei, female
- Me: Ma Jin, male
- Jonathan Davis: Emperor Sun Zaubuno, venal, greedy, loyal, skilled
- Rich Flynn: Sun Guoming, Emperor's Twin
- Jeff Dieterie: Xan Chi-Ping, former wife of Sun Guoming
I was the one who created the Twins relationship, and Rich and Jonathan agreed that really made things rock.
Sun Guoming and his wife, Xan Chi-Ping had been divided by imperial edit, i.e., by edict of Sun Guoming's own brother. Sun Guoming Needed to get even for that.
Do Lynwei Needed to learn the truth about the missing panda. She and Xan Chi-Ping had a Relationship of Past Neighbors once, and now again.
The emperor and Ma Jin were bitter enemies forced to maintain a veneer of friendship. Ma Jin used to train warriors. We gradually learned that these included the emperor, his twin, and Do Lynwei, whom no one except Xan Chi-Ping realized was female.
I think that the objects were the panda and a red silk scarf.
The action of Fiasco is divided into two acts, separated by the Tilt. Act I ends when ten dice have been given away. I think Act II ends when 10 more dice have been given away. There are rules about giving and keeping dice. All dice are d6. Half of them are white; half are black. White is for positive outcomes of scenes, black for negative ones. These dice are rolled at the endgame to determine the PCs' ultimate fate.
In the Golden Panda setting, there were two additional colors: Dark purple for death, whether literal or metaphoric, and pink for birth, which also did not need to be literal.
There are two types of scenes. In one, the player decides where his or her PC is and why, and everyone else decides how the scene resolves, positively or negatively. In the second, the other players decide where the PC starts, but that PC's player decides how the scene resolves. The player chooses which type of scene his or her PC is in. Players can call for flashbacks instead of present day scenes.
The story we created was slightly incoherent, but mostly satisfying, although there was something I hadn't realized about the endgame. I'll get to that later.
The emperor ordered that the temple burn. This was the temple where Ma Jin once taught and where Do Lynwei still studied. It was in the town to which Xan Chi-Ping was returning, her marriage having been dissolved by Imperial Edict.
A flashback showed the emperor as he was at thirteen, with his twin brother, and Do Lynwei as Ma Jin's students at the temple. Ma Jin was scornful of the twin's skills at martial arts, and praised the lowly Do Lynwei. The emperor to be wanted his brother to beat up the boy because he was too cowardly to do it himself, but Ma Jin made him try first. His brother had to wade in to rescue him.
Meanwhile, Xan Chi-Ping greeted her old friend, unaware that Do Lynwei was passing for male.
Do Lynwei: Oh, you are confusing me for my sister.
She explained the gender deception when the two were in private. She also went to study with the monks in the temple, trying to find out the secrets of life, martial arts, mysterious golden panda statues, and so on. The old monk Zao Mong was patiently indulgent.
Do Lynwei: If I rest with you, will you help me find it?
Zao Mong (as the student tries impatiently to learn patience): It may take -- a long time.
Meanwhile, Ma Jin tried to send a messenger bird to warn the temple of the emperor's plans. Alas, the bird and one of the monks were both cut down by one of the twins. Which one was impossible to say.
The emperor pretended to be as his twin and visited his brother's wife, bemoaning that they had been forced to separate by the "evil but wise emperor". And, I put down a pink die, saying that, given that the scene was heading towards the emperor having sex with his brother's wife, it meant literal conception of a child. Folks were cool with that.
After the emperor left, the good twin came in, of course. He and Xan Chi-Ping realized what had happened, although Sun Guoming did not realize that she now carried his brother's child.
The temple was set on fire, and there was a scramble to get various scrolls. We went for maximum confusion.
Ma Jin wanted to take the scroll with the secret kung fu technique, but wound up with the scroll about the golden panda. Do Lynwei wanted the panda scroll, but wound up with the kung fu scroll.
At this point, act one ended, and we had the Tilt. Rolling dice and consulting tables, we got results of:
- Mayhem: A frantic chase.
- Innocence: Someone is Not So Innocent after all. This was chosen by Rich.
And so, as act two began, Sun Guoming went crazy and pretended to be his twin, the evil emperor. He slaughtered monks, saying that such was the fate of all who opposed the emperor, daring the people to rise up against him.
Meanwhile, Xan Chi-Ping and Do Lynwei ran through the monastery. I'm a bit confused about details here, as Do Lynwei was looking for the golden panda, but I think turned out to have stolen it after all.
Xan Chi-Ping: You brought this fire upon us, you thrice cursed whore!
The panda was located, and the group agreed that its eyes should glow and that it was a fertility panda. This would explain Xan Chi-Ping giving birth as quickly as we liked.
Someone: The fertility panda is awesome.
And, we decided, there had been a prophecy: A boy blessed by the panda will grow up to become emperor.
Do Lynwei: Oh my God! You're pregnant!
Xan Chi-Ping: I'm not pregnant! _You're_ the whore!
Someone: We've just shifted into Raising Arizona.
Meanwhile, the emperor tried to ambush Ma Jin, and I decided that he should succeed, and that he should kill Ma Jin. It fit what I'd heard was the mood of Fiasco. But, alas for the emperor, Ma Jin did not have the scroll about the martial arts technique he sought.
The emperor then confronted his brother, who was pretending to be the emperor.
The real emperor (with actual respect): You -- are a magnificent bastard!
The brothers argued over the paternity of Xan Chi-Ping's child.
Emperor: It is mine or ours or -- definitely mine!
Sun Guoming: I am a man and know nothing of how these -- female things work.
Sun Zaubuno, the actual emperor, was forced to flee. He took on the identity of Sun Guoming. Sun Guoming pretended to be the emperor. He ruled cruelly in brother's name, waiting for the people to rise up against him. This would be his revenge against Sun Zaubuno.
The Emperor / Sun Guoming married Xan Chi-Ping, and they had a son. Xan Chi-Ping begged her husband to let their son learn the secret kung fu techniques. He forbade this, and she nodded, accepting his ruling, but privately allowed Do Lynwei to teach the boy. He learned the secrets and resented his father, who had forbidden that he do so. The boy became a master of the Panda style.
Do Lynwei petitioned to be allowed to rebuild the temple.
Emperor / Sun Guoming: To rebuild that place of heresy -- that I burned down with my own hands? If the people want a temple, they must have it over my dead body.
And then, we had a flashback to Ma Jin, establishing that Ma Jin was the one who had set Sun Zaubuno on the path of evil by denying him the opportunity to learn the secret martial arts techniques.
Finally, Sun Guoming / Sun Zaubuno led an uprising against the emperor.
Emperor / Sun Guoming (to his wife): Leave us.
She did so at once, taking her son and Do Lynwei with her.
The two brothers faced each other one final time.
Sun Guoming / Sun Zaubuno: Surely, we can come to some kind of peaceful agreement (as screams sound).
Emperor / Sun Guoming: You can make up for what _you_ have done, but not for what you have made _me_ do.
Sun Zaubuno once again raised the question of who the father of Xan Chi-Ping's son truly was.
Sun Zaubuno: Brother, I know you too well. You never consummated your marriage -- you were too pure and chaste.
Sun Guoming: Perhaps I did choose to believe things that were comforting, rather than plausible. Very well. Our line doesn't end today. But, your life does.
Player (I think Jonathan): We _both_ have to die.
Player (I think Rich): And no one knows which is which.
Me: Moral: Be a woman; you get to live?
Jennifer: Let's see!
That led up to the aftermath. Everyone rolls all of their dice, black and white, subtracting the lower total from the higher. What I had not realized was that black did not mean a bad outcome, nor did white mean a good one. High numbers meant a good outcome, and low ones a bad. So, it is better to get mostly black or mostly white dice than an even mix of the two.
Once the aftermaths are all known, each player in turn narrates part of a closing montage about his or her PC. Everyone did this four times, because we each had four dice. I don't recall if that will always be true, or if it varies.
Ma Jin's total: Black 3 -- Harsh. Montage: 1. The earth where his beloved temple had been was salted. 2. His writings were burned as heresy. 3. The curse panda was blamed on him. 4. Future generations said that he seduced Do Lynwei and corrupted Emperor Sun Zaubuno. Sun Zaubuno's (the actual emperor) total: Black 10 -- Smelling like a rose. Montage: 1. He has learned techniques to appear to be dead. 2. A fist shatters the crypt, and the emperor climbs out. 3. A black clad figure armed with a spear perches on a tree on the palace grounds, watching over the new emperor, his son (who was, I think, named Emperor Panda) 4. A children's storyteller tells a tale about ill-fated twins and how, even from great evil, great good may arise, just as the new emperor came from the seed of the evil former emperor. Sun Guoming (the emperor's twin who, in his madness, spent years pretending to be the evil, despotic emperor): White 6 -- Beaten, broken down, but learned a hard lesson in prison or hell. Montage: 1. As emperor, he harshly and sternly instructs his son about his brother, his son's weak, compassionate uncle, with the hidden goal of making his son into a _good_ emperor. 2. (My notes are hard to read here) In the darkness of crypt, his spirit brought justice to family. Scales even up to brother to decide how karmic wheel turns. 3. Something I really can't read about how twice something about hands touching or not touching one more time, and a woman being sorry, a brother, and twins. 4. 500 years later, the emperor's wife has twins with the same names. Xan Chi-Ping: White 12 -- Profit! Montage: 1. The son of the Emperor is kind and generous. 2. Something about songs and a lifetime of innocence that I can't quite make out. 3. The grown up son never ages once he reaches thirty. 4. Xan Chi-Ping dies on her hundredth birthday, happy, and surrounded by her family. Do Lynwei: White 1 -- Dreadful! Dead, probably of a self inflicted wound. Montage: 1. She tries to rebuild the temple. 2. She is barren because of her exposure to the golden panda. 3. This leads to an illness, and her gender is discovered. She is outcast. 4. She dies alone and unmourned.
