Monday, January 25, 2016

The Secrets of Cats tARE c6s12

The cats keep their eyes open to hear if anything's going on regarding the eventual war that could be sailing up but so far they don't hear anything directly affecting their burdens. Tyggtass is focusing her reconnaissance activity to close to their street roof where there's been a lot of over-grown pale aggressive rats lately.

Grå takes a short tour to the bath house to check that the hole where one of the big rats came out is still plugged. It is but the uppish cats that live nearby taunt this time as well, emphasises his heritage as a plebeian cat and so forth. He jumps up on the wall of their burden's garden. They get very annoyed by this kind-of-trespassing and tells him to go away. Grå ruffles up hos fur and looks threateningly at them. They're too snotty to be afraid for him although his like 25% more cat than them and that's 25% more muscles than them so he simply quickly pushes them off the wall into the garden and goes on with his business. They hiss and shout after him as he tells them that they're quite bad at defending their territory. He tells them that if they taunt him again he will tear their fur so much they will be ashamed of showing themselves outdoors until it's replaced.

Grå scouts the outdoors area of the bath house when it opens and eavesdrops ont he humans gathering in the park areas to talk and relax. He hears some talk about some constellation of humans that has done some unintelligible human offence and now the discussion goes back and forth regarding whether the Romans should start a war with or if the other people maybe already have done that or if they should let it be. They also talks about whether it's good or bad that so many humans arrive from far ends of the empire and gather up in Rome. Some complain that they can neither read or speak latin but some say that they're hardworking and do a lot of the soldier work in the army and so on.

Later during the day Grå manage to sneak into the bath house entrance when it opens in the afternoon. It's scarily damp and suggests that there's large volumes of water nearby. A lot of the humans goes to a library next to the entrance. Several of the discussions is about the same constellation of humans Grå heard about earlier that has done something that the Roman humans maybe can't just let be. He also hear some slave owner talk about their slaves and Nincilimus. They say that the worship of Nincilimus dampens the discontent among the slaves so it's a good thing to introduce to the slaves.

Tryggtass spends the day sunbathing.

Svansglidaren spends much time at his burden's home to try catch as any rumours as possible about what's going on with the humans. It means that he has to spend times around the slaves though and he doesn't have that fine relationship with one of the three house slaves. The household has one more intellectual slave and one more worker slave plus one door guard slave. The door guard, without realising it himself as the ignorant human he is, is trespassing into Svansglidaren's territory as the guardian of the house. Hence the somewhat estranged relation between him and Svansglidaren.

The two regular household slaves have lately shown a much more positive attitude without any real reason. None in the family has given them any gifts or something lately. Svansglidaren have noticed that they have started to do some sort of shared ritual quite similar to the ritual where the household honours the forefathers. It's almost like they have started a small secret family of their own. When he starts to spy on them he finds out that they have a statuette that he hasn't seen before, here or anywhere else. As he spies further on the slaves he finds out that it's actually more like when humans worship at the temples rather than when they honour the forefathers at the family altar. The statuette is like a very thin man. He doesn't look like any of the regular gods though. He could maybe be Mercurius but he has no greek hat, not staff with wings and snakes and no winged sandals so probably not. It's not Pluto either, no attributes associating to him. It must be some smaller local spirit or being of some kind. They sacrifice some of their bread and even some of their wine which is a very scarce resource for the slaves.

One day the two slaves suddenly start to argue with each other, not a small argument either. Svansglidaren sneaks over to their bedroom where they're shouting to each other about whicever of something is the correct one, which one is the proper one, the authentic one. They seem to be arguing over which spirit being is the correct one. One is the slender man Svansglidaren has seen before and the other seem to be a very round kind of fat man. They both call their respective statuette Nincilimus and after a while the drops their representations of Nincilimus and start to wrestle in the small room until they get a little tired. They stop without really hurting each other, pant and go back to work but the shared ritual is over and the atmosphere is tense for the rest of the day.

In the evening Grå tries to track down the ferret they saved earlier when they killed the big albino rat. Tryggtass continue to "scout" the street roof and Svansglidaren spies on the guests that visit his burden's house. The guests and Svansglidaren's burden discuss the far away constellations of humans that has done something and how to convince more people that this is it. Now it has to be dealt with. It seems like the offerings to Mars is preparations for a war with those far away humans. They also disregards that Nincilimus the slaves worship.

Grå follows the track of the ferret to another insula more to the centre of their region until it suddenly stops dead as if it had taken one giant leap up to the stars. Confused Grå asks some other cats if they've seen a ferret. They don't really know it but they have seen a ferret now and then lately so they assume that a ferret has moved into the area. As Grå continues to sniff around he finds out that the scent track goes all the way very close to the wall as if it would have flown up to the roof whic would make some sort of sense if it could do some strong magic. After all they did meet it on a roof last time. Grå climbs around trying to get up on the top roof but fail and he doesn't find any new trails of the ferret. Grå tries to get some help from two cats he meet e g if there's any way up onto the roof but they obviously are the jokers and clowns of the area and Grå slowly but steadily builds up frustration as he tries to get something that's not a joke from them. Finally after a lot of jokes and misadventures one of them shows the way up to the roof.

Grå walks to the edge of the roof where he would expect a flying magic ferret to arrive if he would have flown up to the roof from where the tracks on the ground stopped. As he walks around he finds the scent of a ferret. He turns to the two cat jokers and asks what that scent is. "Weasel?" one of them says. Grå sighs and annoyed tells them that there lives a ferret in their house and they don't know about it. They don't seem to take that too seriously though. It is strange though because it's on the fourth floor and it's a closed apartment door without any hatch in it. Grå leaves and decides to come back tomorrow and talk to the ferret then, hopefully without the cat jokers.

The two household slaves in Svansglidaren's household is still not too friendly to each other and manage to sleep surprisingly far away from each other in the very small room where they sleep and live when they don't work.

During the night the three cats; Svansglidaren, Tryggtass and Grå shares information with each other and discuss what has happened lately. They speculate that the ferret and the rats are in direct feud with each other and that the weird big rats is after the ferret and that's why they come directly here every time. Also they assume that the ferret knows magic since that would explain why it can disappear and reappear. Maybe the magi ferret has driven the rats from it's own area and now has followed them here to their street roof.

The next day they all go to the insula where Grå followed the ferret. They meet one of the clown cats which Grå presents for the his friends in the most satirical way. The other cat can't be seen until they notis that the parapet on the fourth level has a pair of cat ears almost as if a cat was hiding very badly behind it. Grå presents them as "Clown 1" and "Clown 2". Outside a door they recognise the smell of the ferret. There is a glitch under the door that might be wide enough for a ferret. Tryggtass sniffs at the glitch and don't find much ferret smell at the floor but the door in itself also smells somewhat of ferret at it's lowest part although there's no hatch in the door.

A ferret jumps out through the door and stops dead staring at the three cats outside the door. Grå tries to wrestle the surprised ferret to the ground to stop him from running away. Something weird happens. Grå catches the ferret but still doesn't. It's if they were in the same place at the same time bt without relating to each other and the ferret disappears through the solid door leaving the three surprised cats outside.

"Hey" Tryggtass shouts "we just want to talk to you", "We want to talk about the rats". The ferret is understandably suspicious of them. It takes a lot of diplomacy to get it to crawl out from under the door. It sits warily outside the door, ready to jump away. They explain about the rats and how weirdly big they are and that they break through Svansglidaren's wards. Svansglidaren asks the ferret why a rat would run all over the Capitoline hill to attack him. After some confusion the ferret says that they're probably thinking of his daughter. After some discussion back and forth the ferret agrees that it was he who was there the first time and was sarcastic about the cats not being able to keep the rats at bay. They discuss the rats somewhat and hope that it's just a minor amount of rats that has grown and learnt how to break through wards. The ferret is very reluctant to let them talk to his daughter though. It promises to talk to his daughter though. They prepare to wait in the meanwhile when it says "See you in a while" and are almost gone when they manage to stop it and decide to meet just before the evening and the ferret promises to talk to his daughter until then.

 As they leave Svansglidaren feels someone gnawing at his ward at the hole down to the sewers under Grå's insula. He focuses on the ward to stop whatever it is. He stops it, probably a rat, from breaking through. They return home to patrol their burdens homes. The two slaves in Svansglidaren's house has started to break up the mosaic int he hall. They work in the two ends of the hall though and sometimes just happen to spurt a piece of plaster at each other.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s2 tilt, act two and aftermath

Tilt
Lynn's and Mario's players get to choose tilt elements. Dice are rolled and we end up with:
  • Innocence: The wrong guy gets busted
  • Failure: You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't
We discussed a little where everything was heading and it's obvious that the solo career is important for Lynn which is in total opposition to Mario's strong wish to keep the band together at all costs. Mario's player even thinks it's better if Lynn dies on stage rather than leaving the band and presumably bringing some of the fans with her and if she dies on stage she never left the band and the band will just be more legendary.

Lynn's player says that it would be fun if the record label had offered her a solo album if she helps to bring about the changes in The Birds. Then Lynn's motivated to make the new album with the new sound happen and also go about her own solo career.

If Lynn were about to die because a mistake that would make all royalty money for the lyrics go to The Crow alone and he wouldn't need to share with Lynn. That could put him in the spotlight of the investigation of what happened when Lynn died.

Also there has been some borderline pyrotechnics so that's also a possibility for "You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't".


Act two

Scene one

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

It's time for the first gig with Mario on scene, new clothes and the new sound with violin. The band opens up with an older popular song that is rearranged for the new sound and Mario's violin. The audience is somewhat confused in the beginning since there's been any announcement of the new sound or any special gig. Halfway through the song many in the audience get warm anyway and seem to like to hear a new version. The usual I-push-myself-forward-in-front-of-the-fans-although-I-arrived-late-just-to-film-with-my-smartphone people that attend any show is quite unpleased though when they don't get what they expected on their recording. Pushed back by the fans they return back or even leave. Good riddance anyway. The rest of the audience show mixed feelings. One of the new songs that's written for the new sound from the beginning is received better. Maybe they accept a new sound better for a new song rather than an old. When the band leaves the stage the audience never reached the usual heights and the band was only called in for encore once instead of twice. Still the audience is with them although somewhat confused or curious.

The press afterwards write a lot about the new sound "Is this how The Birds sing these days"?


Scene two

(The Crow's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

The Birds (and The Dogs) has participated in a band competition and ended up at one of the higher places and caught the eyes of press and record labels but the main thing overshadowing that, at least for The Crow and Dingo (singer and front persona of The Dogs) is that the police has concluded that it was one of them that was selling drugs at the event and now are squeezing them for confessions. The Crow, according to them, is the most suspicious one of the two. Two cops has cornered The Crow in the hotel room when Mario arrives in the middle of it.

The push The Crow hard and doesn't take a no for an answer. They mix insults of rock stars with pushes for The Crow to admit he sold the drugs. The Crow suggests that maybe it was the police officers themselves that had been using drugs and now need a scapegoat for their dealers. He's very close to getting arrested not only on suspicions of selling drugs but also for slandering police officers. Hadn't Mario arrived and used his extensive knowledge of legal procedures and regular officers' jurisdictions (a necessity for a latino american being in U. S. A. barely legally). He shows them to the door and tell them to come back with a search warrant. The officers try to say that they're just having a conversation with The Crow. The Crow tells them that the conversation is over and ask them to leave. Bitterly the officers leave telling them that they know, they're gonna get The Crow.


Scene three

(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

On the route from the competition and back to the regular tour Mario stops at a roadhouse to check the engine which has been sounding funny for a while. Mario dives into the engine space at the back of the bus while The Crow and Lynn take the opportunity to check the lashing of the equipment - it did make some suspicious sliding noises as they turned and left the highway. Jeff feels the urge for something, he doesn't really know what; food, coffee, whiskey, something and walks into the roadhouse. What none of they notice is that another bus rolls into the parking space and stops. Most of The Birds stay by the bus fixing things but the singer Dingo walks into the roadhouse shortly after Jeff almost at the same time as the same two cops from earlier parks their car outside the roadhouse (obviously they have been following The Dogs' tour bus). Both cops follows Dingo into the roadhouse.

Jeff halts as he and Dingo stare down each other. Dingo two steps inside the door and Jeff ready to leave with a coffee and a whiskey. The two cops enters and almost step into Dingo. The cops go right at it and accuses Jeff and Dingo for having a meet-up for a narcotics and money exchange. An argument breaks out and the cops order Jeff and Dingo to put their hands on the bar counter while they search them and soon find a small plastic bottle with pills on Jeff. They don't believe him when he says that it's painkillers for migraine although slightly stronger than the ones one usually finds at the drugstore. It might be a slight prescription rule offence but it's nothing illegal. The cops don't care, handcuffed Jeff is brought out to the police car. The car leaves as Dingo hops onto the tour bus who leaves.

After a while Lynn miss her coffee Jeff was supposed to get for her and walks over to the roadhouse expecting to find him downing whiskey but instead is told from a somewhat excited bartender that the cops was her and took one of the band members for drug possession.


Scene four

(Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

The rest of the band takes the bus to the police station to talk Jeff out of the arrest or in worst case break him out. The show must go on.

The Crow stays in the bus as they hold him as a suspect for drug dealing. They do hold a grudge against Mario as well but his knowledge about legal procedures is needed. Lynn and Mario walks into the police station to get Jeff out of the arrest. A sturdy officer no longer fit for street patrolling looks up from a desk and ask what he can help them with. "We're here to get Jeff" Lynn says happily. Mario clarifies by adding Jeff's full name Johan Larson (descending from Swedish ancestors). The officer sighs and starts to slowly browse a book with lists of arrestee. Lynn and Mario almost breaks into pieces from frustration, especially when Jeff calls for them from the cell. Finally the officer finds Jeff in the list. "There's a 5 000 dollar bail to get him out" he says. Mario and Lynn looks at each other and starts to explain that they need Jeff, that they has a gig to go to, that he's innocent. The officer doesn't raise an eyebrow though and just refers to the judge (opens up tomorrow). Finally they manage to scrape together 5 000 dollar in smaller bills. The officer starts to write out a document in painstakingly slow pace, sometimes using both index fingers to type. After a long while they get a document to sign and get Jeff out of the arrest (without his pills though). Broke and without the pills they leave. The trial is set to the day after tomorrow. "Ah, who cares?" Jeff says "By then we're in the next state". "But our money!" the rest shouts in unison. "Asch" Jeff says "We'll earn new money soon". "We had to sell your whisky" Mario says to silent Jeff.


Scene five

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

On the way to the next gig they pass by where their manager lives to get a few tips on the current situation and also the the bus needs to be fixed, Jeff needs to be fixed and maybe he shouldn't be left alone so Lynn goes to talk to the manager. After getting a promise from the manager that he will take care of the legalities Lynn steers the conversation over to her solo career. Quite easily she get a promise that if they finalise the tour and the promised album with the new sound she will get her solo album. He still suggests that she should ask The Crow if he could help her with the lyrics. Lynn isn't too keen on that, it's a solo record after all. The manager caves in and accepts that she doesn't take help from The Crow as long as she before the recording starts can produce a lyric that's convincingly good. Happy but a little bitter Lynn leaves the manager *mumble* *mumble* "Take help from The Crow. The only one liking his song writing is the jury in that specific court *mumble*


Scene six

(The rest establishes, The Crow's player decides for a bad ending, only black dice left)

It's almost time to go on stage. The band strike a chord the last time just to check it one last time. It's less than ten minutes left. They're standing just around the corner of the the small stairs up to the stage, waiting. Mario asks The Crow if he has the remote for the pyrotechnics. "Should I have that? The Crow asks back. "Don't you usually have that when it's fixed and done?" Lynn asks. When The Crow doesn't answer Jeff gets nervous and sneak around the corner and looks up to the stage. There's no pyrotechnics. Not one piece. "You said you was taking care of it." Lynn says to The Crow. "Yes, I know but I asked Diego to fix that." Crow says. "So where's the remote?" Lynn asks. "I don't know" Crow answers "I didn't get it from Diego." "Damn" Crow whispers. Jeff returns, "There's not a fucking piece on stage" he says, almost shouts. "Diego doesn't answer on phone" Lynn says silently. "Eh, eh, no panic" Crow tries. "How do you mean - 'No panic'?" Jeff asks aggressively. "We'll fix it some way" The Crow says "We do a stripped down show. We simply trust the new sound". In panic they rearrange the order of the songs and exchange a few of them. "You made this" Jeff says and sends The Crow on stage to fire up the audience. It doesn't become their best remembered show although it probably will be talked about.


Scene seven

(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending, only black dice left)

It's the last gig for the tour when they find a set of pyrotechnics furthest into the bag compartment under the bus. Somehow Diego misunderstood The Crow and thought that they were doing a stripped down show to save the pyrotechnics to be able to go out in a blaze of fire on the last show (the budget has no room for buying extra stuff). When they stand waiting the last few minutes just before the show they look towards the scene and realise that Diego has gotten all of the pyrotechnics up on stage. The ones bought for this show and the ones left over from last show. For a moment they're almost scared of entering the stage, afraid they and the whole stage will blow up and kill the hardcore fans in the process. Mario notices that the rack holding some of the thing close to Jeff's background position is leaning to the side. "Shall I stand there" Jeff says slightly scared. "Yes" the rest of the band says "but we don't have to fire it all" Lynn says and turns to The Crow for the remote. "The remote" Crow says "I have given it to guy at the mixer table". He's more fitted to handle that than we are. We should focus on the songs. It's time to enter the stage. Jeff quickly writes a note for the mixer guy and sends Diego to give it to the mixer guy. They run up on stage (Jeff sneaks into his hidden position). Jeff nervously plays almost all notes correctly when suddenly all the pyrotechnics go off in the middle of a ballad. The hardcore fans notice that some of the rhythm guitar sound disappears as Jeff desperately throws himself off the stage and personell throws a fire blanket over him.

As the rest of the band leaves the stage they find Jeff without his fine long hard rocker hair looking more like - Jon Bon Jovi after the haircut and with burns over much of his right arm. He's in no real danger the medic assures them but he will have troubles doing his job on the recording that starts after the tour. On top of that he broke the guitar in the fall and after paying the bail for Jeff there's not much room for new guitars anyway.


Scene eight

Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending, wild die left

Mario was sure his green card was all in order. The band is back in the last state to handle Jeff's trial which turns out to go not too bad, annoyingly for the two cops. Therefore they decide to scrutinise Mario's green card documents and find that he hasn't signed one document that would have proven that he had received it. The cops show up to corner Mario about this. Mario thinks he and Jeff's lawyer is there to answer questions about Jeff when they suddenly press Mario about the unsigned document. Luckily for Mario Jeff's lawyer after a short argument decides to take on Mario's case although Mario don't have much money at the moment. They're on a roll. They will all have pils of cash soon. He sees it as an investment. The cops press Mario to just confess. If he only confesses everything is gonna be alright. It's fixable. If he lies on the other hand then there's no way for them to help him. Jeff's lawyer tells Mario to stop answering questions and starts to handle the officers and quite soon has turned the whole thing around to be about not Mario not having a valid green card but rather a clerk not having handled the registering of the green card properly. The cops lean back and discuss quietly and intensely between each other. After a shorter discussion they have decided to let them go until they have something new on them. Mario makes it quite clear for Jeff that he has to show up on all of the court hearing because if they don't get the bail money back they don't have any money because lawyer bills.


Aftermath

The Crow
White 2: Merciless. You might not be dead on the outside but sure as Hell on the inside. ... The future is a brick wall.
  • The Bird's new album is a flop.
  • The cops find a stash of drugs that The Crow insists on is planted there by someone. The Crow goes to the arrest for a big bail and then jail for a while.
  • When The Crow gets out of jail he tries to start a new band as lead singer but his voice is not what it was after the time in jail. The band never takes off and only do small food-and-drinks-gigs in small towns.
  • As money gets low The Crow make a desperate move. He starts dealing drugs. If he's been jailed for it it might as well be true. To make it worse he pay protection money to the two not so honest cops that hunted the band earlier.
Jeff
Black 3: Harsh. ... A big black cloud of hurt is gonna rain on you. The things needing to happen to you are not going to. Simple as that.
  • Jeff makes a mistake and doesn't show up at one of the court hearings as supposed to and doesn't get back the bail money the band put out for him. He has to pay from what last money he has on his own.
  • Jeff also goes to jail for a while for drug possession. He miss the recording, even if it's a flop it would at least have put his name out there. He will get out poor and without a job. He has the worst time of his life because jail sucks.
  • Jeff's a self-assured person. That doesn't work well in prison. He gets into a fight which is actually an statue-an-example-event. He gets generally beaten up but most of all they break his right arm and the the nerve damage stops him from any guitar playing career. Not even guitar teacher for beginners is any longer within reach when he gets out.
Mario
White 2: Merciless. You might not be dead on the outside but sure as Hell on the inside. ... The future is a brick wall.
  • Mario's newly found career as a musician is over and he returns to being a roadie.
  • Mario tries to claim royalty for some of the lyrics Lynn has published but fail miserably in court although he actually contributed. Lynn's not giving him a penny.
  • Mario manages to get a studio gig or two, just enough to bring some money and emphasise that he could have been a famous musician in a famous band touring the U. S. A. or even the world. Some of the studio recordings are for mariachi bands.
  • Mario can't get ends to meet and has to take a nine to five job as hardware tester at a small factory.
Lynn
White 16: Fan-fucking-tastic. Safe and secure. That thing that would make your life better? You got it and more - and then some more.
  • Solo album contract that goes well.
  • Piles of cash. Her cash, not court ordered consent as before.
  • The stripped down show without pyrotechnics but with some other spontaneous desperate measures to catch the attention of the audience (like ragged revealing clothes) did catch the attention of the audience who now follow Lynn, not only for her music but also because sex appeal.
  • Tour as support for Rammstein and Lynn catch the attention of even more people.
  • On the cover The Rolling Stone. She gets her picture on the cover of The Rolling Stone.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s1 act one and tilt

Act one


Scene one

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

The band is on tour. Lynn has sent in a demo tape (or rather a file these days) to another label. They liked it and when the band arrives in a city where the label has an office and studio Lynn sneaks away to show what she can achieve in person. The label representatives hint at bringing in another musician to fill out and step up lyrics writing a bit, maybe someone from the band she's already in? Lynn leaves the meeting mumbling. "Not good enough lyrics, hmpf, I'll show them". Lynn isn't too keen on bringing in the obvious but not straight out mentioned lyrics writer, The Crow. That backstabbing bastard that went to court over the lyrics she clearly wrote. Mumble.

Later Mario returns to the tour bus and finds Lynn writing in her note book and muttering something about good lyrics. She asks him for words that rhyme with heart but only get very pop love ballad kind of words from him. Mario instead suggests to open the lyric with something like I used to have a six-gun but now I only have a bottle of whiskey. Lynn manages to hide her lyric writing behind some attempts to develop the lyrics for the band and asks Mario to not tell the others yet since "there's so much prestige stuff going about with the lyrics writing in the band".


Scene two

(The rest of the group establishes, The Crow's player decides for a good ending)

Concert evening, the pyrotechnics hasn't arrived. The Crow starts to panic but know how to solve it. He knows a guy who knows a guy that can fix pyrotechnics. With Mario and Jeff he meets with the guy on what Jeff thinks is a little too suspicious alley to be really OK but rather alley pyrotechnics than no pyrotechnics. The Crow asserts that it's perfectly OK and safe. They buy a lot of stuff, as much as they can get to the bus to get it to the concert local. When he sees the stuff Jeff feels quite comfortable with his position in the background rather than at the front where all the flames are gonna go off. The concert formally explodes and it's a wonder nothing catches fire although there's a rumour that a few visitors had some burn marks on their clothes. The band hastily leaves before the fire safety guy manage to stop them and question them about the pyrotechnics.


Scene three

(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

They're all in the tour bus on their way to the next gig in varying stages of hangovers. Jeff's somewhere on the way to getting a hangover. He's not really stopped being drunk yet and downs the last of a bottle of really nice whisky as opposed to the low end whiskey most bands has to be satisfied with. Lynn has forgotten her note book open a one of the small tables in the bus. Anyone at least slightly into music could recognise something that has to be either a poem or a song. Seeing the notes startles Jeff which makes The Crow notice first Jeff and then the notes. Mario happily drives the bu when he notices that the company in the back suddenly fall silent. Silent's never good, especially not sudden silence. Lynn suddenly hears her lyrics being read out aloud. The Crow turns to Lynn and asks if that's her lyrics. "Eh, what?" Lynn says "Oh, those, ah, that's just something Mario said and it was inspiringso I wrote it down. Jeff looks at the note book with curly pages that obviously has been browsed back and forth and asks Lynn how much she actually have written. Not just a line or two, that's obvious. Lynn snatch back her note book and shouts at them for poking about in her stuff. Jeff defends him with that it was laying open together with the poker stuff from last night. Lynn says she never left it open and blames Mario for driving like a madman so the bus shakes and the note book turned open. Jeff gets very annoyed since he and Mario has written a lot of songs together with input from the whole band and that the band has performed together and then Lynns sits and writes song text on her own. For whom? For herself?

The crow manages to calm the situation and says that it's good that she practices. She needs that to get better. Lynn doesn't say anything about that to get away from the unwanted attention on her lyrics.


Scene four

(Mario's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

In the middle of a godforsaken plain they stop the bus to get some food at a small motel-bar-something. They walk in and there sits their arch-enemy The Dogs. For a moment the band stops and The Dogs look up from their drinks and both bands stare at each other.

The  Birds sit down next to them and the war of jeering is on. Lynn asks why The Dogs are around here, are they maybe on their way to visit grandma? Mario follows up with a question how it is to play at retirement homes. As the bartender approaches he recognises The Birds and the coffee is on the house. Of course he states this loud enough for The Dogs to hear. Since it's after lunch and they serve Jack Daniel's Jeff says that "Well, Jack Daniel's, that's booze for someone living a dog's life. Next round for them is on me". The bartender serves and asks if they're friends. The dogs mumbles, knocks back the whiskey and leaves, still mumbling.

When The Birds also leaves a little later The Dogs are still outside having trouble starting their bus. "We'd love to lend you jumper cables" The Crow says "but we're in a hurry to our next gig". "You'll be fine" Mario follows up with "you can ask some fans to push the bus into starting". "If you have any" Jeff laughs as they jump into their own bus and leaves. Before he enters The Crow says "We could help you though. Where's your next gig? We could go there and cover for you". The Bird's bus leaves in a cloud of dust.


Scene five

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

The Birds has just finished their next gig a support . Besides a small fire in the rig nothing caught fire. One of the fans got so impressed by this show compared to earlier shows that she sent a case of whiskey to the band. The Birds spend their time in their suite preparing for after show party. They have signed some stuff for their fan and while trying out the whiskey answers some questions from their fan, e g what they're writing at the moment. "Well, we haven't been writing on anything at the moment. We've been focused on live performances - or so I thought" Jeff says and looks at Lynn. "Eh, yes, we have performed a lot lately. That's right" says Lynn. "Is it suddenly my responsibility that we write stuff?" Lynn sounds awkward and nothing gets better when Mario says "But you have been writing on something" and Lynn answers "OK, so now I'm not allowed to write stuff, is that it?" Mario withdraws and The Crow enters the discussion with ""Of course she can write lyrics. We even has a judge that has stated that she writes good lyrics". The fan wonders what she has walked into as Lynn tries to repair the situation by stating that it's actually both she and The Crow that writes good lyrics and Jeff says "Mmmm, on the other hand The Crow tells the rest of us when he has ideas for songs for the band. The argument is a fact and is fuelled by the spirits and Jeff push a a promo album in the hands of the fan and sends her to the door with a "See you at the front line by the fences tomorrow night again?" "Oh, good" Lynn says "good that someone thinks of our image and what to bring up when others are around. The Crow leaves with one of the whiskey bottles mumbling that he's gonna find some party mood somewhere. "Wow" Lynn shouts after him "You and a bottle of whiskey, such a party!". Jeff disappears into a movie on his computer, Mario leaves to find some mariachi music in town and Lynn demonstratively sits down with her note book and over-expressively writes in it.


Scene six

(Lynn's player establishes, the rest decides for a bad ending)

It's the day after in the hotel suite. Lynn had the least hang-over and has left while the rest of the band still lingers in the suite. A representative for the label has arrived to discuss the next step. Up to now The Birds has had one-album-contracts but now with increasing popularity it might be time for a longer contract for maybe three albums. The representative is all happy and energised and brings fruit smoothies to the tired hang-over band. Jeff pours some whiskey in his smoothie. 

The label representative praises their show although there were some complaints about a curtain catching fire after the pyrotechnics. The band dismiss it and reference to that it ought to be the venue's responsibility to remove inflammable things from the stage. The representative says something about the fine-print and that it's actually their responsibility to check the stage. Jeff looks at Mario the roadie. The representative leaves it with a "It's not a big problem. We can always deduct it from your gage." "Anyway" she says "We thought that three albums would be good for the next contract". Only three?" Jeff says. "and you get 20% of the earnings" the representative continues. "Hey, wait a second" Jeff says much annoyed "anything worse than 50/50 is no deal". The discussion continues and the band promise that if only the suggestion is good enough Lynn will sign it even if she's not here at the moment. The band agrees on 50/50 or better, "especially since Lynn's writing her own songs now" Jeff says. "Oh, so Lynn writes her own songs?" the representative says. The band dismiss her song-writing somewhat. After all it's been The Crow who has written most of the lyrics, some time together with Lynn, and it's been Mario and Jeff writing most of the music.

The representative drops the bomb "Could you think of changing the sound somewhat? "According to our marketing surveys" she continues "there's good reception for a more, say, Justin Bieber-like sound". The band falls silent and Jeff exclaims "For God's sake, you're talking about the soul of the band now. Justin Bieber?!? What the Fuck?!? And smoothies without spirits? I suggest you pay for the next after-show party and then we can discuss some rearranging but no fuckin' change of style" The label representative tries to withdraw by saying that she didn't really mean that they should change their style which makes Jeff ask her if she thinks they sound like fuckin' Bieber. Jeff's really mad by now. Then the representative says something about appealing to teenage girls and now the whole band looks at the representative like she's from another planet. Eventually Jeff asks if she's actually interested in a contract with the band why she's here. After all there's other labels. The representative suggests that they need to adjust to the audience and the band says that if that's the kind of audience they have, which they don't, they're just happy to get rid of it and find another audience. It's a full blown verbal trench warfare. They tell the representative to leave and come back at another time.

Through the door they hear the representative meet Lynn in the corridor. "Hi, how nice to meet you. Walk with me, I have a suggestion for you".

The band returns to the whiskey bottles.


Scene seven

(Jeff's player establishes, the rest decides for a good ending)

Lynn returns from her meeting with the label representative (the rest of the band knows where she's been). They discuss the meeting with the band and that she had suggested a change to something Justin Bieber-like sound and their dissatisfaction with the suggestion. Apparently Mrs Banks and Lynn also discussed that and maybe there could be other slight changes that could add a dimension to the sound "For fuck's sake, don't say keyboards" Jeff says. "No, no" Lynn says "we were thinking that some violin could do the trick". That's not as far fetched. Mario's happy and Jeff's not so opposite that, after all Slade did some rock 'n' rollish stuff with violin. "Also", Lynn says, "Mario's really good looking". Jeff suggests that they do this but with another label. Lynn says that their current albel are willing to stretch to 60/40 in favour of the band if they do some other style changes as well - mostly with Mario. It would only be for one album but that's OK with the band since that's also giving them a chance to switch label if they want to.


Scene eight

(The rest establishes, Mario's player decides for a good ending)

The band has a song writing session, now while trying to incorporate violin as well. Jeff and Mario has some half-finished material as usual and the group sits down trying to put words to the music and melt it into a song by group effort.

The chorus is unusually melodic so they decide to make it a little more rock aggressive. The session goes well and everyone's creative. Lynn has been out shopping and found a shirt for Mario. It's quite 70's and should according to Lynn be open way down to show off Mario's latino body. They decide to remove the ruffle though. It was a bit too much, a little too Meat Loaf kind of thing. Everyone's happy and satisfied and excited for the next gig where they will try it out.


Tilt
Lynn's and Mario's players get to choose tilt elements. Dice are rolled and we end up with:
  • Innocence: The wrong guy gets busted
  • Failure: You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't
We discussed a little where everything was heading and it's obvious that the solo career is important for Lynn which is in total opposition to Mario's strong wish to keep the band together at all costs. Mario's player even thinks it's better if Lynn dies on stage rather than leaving the band and presumably bringing some of the fans with her and if she dies on stage she never left the band and the band will just be more legendary.

Lynn's player says that it would be fun if the record label had offered her a solo album if she helps to bring about the changes in The Birds. Then Lynn's motivated to make the new album with the new sound happen and also go about her own solo career.

If Lynn were about to die because a mistake that would make all royalty money for the lyrics go to The Crow alone and he wouldn't need to share with Lynn. That could put him in the spotlight of the investigation of what happened when Lynn died.

Also there has been some borderline pyrotechnics so that's also a possibility for "You thought it was taken care of but it wasn't".


--

This was a fun game to play so far but it definitely needs some training and focus on creating the scenes so that you don't e g end up with scenes where all roles are in the scene and there's also other roles that needs to be played. That easily becomes messy so preferably not all roles are in the scene so that someone can play extra role(s) or all roles are in the scene but no one else are. 

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Fiasco: Touring Rock Band, The Birds, c7s1 setup

During some hiatus in our regular role playings we decided to try out Fiasco as it's supposed to be a one-shot (in ur case probably a two session thing since it's the first time and since we have a tendency to talk a lot). After rolling the dice and doing the setup we ended up with the following result for the.

Mario Lopez
  • Does not only lay out the cables, he also drives the tour bus.
  • Plays classical violin but that doesn't fit in a rock band.
  • Need: Get piles of cash by keeping the band together no matter what.
  • Relation: The grind,  Lynn, boss - Mario, roadie
  • Relation: Good friends, collective soul of the band, Mario & Jeff

Johan "Jeff" Larson
  • Relation: Good friends, collective soul of the band, Mario & Jeff
  • Swedish heritage, usually calls himself "Jeff" instead of "Johan" and prefers "Jeff" and only "Jeff" without the somewhat lame second name "Larson".
  • As a off-stage musician he got a good contract including being the fill-out extra musician on tour as well. He follows the band as a member but has to keep in the background on-stage.
  • Gourmet
  • Party animal
  • Discuss a lot regarding the band's music with Mario.
  • Object: Rollin',  a case of top-shelf whisky bottles
  • Relation: The grind, Jeff, off-stage musician - The Crow, boss

Joshua "The Crow" Crawford
  • Sångare
  • Song writer
  • Location: Detroit, a luxury suit above The Palace of Auburn arena (this ended up being a hotel suite, not a arena suite).
  • Relation: The grind, Jeff, off-stage musician - The Crow, boss
  • Relation: Bad friends, friends by court-ordered consent decree, Joshua and Lynn had a dispute over royalties, who wrote what, court ruling: share equally).

Lynn
  • Background singer
  • Guitar player
  • Drinks gin & tonic
  • Need: Get piles of cash by signing a solo contract.
  • Relation: Bad friends, friends by court-ordered consent decree, Joshua and Lynn had a dispute over royalties, who wrote what, court ruling: share equally).
  • Relation: The grind,  Lynn, boss - Mario, roadie.
  • Relation: Bad friends, friends by court-ordered consent decree, Joshua and Lynn had a dispute over royalties, who wrote what, court ruling: share equally).