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Mark of Destiny
Ramblings on RPGs, in particular story games using systems using FATE, Powered by the Apocalypse, or cooperative gm-less
games such as Fiasco.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015 Blog Archive

▼ 2015 (3)
Generic Plot Twist / Tilt Table for Fiasco and other
▼ March (2)
Story Games Procedural Scene
In my last exploration of tools and techniques for & Conflict
Resolution
gm-less story games I focused on on a table to Table for F...
help create interesting pairs of dramatic
relationships. These are typically established by Generic Plot Twist
/ Tilt Table for
the singular author of a story, but in a gm-less
Fiasco and
story game it is now the shared responsibility to oth...
create these by all of the players in the game.
► February (1)
An area that a singular author or gm has an
advantage in storytelling over a team of players ► 2013 (1)
is in the area of misdirection and plot twists. If ► 2011 (2)
the players collectively plan these in advance,
the drama in the twist may suffer or even be lost
in play.

Plot twists are not required in all story games, but they are essential color for many
types of genres, such as the caper, noir, tragedy, soap, etc. Though plot twists may be
required for these genres, for more ordinary dramas they also can serve as glue between
acts — connecting together disparate plotlines, styles, or episodes of a story into a
larger continuous thread.

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 The gm-less cooperative Fiasco (2009) accomplishes plot twists by using what they
call a Tilt. The Tilt happens in the middle between the two acts of a standard Fiasco
game. The player with the most dark dice picks a category, and the player with the
most light dice picks the sub-category on the Tilt table, and then vis-a-versa. This
results in two surprise attributes that are added to the game in subsquent play, such
as Guilt: Someone develops a conscience or Deception: A secret goes public.
The players then decide together when to “discover” those twists in the second act, or
establish retcon (retroactive continuity) into play with a flashback scene to create the
twist.

Fiasco offers two different tables, the dark and often cruelly humorous “Hard
Tilt” table in the original book, and a second “Soft Tilt” table in Fiasco
Companion (2011), which offers lighter, more socially-focused plot twists suitable for
more light-hearted Fiasco playsets.

Fiasco rules require two plot twists at once, which is probably overkill for many story
games. However, the use of multiple plot twists is particularly important for the tone of
caper and noir plots, which is what Fiasco does a great job simulating. Thomas Leitch
in Crime Films (2002) observes:

“ambiguity and irresolution are at the heart of Fargo’s comedy, which

[…] works by systematically depriving viewers of any single privileged
perspective from which to interpret its outrageous events”

There very few Fiasco playsets that offer their own custom Tilt table. Most notably the
Star Wars spoof Lord Doomicus and His Giant Battle Planet has its own Tilt table with
such thematically evocative results as an (Un)natural Disaster: Alien virus with un-
expected side effects or It's Business: Embarrassment leads to rage for Lord
Doomicus, and the Secrets of NIMH-like Rat Patrol, has results like Withdrawal: “We’re all
getting stupider” and Retrieval: In Dr. John Sutcliffe’s soft hands.

Seeking more varieties of plot twists, I dove into a variety of sources, most notably:

The original two Fiasco Tilt tables

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 the excellent TV Tropes wiki

a sidebar in S. John Ross’ useful The Big List of RPG Plots

Harvey Ismuth’s comic illustration of the 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists (which
led me back to Aristotle’s advice on Tragedy in Poetics).

Johnn Four's Left Hooks: 24 Plot Twist Ideas & Design Patterns from
his Roleplaying Tips blog

Chuck Wendig's 25 Turns, Pivots, and Twists to Complicate your Story

a variety of list of best (and worst) movie and tv plot twists,

and and some excellent organizational advice by Stephen Morffew of Step

Into RPGs, a reader of an early draft of this table.

I’m very happy with this distillation of all these different kinds of plot twists into a
relatively concise list of only 36 entries, which must convey both breadth and depth of
possibilities. I'm also confident that this table addresses my goal of achieving
the 80/20 rule to cover the most common and useful varieties of plot twists.

As I comment in my Fiasco Relationships post, I believe that the best Fiasco playset
tables should offer customized results that fit their theme and setting, rather than using
this Generic Plot Twists table. But I've seen very few playsets to date that offer custom
Tilt tables. Thus you can try using my Plot Twists table as a subsitute for the default
Hard or Soft Tilt tables, or if you are a playset author, use it as inspiration for creating
your own customized Tilt table.

These plot twists also may be generally useful to GMs of other story games, such as
Fate Core (2013) or Powered by the Apocalypse games, or even authors of fiction. I’m
currently using it as part of a cooperative game that I’m designing. The table itself is
licensed CC-BY, and I always welcome advice on how to simplify/clarify it.

Generic Plot Twists / Tilt Table

1. FATAL FLAW (hamartia / hubris / hoisted petard)

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 1. the characters' otherwise competent plans have a fatal flaw or their goal
misses the mark
2. the characters are not as skilled as they think they are
3. the characters outsmart themselves / a trap or trick set by the characters
causes grief for themselves
4. the characters are faced with a impossible choice (a dilemma, mutually
exclusive goals, which innocents to rescue, the lesser of two evils), or have to
think out of the box for a third choice
5. the characters are on the wrong side and don't know it / the source of the
problem is actually the characters or the character's allies
6. be careful what you wish for, because you might get it

2. CHANGE OF FORTUNE (peripeteia / catastrophe)

1. didn't see that coming (false assumptions, known unknowns, unknown

unknowns)
2. the characters are betrayed or tricked by friends, allies, or mentors
3. escalation / things have to get worse before getting better
4. pyrric victory / success can only be achieved at a serious cost / sacrifice
5. the characters' goal actually benefits the villain / is in fact villain's secret plan /
is a diversion from solving the real problem
6. the characters solve a problem that turns out to already be solved / goal is no
longer valid or has become meaningless

3. INFORMATION REVEALED (anagnorisis / discovery)

1. the characters have no idea that something someone possesses is special

(reverse macguffin)
2. information is revealed that wasn't to be shared
3. the victim being rescued doesn’t want to be rescued (stockholm syndrome,
love, has other goals)
4. love rears its ugly head
5. the enemy of my enemy is my (friend, rival, new villain)
6. a prophecy is revealed / a prophecy isn't what the characters thought it was

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 4. INFORMATION SUBVERTED

1. the characters believe something is special that is not (macguffin)

2. someone or a relationship is revealed to be not what the characters thought it
was (family, friend, villain, victim) / the villains are the victims and the victims
the villains
3. the real goal isn't what the characters think it is / the goal isn't enough and
only reveals the beginning of a new goal
4. hidden or false crucibles - the characters are being tested, but do not know
how, or don't even know they are being tested
5. a trope is subverted (instead of being plot type a, it is in fact plot type b)
6. the untwist / unreveal — an outcome considered to be too obvious turns out
to be what happened, or a reveal is untrue

5. DIABOLUS EX MACHINA

1. the characters are beset by an unexpected force (new enemies, the law, the
weather, an event)
2. a villain's known limitation is no longer a limitation
3. a defeated villain returns / a minor villain scorned returns as a big villain
4. the timetable is unexpectedly accelerated
5. an early tiny mistake/compromise leads to ruin
6. the villain did his evil deeds for a greater, good purpose and/or the characters
become now responsible for the achieving it.

6. TENSION

1. there are innocents or bystanders that must be protected

2. the characters must work alongside someone they don't like (rivals, villains,
outcasts)
3. the characters require help from an ally that wants their support for another
goal
4. the characters must succeed without violence, or without access to certain
abilities or resources

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 5. the characters discover someone else has failed to succeed in the the goal
before them
6. the longer the characters take to solve a problem, the tougher it gets

This Generic Plot Twists Table is ©2015, Christopher Allen (ChristopherA@RPG.net), and is licensed CC-BY.

Posted by Unknown at 3:55 PM

Labels: cooperative play, game design, narrativist, role playing, rpg, story game

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