#01: Cause and Effect. Subtitle: How can the next few events result from your hero's actions? A complex contraption--a Rube Goldberg Machine--that requires a ball to roll down a ramp, fall on a board that kicks up a needle that punctures a balloon on which a mouse is hanging. The mouse will trip a light switch on its way down, then eat a piece of cheese sitting on a scale. As the other side of the scale lowers, it'll connect a broken wire that leads to switch and then to a lightbulb over the head of a writer sitting before an empty notebook and pen.

Rat Trap 2-11: Post Script

StefanLeave a comment

When I use the Writer Emergency Pack for this exercise, I’m not doing it as intended. Drawing a new card for every single scene is probably stretching the actual use case of the deck. Instead, you are meant to draw a card whenever you need a boost, a jolt, some idea on what to do with your story.

But this time around, the card was exactly that. I have lamented before how Ash is a bit passive, how things just happen to her. But drawing “Cause and Effect” made me reevaluate a lot about her place in this story. Her agency, her motivation.

Several times, Bill and Jay have commented on Ash’s behavior, how they both believe that something was off, something else must be going on. Yet, from Ash’s point of view, we never saw that angle. She gave no indication that she’s playing them, that something’s off besides the obvious (bomb, train, crime aunt, etc).

But she’s an unreliable narrator. And thinking about the card made me realize that her passivity is her agenda. The boys played right into her escape. Even her aunt giving her a chance like that really was a chance for her to find a way out.

And now she’s gone. The phone with her, enough evidence and suspects left behind. Bill might be dead, far as she knows, and Jay will have a hard time convincing anyone of Ash’s involvement. Her aunt will make sure that Jay won’t be able to talk, probably.

As dramatic and violent as this scene was, I think it went well for her? She got out, has the leverage (the Fly Paper) with her, and is, at least for now, in the clear.

  • Bill: White 1, Black 1
  • Ash: White 2, Black 3
  • Jay: White 3, Black 1

That only leaves a single black die for the final scene for Jay. That said, the last scene in Fiasco can resolve good or bad for the player (their choice), though the color is locked in for the Aftermath roll.

So, let’s look at the final card of Rat Trap, a Writer Emergency Fiasco:

#11: Puny Humans

Card #11: Puny Humans. Subtitle: Sometimes it really is the end of the world. How would your story change if the stakes were cataclysmic? A massive alien-monster-thing is attacking a small town in the middle of the night, people screaming and running.

“Sometimes it really is the end of the world. How would your story change if the stakes were cataclysmic?”

A massive alien-monster-thing is attacking a small town in the middle of the night, people screaming and running.

How’s that for a final scene for Jay? At least it’s not another crocodile…