[Soviet Politics] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

Soviet Politics by Remko van der Pluijm goes into the Great Non-RPG category. It reminds me of Executive Decision. I'm also beginning to see the possibility of a special rack for this kind of game at the GenCon booth, including stuff like Fuck This!, City of Brass, and Vincent's Mechaton.

My one concern is that I'm not sure the bidding works - early winners will keep winning, I think. Whether I'm wrong depends on the impact of randomizing. If the chip-drawing results are too random relative to the number chips that have been bid, then there's no point in bidding high. On the other hand, some randomizing is necessary, or else bidding-wars will rely on bullying to get more chips and an automatic win.

If the current [two chips of the same color in a row] rule works well, then all is good. However, it may have to be three chips in a row, or some other kind of combination. It's time to playtest!

A small language note: throughout the text, am I right in assuming the terms coin, chip, and fiche all mean the same thing?

Overall, it's a pretty good parlor game! You'll recall that I used the term Parlor Narration as a criticism in the last round of Ronnies, but that's not what I mean here. By "parlor game," I mean a fun dialogue-based, light-competitive activity for a small group of friends.

Best,
Ron

[Victor Gijsbers]

Buy those poker chips you lacked and we'll playtest this thing very soon, Remko. That seems to be the thing to do at this point.

[Remko]

As Victor said, I'll just have to playtest that mechanic. I've some other changes in mind.

In the beginning, I wanted a more dramatic, storycreating roleplaying game. But, when advancing development, I realized the game became more of a Pseudo-RPG, not really empathizing on story creation, but more on simple and light-headed activity.

For a long time after my submission, I doubted about whether I should develop it further into a roleplaying game with more 'roleplaying elements', or should keep it this way, as a simple, fun to play game.

Thanks to your comments, Ron, I'll keep it the way it is and start from this point.

There is one major change I'll allmost certainly make. In the Mud throwing scene, Players may only use 3 arguments. Arguments are still judged by the fact whether these arguments have been into play already, but they only have to pay 1 chip. The other chips will be added by the bank.

Also, when someone lacks influence chips, he may choose to sell some facts about his ministry to gain some chips. Players may use these arguments during the mud throwing scene.