[General Mud] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

General Mud by Rob Macdougall wins the sole High Ronny for this round

Where do I start? This is a beautiful piece of work, specifically because of the diverse possible outcomes and themes. Until about three-quarters through, I figured it was merely a dialogue-based homage to Animal Farm, but it's not. Can the Soviet survive? Is the General's ascendancy a long-term curse to its downfall? Are bourgeois notions, in moderation, compatible with a secure economy? This should be taught and played in history classes.

Granted, I haven't run any numbers or tried it out myself, so there may be Currency issues. I don't see any at first glance, so the next step is probably play.

I'll have to come up with some constructive comments, somehow.

1. Let us know what sort of publication format and commercial goals you have in mind for this. Pehaps something that includes the dice, or for which a set of perfectly-suited dice are available, as with Bacchanal? Although I love the illustrations, the question is whether they're freely available for commercial use, and if not, what might you do instead?

2. Encourage opening up the range for player-characters. I'd like to play a rat from the barn, basically Templeton; I could see some neat possibilities from including house pets who are now "on the farm," and perhaps even an escapee from another Farm. Stuff like that, without trying too hard for exact historical personages.

Finally, here's an interesting quandary. Right now, I'm trying to frame a post to answer Victor's questions in [Stalin's Story] Ronnies feedback, in which I'm going to claim that playing Stalin and arbitrating play isn't functional, or at least, isn't reliably functional for me. Whereas in this story, you do have someone playing General Mud, who does have GMing responsibilities too, and yet I'm saying it's brilliant, wins a full award, blah blah. Any comments on the differences? I think it'll be a useful comparison.

Best,
Ron

[Rob MacDougall]

Ron, et al

First, thanks! For the feedback, the flattering praise, and the contest in the first place. The contest did for me exactly what it was supposed to, I think: got someone who'd noodled casually with ideas for games but never done any more than that to actually put something out there for the world.

Until about three-quarters through, I figured it was merely a dialogue-based homage to Animal Farm, but it's not. Can the Soviet survive? Is the General's ascendancy a long-term curse to its downfall? Are bourgeois notions, in moderation, compatible with a secure economy? This should be taught and played in history classes.

Hee. Given my profession, I actually could run it in a history class - I wonder if my dept. chair would approve.

Seriously though, I'm very happy that those questions came through in reading the text. That's what I was charged up about in writing the game. In a way, its thematic guts are in the ways the different colored dice move around the table after each turn: selfless actions help the Soviet in the short term but help the General in the long term, selfish actions the reverse, sort of. But I worried that readers less careful than you would just see it as convoluted.

Just have time for this quick post now, but I'll be back again with more later, addressing your two questions and one quandary. I saw Victor's "Stalin's Story" immediately after posting General Mud back in November and was struck by the similarities between our games. In the thread on that game, Troy Costisick suggests making it possible for the other players to overthrow Stalin - which would make the parallels between our games even stronger! I'll take a look at Victor's game again and try to comment in his thread as well.

Thanks again!
Rob

[Malcolm Craig]

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my recent reading of 'General Mud'. The characterisation of Soviet revolutionary politics is extreme well done, with great potential for competition between varying strands of ideology within the game.

One thing which did confuse me slightly was the use of the Red Banner and the creation of an uprising.

It's stated that "If the number of red banners flying exceeds the number of black marks on your character sheet, you may try to rebel against General Mud by declaring an uprising..." Now, does this mean that only those with black marks, those who have been sent to the Glue Factory, can actively instigate an uprising? Or, can any Proletarian Comrade instigate an uprising with no black marks against them, as soon as a single red banner is unfurled?

I like the potential that only those who have been to the Glue Factory and witnessed the horrors of the gulag can be active in turning against the regime of General Mud: they have seen the dark underbelly of the Revolution and are willing to strike out against it for the good of the people (or, perhaps for less comradely reasons?) However, it's slightly unclear at the moment (unless, of course, your intention is that any PC can instigate an uprising without having to have black marks.)

Cheers
Malcolm

[contracycle]

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my recent reading of 'General Mud'. The characterisation of Soviet revolutionary politics is extreme well done, with great potential for competition between varying strands of ideology within the game.

No, it isn't.

It's perfectly valid as a game but should not be confused with real events.  It's a continuing irony that Animal Farm is seized upon by both left and right as critical of their opposition, the right believing it is a critique of Communism and the left - probably more correctly - taking it as a critique of Blanquism.

It is more correct to say that the game represents an articulation of a particular (McCarthyist) historiography of the Revolution.  Note, as is common with Bourgoeis critiques, the First World War is entirely missing.  After all we wouldn't want to muddy the waters by introducing actual material conditions as these might undermine our projected and abstracted psychological drivers.

[Malcolm Craig]

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed my recent reading of 'General Mud'. The characterisation of Soviet revolutionary politics is extreme well done, with great potential for competition between varying strands of ideology within the game.

No, it isn't.

It's perfectly valid as a game but should not be confused with real events.  It's a continuing irony that Animal Farm is seized upon by both left and right as critical of their opposition, the right believing it is a critique of Communism and the left - probably more correctly - taking it as a critique of Blanquism.

It is more correct to say that the game represents an articulation of a particular (McCarthyist) historiography of the Revolution.  Note, as is common with Bourgoeis critiques, the First World War is entirely missing.  After all we wouldn't want to muddy the waters by introducing actual material conditions as these might undermine our projected and abstracted psychological drivers.

Obviously our points of view differ on this particular issue and perhaps I should have striven for greater clarity in my previous post. I was not suggesting that the game simulated the actual events of the Revolution, but characterised the revolution/revisionism/purge/revisionism (and so on and so forth) cycle very well. In game context, the First World War (or, indeed, the Civil War) could easily be represented within the tales of the revolution told in the initial stage of the game, if you wish to draw a firm parallel between actual and in-game events.

Cheers
Malcolm

[contracycle]

Obviously our points of view differ on this particular issue and perhaps I should have striven for greater clarity in my previous post. I was not suggesting that the game simulated the actual events of the Revolution, but characterised the revolution/revisionism/purge/revisionism (and so on and so forth) cycle very well. In game context, the First World War (or, indeed, the Civil War) could easily be represented within the tales of the revolution told in the initial stage of the game, if you wish to draw a firm parallel between actual and in-game events.

Perhaps, but it is of course precisely that cycle of revolution/revisionism/purge/revisionism as it appears in Bourgeois revolutions that Marxism attempts to break.  Thats exactly why it exists in the first place.  And its methodology for breaking that cycle is to rely exclusively on material analysis rather than the moralist analysis endemic to bourgoise politics.  The above model applies much more precisely to the emergence of the First Citizen, Napoleon Bonapart, from the French revolution conducted by the bourgoisie.  In order to force this pattern to fit the Russian revolution a substantial quantity of history, essentially the preriod under Lenin, has to be ignored, and thus we skip straight from Tzarism to Stalinism without even asking how or why that happened.  Such as the virtual elimination of the proletariat as a class during the Civil War, or the systematic burning of crops and sundry massacres of workers by White forces.

Now as I say, I don't have any objection to it as a game; after all one of my favourite games of all times is Kremlin, in which secretive factional control of individuals and the purging of opponents is the subject of play and a great deal of fun, being cartrierd out in a black-humoured manner.  And I don't disagree that the above is a reasonable approximation of the dynamic that appeared under Stalinism.  Its the failure to distinguish between Stalinism and the Revolution, and the conflation of the two, that suggests an adherence to McCarthyist historiography.  To pose the question as to whether soviet "ideals" can survive is off the point, as the soviets have already lost power as soon as General Mud appears - and General Mud appears automatically as an artefact of system.  Thus the game appears to me to systematically answered the very question it proposes.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Gareth, this is great. As it happens, I agree with you about the "Tsarism-to-Stalinism" revisionism problem with not only the text of Animal Farm, but also with history as commonly taught in U.S. schools.

Therefore, what do you make of the potential, in the game, for reversing the outcome of the Animal Farm storyline? In other words, denying the moralistic inevitability of the bourgeois analysis and leaving it up to the judgment and values of the actual, living people in the creative group?

I was impressed by that potential. If the game were a polemic reinforcing the point of Animal Farm as a text, period, then it would definitely not have gained a Ronny. So I'm interested in whether you see it there as well, or if not, why not.

Best,
Ron

[Malcolm Craig]

Perhaps, but it is of course precisely that cycle of revolution/revisionism/purge/revisionism as it appears in Bourgeois revolutions that Marxism attempts to break.  Thats exactly why it exists in the first place.  And its methodology for breaking that cycle is to rely exclusively on material analysis rather than the moralist analysis endemic to bourgoise politics.  The above model applies much more precisely to the emergence of the First Citizen, Napoleon Bonapart, from the French revolution conducted by the bourgoisie.  In order to force this pattern to fit the Russian revolution a substantial quantity of history, essentially the preriod under Lenin, has to be ignored, and thus we skip straight from Tzarism to Stalinism without even asking how or why that happened.  Such as the virtual elimination of the proletariat as a class during the Civil War, or the systematic burning of crops and sundry massacres of workers by White forces.

Whilst I agree that there are important differences between Marxist and bourgeois revolutions, I'm not entirely sure that the Leninist period can not fall within the scope of the game, for example:

The revolution takes place and the Soviet of Beasts is set up.
General Mud comes to the fore (in the form of Lenin.)
Through the process of the game a parallel emerges between the game and the Leninist idea of 'war communism' conducted during the Civil War (perhaps General Mud has inserted this conflict as an external force during the Trials?).
'War communism' leads to an uprising on the part of some or all members of the Soviet of Beasts (the Kronstadt Rebellion perhaps) which may or may not be successfully put down by General Mud (in reality it was, but led directly to a whole host of new policies and so forth).
General Mud then embarks on a lengthy critique of his opponents (similar to the Lenin critique of Trotsky and Stalin)

Of course, this is a very loose analysis and shoehorning real-world events into a game context, but I think it serves to illustrate that there is not necessarily the direct skip from Tsarism to Stalinism that you imply.

Now as I say, I don't have any objection to it as a game; after all one of my favourite games of all times is Kremlin, in which secretive factional control of individuals and the purging of opponents is the subject of play and a great deal of fun, being cartrierd out in a black-humoured manner.  And I don't disagree that the above is a reasonable approximation of the dynamic that appeared under Stalinism.  Its the failure to distinguish between Stalinism and the Revolution, and the conflation of the two, that suggests an adherence to McCarthyist historiography.  To pose the question as to whether soviet "ideals" can survive is off the point, as the soviets have already lost power as soon as General Mud appears - and General Mud appears automatically as an artefact of system.  Thus the game appears to me to systematically answered the very question it proposes.

Oh, I'm not for a moment conflating Stalinism and revolutionary communism as it appeared under Lenin, Bukharin, et al. The game can go either way and that's one of its strengths. In my interpretation, General Mud doesn't have to represent a Stalinist figure, but the leader who inevitably rises to the summit of power during such a time of crisis. This could be a Lenin, a Stalin or, as you suggested, a Napoleon.

Cheers
Malcolm

[Rob MacDougall]

Ah. Great discussion. Thank you all for reading and thinking about the game!

To answer the simplest question first: Malcolm, my intent was that a PC with no black marks can instigate an uprising as soon as one Red Banner is flying. There would be something neat about requiring animals to go to the Glue Factory before rising up against the General, but mechanically I think it works better the other way, so the General's position is least stable in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution. Definitely the text could be clearer in places about that and other things. The text is also confused on the issue of whether Mud dice may be used in the Revolution, before the Trials, something I went back and forth on while writing.

Gareth, thanks for the critique. You write:

Its the failure to distinguish between Stalinism and the Revolution, and the conflation of the two, that suggests an adherence to McCarthyist historiography.  To pose the question as to whether soviet "ideals" can survive is off the point, as the soviets have already lost power as soon as General Mud appears - and General Mud appears automatically as an artefact of system.  Thus the game appears to me to systematically answered the very question it proposes.

I can see how the game, and Animal Farm, could be read in this way, but that was the opposite of my intent. The Revolution and Stalinism aren't conflated in my mind, they're the two key opposing forces in the game, represented by the two Ronnies terms, Soviet and Mud. The point of play, as Ron and Malcolm suggest, is to see which wins out. (I suppose the white Bourgeois dice represent a third force that can also triumph.) None of us have tested the mechanics to see how the currency works, but the idea is that a number of outcomes and interpretations of those outcomes should be possible. (I'm inclined to think Animal Farm can be read in more than one way, too - hence its appeal to both right and left, as you note, but certainly RPGs have written literature beat when it comes to addressing ideas in an open-ended way.)

Now, you may have a point that I've stacked the deck in favor of Stalinism, or at least declension of the revolution's ideals (not sure why the word "ideals" requires scare quotes above - are they not ideals?) by having General Mud appear automatically as an artefact of system. But as Malcolm suggests, there can be a succession of General Muds (Generals Mud?) and each one may play a little differently.

I mentioned above that I'd waffled on whether PCs could use Mud dice in the Revolution phase of the game. One idea I had but didn't use was that the General would not appear until somebody used Mud dice, so it would be possible for the game to stay GM-less for much longer, maybe indefinitely. What would you think of a change like that? Of course, I'm not sure how that would work in game terms. One thing nobody has pointed out, and maybe it's too obvious or cute to do so, is that General Mud tries simultaneously to be a game about Animal Farm and Russian history and also a game about traditional versus GM-less RPGs.

Rob

ps I can stand being one of the bourgeoisie, but I'm a little surprised at being lumped in with McCarthy. Surely there's a better term for what we're talking about than "McCarthyist" historiography? McCarthy was not a historian, and one doesn't need to be Joe McCarthy to evince doubts about Communism under Lenin.

pps Hmm. Thinking a little more critically about my own assumptions, Gareth may have a point about a too easy conflation of Stalinism and the Revolution. Though if so, I'm certainly not the only Ronnies contestant to make that jump. The assigned Ronnies term was "Soviet", but all the Soviet Ronnies I can think of off hand did end up being about Stalin or the Stalinist period in some way. Is that right, or am I forgetting any?

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Not to get too, too political at the Forge, Rob, but that was one of my resigned expectations upon choosing the term "soviet." It's practically unavoidable given what we learn in school here in the U.S., and that's even in recent generations - men of my dad's generation (my dad b. 1926) couldn't be spoken with at all on the subject, they went all blank-eyed and started breathing through their noses.

It might not all be indoctrination, though. I can see why attention toward "soviet" would veer Stalin's way, because, after all, in 24 hours, the tendency is (joy) to write toward the things that grab one's own values and conflicts. Some people argue that Stalin's stamp upon the twentieth century via the Soviet Union overrides or overshadows the influence of anything actually Marxist or Leninist, although the nuances of that discussion are far, far beyond my expertise. Probably not a good idea to get into that, at this website, although if anyone wants to post links, that might be useful.

Krasnoarmeets did an interesting job of letting "soviet" be merely a historical tag ... but also to emphasize that if we Americans want to make a big historical-virtuous deal out of fighting Nazis, there're 1+ million Soviet soldiers who died at Stalingrad to consider in that story as well.

Who knows, maybe we'll see more post-Ronnies work that uses the relatively limited, but still fascinating inroads we've made this time as a starting point.

Best,
Ron

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Who knows, maybe we'll see more post-Ronnies work that uses the relatively limited, but still fascinating inroads we've made this time as a starting point.

Yeah, it's a process.  Look back six years ago when the Forge started and the closest thing to an Indie-press was Wick doing his articles about Orkworld on Gaming Outpost.  It's taken us six years to get to the point where we can start to bring things up like politics, religion, and relationships.  It wasn't overnight.  But at the same time, it was only six years.  That's amazing!  Who knows where we'll be six years from today? The mainstream has been around for over 30.  They still haven't gotten to that point.

Your game has awesome potential, Rob.  I hope to see it on the market by the end of the year.  Good luck to ya! :)

Peace,

-Troy

[James Holloway]

Krasnoarmeets did an interesting job of letting "soviet" be merely a historical tag ... but also to emphasize that if we Americans want to make a big historical-virtuous deal out of fighting Nazis, there're 1+ million Soviet soldiers who died at Stalingrad to consider in that story as well.

I grew up around Soviet history, Soviet historians, and the Red Army, so I think it's just my instinctive reaction to think of "Soviet" as a rather matter-of-fact descriptor. But I knew right from the get-go that I wanted to do something with miniatures, and that meant Great Patriotic War, and that meant Stalingrad, but "mud" meant south of Stalingrad...

General Mud is fast-tracked on the "games I will never get to play" stack. I wonder how it would play online; I think it might do rather well. If so, I'll try to take a crack at it.

[TonyPace]

Rob: You are forgetting mine, although October's Shadow does address the death of the Revolution. Stalin doesn't appear anywhere, I don't think. But anyways, the point is essentially that once you get into secret police and gulags and frankly described terrorist policies, Stalin himself is more or less a formality.

Maybe that's an insensitive way to put it, but I guess one shared element between October's Shadows and General Mud is that they both suggest that after the revolution power tends to concentrate in the hands of the ruthless, who then secure a near monopoly of force. Historically, that happened way before Stalin was more than an also-ran.

I mean, I don't think you CAN have a game about leftism in this day and age that doesn't address the betrayal of its ideals. Stalin is a convenient shorthand for that, but in terms of General Mud, my game suggests that Lenin became General Mud around September 1918 when he decided with Dzerzhinsky that a Glue Factory was necessary. Stalin was just a more ruthless iteration of the cycle, with added trips to secure better cooperation. More or less exactly the way Malcolm has it.

Ant any rate though, my text suggests that's where the game ends.

[contracycle]

It was indeed inevitable that a use of the term 'soviet' would produce references to the USSR, the problems of that system, some real and some alleged.  And it is indeed in that sense that soviet is given a definition atthe beginning of the piece.  But there is, of course, a prior meaning to the Russian word: a soviet is like a village council, and its format had been carried over into the industrial workshops.  When Lenin said "all power to the soviets", he was specifically NOT saying "all power to the Bolsheviks". 

The Bolsheviks did not "seize" power; on 1st June 1917 they controlled only 13% of seats in the All Russian Congress of the Soviets, but this rose to 66% on 5th July 1918.  The Bolsheviks aquired power becuase their policies were consistently more functional than those of their opponents.  And that is the purpose of the vanguard of the proletariat - not, as General Mud would have it, to create the revolution out of whole cloth. The revolution was not conducted as a conspiracy by a narrow segment of arch-plotters.

Thus when it says that "The laws should be statements of revolutionary optimism, reflecting your faith in your comrades, in the perfectibility of animal nature, and in the promised paradise of beasts." we have already leaped head-long into wild-eyed Utopianism.  None of these things are relevant or even on the agenda when a revolution occurs.  And they are the dumbest basis for any kind of political programme imaginable (except perhaps for those who live in the "faith-based community") - that is why I put "ideals" in inverted commas.  Dialectical materialists have little truck with "ideals" in any form.

And thus inevitably "it doesn't matter" what caused the farmer to be overthrown, because we deal only with the "essence" divorced of content.  Thus, "selfish" actions are construed as Bourgeois, but why is that?  Selfishness may indeed be bourgeois, but overthrowing the state in pursuit of food to eat is also selfish, surely, and yet the basis of revolutionary action.  Have not priests continually exhorted us not to covet our neighbours ox?  Does Leviticus not admonish us to accept our wages?  So why is it that self-interest, in any other form but submissive forelock-tugging obedience to the powers that be, is construed as Idealisim to be countered by the harsh pragmatism of the bourgeoisie?

Because it is further alleged that "More broadly, General Mud represents reality's way of corrupting and staining the lofty ideals of any revolution."  Never mind the dependance on the failed revolution in Germany, such material concerns would undermine the moralistic point.  Never mind that the Bolsheviks were well aware that their situation was extraodinarily tenuous.  Never mind the forces from foreign states on Russian soil, including a contingent of US troops fighting against the people on behalf of Monarchic absolutism.  We don't like to look at the facts because it undermines the nice self-fulfilling prophecy we have constructed, and we can then draw a spurious contrast between "idealists" and "pragmatists", arrogating to our bourgeois selves the identity of the pragmatist.  We don't like to imagine our fluffy and rather simple, stupid animals having had to deal with real conditions - thats why we imagine them as stupid animals in the first place, rather than real human beings.

So as far as I can tell, the game does not permit the revolution proper to triumph - it allows only one of the four possible outcomes of a revolution, the formulation of a new class-based society.  This is quite overt; even the raising of the red banners against general mud produces only a new incumbent, not a change of order.  The outcomes strike me as bizarre, these being: GM stays in power but it does not matter because quotas are met - and this is to be the alleged paradise of animalism?  Isn't that precisely the relationship workers have with capitalists today?  Next, the animals can retract from their supposed "idealism" in order to sabotage the "soviet", and yet this most Marxist of responses - change from below, independant working class strategy - is deemed to be the failure of animalism.  And lastly, of course, the charnel house.

So what it offers is a choice of any colour you like as long as its black.  It is impossible for the revolution to succeed - that is literally out of bounds in this game, the possibility has been eliminated as soon as it is asserted that animals are driven by idealism rather pragmatism, are only indifferently familiar with their own physical circumstances, and that the Inevitability Thesis - that revolutions, being the artefact of the lesser orders without the enlightened guidance of the bourgeoisie, are doomed to fail - is in effect.  And not much of it has a great deal of relevance to what actually went on in Russia during the revolutionary period, IMO.

[Troy_Costisick]

Yeah, so anyway...

General Mudd is a kickass game.  Have you done much revision work on it yet, Rob?

Peace,

-Troy