I'm posting draft rules for the first three games in the overall Tyrants game I'm working on. If administrators think that posting three 5-6 page posts the same night is excessive, I'm happy to stagger them, but prefer to put them out in clusters since they are parts of a whole.

The explanation of the concept is here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11277

Any feedback on this game is welcome. Here are some specific questions:

1. Is there anything in the rules as presented that helps get you over the obvious initial thought that a game where you edit a document (after a day at the office editing memos etc.) hardly seems like a beacon of fun? I haven’t tried to add much color yet, but still… Do you have suggestions for making editing seem like a game?
2. At first glance do the costs of the various edits seem to be out of whack?
3. Does the game have a strong enough ending? There some devices that kick in at the end (reviews, revealing your ideology, etc but could there be other ways to end with a bang rather than a wimper?




New Edition

(Game 2 of Nine Short Games About Tyrants)


"Invincible are the Korean people who are under the wise leadership of the respected and beloved Leader of the 40 million Korean people Comrade Kim Il Sung, the peerless patriot, national hero, ever-victorious iron-willed brilliant commander and one of the outstanding leaders of the international communist and working class movements."

- A Brief History of the Revolutionary Activities of Comrade Kim Il Sung, Party History Institute of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.


Game Summary: the Leader is dead… long live the Leader! With reformist winds blowing, the Party needs to distance itself from some of the abuses of the past, but cannot afford to entirely discredit their founder. The players are a committee of intellectuals and editors charged with producing a revised edition of the deceased Leader’s distorted, propaganda-laden biography. Revising this book will be a tough balancing act, especially because each player/character has different ideological and personal goal in terms of what to change, emphasize, add, or delete.



1. Identify Source Document
a. Before you play, someone has to find a source document that can serve as the earlier version of a Leader’s biography. The ideal source document is fawning, hagiographic bio of a real political leader.
b. Sample source documents can be downloaded from xyz.
c. If the source document is long, one or more players should identify the ‘juiciest’ sections of the document for editing in the game. An ideal length for the source document is about 1-2 pages times the number of players. You don’t have to pick one continuous run of pages. You can take a few paragraphs on the subject’s childhood, skip forward to a chunk on his rise to power and accomplishments, etc.

2. Decide if you will play In Person or Electronically.
a. You can play New Edition using a number of mediums. Decide how you will play:
 Pen and paper. Players will edit paper copies of the source document. To play you’ll need one copy of the source document for each player to consult and write notes on plus an additional copy to serve as the formal edited document. You’ll also need different colored pens or pencils, one for each player.
 E-mail. Players will make edits in the body of emails and distribute sections of the document by email.
 Word Processor. Players will use the edit or review function of word processing programs to track their changes, and email these files around or post them to shared internet groups or websites.
 Wiki. The source document is posted on a website that allows all the players to edit it. Changes are made on-line.

3. Set the circumstances of the Revision
a. agree on the Dictator’s name and the name of His county
b. If you are playing New Edition as a continuation from another one of the nine games, any facts about the Dictator established earlier carry over to this game.
c. Otherwise, players should at least reach consensus on the basics of the Leader’s ideology and his country’s form of government (depending on the source document, you should be able to infer this much about the Dictator by reading his glowing biography.)
d. Players can also try to agree on other pieces of the context of their revision, such as:
 How long has the late Leader been dead?
 How long ago was the prior edition of the biography written?
 What was the title of the previous edition?
 Is there a specific reason that the Party is revising the biography now?
 What is the official name of the committee charged with revising the biography?

4. Modify Source Document
a. one player should volunteer to modify the source document by inserting the Leader’s name and the name of His country.
b. If any sections of the source document directly clash with the background facts established in step 2, delete or change them to eliminate the inconsistency. (For example, if your source document describes how General X. “founded numerous churches” and the Leader for your game follows an aggressively atheistic philosophy, strike the sentence about the churches or change “churches” to something like “hospitals” or “homes for the aged.”)

5. Create Characters
a. Based on your consensus on the kind of country the late Dictator ruled, choose a profession for your character. The profession should be appropriate for someone named to a commission charged with revising the biography of the “Father of the Nation” (high officials in the ruling party, historians, archivists, cronies or descendents of the late Leader,
b. Choose your character’s ideological approach to the revision. For example:
 Demonize: for years the people were brainwashed to treat the Leader as a near God when He was actually a monster. To counter this propaganda we need to go to the other extreme, and paint the Leader’s record as even worse than it actually was.
 Expose the truth: the world deserves to know about the Leader’s brutal actions.
 J’accuse: the Leader is dead. We can get some satisfaction from wrecking His reputation, but what about his surviving flunkies, co-conspirators, and cronies? By highlighting their role in the regime’s crimes, perhaps we can bring them to justice.
 Support reforms: sure it’s important to reveal the Leader’s flaws and crimes. But the real goal is to support political reforms now rather than relive the past. Edits should focus on aspects of the Leader’s life that are relevant to today’s struggles for reforms.
 Just the facts: stick scrupulously to the historical record and note conflicting evidence and alternative interpretations where appropriate.
 Let them down easy. Reform and truth are important, but we can’t shatter the people’s illusions all at once. If we reveal that the image of the Leader they grew up with was a big lie, there will be chaos! The masses will lose all faith in the Party, undercutting, the slow, sensible course of reforms we are pursuing. Better to expose the Leader’s weaknesses a little at a time and to hint at future revelations.
 The ends justify the means. Of course the Leader has some blood on his hands. It was a revolution! Did you expect him to act like a timid parliamentarian when the fate of the nation was on the line? I don’t care if we mention that the Leader faced some tough choices, harshly stamped out traitors, and made a few blunders – as long as the overall message is that He was a great man who saved his country.
 Why revise perfection? Every word in the Leader’s biography rings with truth and nobility. It doesn’t need to be revised – just polished here and there so the Leader’s legacy shines even brighter.
 Now more than ever: The Leader’s only mistake – the only one! – was in growing soft enough in his old age to let a pack of weaklings and opportunists rise to prominence in the party. We need to defend the Leader’s honor, and do so in ways that contrast his accomplishments with the stumblings and treason of these so-called reformists. Hopefully a new version of the Leader’s life will inspire us to pull ourselves up from our time’s decadence.
c. Create a short Reputation for your character. The reputation can give a hint as to what approach your character will bring to the Revising Committee. Or the reputation can be a false lead, concealing your true ideology. For example:
 Obscure academic
 Humorless reactionary
 The Leader’s corrupt son-in-law
 Firebrand reformer
d. Tell the other players what your reputation and profession are. Don’t reveal your exact ideology and personal goal.
e. Pick a single Personal Motivation for your character. For example:
 You want to rehabilitate the memory of a relative who was executed during the purge of 1956.
 You want to stress your own contributions to the revolution.
 You want to prevent that blowhard X (another member of the Committee) from inserting his/her crackpot theories into the New Edition.

6. Divvy up the Source Document
a. Divide the source document into a number of sections equal to the number of players. The sections should be roughly the same length. But don’t worry if some are longer than others. (Follow natural breaks in the text; in other words you don’t need to chop a paragraph in half or split off the last few sentences on a certain subject to create exactly equal sections.)
b. Assign each player one of these sections to start the editing work on. You can assign the sections in any way you want. For example:
 Randomly assign the sections.
 Randomly determine the order in which players pick a section.
 Elect a chairperson and let them assign the sections.
 Players choose sections in order of their character’s “seniority and status.” A high official in the Party or retired General would pick before a copy editor or junior professor. If two or more characters seem to be at about the same status level, break the tie by rolling a dice or drawing a card.

7. Set Communication Rules
a. Before starting editing the source document, players should decide whether to allow communication between players/characters during the game. Do you want your editors to work in isolation? Or should they be allowed to lobby one another, to seek complementary edits, to propose deals (I won’t cut that sentence if you agree to insert this word)? Each player votes for one of three choices. Whichever option receives the most votes becomes the communication rule. In the event of a tie
 None. No communication is allowed.
 In-character. Only in-character communication is allowed. Players can lobby one-another and strike deals, but cannot mention or make bargains centering on editing points, rounds, or other game concepts.
 Total. Players can engage in unlimited lobbying, in or out of character.

8. Edit the initially assigned sections
a. Each player makes edits to the section of the source document that has been assigned to them, in order to change the document to be closer to your character’s vision of what the Leader’s biography should say. (Note: the other players will have a chance to see the changes you make and will be able to reverse some of these changes if they wish. Given this group-editing dynamic, you might want to be more “subtle” in some edits than if you were the only person making changes; or throw in some inflammatory edits that you don’t care that much about in order to draw attention away from your priority changes.)
b. You can make a limited number of edits, based on a point system that quantifies deletions, insertions, and changes.
c. Each player has 60 editing points per page for the first section they edit. (So if each player has a section that is only half a page long, they get 30 editing points.)
d. Players should each keep track of the amount of points they spend (it’s an honor system). Editing costs are:
 Delete, add, or change a punctuation mark: ½ pt
 delete or add a word: 1 pt
 change a word (1 ½ pts)
 delete or add a clause or short sentence of up to 10 words in a row (5 pts)
 change a clause or short sentence of up to 10 words in a row (8 pts)
 add or delete a clause or sentence of 11-25 words (10 pts)
 change a clause or sentence of 11-25 words (15 pts)
e. Players are not required to use all editing points on the first section they edit. Players may hoard points. One half of any points not spent may be hoarded and used to edit later sections of the document. (For example, a player has 60 points to use editing the first section. They make 40 editing points worth of changes, leaving 20 points unspent. Half of these 20 points – 10 points – can be hoarded and used to edit other sections of the document.)
f. Once per game, players may use up to 10 bonus points to make a single edit that directly relates to their character’s personal goal.


9. Pass the sections to another player
a. After all players have finished editing their initial section, players pass the edited sections to another player. The order in which the sections were assigned or picked is also the order in which the sections are passed from player to player. (For example, if there are 3 players and player 1 got the first choice of sections, player 2 the second, and player 3 the 3rd; then the edited sections pass from player 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and 3 to 1.)
b. Players make edits to the section they receive. They can make 30 editing points worth of edits, plus any points hoarded in the first edit. You are allowed to change or undue earlier edits.
c. After all players have completed editing the second section they receive, pass that section on. Repeat steps 8a and 8b until all players have gotten the chance to edit all sections of the source document. Players may continue to hoard editing points and use them for later sections of the document. All points must be spent by the last section of the document. Points cannot be carried over to later rounds of editing.

10. Make final round of edits
a. All players get a chance to review the changes made to the source document during the first round of edits. If you are playing in person and the document isn’t too lengthy, you might want to read the manuscript out loud for a dramatic emphasis.
b. Going in reverse order to the priority set in step 6, players choose which section of the document to start off with for the second and final round of edits.
c. Players edit the section of the document they are assigned, making 30 editing points of changes.
d. Players pass on their sections of the document and edit a second section, making 15 points of changes.
e. Repeat until all players have edited all sections of the document.

11. Publish and Review New Edition
a. All players can read the New Edition of the Leader’s biography. If you are playing in person and the document isn’t too lengthy, you might want to read the manuscript out loud for a dramatic emphasis.
b. Each player should write a short review of the New Edition. The review need not be longer than a paragraph (a publisher’s weekly type blurb). It should focus on the book’s strength’s and weaknesses.
c. Each player should also write down a possible Title for the biography. The title should consist of a main title followed by a subtitle.
d. Players take turns sharing their suggested title and presenting their reviews.
e. After hearing or seeing all the reviews, players vote for one title. Player cannot vote for the title they suggested. The title that gets the most votes is chosen as the official title. In the event of a tie, hold a run-off vote between the top vote getters. In this run-off round, players are allowed to vote for their own suggestion. If there is still a tie, flip a coin.
f. After the title is chosen, players take turns revealing their ideology and personal motivation.



Variation: Cult of Personality

In this variant game, players are writers and editors charged with embellishing and sanitizing the Leader’s life and deeds into a piece of propaganda. Rather than editing a fawning biography; they are creating one from the facts of the leader’s life. This variant is played like New Edition, with just a few modifications.

1.a. The Source Document should be a critical, warts-and-all biography of a tyrannical leader. It represents the facts of the Leader’s life.
5.b. When picking a character’s ideology, they cannot choose an ideology that takes a negative view of the Leader. All characters must try to glorify the Leader. They just disagree on the best way to do so. Some may push for edits that make the Leader out to be a near superhero and paragon of all virtues. Others may believe that an over-the-top approach will backfire, and prefer sticking to, and spinning, the real facts.