Hello,

I'm working on a game that takes place in a slave holding society on the brink of revolution. The mechanics will guide the players to create a framework of character and story that can happen in many different settings. Example settings will be included in the game along with scenario creation rules. The scenarios will be descriptions of the society and include rights of and limitations placed on slaves.

My questions about the specific mechanics I'm going to describe here are:
1) Are the normative/subversive/rebellious action mechanics ones that you would find fairly easy to implement and keep track of if you were playing the game?
2) What other games that you know of use similar mechanics, so I can see how others have handled facilitating player narration of negative outcomes to their own characters, especially in the absence of failure/success outcome resolution mechanics?


Players can create slave or free primary characters. All the primary characters are connected to one another by being part of the same revolutionary cell, or part of a loose support network. The group will have goals they are trying to accomplish together and will also be connected to the tide of revolution rising in society. None of the primary characters may own one another, though it may be possible for a player to have their free character buy a slave character during the course of play.

Character generation will consist of various questions the player will answer about their primary character. The questions will be different for slave, freed, and born citizen characters. After creating the characters and possibly the group connections etc, all of the players will be asked the following 4 questions about their character: Who do you love, Who do you hate, Who loves you, Who hates you. The answers to these question will be the start of lists of other primary or secondary characters that the character is involved with. The names on the list may be added to, or shift over time: someone your character starts out loving may betray her so that she comes to hate her etc.

The characters have no stats per se. Secondary characters only get written up on the primary character's sheets. Mechanics may vary to reflect the level of oppression in society, or to represent the different treatment accorded different types of slaves (hard labor vs. skilled or house slaves), but the basic mechanics are as follows:

Characters can take Normative, Subversive or Rebellious actions. A normative action is one that accords with the societal limitations on slaves or doesn't challenge the norms of slave holding society. A subversive action is one that breaks those rules, but does so in a small way, or is done secretly so that no one who would care about the indiscretion would easily find out. A rebellious action is a blatant violation of social norms with relation to slavery, done in public, or done in secret but of such magnitude that it could not go unnoticed or unpunished. For example, poisoning and killing a slave holder.

Normative Actions
Each player puts a coin, say a quarter, heads up near them. In order for their character to take a normative action, the player must turn their heads-up quarter tails up. In order to get the quarter heads-up again, the player must narrate another action or event taken by secondary characters or occuring in the local environment of their primary character. This event will vary depending on whether they are a slave or free character:

Slave characters--the player must narrate something bad happening to the character, or another character on either of the "Who do you love" or "Who loves you" lists on the character's sheet. Or something good happening to a character on the "Who do you hate" or "Who hates you" lists.
Free characters--the player must narrate something bad happening to any character on the character's "Who do you love", "Who loves you" lists or to one of the other primary characters who is a slave. Or something good happening to the "hate" lists.

Once this is done, the quarter gets turned back to heads and another normative action can be narrated.

Subversive Actions

When a character takes a subversive action the player must narrate one of two things, which will be decided by a coin toss or d6 roll based on society's levels of oppression etc.

Slave characters--If fortune decrees so, the player may narrate a good thing happening to their primary character or a character from the "love" lists, or a bad thing happening to a character from the "hate" list. Otherwise, the player takes three pennies and must narrate three bad things happening to their own character or one from the "love" lists, or three good things happening to characters from the "hate" lists.
Free characters--If fortune decrees so, the player may narrate one good thing happening to their own character, or any on the "love" lists, or bad to those on the "hates". Otherwise, the player takes three pennies and must narrate one bad event happening for each to those on the "love" lists or any of the other slave primary characters played by the other players.

The pennies are discarded once the narration for each is given. All three must be discarded before another subversive action may be narrated. If a player narrates another subversive action before all three pennies are gone, the action becomes a rebellious action.

Rebellious Action
When someone narrates their character taking a rebellious action, they may afterwards narrate an event in the larger movement towards revolution, and increase or move the Tide of Revolution one level closer to happening.

For a public, flagrant violation:
Slave Characters--three bad things must be narrated as happening to the character herself, immediately.
Free Character--It will vary depending on whether the character is a citizen or is a former slave in most societies. I'm still developing this: for a natural born citizen, probably a character involved must be added to their "Who hates you" list, and three bad things will happen to slave characters on their "love" lists, or played by other players. Freed slaves would have the same, plus the danger of losing their freedom, in some scenarios.

For a secret, but sizable transgression:
Slave characters--Deal out three pennies, and three bad things must be narrated as happening to your character and many people on your "love" lists. All if possible. For example, if a slave holder was murdered in Rome, all of the slaves of the household would be punished--even up to being killed--for not preventing the murder, and possibly causing it.
Free characters--sames as for slaves, but not affecting the freed character, and adding in all the other slave primary characters.

Additional bits:

Characters will be able to sacrifice themselves for others to take negative consequences onto themselves. Sacrifices will have metagame rewards like the Rebellious action reward of narrating something about the Revolution, but perhaps affecting the kind of revolution it will be: Bloody vs. Peaceful. Other things may effect the type of revolution as well, that's still in development.

Also, people other than the player in question will probably be able to narrate events to get rid of pennies, or turn over quarters.

Thank you for reading all that if you've made it this far! I'd appreciate any insight you may have on the questions at the top, or other comments and reactions you may have to the game.

--Emily Care

Quick question. Is this turn based? Would seem to me to make a big difference.

Also, is this GM-less?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Quick question. Is this turn based? Would seem to me to make a big difference.

Also, is this GM-less?

Mike Holmes wrote: Quick question. Is this turn based?

Hi Emily,

Now this is interesting stuff. All Premise and narration determined by Currency.

You might not like this idea, but I think a certain amount of Fortune to shake things up might work very nicely, much in the same sense that Complications do in Universalis. I especially like that mechanic in Universalis because it introduces Fortune without relying on or claiming that it's there to "resolve player disagreements." In many ways, it's the opposite - by doing something which prompts a Complication, the player is enlisting the other player, not disagreeing with or challenging them.

So I'm thinking some kind of dice-y thing, maybe something that gives outcomes to Love and Hate in action, would be worthwhile to consider.

Best,
Ron

My questions about the specific mechanics I'm going to describe here are:
1) Are the normative/subversive/rebellious action mechanics ones that you would find fairly easy to implement and keep track of if you were playing the game?
2) What other games that you know of use similar mechanics, so I can see how others have handled facilitating player narration of negative outcomes to their own characters, especially in the absence of failure/success outcome resolution mechanics?

bluegargantua wrote: I don't really recall any "mass revolution" of slaves that results in toppling the established order.

Jonathan Walton wrote:

bluegargantua wrote: I don't really recall any "mass revolution" of slaves that results in toppling the established order.

Besides the one in Haiti. And several, as I recall, along the coast of West Africa.

Thanks for the input, everyone. Good food for thought here.

Ron:about the use of fortune I'm going to take a close look at the Complication mechanics in Universalis to see what you're getting at. My first impulse was to go "fortuneless", but after some thought I'm not averse to it. I did include it in the mechanics as written. What I am after with these particular mechanics is to enlist the players in exploring for themselves the kinds of conflicts a character in this society would encounter. Oh, maybe they could roll to see who on their love or hate list got affected, then narrate accordingly. Yes, that would facilitate the process.

John: Thanks for bringing up Haiti. It's one of the four introductory settings I'm planning to include in the game. Where in West Africa? Liberia? So far I'm looking at the US (as an example of economic/political pressure bringing emancipation about), Rome's Sparticus (an almost successful revolution affected by slave population levels and access to arms/training), Haiti, and something in Asia if possible. China's has a long history of peasant uprisings.

bluegargantua wrote: I think it's always really cool if a game's resolution mechanics have some sort of thematic tie-in to what the game is about. Deadlands is a perfect example of this. It uses dice, cards, and poker chips in this Western Gambling motif that's really fun and helps reinforce the idea that it's a Western game.

For slavery, my mental image was one of chains. Specifically adding or breaking links of the chain. For a moment, I had this literal image of players sitting around with links of chain, but then I suddenly had the idea of players making paperclip chains. You can link/unlink them easily and they're sufficiently chain-like that most people could envision it easily.

BlueGargantua wrote: As tensions grow and the chains of the slaves gets shorter, the Free players find their items altering to show a less stable state of affairs. Things they used to do very easily become harder and harder.

BlueGargantua wrote: I'm not sure whether it'd be cooler to have individual items or group collective items or a mix. Personally, I kinda favor the group item for the Free characters because if people believe that the revolution will cost them too dearly, there will be both meta- and in-game social pressure to conform and "not rock the boat".

Haiti was the obvious one, just because it was famous and fairly successful.

As for Africa, I don't remember exactly, but I seem to recall one in French West Africa that led to the formation of an independent state. I'll try to look that one up and see if I can find anything. I could be wrong.

In the US, the most famous slave uprising was probably the Nat Turner Slave Revolt that took place in Virginia during the early 1830's. There's also Amistad of course, just because many people have probably seen the movie.

As for the others, I think you definitely need a Marxist-themed one, since most Communist Revolutions used the image of "the slavery of the working classes." Tsarist Russia would be neat, with the serfs as protagonists. Communist China would work less well, because the peasants really weren't slaves in the same manner that the serfs were.

Similarly, to model peaceful revolutions, you might think about including either Aparthied South Africa or Gandhi's British-controlled India, or at least mention them as possibilities.

Finally, on peasant uprisings in China, it's hard to find one that would be a good model for you. There is the Mandate of Heaven, supporting the dynastic cycle and the "right" of the people to overthrow governments, but that wasn't historically connected to slavery or the oppression of the people. Often it took place because of famine conditions or outside military forces that the existing government couldn't protect against. So I don't really have any good advice for you there. Sorry.