Thoughts on an Antifascist RPG, Part 1
This “death curse” you speak of … you say it prevents people from being brought back from the dead. Who gets brought back from the dead? People with connections. Influence. Money. If a man is loved by his neighbors, respected in his community, but poor, and he has an accident, does he get resurrected? No. He dies. A priest who brings comfort and wisdom to his congregation: He dies. A mother with seven children to care for: She dies. A craftsman who masters his art, pays dues to his guild: He dies. Who gets resurrected? Fortune seekers. Aristocrats. Merchants who are not done making money yet. You call it a curse? I think it is a blessing.
Remember Ruyermo Aporreado? His first in-game appearance was as a nonplayer character at the start of our Tomb of Annihilation campaign. When Syndra Silvane was recruiting adventurers to travel to Chult to investigate the death curse, he balked, delivering the above speech and walking out of the meeting. His “No, I won’t” gave the player characters a nudge to say, “Yes, we will,” while also priming them to think about the ethical issues surrounding resurrection magic (issues also explored in an outstanding adventure I had the chance to sample at last year’s Gamehole Con, The Black Ballad).
To Ruyermo, resurrection magic was just another way the already privileged were able to exploit and extend their privilege. He considered a world in which ordinary mortals had to face death as a final end, yet the rich and powerful could postpone that end and remain rich and powerful indefinitely, to be inherently unjust, and he refused to play any part in perpetuating it.
A campaign-length adventure in which the war-torn nation of Sembia falls under the rule of an empyrean who promises to restore its onetime glory. Another that begins with low-level retainers in the cosmopolitan kingdom of Foley fleeing the besieged castle with a young scion of the royal family as the kingdom is torn apart by the three autocratic empires that surround it, and having to survive in occupied lands until they can find a way to help the scion reclaim the throne. A fantasy-historical game set during the revolutions of 1848, but with magic. A homebrew campaign in which PCs in a decadent city-state ruled for 2,000 years by the same elven family get tangled up in the intrigues of persecuted wererats and gnome revolutionaries. It seems like nearly every decent idea I’ve come up with in recent years is a variation on the same theme: resistance to tyranny. (I wonder why that might be.)
Musings like these have led me to reflect on what characteristics a consciously antifascist roleplaying game might possess. Violence is a core aspect of fascism, and critics of D&D and similar RPGs refer to them—usually in good faith, I think, though definitely not always—as games about violence, in which combat is unavoidable. Many of these critics, walking their talk, have gone on to design RPGs of their own that deliberately write combat out of the game. The purest example I can think of is Wanderhome, a “pastoral” game set in a land that “was recently caught in war, but is no longer,” where “there is no violence here anymore.” Wanderhome’s explicit intent is to tell stories of journeys of growth, healing and coexistence, where problems exist but can be solved only in nonviolent ways.
Is Wanderhome an antifascist RPG? I would argue that while I imagine the designer would probably self-describe as antifascist and be personally morally opposed to fascism, not only is Wanderhome not an antifascist RPG, there’s no way it could have been one. The reason is that in Wanderhome, the Bad Times are over; the Hæth (Wanderhome’s setting) is in a period of recovery and rebuilding. That choice facilitates stories about convalescence in the years following a period of fascism, but it says nothing about how to resist during a period of fascism.
A genuinely antifascist game, in my opinion, has to take place within a violent context. It must respond to violence, not excise it, even if the game actively discourages players and their characters from embracing violence themselves. It can’t say, “There is no violence in this world,” or, “What violence exists in this world consists of pockets of isolated disorder; everywhere else, peace prevails.” It has to say, “In this setting, oppressive violence is pervasive, and our burden is to choose how to confront it.”
However, direct confrontation can’t be the answer, either. The D&D approach would be for the PCs to become so strong that they could personally defeat all the regime’s henchmen in one combat encounter after another, culminating in a boss fight. But then what? All they will have accomplished is a coup of their own, claiming the right of regime change on the basis of their own overwhelming might. That’s uncomfortably similar to the exact thing they strove to defeat. Yes, it’s satisfying to punch Nazis, but punching Nazis is not necessarily the best way to defeat Nazis once they’re already entrenched in power, unless one can punch with the force of a frost giant. And that’s the fascists’ idea of heroism. I’m not sure it should be ours.
Umberto Eco’s 14 characteristics of fascism, from his essay “Ur-Fascism,” circulate often online, often in memified (and paraphrased) forms. In their original wording, these characteristics are:
- Cult of tradition
- Rejection of modernism (enlightenment)
- Cult of action for action’s sake
- Disagreement is treason
- Fear of difference
- Appeal to a frustrated middle class
- Obsession with plots
- Enemies cast as too strong and too weak at the same time
- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy; life is permanent warfare
- Contempt for the weak
- Everyone educated to become a hero (cult of death)
- Machismo
- Selective populism (monolithic common will distinct from/superior to any individual viewpoint)
- Newspeak
Let’s posit that these 14 characteristics describe the setting in which the PCs in an antifascist RPG live, and that the PCs represent antitheses of these characteristics. Thus, an antifascist RPG might define itself, its setting and the PCs as follows:
There’s a tradition that the regime harks back to. You’re resisting it. To suggest that this tradition doesn’t encompass all truth is heresy. You’re a heretic. You learn, either as prologue to or during your adventures, that the tradition is not continuous—that it was abandoned for a long time, but then it was brought back, and the rejection of it was suppressed. You know this tradition isn’t the only way things can be.
The regime cites its command of divine magic as proof of the vitality of its system. It regards liberty, progress, tolerance, kinship and the separation of church and state as depravity. These are the principles you’re fighting for.
The dominant value system is romantic, glorifying action and disdaining thoughtful reflection. Intellectual discourse and critical reasoning are considered dangerous, if not treasonous. You keep a clear head and think before you act. You heed the words of the wise.
The society is caste-bound. Outsiders are feared and hated, believed to be continually plotting the downfall of the polity. They are simultaneously thought to be pathetically weak and dangerously strong. You’re an outsider—or an ostensible insider who’s begun to think differently. You may, in fact, be plotting against the regime. Insiders who don't conform sufficiently to their expected roles are considered outsiders, as are those of the lowest caste. You believe everyone must be free to be who they are, equal in dignity and rights.
Collective narcissism prevails. The positive image and importance of the polity are exaggerated. Life is permanent warfare. Pacifism is considered weak. The weak are held in contempt. Resistance must be asymmetrical. You win without fighting; you are strong without might. You must be crafty.
The society is a destructive cult: unethical, deceptive and dependent on control of thought to suppress criticism. Toxic masculinity, or an analogue of it, prevails. Personal identity is deemphasized. Education is indoctrination. Families are often broken up. Death is glorified. Your uniqueness is your strength. Your knowledge is your power. Your survival will be your revenge.
“The will of the people” is held superior to any individual’s conscience, and the supreme leader is considered the people’s voice. Word choice is constrained by force. You will speak your own convictions in your own voice, and you will be heard over the voice of the supreme leader.
It’s not enough for PCs to simply be strong enough to overpower a fascist regime. They have to oppose every aspect of it.
If we let these notions shape our idea of an antifascist RPG, we have to look past existing systems that are unfit for the task. Neither D&D nor Pathfinder is appropriate, because of their fixation on continually increasing PCs’ combat power. But two systems that seem like they might be promising, the Cypher System and Blades in the Dark, surprisingly turn out to be even worse for the job. Every one of Cypher’s four character types is defined primarily by its combat abilities, while in Blades in the Dark (as well as other Forged in the Dark offshoots I’ve seen such as Band of Blades and Court of Blades), too great a proportion of actions are directly related to combat to make the game work without a substantial overhaul. (Hacking the system to remove Blades’ Prowess actions is possible, and I’ll discuss that in part 2, but it’s a major surgical procedure.)
I’m well aware of what a problematic figure Rudyard Kipling is, particularly with respect to his imperialist views, but in his writing he often showed awareness of how imperialism is viewed by its subjects, and I take particular inspiration from his poem “A Pict Song”:
Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on—that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.
We are the Little Folk—we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!
Mistletoe killing an oak—
Rats gnawing cables in two—
Moths making holes in a cloak—
How they must love what they do!
Yes—and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they—
Working our works out of view—
Watch, and you’ll see it some day!
That, I think, is the spirit that should animate an antifascist RPG.
Next: I find further inspiration in a computer RPG from the 1980s.
(Enjoy this rendition of “A Pict Song” by the folksinger Leslie Fish. Billy Bragg did a version, too, but when I sing these words, it’s Fish’s tune I sing them to.)
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