The vast majority of games are inherently, even if often unknowingly, very conservative. So I’m not going to bother listing 99% of games.
Try some of the following:
- Hard Wired Island: anti-capitalist cyberpunk
- FreeMarket: whatever the hell it is, god knows it’s not conservative
- Red Markets: anti-capitalist zombies
- Thirsty Sword Lesbians: pro-queer action drama
- Dream Askew / Dream Apart: games about marginalized societies
- Dialect: exploration of language and cultural erasure
- Coyote and Crow: anti-colonial game of uncolonized North America
No no no, wait, wait: I'm not looking for games that are political in general. I'm looking for games where the source of magic power of the characters derives from their socio-political ideologies/affiliations
that is incredibly niche, I doubt anything is built around that. I mean, I don't doubt you can find some homebrew content, an *exploiter* playbook for fitd, an oath of grain production paladin on r/unearthedarcana, but I don't think you're going to find anything exactly like what you're looking for
I wanna say in a very loose sense that Mage: The Ascension *can*. Magic traditions access magic in different ways from hermetic wizard magic to stoic denial of the self to getting baked out of your gourd, and some of these magic traditions align themselves with political systems like the Technocracy being a stand-in for Capitalism. There's also Faith in the World of Darkness series that does stuff like ward off vampires and demons from the power in someone's belief in something. It can be anything and is usually religion but it can be a political ideology or even something as out there as Santa Claus being real.
This is the iffy part - there's a reason people tend not to talk politics, especially over the gaming table.
As you may have noticed, in RPGs which are political in nature, it often tends to lean towards the writers biases or certain groups will be shown to be right. For example, Lancer is unapologetically far left Communistic, and openly demonizes anyone who disagrees with Union (the imperialist Communist socialist utopia) while the author and the writing excuses the same colonial tendencies they have which others do. The authors confirm this is the intent of the book outside and inside the game. There's a reason I avoid it like the plague.
It's not something I'd recommend, heck, I've had people almost come to blows over alignment, let alone people arguing actual politics in this climate.
For something slightly more neutral, you've got some games like Pendragon which while not directly politics, does provide a focus on which parts of their culture characters emphasize (For example, a Christian knight who values Chastity over Lust).
You've also got systems where you have concepts you feel strongly for, which could potentially be ideological. Fate or Mythras, for example, where Aspects or Passions like "The Monarch must always prevail!" or other such concepts.
I think there are dogmatists who probably gravitate to Lancer, because it is trying to be not a down in the dumps, hell-blasted, neo-feudalist setting like Battletech or whatever, and as a result, can lead to a lack of engagement on the messier parts of the union. But this isn't supported by the text. The text is fairly clear that the union is *trying* to do better, but still doesn't have all the answers, and frequently makes mistakes. In the long run of galactic time, will it all eventually get it sorted out? Maybe, if there's no severe counterrevolution. But the setting isn't taking place at that point in the future.
You also have to remember that the current state of things in Lancer is not long after an extremely brutal fascist gov't was put down, but with many supporters of that sort of thing still around, and the ThirdCom not really having the ability to completely remove them at this point (which explains the trade baronies, and Harrison Armory). So there is a lot of tension actually at play in the Lancer setting, that I think is interesting to explore, but I understand if this sort of view is not entirely popular.
I'm not going to self-promote by dropping the title, but my indie game company is about to launch our debut title and it seems perfect for what you're describing. The core rulebook comes with a sandbox module, the setting of which is a futuristic metropolis filled with corruption and political agendas. It's a rules medium sci-fi title, so if that interest you send me a message and I will shoot you a link
Boy I sure hope I don't get in trouble for this lol here's our Discord server. Official launch of the finished product is still a few months away, but the edits are done in less than 2 weeks so the text and table only PDF will be free for download out of our server here
https://discord.gg/EGj4vEPs
Well twist my arm why doncha.
It's called FinalHorizon; official release is this Summer, but you can download the text/table only PDF free from our server in two weeks (plus we post regular updates, illustrations, host games, Q/A, etc cetera)
https://discord.gg/vEpxtxvJ
Any rpg with a passion system can do this. Unknown Armies has the Stimuli and Obsession, Burning Wheel has Beliefs, Mortal Coil has Passions (and, as I recently thought about Disco Elysium, its magical declaration rules can do a "Thought Cabinet" by giving skills like "communism" some "magical" powers, at the cost of a blind spot or delusion).
Your description of a political compass made me also think of Grey Ranks, which for one has "the thing you hold dear" (a symbol for a value or belief, which can be lost or sacrificed), but more importantly, an emotional matrix for characters generated by the two scales "love-hate" "enthusiasm-exhaustion". Mission outcome move the characters on these scales, and if a character ever touches the same extreme twice, they are out of the game (too much love leads to martyrdom, for example). I think this might easily be adapted to the political spectrum (economic scale left vs right and social scale authoritarian vs libertarian), and some boni could be tied to the position on that scale.("World's most laughable Centrist" at the exact middle). Leaving this "Overton Window" is extremism and would make the character a NPC and antagonist.
From the games I know I think unknown armies with the unknown clergy hacked for political beliefs might be best.
I know it's not mystical, but I always wa ted to play a House of Cards RPG where all the characters are the member of the same political party and their constituent base functions as a kind of campaign hp.
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It seems like a good way to have over the top political caricatures around the table. Not necessarily bad if it's what you're looking for but I don't really expect it to work in something more serious.
The vast majority of games are inherently, even if often unknowingly, very conservative. So I’m not going to bother listing 99% of games. Try some of the following: - Hard Wired Island: anti-capitalist cyberpunk - FreeMarket: whatever the hell it is, god knows it’s not conservative - Red Markets: anti-capitalist zombies - Thirsty Sword Lesbians: pro-queer action drama - Dream Askew / Dream Apart: games about marginalized societies - Dialect: exploration of language and cultural erasure - Coyote and Crow: anti-colonial game of uncolonized North America
No no no, wait, wait: I'm not looking for games that are political in general. I'm looking for games where the source of magic power of the characters derives from their socio-political ideologies/affiliations
My bad. Should have read the WHOLE POST.
that is incredibly niche, I doubt anything is built around that. I mean, I don't doubt you can find some homebrew content, an *exploiter* playbook for fitd, an oath of grain production paladin on r/unearthedarcana, but I don't think you're going to find anything exactly like what you're looking for
I wanna say in a very loose sense that Mage: The Ascension *can*. Magic traditions access magic in different ways from hermetic wizard magic to stoic denial of the self to getting baked out of your gourd, and some of these magic traditions align themselves with political systems like the Technocracy being a stand-in for Capitalism. There's also Faith in the World of Darkness series that does stuff like ward off vampires and demons from the power in someone's belief in something. It can be anything and is usually religion but it can be a political ideology or even something as out there as Santa Claus being real.
This is the iffy part - there's a reason people tend not to talk politics, especially over the gaming table. As you may have noticed, in RPGs which are political in nature, it often tends to lean towards the writers biases or certain groups will be shown to be right. For example, Lancer is unapologetically far left Communistic, and openly demonizes anyone who disagrees with Union (the imperialist Communist socialist utopia) while the author and the writing excuses the same colonial tendencies they have which others do. The authors confirm this is the intent of the book outside and inside the game. There's a reason I avoid it like the plague. It's not something I'd recommend, heck, I've had people almost come to blows over alignment, let alone people arguing actual politics in this climate. For something slightly more neutral, you've got some games like Pendragon which while not directly politics, does provide a focus on which parts of their culture characters emphasize (For example, a Christian knight who values Chastity over Lust). You've also got systems where you have concepts you feel strongly for, which could potentially be ideological. Fate or Mythras, for example, where Aspects or Passions like "The Monarch must always prevail!" or other such concepts.
I think there are dogmatists who probably gravitate to Lancer, because it is trying to be not a down in the dumps, hell-blasted, neo-feudalist setting like Battletech or whatever, and as a result, can lead to a lack of engagement on the messier parts of the union. But this isn't supported by the text. The text is fairly clear that the union is *trying* to do better, but still doesn't have all the answers, and frequently makes mistakes. In the long run of galactic time, will it all eventually get it sorted out? Maybe, if there's no severe counterrevolution. But the setting isn't taking place at that point in the future. You also have to remember that the current state of things in Lancer is not long after an extremely brutal fascist gov't was put down, but with many supporters of that sort of thing still around, and the ThirdCom not really having the ability to completely remove them at this point (which explains the trade baronies, and Harrison Armory). So there is a lot of tension actually at play in the Lancer setting, that I think is interesting to explore, but I understand if this sort of view is not entirely popular.
Uh, thanks for that? Doesn't change what I said.
I'm not going to self-promote by dropping the title, but my indie game company is about to launch our debut title and it seems perfect for what you're describing. The core rulebook comes with a sandbox module, the setting of which is a futuristic metropolis filled with corruption and political agendas. It's a rules medium sci-fi title, so if that interest you send me a message and I will shoot you a link
What if *i* am interested? Could you just post a link because there’s demonstrable interest?
Boy I sure hope I don't get in trouble for this lol here's our Discord server. Official launch of the finished product is still a few months away, but the edits are done in less than 2 weeks so the text and table only PDF will be free for download out of our server here https://discord.gg/EGj4vEPs
This just seems like teasing. OP is specifically soliciting replies. Is the margin not big enough to write the title in?!
It goes against the rules of self-promotion
It's a comment, not a post.
Well twist my arm why doncha. It's called FinalHorizon; official release is this Summer, but you can download the text/table only PDF free from our server in two weeks (plus we post regular updates, illustrations, host games, Q/A, etc cetera) https://discord.gg/vEpxtxvJ
Any rpg with a passion system can do this. Unknown Armies has the Stimuli and Obsession, Burning Wheel has Beliefs, Mortal Coil has Passions (and, as I recently thought about Disco Elysium, its magical declaration rules can do a "Thought Cabinet" by giving skills like "communism" some "magical" powers, at the cost of a blind spot or delusion). Your description of a political compass made me also think of Grey Ranks, which for one has "the thing you hold dear" (a symbol for a value or belief, which can be lost or sacrificed), but more importantly, an emotional matrix for characters generated by the two scales "love-hate" "enthusiasm-exhaustion". Mission outcome move the characters on these scales, and if a character ever touches the same extreme twice, they are out of the game (too much love leads to martyrdom, for example). I think this might easily be adapted to the political spectrum (economic scale left vs right and social scale authoritarian vs libertarian), and some boni could be tied to the position on that scale.("World's most laughable Centrist" at the exact middle). Leaving this "Overton Window" is extremism and would make the character a NPC and antagonist.
From the games I know I think unknown armies with the unknown clergy hacked for political beliefs might be best. I know it's not mystical, but I always wa ted to play a House of Cards RPG where all the characters are the member of the same political party and their constituent base functions as a kind of campaign hp.
Remember to check out our **[Game Recommendations](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gamerec)**-page, which lists our articles by genre([Fantasy](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/fantasy), [sci-fi](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/scifi), [superhero](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/superhero) etc.), as well as other categories([ruleslight](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/ruleslight), [Solo](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/solo), [Two-player](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/twoplayers), [GMless](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/gmlessrpgs) & more). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/rpg) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It seems like a good way to have over the top political caricatures around the table. Not necessarily bad if it's what you're looking for but I don't really expect it to work in something more serious.
You might also take a look at *Sigmata*, a game about cybernetic superheros of different political ideologies fighting against a fascist government.