The Gaming Philosopher

I have created a full set of beta rules for Comrade Stalin . It is a simple, yet (I hope) tactically and socially complex game that slightly resembles games like Mafia and Werewolves. Comrade Stalin explores the fear, paranoia and ruthlessness of totalitarianism ... while you are having fun. To play, you need to download the rules and the roles . The roles are presented in an easy-to-print format: simply cut the pages in half to get role sheets. Please playtest this game and tell me about your experiences! You can post here, e-mail me (victor@lilith.bb, except that it is "cc" instead of "bb"), or post wherever you like and put a link here. Thanks in advance! All playtesters will be credited in future versions of the rules.

First draft of the roles! There are currently enough roles for a game with 9 players. Every role, except Stalin, has the ability to spy . Once during the game, this allows to you look at one goal card of one person. You cannot show the card to anyone else, though you can of course make claims about what you've seen. Whether people believe you is up to them. Once you have spied, rotate your character sheet 90 degrees to indicate that you've used up your one chance to spy. Some rules indicate that you can refresh your ability: this means that you get to rotate your character sheet back to the normal position, and you can use your spying ability again. Every role also has two special rules. The Favourite (King) True loyalty : If you have a single goal card which means that you must kill Stalin, it instead means that you must protect Stalin. If you have two goal cards indicating that you must kill Stalin, they have their normal meaning. Hated : If Stalin dies, all surviv...

Background: Stalin's Story A long time ago -- late in 2005, it seems -- I created a role playing game called Stalin's Story . It combined the structures that Vladimir Propp found in Russian fairy tales with a totalitarian Stalin figure. One of the players is Stalin and has unlimited power to kill people and change the rules; the others are either actors trying to tell a Proppian tale or courtiers trying to use the tale's elements to have each other killed. I never played it, because I had serious doubts about the game achieving my design goals. However, I just found a post by Harry Giles who says he has played it several times, and goes on to say that “Stalin’s Story” is rich, multi-dimensional, original and scary fun[.] He is definitely being too charitable in that piece, but I do need to talk to him about his play experiences! But this blog post is not about Stalin's Story . Thematic content Stalin apparently still occupies my brain. I've just gotten...