# TTRPGs With Rules For Social Change tags: #thoughts ![[Microscope (cover).jpg|300]] ![[Kingdom 2nd Ed (cover).jpg|300]] ![[Ironsworn - Reign (cover).jpg|300]] Yet again, we are archiving a bit of a reply to someone on Reddit because it seems a waste to write this stuff and then not use it. --- > I'm interested in looking at TTRPGs (or even board games, etc) which provide a mechanical framework for undertaking change to society. I've had in mind a concept that puts the players in positions of authority in an important organization, with social conflicts being the primary focus (ie, combat doesn't matter and is generally something you don't want to get into, "adventuring" isn't a focus.) > > I'm aware of Godbound having its Influence/Dominion system, but while that's a minor subsystem to an OSR d20 game (and not really what I'm going for), it's an example of a mechanical framework. Anything will do, just to see what others have come up with. > > Minor Edit: to be absolutely clear, I'm looking for systems that have social *change* mechanics, not just social or organization mechanics. (A few good examples have been provided so far, thank you!) > > -- https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1t7iuly/ttrpg_with_rules_for_social_change/ When you talk about undertaking change to society, I would first point out that any RPG allows you to do that with a mechanical framework. Anything that allows you to resolve conflicts between characters leads to social change. But that's not what you mean. You mean **greater** social change. You mean changing the world by the actions of the characters. For which there are some quite interesting game choices on the table. Unlike a lot of people, I'm actually going to provide you links to things so that you can actually go and look into them. --- Right out of the gate, I'm just going to suggest that you check out pretty much everything ever produced by Ben Robbins. As [Lame Mage Productions](https://www.lamemage.com), he has made games which are very particularly about affecting the flow of society, cultures, worlds, and histories. Very little that he's produced is ever about small concerns. - *[Microscope](https://www.lamemage.com/microscope/)*. You want vast social change at the tips of your players' fingertips? Pick up *[[Microscope]]*. In order to do this, it eschews a lot of what you may essentially think of as a role-playing game, including specific roles for the players, unitary assigned characters, and fixed histories. But in exchange, you build an entire timeline in your experience at the table. It's absolutely amazing, and there is no other game that works like it. Note that this does not mean that there is no consistency. Every set of turns around the table, there is a focus chosen for all of the things that are introduced. Each player eventually ends up with a lens that they can hold onto for longer or shorter, which tells everybody what they're interested in mucking around with. However, this is a game in which on my turn I can literally speak a massive city into being with a simple narration. On the next turn, you can talk about how it collapsed under the weight of its corrupt government 300 years later. We can spend our time zooming in and asking questions about how it went from a sparkling, shining city on the hill to a morass of corruption and decadence. In so talk about more and more quantized periods within that 300 years. Then a couple of turns later, someone else can insert how the refugees from that city spent 500 years wandering the world until they settled into a small seaside village where the grandmother of the person who would eventually invent the steam engine came to live. What I'm saying is that it is a game that can work at the broadest scope and down into the narrowest, but it is not a game system like you are used to. I love it myself. I can bring people to the table and have them up and running and playing in minutes, and it always turns out something interesting. It is, at a certain level, all about social change, physical change, emotional change, and personal change—it is a lexicon of changes. If you want a little bit more focus, go ahead and grab *[Microscope Chronicle](https://www.lamemage.com/microscope-chronicle/)*, which is sort of a simplified and more focused version of *Microscope*. There is a full public playtest available. Personally, I don't enjoy it as much, but it might be a little bit less to wrap your head around all up front. - *[Kingdom](https://www.lamemage.com/kingdom/)*. Maybe *Microscope* is a little bit too big and open for you and what you want to play at the table. I would absolutely understand that. It's a little bit alien to traditional game designs, in which case I would suggest picking up *[[Kingdom]]*. In it, the PCs at the table are all members of a single society, a culture, a situation—a kingdom. All of the players represent important characters within the context of the kingdom. Someone will be the power, the person who is responsible for deciding what actually occurs. Another person will be the touchstone who expresses what the people outside of the player characters actually think about what's going on. A third is the perspective who can literally tell you what's going to happen if certain choices are made. Gameplay proceeds because there is a crossroads, a point at which whatever the purpose of the kingdom/culture/organization/whatnot needs to make a decision about what to do next, and good things or bad things could happen as a result. If you want a game where the player protagonists can literally shake the pillars of heaven and change a society at a deep and abiding level, *Kingdom* is it. Sometimes those changes end up doing something they weren't expecting. That's where the fun is. Of all the games that might be on this list, I suspect that *Kingdom* is the closest to what you actually want. It's a shame that it isn't as often spoken about as it deserves. I love it. I've played a ton of it, both the first edition and this revised edition. I can only suggest that this might be the first one that you check out while keeping *Microscope* in your pocket for later. --- - *[Shock: Social Science Fiction](https://humanities-at-play.itch.io/shock-humanities-at-play)*. Possibly simultaneously the most deliberately socially aware game on the list and interestingly, least accessible because the original version was simply unavailable in PDF for over a decade. Here I link to an authorized Creative Commons respin of the text, which you can have for free. *Shock:* targets itself at talking about social issues in its world. That world is created by the players at the beginning of the session. The goal of the session, in fact, the goal of the protagonist, is to change something about the world, which is critical and pivotal as it's described. They are not guaranteed success. Sometimes the world pushes back. Sometimes the antagonist comes out on top. *Shock:* is specifically interested in talking about social disruption, and no matter what, things change. It's a little deliberately obtuse in places, but the overall text is short enough and the ideas are clear enough that it's worth the effort to push through, especially since you can have it for free. If you're interested in the **social** part of social change, this is a game you absolutely need to have in your collection, even if you don't necessarily bring it to the table. --- - *[Ironsworn: Reign](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/419256/ironsworn-reign)*. This may come as a bit of a surprise because people don't normally talk about Ironsworn outside of the solo/co-op and collaborative RPG side of things. But that undersells its flexibility. Notably, *[Ironsworn](https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn)* does not constrain your players to only playing nobodies at the start of their Hero's Journey. The capabilities of an Ironsworn protagonist are narrative, and their stats are fictive directions and not simulationist ones. As such, if your players want to be the king of a domain and his high advisors, that's perfectly sensible. The problems that they face and the things that they want to take on are commensurate to what they can accomplish in the fiction. To that end, *Ironsworn: Reign* is a supplement that provides a framework for not just pursuing personal quests, but for building communities, establishing trade routes, moving armies, and long-term projects that involve many people and multiple seasons. It offers ways to think about how to treat that within the mechanical framework that exists in *Ironsworn* while keeping an eye on the greater world. Frankly, it's one of my favorite supplements for a game that is already free and one of the best designed experiences of the last decade. The fact that this supplement is also pay what you want for the PDF, which means you can have it for free as well, takes it over and above whatever you might expect. If you wanted your characters to start out as poor dirt farmers and have the possibility of raising a mighty empire, you can certainly do it in *[[Ironsworn]]*, and *Ironsworn: Reign* makes it easier to figure out how you can do that. Weirdly, this may be one of the most traditional games in this list from the perspective of players have a single character which aims and accomplishes things according to their will to affect the world in a narrative way. *Kingdom* might be a step too far for players who are truly steeped in super traditional role-playing styles. *Ironsworn* might be a little more accessible for them. Frankly, I say play them all and see what works for you.