Roleplaying games
Politics is Direct Action If You’re a Politician
Character Creation Challenge — MoonPunk
Rick: I hate every country in the universe, brother! They’re job placement programs for the politicians that invent them.
President: Okay, fight club. I get paid to protect the sidelines you sit on!
Rick: You get paid to make sports metaphors!
President: I clean your litterbox! So your little nerd paws don’t have to touch another nerd’s nerdy poopies while you’re flexing your grody little edge lord anus all over it!
- from Rick and Morty’s Thanksploitation Spectacular
More than a few political candidates have stupidly said “I’m not a politician” while running for office. That is nonsensical bullshit. A politician is a professional politics-doer. When one enters politics, they immediately become a politician. Otherwise they’re an amateur politics-doer. These not-politicians think they can take the throne to act without letting the throne act upon them. Trump tried to do that, and the throne became an ejection seat.
This article is part of the Character Creation Challenge. Participants build and post characters every day in January for TTRPGs they are either playing or want to play. I’m not going to keep to those rules. There aren’t 31 games I want to play and I don’t have that kind of time anyway. But it is a good excuse to make some explicitly political characters, so I’m starting with the Politician from MoonPunk.
MoonPunk is one of a few exceedingly leftist PbtA games. The gist of MoonPunk is that people who move to the moon looking for work are super-screwed and can never afford to move back to Earth. Because they’re stuck, it’s easy for the moon’s rich and powerful to exploit them. Naturally some people take a fuck-that stance to the moon’s entrenched oligopoly. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a game.
Direct Action, traditionally an anarchist practice, is central to the game. Direct Action is about fixing problems directly, with no help or interference from the government. In all of the included adventures, the punks engage in direct action to fix the system themselves. Like with real world direct action, these actions aren’t appeals for help from the government.
A typical MoonPunk session pits the player’s punks against an Authority Figure. The AF leverages the corrupt systems they have access too to get what they want, usually by screwing over everyday people. Examples include legislative power to pass self-serving laws, or deep pockets to bribe others. Most AFs have both money and governmental power, and use them to acquire even more of both.
Electoral politics is decidedly not direct action. That’s what makes MoonPunk’s inclusion of a Politician playbook (character class) kinda bizarre.
“There are a thousand ways to fight injustice, and in a world filled with sellouts and posers, you decided to buy in. It’s not easy being a public figure, and it’s not easy fighting the government at their own game. But be careful. Power corrupts.”
- from the Politician playbook, MoonPunk page 55
MoonPunk is one of the few RPGs with an off-the-shelf, playable elected official. All of the Politician’s unique Moves and Specialties are modeled on stereotypical political tactics and tropes.
The Oppo Expert Specialty echos sentiments from Shadowrun: Dirty Tricks. Digging up and disseminating dirt is a too-big part of the the modern Forever Campaign.
Incumbent lets the Politician spread a “factoid” and have it accepted as truth just because they’re “a mainstay in lunar politics”. This factoid could be “masks and vaccines work”. It could also be “masks are communism”. This works in the real world because everyday people are too busy and exhausted to find better news outlets.
Volunteer Brigade bugs me on a fundamental level. Real world political volunteers come in two flavors. They’re either comfortable enough to be able to work for free, or so desperate they give their scant free time to a potential savior. Employing either just feels wrong.
Thematically, Pollster is the only Specialty that is concerned with what the people actually think. Mechanically, the information the Politician is looking for doesn’t even have to be about public opinion. This can be interpreted as just being good at research and analysis.
But the text for Pollster says “Statistics and Data are what make politics run”. Stats and data also make GOVERNMENT run. Where are Specialties that help them actually govern?
The Politician’s unique Moves are more immediate and direct than the Specialties. They’re also kinda boring. Think of the Cause auto-forgives a minor debt from someone in the same political boat. Diplomatic Immunity lets the player use a better stat when they Act Casual (a Basic Move in MoonPunk). Rousing Speech lets the Politician buff the entire party, like a Bard in D&D.
Mudslinging is a bit more interesting. It applies a narrative Tag to an opponent. Tags can be evoked to apply bonuses or penalties to rolls. It’s sorta how Conservatives pin the word “Socialist” to Center-Right Neoliberals. With any luck Progressives in Congress will soon start Tagging Conservatives with the word “Nazi”.
We Need YOU, Silver Tonged Devil, and Campaign Promise are all things the stereotypical politician says or is or does. Again, where is the actually governmental power?
The Politician is fascinating to play BECAUSE they can’t automatically make the government do what they want. The Politician has nothing but their own political operation and their constituency. None of their Moves directly kneecap an Authority Figure with oversight or regulation or legislation.
Instead, the Politician must actually navigate the government to counter the Authority Figure. They have to play out committee meetings and floor votes and hearings. “Doing government” is how the Politician takes direct action.
