Class Fantasy (WIP)

For the past few months I've been quietly working on a board game called Class Fantasy. This will be part of an exhibition at Le Commun in Geneva, Switzerland in the fall of 2023.

The game takes the form of a traditional action RPG, in the style of Dungeons & Dragons, and pairs fantasy character classes with political ideologies. For example, Social Democracy is a Warrior, Anarcho-Primitivism is a Druid, Eco-Fascism is a Crusader, and Anarcho-Capitalism is a Thief. lol

In the last few years, gaming communities have been a hotbed for radicalization and political recruitment. Real world extremist factions have even been formed in games like Minecraft and Roblox. The connections between these spheres are so ubiquitous that it has long since become a meme.

While mainstream journalism has often attributed this to obvious factors like age and demographics, I've always thought that there is an equally important but far less considered aspect: the game environment is itself an ideological sandbox. RPG world building is an exercise in political imagination. This is why radical groups often create their own their own versions.

Many of the concepts we observe in online political communities map neatly onto gaming. (This is literally the case with the D&D alignment chart overlaid onto the Political Compass.) While we may be tempted to laugh or dismiss these diagrams for their simplicity, terms like Lawful Evil or Chaotic Good are powerful memetic frameworks. In the mind of a young player, the simple idea that "the existing order is morally wrong" is a rather sophisticated concept. It plants an early seed that authority must be questioned.

In Class Fantasy, political ideologies battle in a hexagonal arena. Social Democracy uses the melee ability Labor Strike, while Techno-Feudalism instant casts Prime Day, a ranged spell dealing devastating shadow damage. The final boss is an all powerful Necromancer named Neoliberalism who raises fallen players as zombies.

“Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie maker; but the living flesh it converts into dead labor is ours, and the zombies it makes are us.”

- Mark Fisher

The game ends when certain win conditions are met. Players may choose to align along different axes of the Political Compass. For example, Anarcho-Communism may choose to align with "Good" Leftists or "Chaotic" Libertarians. In pivotal moments, players may choose to intervene or support their allies -- but in doing so, they risk becoming vulnerable themselves. These unstable coalitions will shape the course of the game and ultimately determine its outcome.

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I've been play testing the game all this week and I'm very happy with the results. In the coming months I will do a few test games on the Monday night Twitch stream. I'm excited to share this with all of you.