I Read Games: The Trains Of The Glorious Republics Of The People

 

The Trains Of The Glorious Republic Of The People by Rat In A Suit

It’s the 1930s and the revolution has taken control of the country. The railways are vital to the success of the people, of the party, of the country. In this tabletop role playing game the players take on the roles of members of the train crew.

The train is created randomly, with an engine and as many carriages as players (one person is the Minister Of Transport, the Games Master). Each carriage allows a player to choose a role, so that for example a passenger carriage opens up the possibility of being Ticket Inspector, a communications carriage the radio operator, a hospital carriage the doctor and so forth, each with their own skills and equipment.

The game also has a random adventure creator, with a mission, a starting station, an ending station, and intermediate stations, all of which have encounters the players must deal with. Here is where I think the game has some real friction for the players; a randomly generated train will have a mix of skills and equipment, but probably not quite the right ones to optimally engage with a random encounter. Thus they will have to improvise.

As a TTRPG the skill list suggests the kind of situation where you resort to the rules, and thus the challenges likely to be faced*. Some physical, such as balance, engineering and melee fighting. Others like perception, cool, bureaucracy and party doctrine offer a mechanical solution to abstract problems.

Discussing some of the ideas with a friend** about the intersection of bureaucracy and ideology, she said “The success of empires lying in both - the belief of the faithful AND a solid filing system.” I then went into an over-the-top riff on this*** concluding that although I would be interested in re-skinning this into another setting, the particular choice of trains and 1930s totalitarian states is a very strong mixture, even the most light-hearted approach overshadowed by real events.

Play This: Trains! Ideology! Fixing problems with the wrong tools and skills!
Don’t Play This: You play to escape not to be railroaded

* Conversely it leaves a blank idea space where role playing and freeform play might dominate

** Katy Naylor who published this as part of her Voidspace TTRPG special

*** “A train is ideology, it's bureaucracy and industrialism on rails, it is progress on the move, it carries people to where they need to go, it spreads culture and civilisation as it goes.”