BattleFellaz: Rubicon

Play the thoroughly ridiculous Stillfleet prequel

You are a battlefella—a professional rabblerouser fighting the God Emperor. You have one goal: find out what metaphorical Rubicon the God Emperor is about to cross and stop them.

Wythe Marschall (creator of Stillfleet, co-creator of Blister Critters) never made a one-page game before. This year, he said he'd try. The idea: a distillation of online Leftist discourse about the near-future of U.S. politics, summarized in a single word that he thought he heard Felix on Chapo Trap House mumble, imitating Biden: "Battlefellaz…"

The result is a game built on a mini version of the Grit System that powers Stillfleet and other fine story-driven games. Battlefellaz invites you to save your hometown from destruction at the hands of neo-fascists. Plus, there's a card-drawing/-discarding mechanic! Check it out!

Obligatory shout-out to Grant Howitt for his innovations in the one-page RPG genre. Like everyone else, Wythe has played Honey Heist, but Nice Marines is a personal favorite.

Work across tendencies

The reasons to rise up against the God Emperor are various. We do not know from which tendency the champions of the Rubicon will arise…

Play as one of six political tendencies (classes), each with a unique set of scores, power, card-drawing effect, and weakness:

1. Ex-Muskovite
2. Freegan
3. Green paladin
4. Pod John
5. Tankie
6. Trad Chad

There are also fun tables of weapons and utility items, because let's face it, you'll need to fight the God Emperor's capos and dog-bots with something more substantial than posts.

Note, this game is expressly political and features a couple of curse words. Please use safety tools and take care of each other. 

Embrace the narrative structure

The first rule of Antifa is, everyone is secretly the antipope of Antifa. The second rule of Antifa is, everyone is secretly the antipope of Antifa. The third rule of Antifa is—if it’s your first night, you have to fight…

Each session of Battlefellaz is imagined as having unity of time, place, and action, meaning it’s a single extended act, in one place, with all of the characters who matter either on-site or nearby.

The GM should set the scene and give the fellaz a chance to make a plan—hopefully something dumb, elaborate, and cinematic in scope that contains the seeds of multiple good ideas (possible win scenarios) as well as clear failure points (reasons for tension to rise). There should be scenes of planning, early skirmishes/struggles, and a major climactic confrontation.

At the end, there is a trading-narrative-power mechanic (a clear nod to Fiasco).