Now this is a game that sounds like it's right up my alley! I wish it was released and not pending!
I’m writing the final sections of the final chapter presently (I’d hoped for the end of last year, but my day job conspired to make that impossible... still no more than two weeks to writing completion).
If you don’t mind giving feedback (especially what doesn’t work; that’s been the most help overall) after looking it over, shoot me a private message and I’ll get you a link to the playtest document so you don’t have to wait (the remaining section is basically how to build regions, realms, settlements, ruins and set up background campaign events... stuff experienced GMs can do themselves, but new ones might need help with... so it’s complete as a playable system for a non-newbie GM.
Goddamn, Chris! Your perspectives and sentiments embraced in your own game are very much similar to my own in Thandor. Awesome, and very nice, Chris. Get some! I think more writers and designers and DM's in general everywhere should do the same kind of thing.
It’s easy to be pessimistic/nihilistic and try to subvert the subversive or use naked caricatures of real people to basically turn your work into propaganda. But subversion just sinks you into the same mud as what you oppose and such caricatures come off as shallow and are quickly dated and therefore can be dismissed as irrelevant to the present day. Better to inspire and try and raise people experiencing the medium through your work up to something greater... to look at those tropes related to classic heroes and instead of subverting them, play them straight because these days that’s almost more shocking (but in a good way).
Most of these struggles, despite some new paint, are the same ones man has been having since civilization began. Who has the power and what will they do to keep it? Who wants the power and what are they willing to do to get it? And what does everyone do when someone comes along and overturns the foundations of power by actually giving voice to those who just want to be left in peace to raise their families and worship as their ancestors did?
Puppet leaders controlled by corrupt oligarchs? That’s as old as trade. Leaders demanding moral adherence to virtues they flout behind closed doors? For as long as there’s been leaders. Enslaving others using force and/or debt? Probably while we were still hunter-gatherers. Silencing opposition? Since the first voice rose against a leader. Declaring some thoughts taboo? Same.
Draw inspiration from the real world, but, unless you’re writing a documentary, you’re better served using themes because history has a way of repeating itself.
As an example...
A puppet leader of diminished mental capacity, ostensibly elected by the people but actually installed by crony oligarchs. A government that uses laws to enrich its members while trapping the common folk in debt slavery. A resistance leader with growing support of the common folk that the government is desperately seeking to destroy.
Am I describing Star Wars as described in the first novelization (where the Emperor was implied to be but a puppet)? Robin Hood? Modern politics? or a realm in my world called The Riverhold Republic?
That’s the value of broad strokes... it makes the story timeless because people are people regardless the year. For all the guff the prequels got, and the author’s original intent for the line c. 2005, “So this is how democracy dies; to thunderous applause” is as apt today as it was then.
In looking for an anti-Communist game, what you really need to find is one that embraces man’s struggles vs. tyranny because that’s all “communist” really is; a hat put on by certain tyrants to justify their injustices as “for the greater good of mankind/progress” rather than the power lust that always lies at the true heart of their actions.
You also need a system that encourages you to play heroic figures who oppose tyranny and not play the Stormtroopers or evil overlords. This could be through something like Dark Side Points in WEG Star Wars or by restricting access to species or classes that promote wickedness. For example; my system includes Diabolists (demon-magic) and Necromancers (undead) only in the NPC section of the GM’s Guide because, in the default setting, both are objectively evil acts that enslave the user’s free will... fine for NPC villains, but not for PC heroes (they’re balanced for PCs because someone will assuredly make their own world where demons and undead are not irredeemably evil and allow those to players... so making them NOT stupidly overpowered just because they’re intended for villains makes sense... you want a tougher Diabolist? Build them at a higher level).