Social Democracy: An Alternate History by Autumn Chen
Playtime: 1 hour 14 minutes total (42 minutes for first playthrough)
This made me want to talk about:
- Something I think about a lot is this mental toy from George Saunders in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (his book on writing craft):
In the quoted section Saunders is focusing on sentence-level craft, and I agree, but I also find myself thinking about high-level features like plot as energy sources that make the reader keep reading. Consider a book where, despite other flaws, you keep reading because you are SO INVESTED in finding out “who done it”—that mystery is the energy source that keeps you reading. This can be applied to games, too, of course—what is it that keeps the player playing?
Social Democracy has one of the most powerful energy sources I can think of. This is the premise that has spawned a hundred time travel plots and a hundred AUs. Despite the fact that the opening of the game doesn’t even assign the player a goal (or even say what years the simulation will cover), I had the immediate, inescapable thought: I MUST TRY TO PREVENT HITLER FROM TAKING POWER. I suspect this response was pretty much universal among players.
On the positive side, this is a very powerful source of player engagement and motivation. A bit on the negative side, this concept is so powerful that during my repeat plays I found myself wondering, hmm, am I doing this because it it is *fun* / I’m *learning something* . . . or am I doing it to try to exorcise my personal political guilt (“can’t sleep until I’ve solved fascism”)?
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When I saw there was quite a bit of text describing the government system, parties, current polling, etc. to read before starting, I wondered if this game was going to be very big. But that’s not actually the case. The game is structured around drawing and playing a limited number of cards, which actually makes the choices available to the player pretty limited. This is very streamlined and easy to get into, although it means you don’t have the kind of granular control over the budget or each topic you might have in some simulator games. The “deck” also seems to (unless I’m missing something?) introduce an rng element (in that you might say, not get offered the “fundraising” card very quickly in one game, or you might not get offered the cards that let you coalition build). But overall this is a great frame for letting the player engage with a lot of choices (which is fun and feels impactful) without inflicting decision fatigue on the player by making them decide what part of a dashboard to fiddle with, etc.
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I could have used a short explanation of how to play on the first go-around. For example, although it seemed that generally you would be offered cards from the “government affairs” deck if the SPD controlled the government, but sometimes it seemed like I would be offered one during times we didn’t? Not sure if this had something to do with the presidency or chancellorship, which I definitely was not fully engaging with? Also, not clear to me why you can’t preview the cards in your hand before choosing one—the reason can’t be that you’re meant to be surprised because the same cards come up repeatedly in any one game, so it’s just an odd friction point that the first time every card comes up you have to choose it blind.
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This game was very effective in raising the moral issues that arise once one starts to think one should achieve a particular goal (here, stop the Nazi party) at any cost. Fascinating to observe myself applying exclusively that lens. (Hmm, perhaps I should militarize the Reichsbanner or else how will it contend against the SA, which is very militarized. Hmm, is there any value to engaging with the “women’s rights” card when I don’t think women’s rights would help reduce support for the NSDAP? Hmm, what demographics historically supported the NSDAP the most? How can I make the SPD more appealing to them, specifically?)
My fervent wish:
A simulator necessarily operates from a specific point of view and a specific set of assumptions about the results of various actions. And a historical simulator I think makes at least the implicit claim that its point of view and assumptions convey something real about the world. I would have liked a bit more visibility into the assumptions the game was operating from.
The background assumptions operating in Social Democracy about how different demographic groups would have reacted to different policies, how the economy would react to reforms, how other political parties would have reacted outreach, etc. are pretty opaque, which I guess makes it hard for me to feel like I can evaluate how much they correspond to real life.
This would be clunky, but I kindof wanted like, further reading offered after the game. “Hey, you spent a lot of time attempting to fix economic policy that playthrough. Here’s some sources addressing how Germany’s approach to unemployment during the Great Depression connected to the rise of the Nazi party” or “you kept trying to enter into a coalition with the Communists, here’s some articles or books about how the SPD and NSDAP interacted and competed with the Communists.”
To be clear, insofar as I can deduce the game’s message, it’s one I can agree with. (Mike Russo described this better, but something like “geez, preventing the rise of the Nazi party sure would have been hard, even for well-meaning, precognitive people.”) And, although I’m definitely not qualified to judge historical accuracy, the game certainly struck me as meticulously researched. I guess it just felt like one of the attractions was the feeling of learning about the historical period, and seeing a bit more behind the curtain would have helped me get that feeling more.
Considered from all angles, an addicting, compulsive political simulator that raises important ethical questions and “gamifies” interaction with a lot of interesting historical and political ideas. Definitely worth a few plays
Gameplay tips / typos
- There is a lot I still don’t understand about the gameplay mechanics, but if you are wondering what the impact of selecting specific ministries is after forming a government, it is that then the “government affairs” deck will contain a card about that topic—so only if you control the justice ministry will you get a card offering justice-related choices. Given the fact that you can only take one action per month, unclear to me if you may want to take fewer than the maximum number of ministries to increase the odds of drawing that ministry’s card more often.