Satanic Mills

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S ATANIC M ILLSa horror game of alienated labor


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Satanic Millsa game by Mark Vallianatos > playtest draft Sep 2007

All is under the sway of inhuman power - K. Marx

An inhuman power hums in the shuttles and valvesof a 19th century English factory town. An alienpower that lies congealed in the cloth and steelmanufactured there. A hostile power that twistsbone, robs children of their youth, and turnsneighbors against neighbors. It is moreterrifying than any unholy spirit, slithering life-

form or doomsday device because this horror isreal, grounded in social relations. It is alienationand it is generated anew each shift as men, women,and children toil at the machines.

Satanic Mills is a game about the production of alienation and the destruction of human lives. It isbased on Karl Marxs theory of alienation as

expressed in his Economic and Philosophicalmanuscripts of 1844. Marx believed thatworkers in capitalist societies are separated fromwhat should be meaningful in their lives and that

what is stolen fuels their exploitation. Heidentied four linked kinds of alienation.

People are alienated from their labor, since workis not done to fulll workers human needs andcreativity but to meet the external agenda of theowner. Workers are also alienated from the

products of their labor, which prot capitalists andemerge as commodities that the worker must buy.Workers are alienated from other people, withexchanges of money and commodities warpingsocial relationships. People are nally alienatedfrom their species being, since exploitative labordisplaces meaningful productive activity subverting one of the main activities that makes

us human. Alienation, forged in Satanic Mills, willinexorably damage the lives of the gamescharacters, with you serving as both victim andexecutioner.

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By default, characters in Satanic Mills are workers inan industrial town sometime in the 19th century. Eachplayer will make one character. Players pick theircharacters gender and age (between 8 and 50 in thedefault factory town setting) and choose a name. Allplayers can collectively choose one industry that theircharacters are employed in. If players wish, they canspecify their characters job.

Players then write down four positive aspects of theircharacters person or their life, one for each type of alienation. These are conditions, talents, or possessionsthat characters are proud of and happy about.

At least one positive aspect must connect to at leastone other character. For example, two characters couldbe siblings, naming each other as their other peopleaspects. Or a character could have baking as theircreative talent (with fresh eggs purchased from acharacter who keeps chickens as their products aspect).

Jim, Joshua, Judson and Mark sit down to play SatanicMills. They decide to make a family of four who allwork at the same textile mill.

Jim creates the father, Charles Cooper, 35:Labor aspect: strong hands

Products of labor: ne smoking pipeOther people: wife and I are still in love

Species being: plays piano down at the pub

Joshua designs the mother, Henrietta Cooper, 28:Labor aspect: deft ngers

Products of labor: china hutchOther people: darling children

Species being: suffragette pamphleteer

Judson creates the 8 year old daughter Drusilla:Labor aspect: optimistic

Products of labor: china dollOther people: grandpaSpecies being: singing

Mark designs Andrew, the 11 year old son:Labor aspect: cheery smile

Products of labor: toy soldiersOther people: my friends

Species being: invent games

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> Labor aspect : a positive physical or mental trait, suchas a good memory, pleasant smile, strong arms, etc.> Products aspect : a positive possession or nancialstatus such as a ne tea set, chickens kept for eggs, a yardwith natural light, etc.> Other people aspect : a positive social relationship suchas married going on ten years to Elizabeth, youngest son

Harry (the apple of my eye), deacon at church, etc.> Species aspect: a creative talent or hobby such assinging, breeding pigeons, reading penny novels, etc.

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After making characters, choose and note downseveral locations around town. This list of loca-tions will give players ideas on where to set thegames scenes. The factory is always a location.Each player chooses one additional location. Somepossibilities include workers dwellings, thecharity hospital, a capitalist s mansion, a church,etc.

Players decide how long they want to play. Thelarger the alienation grid on character sheets is, thelonger the game will take. If players prefer a shortgame, they should draw a square on the grid sothat each side of the square is two steps away from

the center point. For a game of medium length,players can limit the grid to three steps on eachside. For a longer game, players can keep the gridas it is, set at four steps from center.

Players choose a busy street corner, a vacantlot, a tavern, and the railroad tracks as theirsample locations.

The players decide they want a medium lengthgame so they draw squares three steps away fromthe center point.

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The game is played in scenes. Players take turnsframing scenes that: (1) involve their character(and usually other characters); (2) are set in one of the games locations; (3) and place the charactersin the scene at risk to suffer the consequences of at least one of the four types of alienation. Scenesshould be framed (set up) so that characterspositive aspects are at risk of being damaged, sincethese aspects are visible symbols of how alienationharms. The player framing the scene says who ispresent in the scene. Players always control theirown characters. If there are other personspresent in the scene (for example, a bossberating his employees) then the framing playerasks a player who does not have their character inthe scene to control the supporting cast. As a gen-eral rule, it works well to have all players but onecontrol their own characters in a scene.

The lead player also chooses one player to de-termine the consequences of the scene to playalienation, as it were. This ideally should be aplayer who is not controlling their own character

in the scene but in scenes where all charactersare involved any player other than the framingplayer can be chosen to decide how alienationimpacts the character.

Jim states that the scene takes place on the streetcorner where Henrietta is passing out her suffrag-ette literature. Charles arrives to tell her that theirdaughter is sick at home and ask Henrietta to takeDrusilla to the charity doctor. Jim and Joshua arethe players in the scene controlling Charles andHenrietta respectively.

Jim taps Mark to decide the consequences.

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After roles are assigned, players role-play thescene for a brief period, until the player whoframed the scene is satised that characters riskand potential alienation have been addressed.

Jim/Charles: Ive been looking everywhere foryou. Drusillas fever has returned. She is burningup and making the most dreadful whimpers.Joshua/Henrietta: Have you given her a coldcompressCharles: My shift starts soon so you need to hurryhome to take the poor dear to Doctor Barnaby.Henrietta: But Charles, my own shift starts soonafter. You know that there are whispers in thefactory that I am an agitator. I cannot given themthe smallest excuse to re me because I knowthey will put me out if I am a minute late. You arein better with the bosses. If you send Andrew toinform the foreman that you are at the clinic, I amcertain that they will just dock your pay this time.Charles: Perhaps if you spent less time stirringup trouble with those broadsheets then you wouldhave had time to attend to your daughter and nei-

ther of us would be in this spot.Henrietta: (raising voice) At least my efforts havea chance of reducing the power bosses like Mr.Guilford have over humble people like us! I smellthe stink of gin on your breath again- what hopedo your hours in the tavern offer to our family?Charles: (noticing passers by start to gather andlisten to the argument) This one time, I will take

her. But you must hurry home right after yourshift. The girl needs her mother!


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Then the player in charge of alienation describesthe lasting consequences that character(s) suffer.This player must choose at least one character inthe scene and say how the character becomes morealienated in one of the four types of alienation andhow the relevant positive aspect is harmed. Theplayer in charge of alienation may cause multiplecharacters in the scene to each become morealienated in one type of alienation if the playerthinks that the outcome of the scene impacts morethan one character. The player in charge of alien-ation for the scene should remember that there aremultiple steps along each alienation track. The rststep towards alienation should not result in thecomplete loss of positive aspects. Whendescribing the impacts of alienation, playersshould leave room for misery and alienation tobuild.

Mark gets to summarize the alienating impactsof the scene. He considers that two of Henriettaspositive aspects were on the line in this scene:darling children since her daughter was sick andsuffragette pamphleteer since her husband wasberating here for passing out literature. Mark,however, decides that only Charles suffers last-ing alienation from the argument. Mark says thatby swallowing his pride, Charles begins to resentHenrietta, weakening his positive aspect wife andI are still in love.

> Alienation from labor (L) is tracked verticallyabove the center point. It produces morticationof the body and mind.> Alienation from the products of labor (P) is measuredvertically below the center point. It producespowerlessness and poverty.> Alienation from other people (OP) is trackedhorizontally to the right of center. It produces

distrust, solitude and conict.> Alienation from species being (S) is measuredhorizontally to the left of center. It produces animality andin-authenticity


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The graph on the character sheet provides a visualtrack of how strongly character are affected by thefour types of alienation. Alienation is measured bydistance from the center (zero point) of the graph.The further a characters alienation points are fromthe center, the more that character is stretchedfrom who they are as an authentic, creative, socialhuman being. At the close of every scene, playerswhose character were alienated by the scene movethe impacted type of alienation one further fromthe center.

Once a character hits the edge when one typeof alienation is moved to the outer limits of thealienation grid (set at 2, 3, or 4 steps from center),their nal alienation is revealed. The shape formedby their alienation line(s) provides guidance on the

characters downfall. Unlike during scenes, play-ers narrate their own characters nal destiny. Thegame ends when all characters nal alienationhave been described.

Since his character was alienated, Jim draws a dotone space further towards the edge in the alien-ation from other people direction of the graph onCharles character sheet.

Jims character Charles has hit the limit of thealienation grid along the other people axis. He alsohas two steps of alienation in the labor aspect. Jimconsults the list of characters destinies and seesthat a triangle between people and labor meansindicates that a character is harmed by labor strife(or the repression of worker activism). Jim thinks amoment, then tells the other players how Charles,partially to impress his wife, joins an inner circleof a labor union planning a work slowdown at hisfactory. When a traitor tips off the owners, Charles

and the other leaders are rounded up, beaten, and jailed. When Henrietta fails to visit him, Charles(unaware that he is being kept in isolation) givesup on both his job and his marriage, a broken man.


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> If the shape is a line or slender triangle point-ing up (with labor as the most signicant form of alienation) then your character is physically in-

jured and/ or psychologically damaged by danger-ous, repetitive labor.> If the shape is a line or slender triangle point-ing right (with the strongest alienation being fromother people), then your character is overcome byloneliness, hate, or misunderstanding.> If the shape is a line or slender triangle pointingdown (towards products of labor), then your char-acter suffers abject poverty, homelessness, and/orhoarding or obsession with certain commodities.> If the shape is a line or slender triangle pointingleft (towards species nature) then your charactergives in to thoughtless, animalistic urges (intoxica-tion, gorging, sexual degradation).

> If the shape is a vertical line or chevron reachingtowards both labor and products, then your charac-ter is harmed by work and the products of industry,such as being poisoned by defective medicine totreat a workplace injury.> If the shape is a horizontal line or chevron link-ing people and species, then your character sufferssocial damage by becoming a pariah, isolatingthemselves, or otherwise losing all meaningfulsocial contacts.> If the shape is a wedge in the upper right of thegraph, between labor and people, the character isembroiled in and harmed by labor related strife.> If the wedge is in the upper left between laborand species then the character suffers from a lossof creativity, the extinguishing of joy and freedom.> If a wedge is in the lower right between peopleand products then the character is harmed by so-cial inequality and accompanying resentment.> If a wedge is in the lower left between productsand species then consequences range from toadishsubmission to superiors to snarling rebellion.

> Finally, if the shape is a triangle with threenearly equal sides or an almost-square, then youcan weave in elements of three or four types of

alienation.


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Satanic Mills draws, crudely and selectively, fromKarl Marxs Economic and Philisophical Manu-scripts of 1844 and Bertell Ollman s Alienation:

Marx s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society ,1975.

The game was written for a compact rpg challengeon the theme of technological horror run on theForge website in mid 2006. Rules at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20302.0Results at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=21776.0 Thanks to Tony for initiatingthe challenge and Ken for organizing the voting.

Thanks to Joshua BishopRoby, Judson Lester, andJim Pinto, who play-tested the game and helpedcome up with a number of improvements. For ex-ample, in my rst draft of Satanic Mills, only thecharacter of the framing player could be alienatedby a scene. Our play test game showed that it wasmore fun to have multiple characters at risk.

The game was inuenced by Ben Lehmans rpgPolaris, which I played two days before writingSatanic Mills. Thanks for the doom.

The photograph used on the covers is A littlespinner in the Mollahan Mills, Newberry, S.C.,taken in 1908 by Lewis W. Hine. Courtesy of theLibrary of Congress.

Finally, this game is dedicated to the memory of Stephanie Routman, a friend of my wife.Stephanie died in March 2007. In 2003, shedirected Sarah Daniels play Gut Girls at Cal StateFullerton. The production, about female workersin Victorian-era slaughterhouses, has stuck in mymind ever since, and inuenced Satanic Mills.

If you try this game, Id welcome feedbackand will acknowledge playtsters. Email me [email protected]. Thanks in advance.


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Player name >

Character name >

Age >Gender >Industry >Position >

Locations in town> factory>>>>>

Effects of alienation> Alienation from labor (L) producesmortication of the body and mind.> Alienation from the products of labor (P)produces powerlessness and poverty.> Alienation from other people (OP)

produces distrust, solitude and conict.> Alienation from species being (S) producesanimality and in-authenticity.

Positive AspectsLabor >

Products >People >Species >

Alienation graph

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Satanic Mills character sheet > print or copy one for each player


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The alienation of the worker from his product does not only mean thathis labor becomes an object, an external entity, but also that itexists outside him, independently, as something alien, that it turns intoa power on its own confronting him, that the life which he has given tohis product stands against him as something strange and hostile

> K. Marx

Satanic Mills

Documents

Transcript of Satanic Mills