Steel City Strike (campaign concept)

Steel City General Strike (Mouse Guard + Burning Empires)

What's the Big Picture? The Great War is over, and the port city which has grown around the industry of building steel warships is changing. Strict wage control during the war had been a necessity, but now, in a new era of peace and prosperity, the capitalists are unwilling to grant pay increases to the legion of steel workers in the city. Ten percent of the city’s populace, members of more than one hundred labor unions, begin to organize a general strike. And the industrial leaders refuse to negotiate, calling for federal troops to clamp down on suspected Bolshevik activities.

What's the world's culture? Parallels to the Seattle general strike in February 1919. Strikes in the previous months to protest U.S. aid sent to the White Russians engaged in the Civil War. The city's culture is mired in expansive industrial growth but limited comforts for a hard working & under compensated workforce.

What's the conflict in which the characters are involved? What are the sides? What's wrong? The characters are social activists, union organizers, communist sympathizers, Bolshevik instigators, even industrialist spies or saboteurs. Workers versus the capitalist bosses. Wage controls were in place during the Great War to assist the effort of building war ships, but now the war is over & the workers expect pay raises.

What physical place does this conflict take place in? What ecology, environment, place? The streets of Steel City, particularly the industrial district along the waterfront where the workers live, most of them never seeing the sun overhead, inside the printing press rooms of union offices and the bar rooms of local haunts and on the street corners where newspaper boys announce the latest headlines.

What's the name of the most important place in this setting? Belltown: a working-class neighborhood of cheap hotels, busy bars, labor union meeting halls, and lively dance halls.

What's the name of a faraway place that folks talk about, dream about or mutter under their breath about? Moscow: a place where the dream of socialism has taken root. And Paris: a place where expat Americans live & write about a new world order.

Who are the antagonists? Who is opposing the goals of the characters? The Capitalist Bosses & the Weasels who work for them to enforce the status quo.

Imagine all of the characters are standing a room/ruin/field with the antagonists or their minions. What do the antagonists want from that meeting? What do the characters want from that meeting? The antagonists want the characters to disband the labor unions and continue working as before. But the characters want change and a new order of society where decisions are made by the proletariat masses rather than the moneyed capitalists.

Alternately, imagine the characters standing at the scene of some great disaster or calamity clearly caused by one of the antagonists. What's the disaster? How did it happen? What are the characters going to do about it right now?A labor union meeting hall is looted by drunken sailors looking for cash, a rumor spread by capitalist saboteurs hanging out in dockside bars on a Saturday night. The characters can confront the sailors, trying to engage them in a duel of wits to convince them of the true struggle or stop them with plain violence.

What type of magic exists in this world? The magic of technology where international communication is only a few clicks away, where leaflets are printed and handed out on street corners to instigate labor rallies, where faith in science trumps all superstitions of the past. But, some still resort to mystic arts in pursuit of truth and justice.

What character races are in play in this world? Workers (mice?) as the proletariat, working quiet lives of desperation in the factories, shipyards, and bar rooms of Steel City, ready to support a new social order. Weasels as the capitalists, living large in their mansions on the hill and smoking their cigars, wanting to build on the profits made during the Great War.

What cultural traits apply to the characters of this game world? Pick three character traits for each culture.
Workers: hopeful, democratic, ordinary.
Weasels: established, superior, ruthless.

What's your Resources cycle? Fortnight, two weeks, is the usual pay period for shipyard workers. Rooms are rented by the fortnight. The only shift off for a worker is the morning after pay day. Three stages as in Burning Empires: Propaganda, Planning, and General Strike. Similar scene structure with epic scale maneuvers modified by character scenes.

Material world: What weapons and armor are available? Are some weapons and armor restricted to certain cultures or character stocks? What property is available? Are resources and gear otherwise restricted? Weapons are limited to baseball bats & meat hooks for the Workers. The police carry batons, the army carry rifles & side arms. The workers make Molotov cocktails & one might carry a pistol. Few workers own vehicles of any kind, and the streets are crowded more with carriages than with automobiles.