Gamocles is a role-playing game centred around your characters (referred to as Agents, or PCs), trained individuals set to carry out missions in a world like our own only with a key difference. In the Earth of Gamocles, in 2073, the people have actually realised their power and to a large degree, managed to topple the existing power structures, bringing forth new ones that have enabled them to begin discovering their potentials. In ways both tangible and intangible, your characters will belong to groups explicitly politicised, and will have been upbrought within social, political, and magical traditions that have shaped their ways of interacting with their worlds.
But, doesn’t this stand true already, for our world? Of course, it’s true. Only we are so hell-bent on individualism and person-centric, liberal explanations for history and society, that when someone needs to point out that, you know, you’re not as much of an individual as it’d serve capitalism, they need to make it so clear, so explicit, that it’d be better off as an urban fantasy RPG.
On the other hand, for the people that will find something to identify with Arereg, Baarloch, and other factions of the likes, the ones that have flirted a bit too much with free will = free market rhetorics, we got something in store for them too. You get to try to kill these filthy commies your boomer ass has been wet-dreaming about and in the process prove that their world sucks as well, that their machines can't keep churning out shit without repercussions. Existence is inherently flawed and whatever. Plus, you get to do it with a dragon. Or dragons. Or maybe marble titans carrying democratic maces. Or if you’re not the kind of violent an-cap, neoliberal edgelord, if you’re more to the reformist, “debates and representation solve issues” kind of person, go ahead and have a philosophical debate on individual agency under colonial violence with a Samoan wereshark pirate on an aircraft carrier, mounted on a Hellfire missile that functions as a surfboard. Let’s see how that pans out for you.
This is what differentiates Gamocles RPG from other RPGs that belong in the broader genre of cyberpunk or urban fantasy. We know of very few that have gone beyond the inevitability of capitalism and have showcased its contingent historical status as a mode of production and the governance of it. We hope that through this game, our readers will experience potentialities and historical possibilities, that while dressed in arcane and technophile attires, they very much have been written after years’-long deep dives into history, political theory, and economics, with the sole purpose to craft stories that reach through the current state of things.
As turbulent and flowing history is, it looks like it remains static and well-founded to the individual observer. If our players have anything to gain from this book, let it be this: the world of Gamocles is what our world can be, only with fireballs. Whether that possibility is a good one… we don't really know. Before you call it a dystopia, read up on its history, ponder as to why things are the way they are, and then look around you. Mostly towards Balkan history, the genocide of Palestine, Darfur, the Apartheid, US interventionism in South America, the history of Maori rights, and the economic chokehold on the peoples of the seas around China; find the common denominator and fight it or for it, in 2073, hand in hand with a talking T14 Armata that likes hazelnut butter.
Gamocles the RPG is mostly focused on the events after the discovery of Thoughtforms, specifically in 2073. All factions, and most surviving nations have agents within the Gamocles Nexus, and absolutely all factions and surviving nations have an interest to do so. The degree to which their objectives align with yours, is completely up to you. As not all US citizens of the 2020s are hyper-nationalist, imperialist oafs, thus not all CWCS Agents need be completely aligned with Marxism-Leninism and its arcane footnotes; at least not more than they need to so as to be accepted, trained, and function as representatives of their handlers’ interests.
Within this book you will find information on the world in 2073 and its history up to that point, details about the Gamocles Nexus, 3 different game modes to experience the world of Gamocles, rules for Agent and Crew creation, rules about tactics, training, and combat, rules on magic and the crafting endeavours that bind it, an armoury, deep, native intel into adversary groups, a sample scenario, points/hooks for an episodic campaign, and what we call a warfront.
And if you wanna lose your life, remember: some regimes would charge you 85$ for a corpse transport. Will you be paying up front?
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