featuring chuddy review by random chuds.
LORE 
"From the author of Cryptomancer comes SIGMATA: This Signal Kills Fascists, a cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game about ethical insurgency against a fascist regime, taking place in a dystopian vision of 1980's America.
Players assume the role of Receivers, the superheroic vanguard of the Resistance, who possess incredible powers when in range of FM radio towers emitting a mysterious number sequence called "The Signal." When the Signal is up, Receivers lead the charge against battalions of Regime infantry and armor or serve as the People's Shield, protecting mass demonstrations from the brutality of a militarized police force and neo-Nazi hooligans. When the Signal is down, however, Receivers are mere mortals, desperately fleeing from a powerful state that senses their weakness.
It's called the Sigmata, a Signal-induced stigmata, because it is a both a blessing and a curse. At least when you're marked by the state, you can't sit on the sidelines anymore.
-Construct your cybernetic revolutionary with a wide assortment of cybernetic implants, Signal-fueled superpowers, iconic equipment, and invokable story hooks.
-Leverage strong teamwork mechanics to prevail in structured scenes of combat, evasion, and intrigue, each scene putting every player at the table in the spotlight
-Manage a fragile alliance of partisans from vastly different ideological backgrounds and steel the Resistance against sabotage, extremism, dwindling morale, and shocking betrayals.
-Contend with the Regime in a constantly evolving political struggle powered by the game's built-in insurgency sandbox, which incorporates Resistance and Regime strategy, factional loyalty, and the sentiment of the people.
This Signal Kills Fascists. Repeat the Signal.
Content Warning: Explicit language and discussions/depictions of a political ideology centered around extreme bigotry.
Accessibility Warning: Unfortunately, this product is not well optimized for low-visibility customers at this time. We regret this misstep and encourage all game designers to incorporate accessibility into their designs.
Thematic Warning: This is a game about a fictional insurgency engaged in an armed conflict with a fascist state. It is a (cautious, methodical) study of violent insurrection, not a power-fantasy game about achieving social justice outcomes. There's nothing wrong with said games. It's just that this isn't one of them."
https://land-of-nop.itch.io/sigmata-this-signal-kills-fascists
Your characters aren't just masked vigilantes punching bank robbers and aliens, but the vanguard of a national revolutionary movement. It's not enough to kill the fascists, you need the people on your side to overthrow the evil Regime. Waging an ethical revolution – and not alienating the disparate factions that support you – is a very engaging concept with lots of potential for tough moral choices. But make no mistake, if you want to play superheroes who punch Nazis… this is your game. 
https://rpggeek.com/rpg/50154/sigmata
https://old.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/7hu1y1/ama_im_chad_author_of_cryptomancer_and_the/?context=8
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Ngl, the basic idea of an insurgent RPG is interesting, especially the idea of managing factionalism within the revolution itself.
The dynamic of conditional superpowers is intriguing, but I'm not sure what's stopping those marked by this Sigmata from just siding with the government. You'd imagine one or two people would side with the people who actually hold any power and can grant massive privileges.
!chuds !nonchuds Anyone with more experience in TTRPGs care to chime in?
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I wonder what would stop superhuman Übermemschen with racial superiority given to them by God from creating their own neofascist ethnostate
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Nothing
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That would be a more interesting game for sure
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Fascist receivers exist in the game, but they are antagonists and they don't spend too much time on them, just say that the regime pulls them out as a last resort.
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Literally me
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I do wonder whether, if the antifascist rpg had explicit factionalism mechanics for incentivising purity spirals so you went from punching nazis to punching the only thing worse than nazis - people who agree with you on almost everything except niche and arcane points of praxis that nobody outside your ideology even understands, redditors (derogatory) who played it would recognise the satire
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Solid maybe. There's a chance redditors would just not touch that part of the game.
In something like the TNO mod for Hearts of Iron 4, where several competing varieties of Wholesome 100 Anarcho-Communism were possible, I remember Redditors glossed over a lot of conflicts between
good 
factions.
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Wow I can already tell this is going to be very controversial and thought provoking, exploring many deep moral and philosophical questions such as when is the use of force justified or what is it really that makes me different from my enemies.
It absolutely won't present itself as an infantile powerfantasy built around a gimmick, or portray an opposition to the most hated group in modern history as something revolutionary and controversial
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Portraying fascism as an ideology that could be attractive to people is fascism apologia. It's always forced upon the masses by the tyrannical ruling class. If you can give one reason why people might gravitate towards authoritarianism, congrats, you're a punching target.
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Here comes the Resistance
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One of my favorite scenes from Mandalorian was when Werner Herzog complained about the rebels winning. This must be how he pictures them.
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I hate it already and it's in the first sentence.
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Darn those trees really do be looking tall
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Yeah, ok, but can I play as a disabled, Black-identifying, Native American (1/16), neurodivertgend asexual genderqueer demigirl in a transmasc afab body with FTM and MTF parents in a previously-transbian social union, who died by twitter fascist induced forced-suicide?
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You'll be rolling 300 dice every time you need a skillcheck with that character.
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!besties marsey sorcery itt
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Wow, literally every part of that sounds like shit.
So this rebellion has mass popular support, enough of a military to field literal battalions or infantry and ARMOR, and has literal superhumans leading it. How on Earth could they possibly be the underdogs here? How are their enemies not being completely steamrolled?
I hate to get all star-shitty, but this has the same surface-level problems as the Star Wars sequels. The "Resistance" on paper should be the dominant force, but aren't because the r-slur writing the story wanted the protagonists to be underdogs. IMO it sounds like this game would make more sense and potentially be more fun if the revolution had already succeeded and you had to simultaneously manage post-revolution power grabs by strategically purging certain elements of your government, fighting what's left of the old government, and suppressing potential breakaway states. Or even let you choose between playing the revolutionary government, the old government, or the different factions that arose during the war who want to subvert the current revolutionary government.
But no instead it sounds like the game just boils down to punch le heckin nazi chuds.
If that's in their official marketing they need to change it, Marvel and DC have a joint trademark on the term "superhero" lmao
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People who are attracted to stuff like this don't have thoughts in how to fix things, just desire to beat others up and be called a hero for it.
They want the moniker of "revolutionary hero" and the social power it holds, but they never ever want to sacrifice or be uncomfortable.
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The battalions and armor are in reference to the regime. The literal ubermensch are still with the resistance tho.
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Oh okay I'm r-slurred. But still, mass popular support defended by superhumans should be enough to topple the old regime in an afternoon. Even if they're exceptionally lucky with the superhumans losing power, the wheels of their army would spin out pretty quickly with no food, fuel, or ammunition being delivered on account of basically being in enemy territory at all times while fighting against a universally popular revolution.
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Ah but you've forgotten one very important thing - the resistance is universally comprised of terrible and unappealing people, so they don't actually have any mass support and any time they attempt to organise internal tensions will destroy them before the fascists can.
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All those words won't bring daddy back.
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I wonder if I can make ISIS in this game and declare a Jihad on american pigs
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Yes, you can. And, because Muslims are a minority group, you even get mechanical benefits for doing so!
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These things sound moderately interesting then I immediately lose all interest once I see that they had to slap like 42342342 content warnings on it to explain that neuroatypical parapalegic blind-deafs and Bodies of Mass may have difficulties playing their game if they lack digits on their fingers.
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"we're so sorry blind people can't see our work. Other developers, do better for them"
Dodging a bullet because of blindness. That's a new one.
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The underlying idea for the system itself (dice pool with fixed TNs but variable die size) ia actually pretty neat, but they immediately ruin it with the rest of the mechanics and fluff
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Regarding the podcast itself - I like Dice Scum. It's just a bunch of shut-in grognards with next to no social skills sperging about various RPG bullshit, and I admire the purity of their purpose. Very nice niche bullshit to put on in the background, flaws and all.
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Snapshots:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://land-of-nop.itch.io/sigmata-this-signal-kills-fascists:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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Oh I remember this game, Littlewars did a piece on it
https://littlewars.home.blog/2019/06/23/little-wars-episode-28-this-mongoose-kills-characters (bit starts at 38 minutes in case you don't want to sit through half an hour of bitching about Geedubs)
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So is it fun to play?
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