Resistance is Required: the Protest Simulator

Resistance is Required is a “TTRPG about the fight toward “Collective Liberation” from an authoritarian regime that has taken over your city,” according to the game’s campaign page. Players will play leaders in a city who will need to organize against the local authorities in an attempt to combat fascism through unconventional means. Perhaps that’s through shooting fireworks off at a line of guards, organizing folks online or creating diversions that will allow them to enter into a building and screw with things.

According to game designer Daniel Baker-Zakala, the game draws on many real-life ideas. While the game claims that RiR is designed to just be a game, it’s hard to deny that the ideas described don’t resemble the protests of 2020 or any series of events. In fact, Baker-Zakala even implies that the knowledge presented in the game may be useful if someone decides to attend a protest.

TTRPG got to sit dow and talk with Baker-Zakala about how he got into TTRPGs, game design, where RiR came from and what it means in this politically tense environment.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity

TTRPG Insider: How did you get into TTRPGs?
Baker-Zakala: I got into RPGs in high school with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. I eventually went into Pathfinder and Fifth Edition. It ultimately became how I got back together with all my old friends after college, and we kept playing until 2020, when we couldn’t play any more due to COVID-19 and the pandemic. cause we couldn't play together anymore, [One-Shot Tavern co-host Andrew] and I felt a little bit more comfortable branching out and trying other systems. That’s how I got into Cypher, which is currently one of my favorite systems.

What got you into game design?
Baker-Zakala: I went with Andrew and a couple buds down to Gen Con in Indianapolis, and we're walking around and we ended up at the booth for Spencer Campbell’s Gala RPGs. He told me “You guys could do this.” I responded. “Yeah, maybe.” He looked at me and was like “No, you really can do this. Come up with an idea, workshop it, put it together and drop it in ZineQuest and see if you can raise money." He then pointed me toward Kickstarter, and I eventually launched my first book, Pink Security.

Where did RiR come from?
Baker-Zakala: It honestly started right when November 5th, the day after the 2024 election happened. I had to deal with my emotional state of what happened, because I knew there was a good possibility that Trump could win, even if it wasn’t the way I wanted it to go. But there was still this hope that Kamala could win. So I was sitting there over the next few days, and I was toying with some ideas in my head, because I've always been the type of person who is really into fighting against the government on anything they do. Just in general, I've always been kind of like a rebellious, punky, socialist kid.

Then I decided to work off that emotion. Andrew had the Entwine RPG system from his game Battle School, which is all about collaborative troupe-style game where you make decisions together and work towards that. It was perfect for a game about protesting trying to to make the world a better place, and overcoming fascism.

The game was also heavily inspired by Eat the Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard’s game about vampires being airdropped into France during WWII to take out the occupational forces there. It’s a great one-shot game, and so I wanted to try and adapt some of the concepts into making a long-term concept.

What sort of stories and gameplay is RiR designed to inspire?
Baker-Zakala: It's a game about building movements through coalition building. And so each of the player’s characters are an archetype, and they're commanding large groups, and they are essentially the leaders of the movement, and they make the decisions for the movement with the system.

The game is not about violence. It's about planned action and how you can use that planned action to subvert a fascist threat, whether it's sharing information about an approaching threat, or subverting a group’s goals. They’re doing so in tandem with a rising meter based on the idea of “Five Levels of Fascism.” (an academic paper published by historian Robert O. Paxton in 1998) Each threat gets worse and harder to overcome, so the players have to think or else risk getting stamped out.

Players can’t threaten to overtake the government via violence, but they also can’t wait it out and risk all of the potential allies either getting arrested or dispersed. It’s basically a question of how do you keep a movement going while resisting what the “Regime Master” (aka GM) is throwing against us.

The game’s design appears to reflect real protests, as compared to fictional revolutions like Star Wars or fantasy. How did you ensure that the material reflected reality?

Baker-Zakala: I’ve been inspired a lot by events worldwide over the last couple of decades here. You’ve the massive protests in France, you’ve the tens of thousands of people protesting in Georgia. Greece has been having a lot of unrest because there was a train derailment a couple of years ago, and the government said there would be systemic changes, only for it never to happen. I think, “If these people here are willing to revolt over train safety, what are Americans willing to revolt over?”

As someone with autism, I have been hyper-fixated on the topic of protests my entire life. I was interested in movements like the Black Panthers, Che Guevera, and other historical figures. But those personal studies informed the entire premise of the game.

Plotlines involving immigration or government revolt may be ones that some players may find uncomfortable. How are you as a game master balancing those potential limits?

Baker-Zakala: I don’t want people to role-play out real-life scenarios. They absolutely can, but they can play it as long as the group consensually agrees. While I find it inspirational and thought-provoking to draw on current events, I don't want people to be like, “The BBEG is Donald J. Trump.” It hits so close to home that I feel it clouds your judgment and decision-making abilities because real emotions are tied to this.

You can run this in an entirely fictional setting if you prefer because, in the end, you're still getting that exercise of learning to think critically about opposing overbearing government power. I can see people making it a very real thing. There's going to be bleed and bleed in games can be pretty rough on your mental health if you are not taking care of that properly with safety tools.

There may be some who find the concept of RPing out political resistance a waste of time and that people should be actually going out there and “doing the work.” What’s your thoughts on this?

Baker-Zakala: RiR is supposed to be a fun way to think about these things and translate them into real life because if you run into a protest unprepared about handling things like cell phones or personal safety, it might be detrimental to you. A lot of the game’s content draws on real-life protesting tips.

I want people to be prepared so that even if they're just going to a local protest that gets a little out of hand, they’ll be prepared.

Resistance is Required is expected to be released by Fall 2025. After the campaign is over, the book will likely be sold through DrivethruRPG and available at select conventions.

You can learn more about DJ and his ot her projects at BeezeeRPGs.com