A rebel at heart and an educator, this set of rules came at the right time for the topic on Deviance in Psychology and Values, Mores and Norms in Sociology. What better way to have these concepts come to life than in a game that each student could play as a character, and try with feedback from others. I love the layout and how easily this is portable. Learning is not as quick for someone without RPG experience and in a limited time class. RPG has been an escape and this title and engine has made it come to live, and has assisted in the sharing of knowledge, as well as helping others into the field of RPG.

I wrote a playtest review last year.

SIGMATA is a very focused game that delivers on its premise of radio-powered cyborgs fighting against a fascist regime. However, this strong focus may limit the game's applicability outside of that concept.

Having said that, I can see a Rebellion Era or Rogue One Star Wars game employing SIGMATA's engine. It can handle an all-Jedi game and a no-Jedi one - just don't use subroutines or reskin them into professional abilities, equipment, etc.

Chad Walker released Repeat the Signal, which, according to the blurb, includes rules for regular humans and hacking the game. It also "dramatically improves the core SIGMATA experience, effectively upgrading it to a 2nd edition". I don't know if this supplement addresses any of the minor issues in this review, though.

In summary, SIGMATA is a good game. It's also extremely relevant in our current situation. Plus, Chad Walker seems like a good person with a decent work ethic - things that, nowadays, should be highlighted. And supported.

Cryptomancer is reverse ShadowRun: a fantasy world reshaped by the invention of magitek Internet, with a ruleset that's lighter and actually playable. Making the monster races playable and relatable is very timely, and I look forward to future volumes.

The kind of fantasy setting I was looking for! The peculiar take of Cryptomancer on high fantasy ttrpgs felt really needed, the gaming tips are spot-on and applicable to every game out there, and the starting city is so dynamic and vivid that it's been the starting point for many an adventure. An absolute must in my humble opinion.

I'm supporting this game in the name of free speech: the right to criticize the establishment without fearing for one's life, not the right to be a bigot without facing consequences.

I appreciate the revisions that bring expanded clarity and context to the game's intent and mechanics.

It's really damn good. Clearly written with expertise. The character creation could be a bit more guided for inexperienced roleplayers and a few more example boxes couldn't have hurt, together with tightening some of the writing and formatting to make a clearer distinction where to find specific rules, but it plays like a blast and manages to make one hell of a statement along the way. The faction and campaign mechanics especially are a great way of making players worry about which mission they want next without drowning them in overly complex rules, and I can easily see them being adapted for other settings.

Sigmata: This Signal Kills Fascists

GMed for five players over four sessions.

Well, it’s certainly got an original pitch: Radio-powered cyborg revolutionary supers fighting a fascist US government in an alternate-history 1986 where the Red Scare never ended.

Too bad that with all the tremendous world building (and gorgeous full-color art), Sigmata falls flat at the table with a clunky, unsatisfying system that splits the difference between modern storytelling and trad crunch and overwritten prose with terrible art direction that make the book a chore to actually use.

First, the good.

Theme. Sigmata is a supers game like few others. 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.

Dice. The basic dice rolling mechanic is elegant and simple. You always roll five dice, 6+ are successes. The higher your attribute, the more d10s your roll. The rest are d6s. Successes win the player narrative control, while failures win the GM narrative control. It’s so good that I’m totally stealing it – too bad what happens AFTER the dice are rolled is so clunky.

Basic Moves. The game breaks encounters into three types of “structured” scenes – combat, evasion, and intrigue. Each comes with an excellent handout to track player and enemy progress. (PRO TIP: Print and laminate these or prepare to erase A LOT.) Characters choose one of four moves to either damage the enemy, protect themselves, or aid allies. Rounds move quickly and picking moves soon becomes second nature, making space for the fiction.

Gear. Wisely, Sigmata eschews choosing equipment, encumbrance, or money. If it’s reasonable for a PC to have a MAC-10, a 1983 Dodge Caravan, or a top hat full of peanut butter, they simply have it.

Atmosphere. Much of Sigmata’s word count is dedicated to worldbuilding, emphasizing the challenges of existing in a pre-internet world: chain letters, BBSs, and phone phreaking all get discussed. For those of us who were alive in the ‘80s, this may feel unnecessary, but it is appreciated. Much ink is spilled on the now of 1986, leaving the post-1960 timeline vague. Hints are dropped about the origin of the Signal itself (the CIA adapting alien tech gets my bet) but nothing concrete is ever revealed.

Art. It also bears repeating that the Akira-inspired color artwork is both gorgeous and perfectly communicates the setting, theme, and tone of the world. Now, the bad.

Overlong. This book clocks in at a beefy 331 pages and it could easily loose half of that. Every description is overwritten – why give one example when three will do? Rules are scattered among disparate chapters buried amid the fluff. (Even Games Workshop codices observe that separation of church and state.) How about a quick reference for character creation? A list of powers and effects? Nope. Even the character sheet is depressingly light on mechanics.

Organization. Imagine a RPG book in 2018 without an index or a glossary – just a handful of cryptic chapter titles like “Operating System” (basic dice rolling) and “Cybernetic Vanguard” (character creation). As GM, I created my own three page play-aid and 20-entry glossary to keep book checks to a minimum. This thing is absolutely drowning in jargon. There are few paragraph breaks, no sidebars, little italicized or bolded text, and few charts, just long uninterrupted blocks of text, making picking out play mechanics frustrating.

Awkward mechanics. Sigmata is an awkward mix of trad crunch and modern storytelling game.

In addition to four Core Processors (attributes), PCs pick two Blades (cyberware – shouldn’t that be Expansion Cards?), several Subroutines (superpowers), an Ultimate Subroutine (super-duper powers), a memory (flashback), several libraries (personality traits/skills), and three peripherals (signature gear) -some combination of which could be used in a single roll - and all of which have subtly different mechanical effects. All of this crunch is ultimately in service of winning narrative control of the fiction like a story game. Running the structured scenes were neat, but wading through all those options to determine the outcome of a single die roll is frustrating.

As one of my players put it, “There are just too many dials on this thing.”

Play balance. Encounter balance was tough to judge – even without the Signal, my players steamrolled what the book defined as a “balanced” encounter. Later, in a more compromising situation, faced with even stiffer opposition, they activated multiple Ultimates and laid waste to waves of Fist.

In conclusion, in spite of its evocative art and worldbuilding, appealing basic dice rolling mechanic, and unapologetically leftist slant on the superhero RPG, Sigmata was a frustrating experience to run and just felt unsatisfying at the table.

Bashing the fash in 2018 should feel good. It’s too bad Sigmata’s punches just don’t connect.

Sigmata is a really powerful game to have in the current climate thematically, but the fact it's an absolute blast to play definitely doesn't hurt. Very simple to pick up, 100% recommended

Short version: excellent fast-paced game for playing rebels fighting a totalitarian government alongside hated allies. Definitely not a general RPG, and definitely not tame on subject matter. Extremely political in themes.

Now the long version:

Recent political events have brought fascism, Nazism and other serious topics into the forefront of modern society. So it was only a matter of time before fiction and games started to hit what is culturally relevant for this time.

Sigmata is a tabletop game of anti-fascist politics and insurgent strategy. Taking place in an alternate universe 1980s, the United States has taken anti-communist paranoia and American jingoism to its natural conclusion, and transformed into a totalitarian state where "un-American" behavior is a crime, and minorities of all stripes keep their heads down in fear of a police state that takes joy in their suffering. From there the setting takes a fantastic twist. A government experiment called Project Sigmata succeeded at creating the Signal; a pseudo-supernatural data pattern that, when transmitted via radio waves, can transform select electronic devices and human beings into supernaturally-powered metal components and cyborg superhumans respectively. Now hunted by the Regime trying to exploit your existence or hide it from the public, you have little choice but to join the Resistance that hopes to topple the government in revolution and restore freedom to the nation.

First I'll talk about the mechanics of the game, then the central element of the setting; the so-called "Signal". One interesting thing to note is that the game mechanics operate on two scales: the tactically-scaled "Operating System" which acts as the core mechanics of the game during play, and the strategically-scaled (and aptly-named) Strategic Phase that monitors the progress of the campaign overall.

The core system of the game is an interesting one, as it combines high-level abstraction with narrative-driven resolution mechanics. The fundamental dice roll of the game (much like it's predecessor Cryptomancer) is a pool of five dice: a number of d10s equal to the "Core" (the name for this game's attributes) you are using, along with an amount of d6s to bring your total pool to 5. All rolls of 6 or higher are considered a success, while all rolls of 1 are botches which subtract a success. If the net total exceeds 0 (which isn't particularly hard), you have succeeded to some degree. If the result is negative or 0, you have failed. Of interesting note is that the pool itself cannot be modified by factors external to your Cores; modifiers may affect the final result, but these all take place after you roll. Ultimately this gives the game a decent simplicity, as there's no need to remember pool adjustments. Instead, various character powers and traits positively affect your result after the dice land, allowing you to ignore botches, double the successes of 10s, add free successes, or any number of other benefits. All this comes at the caveat that you must work the implant (known as Blades), superpower (known as Subroutines), skill, memory or equipment into the narrative description of your success. And true to newer game trends, narrative control falls either entirely on the player if they succeed, or entirely on the GM if they fail.

Of interesting note is the flow of play in the game. To simplify work for the GM, they make no rolls and track no attributes. Instead, the GM adds a fixed quantity of exposure (the game's analog of hit points) depending on the scene type (evasion, combat or intrigue) and degree of opposition faced. Then the players use their turns to respond or negate those effects with their actions. Exposure is capped at 10, and if any PC's exposure remains at 10 at the end of a round (as in after every player has taken an action and just before the GM takes his next move), they are taken out of the scene in some way... captured, injured, whatever. Players may get a second wind and jump back into the fight with an action called Rebooting, but that character then spends the rest of that scene and the next one at risk of being permanently removed from the campaign. Thus, PC death effectively rests in the hands of the players, and its up to them at any point whether or not they wish to risk it. That so much of the tactical play rests in the hands of the players not only reduces the workload that sits on the GM's shoulders, it alleviates GMs of many of the common complaints that players often have... whether it be that they have too many good rolls, or that they're being too lethal.

The strategic ops of the game are interesting in that they have broader mechanics that the players have indirect control of, and provide gauges and scores that help the players understand the status of the war effort. This makes the effects of the campaign very visible to players in an obvious and readable way, rather than relying solely on the descriptive talents of the GM running the game. Another neat feature is that players choose their missions rather than GMs (with the exception of choosing what the Regime does in each Strategic Phase, which still happens at the GM's behest). The play structure of the game lends itself well to improv missions rather than pregenerated or designed ones. GM's mostly need to set the scene and define objectives, while the players will largely control events from there. It makes for a very comfy game behind the screen, and a fast-flowing and frenetic game on the other side.

One thing I'm learning very recently is that the structure of the game lends itself well to play-by-post. Since players retain narrative control on successes (and they will succeed on most rolls), and the game's explicit use of exposure and progress trackers, it's pretty easy to let the players take most of the reins during play and just sit back to watch the madness happen. So long as their descriptions don't contradict the trackers and mechanics (they don't declare an NPC dead that hasn't hit max exposure, or don't claim a bonus they didn't work into their narration), they're fine and need little babysitting. And if you're playing on a forum or asynchronously in a chat, that's a godsend for easy play.

Now we'll talk about the force that creates the game's namesake: the Signal. Land of NOP's previous game Cryptomancer utilized metaphor to teach infosec concepts to laymen, turning fun and fantasy into educational symbology. The developer continued this idea with the Signal, a metaphorical superpower-creating radio signal that represents the information feeds and internet connections that sustained rebellions during the Arab Spring, or were suppressed to topple similar rebellions in China. Much like in these real world rebellions, the existence of the Signal and retention of the feed puts the Regime in a weakened position and forces them to remain on the defensive; when the Signal goes down, the Regime becomes free to crack down hard, with the player characters becoming powerless used as a metaphor for when media blackouts give tyrannies liberty to use excessive force and violence to smother resistance.

This, combined with the strategic elements of the game, is intended to teach players the complexities of managing a contemporary rebellion, and why revolutionaries often ally themselves with unsavory folks. In many ways, it's a contemporary take on the plot of Star Wars (complete with seemingly supernatural powers and cyborgs) which does not shy away from the gruesome aspects of rebellion and paint the rebels as saints and martyrs. You'll be allied with religious fanatics, self-serving businessmen, disgruntled war vets and Soviet apologists... and you have to figure out for youselves how you stick to your ethics while preventing your revolution from falling apart at the seams.

Trust me, after a game of this you'll fully understand why the Founding Fathers joined up with slavers, French nobles and German mercenaries.

Now this game might not prove enjoyable for everyone. The book is chock full of trigger warnings, and for good reason. This game deals with racism, sexism, bigotry of all sorts, and especially fascists and Nazis. If these topics bother you either because you are offended by things that address them directly, or because you think these are things that are exaggerated too much in modern society, you will not enjoy this game. The writer clearly does not see Nazis as a harmless presence, but an imminent threat to modern society that he is trying to warn you about the dangers of. It does not pretend to be apolitical, and it does not pretend to have no agenda. This is entertainment for education's sake, not entertainment's sake... and at no point does it claim otherwise. You have been warned, and the book will warn you again.

Overall I think the game does a fantastic job at its goal, which is to portray an ugly emulation of revolutionary politics. If you want to play a lighthearted game of good vs evil, this won't be it. To that end, the mechanics are wrapped tight around its premise, so this game could in no way portray things outside a revolution. I wouldn't recommend it if you wanted to play any other thing, regardless of whether it's a supers game, cyberpunk game, or even an anachronistic 80s game. Admittedly, it wouldn't be hard to make adjustments to the specific genre of the game... making blades into magic artifacts and subroutines into spells would be a simple way to convert this into a fantasy setting... but the themes are ingrained so it will still be a game about revolution against a totalitarian state. And towards that purpose this game is excellent and highly recommended.

Check out my full and detailed review at Sticky Bunton, found here. But for the TL;DR version:

SIGMATA has a lot going for it. It easily captures the feel of 80's dystopian cyberpunk with an alternate history America. The book also is rather timely, as it ties in events occurring around the world, and protrays them in an easier-to-digest and educational matter that the author has proven in his other work, Cryptomancer.

Mechanically speaking, SIGMATA is easy to pick up and teach, and is light with physical requirements (5d6 and 5d10). The game system is built for newbies as well as for the experienced player.

I also felt the game has one of the most balanced super powered mechanics out there while still keeping things interesting.

Sadly, the game does have a few flaws. The art is nice, but there isn't enough of it in my opinion. The core mechanic is simple, but it can leave more to be desired by some play groups due to the limited actions (but they do remove the issue of decision paralysis). Combat of any sort can be a bit one-sided with a heavy-handed GM due to how the game is designed, which is a concern for most of the groups I've shared this with.

Overall, it's a nice game that's a clear improvement over Cryptomancer, but suffers some of the same flaws.

If you like cyberpunk, 80's vibes and technology, and a game that is both quick to pick up and an educational tool, then you should absolutely give SIGMATA a glance.

I haven't played the game yet, which is the only reason this game doesn't get a 5 star review from me (yet). But can I just say H O L Y G O D is this game incredible. It hit me like a freight train and I've been obsessed with it for a week now. It's this incredible blend of simple narrative driven mechanics and an incredible setting. Straight up if you're hesitant about this game because of the title and you think that it's just going to be some "edgy antifa worship" I promise you it is so much more than that. This game is a beautiful work of social and political commentary AND YOU GET TO PLAY CYBORGS....WITH LIKE LASER BEAMS AND SUPER STRENGTH AND JUNK!!! LIKE AM I DREAMING HOW IS THIS REAL?! I am literally struggling to describe my feelings about this game with words. Its incredible. Ok, I think that's enough inarticulate rambling about an RPG for now. Buy this game, you won't be disappointed.

Repeat the Signal!

This is a damn fun game, packed full of potential. With a virbrantly realised setting that is hauntingly provocative, the system provides a huge wealth of possibilities for the type of characters that you can create and interact with. The concept for the signal itself is novel and unique in gaming, and the use of NPC factions to interact with reminds me of other games with a strong socio-economic eye like Red Markets. It's also very current, capturing a lot of the modern punk aesthetic even despite its retro setting. This game is highly recommended.

This Signal Kills Fascists. Beautifully simple title that gets right to the point, and yet Sigmata is very quick to point out that if you just keep taking the violent options in the pursuit of your American Insurgency, you lose.

So what is Sigmata. I feel Chad Walker's overview at the beginning of this book does a great job of laying that out over the course of several paragraphs, but I'll try to pick the one quote that stood out to me:

"SIGMATA is a table-top roleplaying game about repeating a signal at all costs."

That, to me, is the heart of this game. It is a game about desperate struggle against overhwelming odds. It is a game about communication and how the battle of words means just as much as the battle of bodies. It is a game where sacrifice is commonplace, where ideals die and are reborn, where the most epic thing your campaign entails may be just flipping a literal switch: the buildup to and fallout from that simple action is the most nailbiting, intense, and emotional core of this game.

Sigmata, as the product description points out, is about being a Cybernetic Revolutionary in an Alternate History 1986 America. Long story short, a certain Senator Joseph McCarthy manages to win a primary and then an election, becoming the American President. While his presidency fails, his ideas (such as the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the notion of the 'Interior Threat') live on. The fear and paranoia of the Cold War, the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation, the rising strife in America as racial, gender, and other civil movements get under way in the Post-War world, it all contributes to the American government becoming more and more radicalized towards Fascism in the name of Security. Rising to fight this decidedly Un-American regime is The Resistance: a loose coalition of wildly different peoples who may only have a common enemy and not much else to bind them together, but hey. That's enough in this case.

The Players star as Receivers: the Radio-powered cyborg super-soldiers of The Resistance, marked by the mysterious Signal. The Signal is an FM Broadcast that rewrites DNA, turning flesh to steel, arteries to power lines, and muscles to blade server modules. It marks those it affects, hence our title: Sigmata. The Signal Stigmata. These Receivers are going to be hunted by the government, feared by those around them, and outcast or killed quickly, but when around other Receivers they can control their appearance, blend in better, and, most importantly, master their usage of The Signal to do amazing things. Receivers are pure Cyberpunk Fantasy at its best: their bodies can be upgraded with new, physical parts to heighten their abilities. When the Signal is being broadcast, they can become literal iron juggernaughts, ghosts in the machine, or just shoot Cyclops-style laser beams from their mouths if that's more your style. As a normal person in the Fascist Dictatorship of 1986, you, by yourself, may not be able to make much of a difference. As a Signal-empowered Receiver, you ARE the difference in a seemingly hopeless war.

Make no mistake, Sigmata is absolutely a game about politics. The game isn't called "This Signal Kills Fascists" because the author is a huge Woody Guthrie and William Gibson fan (although he might be, I don't know his life). The game deep dives into explaining how fascist governments operate and how they systematically oppress "unwanted" groups, citing from real events and history often. It shows how such governments can come to be, and how different parts of societies will react to their rise. It also explains the game's premise of "Ethical Insurgency" (Thoroughly researched with many, many sources cited, very nice to see) - the concept of not just fighting the enemy but winning hearts and minds at the same time. This is not a game of going around and executing law enforcement officers or assassinating hated political figures: The game has a mechanic that will HEAVILY punish you if that's your idea of the American Insurgency. The Resistance has no time or place for vengeance, rampant idealism, or absolute pacifism: just as Resistance Fighters are knocking the walls down on Concentration Camps, they are also hosting protest marches and helping to repair and rebuild damaged areas of America. One of my favorite sections very heavily implies that Resistance agents that steal personal property in the name of fighting The Regime will find themselves reimbursing the unfortunate victims of insurgency-based theft. You're not here just to cybernetically punch fascists: you're here to convince the office worker, the forklift operator, the record label producer, and the farmer why The Regime has no vested interest in their growth, development, or protection. Sometimes that means waylaying and attacking military convoys headed to "pacify" a peaceful protest. Sometimes that means community outreach and distributing food supplies to quarantined areas. Essentially, there's a lot of Revolution to go around and not all of it is done from the business end of a .45

Mechanically, Sigmata uses a system I, personally, have never seen before, but one I'm coming to enjoy. The system only ever uses d6s and d10s, and you will always roll 5 dice for everything you do. Depending upon your abilities (Core Processes) and certain bonuses (from Receiver special features or meaningful items), you will end up rolling more d10s and d6s, where a 6 on a die is a success and a 1 on a die is a botch that removes successes. Sigmata itself is played over 3 different types of scenes: Combat, which may be an all-out firefight in a Regime secret bunker or a tense and drawn-out sniper duel in the Ozarks, Evasion, which could be sneaking and fleecing your way into a Regime-loyal corporate HQ or fleeing as fast as you can from your raided Resistance Base with dogs, foot troops, and helicopter gunships hot on your tail, and Intrigue, which can be meeting a possible defector at an underground punk show or trying to lead a peaceful demonstration against a new Regime policy. These play out like Missions, essentially: the players get told their goal, the GM sets the scene, and then the players use their skills and special abilities to achieve said goal. Anything outside of these major scenes are under the umbrella of Free Play: open roleplay scenes where, if rolls are needed, they are usually resolved quickly and simply. At first I wasn't exactly keen on such structured play, but for the setting and story it's trying to tell, it makes sense: You are members of a paramilitary organization. You are getting orders from above to carry out. You have mission assignments, strategic and tactical goals, and you're constantly trying to stop the Regime from achieveing theirs. It all flows quite nicely: there's no complicated math or mechanics to deal with and all 3 major types of scenes mechanically work the same. Using The Signal to lift an APC and throw it through a wall uses the same exact mechanic as easing tensions at a checkpoint to avoid being searched too thoroughly for that floppy disk you have hidden away. There's nothing like D&D where magic users are basically operating on a completely different playing field than their mundane counterparts, or Shadowrun where Deckers have an entirely separate world to deal with than their fellow Runners. You want to do a thing, you just describe it, roll it, and resolve it.

In terms of resolving it, Sigmata emphasizes player-control over the stories as well. Rolling very well allows the Player to dictate more of what is going on, while rolling poorly means the GM gets the majority of the narrative power. Now, of course, this comes with all sorts of stipulations: a player on a good roll cannot just immediately start declaring things that clash with the setting and tone of the game, but they ARE given a pretty liberal amount of freedom. One of my favorite examples is that on a good roll, a player could possibly provide a quick flashback to a bit of setup their character did prior to the mission to show why they are succeeding so well at the current juncture. In this way, Sigmata has a pretty cinematic feel to it: there's just enough crunch to optimize and theorycraft your Receiver if you're into that, but in practice the game definitely feels like it's supposed to be a movie or a tv series writ large.

Another good mechanical aspect is how everyone, no matter how they built their character, is useful in all situations. There are no "purely combat" or "purely Face" characters: everyone has some sort of competency in every type of scene. It has to do with the way the system handles Approaches: HOW you want to do something is more important than just saying "I'm going to roll this plus this." As a very quick example, one of the main stats (Core Processes) is "Valor": a measure of physical strenght, empathy, and a committment to the team. In Combat, a High Valor allows you to better protect your allies by laying down covering fire or distracting enemies. In Evasion Scenes, High Valor may come across as creating a distraction for an ally to slip by unnoticed or taking point to guide your teammates through a set of searched lights and barbed wire. In Intrigue Scenes, High Valor allows you to break the building tension during a traffic stop or convince a potential ally that the Resistance is not their enemies: the Regime is, and always has been. In each structured part of play, Valor, and the other 3 stats (Aggression, Guile, and Judgment), all have their roles and uses, but they are all USEFUL, which is a nice change of pace. For too long have I not enjoyed being encouraged to sit out of negotations because I wasn't playing a High Charisma character, or cringing when a forced stealth section came up and I, of course, had not put a single point into Sneak. In this way, Sigmata shares some design philosophy with other games that I love (7th Sea stands out from a mechanical standpoint), and I appreciate what the design is trying to do.

So why fight Fascists in Alt-1986? Why deal with heavy themes such as unethical mass incarceration and deportation, the removal of civil protections and liberties, the threat and possible execution of genocide? Why explore the concepts of Ethical Insurgency, of how a popular movement can get its message out when it is being shouted down, of how violence can be both a tool and a liability when fighting against literal government-backed genocide, of how peoples with wildly different ideologies such as Socialists and Libertarians would have to find a way to cooperate in the face of Blatant Fascism?

Yes, some people are going to say that this is "too real". It hits "too close to home". Others are going to laugh at this and call it "bandwagon propaganda". They'll say it's "virtue signaling". I will be the first to say that Sigmata is not for everyone, and that is coming from someone who is 100% behind the team's intentions with this book. Some people may disagree with its message, others may agree with it so much that they feel uncomfortable exploring such subjects via dice and roleplay. The author and co. fully admit in their book that they, too, were and are uncomfortable by the things they had to explore to create this product. It IS uncomfortable. Reading this brought up a lot of questions to me and they are questions that I don't have ready answers for, and some answers that I'm not entirely okay with the fact that I have.

But I also feel that's why it's important. I am a huge proponent of the idea that art, and roleplaying specifically, are how we vicariously experience things to grow and better develop as people. I am a Hetero Cis White Male. I am exactly what most gaming companies and media in general are aiming for when they talk about their target audience. I have never experienced anything near the sheer level of fear and dread that the Alternate History of Sigmata explores, but that's coming from the perspective of someone who is not intimately exposed to the issues this game delves heavily in to.

By taking on the role of Receiver, Revolutionary, Outcast, by exploring what it means to ally with those I, personally, politically disagree with for a cause we both fight for even if we seek different results, by creating a scenario in which it is impossible to not choose a side because the Regime's tragedies are so large and so widespread that there is no way to avoid them.

It also forces me, the GM. The Player. To not avoid them either. To take a second or third look at the dystopian world of the American Insurgency and then, when the dice are put away and my fellow players have gone home for the night, to think of how our shared experiences at the table relate to what is going on today. Sigmata does not at all try and avoid that. It does not hide what it is. It is uncomfortable. It is brutal. It is steeped in what has absolutely happened before in our world and what can easily happen again.

Sigmata is not for everyone. But I still encourage you to pick it up for yourself. To see what it means to join hands with what you THINK is villainy in order to fight what is TRULY reprehnsible. To experience how a movement gains traction, and how to both put a stop to one while amplifying another. To give names and voices to the desperate, the sacrifical, the hungry and the wild. To remember that in the end, tyranny and despotism are not stopped by Cyborg Superheroes but by millions of people all chanting the same message, louder and louder.

This Signal Kills Fascists. Repeat The Signal.

I'm a little hesitant to write the review before playing the game, but if play greatly defies my expectations one way or another, I will alter this. You play as cyborg revolutionaries ("Receivers") in an alternate history 1986 fascist USA, utilizing a mysterious Signal broadcast by your comrades in the Resistance to temporarily wield superpowers against the Regime, until the Regime shuts the Signal and you have to go back into hiding. The setting of an offers a lot of opportunity for players to jointly explore and reflect on contemporary political and social events, perhaps especially because the intriguing mix of GM-player narrative control, seems like an excellent way to really draw on the insights and experiences of everyone at the table. The setting itself is a pretty broadly outlined canvas on which you can freely, and jointly paint your own details as needed. Mostly the fluff details were nicely evocative, with only a few pieces that made me groan as implausibly on-the-nose ("How could 'fake news' be a recently evolved term to discredit anti-Regime information in a fascist country where the Regime has presumably dominated most media for decades?") or raising questions of setting coherence ("How are consumer electronics, civilian automobiles, and other tech-dependent goods exactly on par with our world's 1986 counterparts when the U.S. has supposedly been in an economic recession for ~30 years? ") Based on the Kickstarter page, the setting caught some flak for its selection of the four Resistance Factions maneuvering to dominate the Resistance and post-fascist U.S., but I would say that the selection are narratively excellent: the Old Men (militia types, some of whom are just adamantly libertarian, some of whom are white nationalists themselves, and all of whom are intending to take up arms against the government), the Party (revolutionary democratic socialists, some of whom are Soviet agents), the Faith (Christian activists opposed to the Regime, some of whom just want to humbly help their neighbors, and some of whom make the Mujihideen look tame), and the Makers (the ultra-rich who fund the Resistance, possibly because they find the Regime morally repugnant or threatening to the Makers' business, possibly because they like using the purse strings to control the Resistance and use them as pawns). These are diverse groups with potential for both noble heroism or to themselves become oppressors. The tension between the factions, the spectrum of extremism within each, and their desire to act on their own agendas to the occasional detriment of the Resistance overall seems like a source of endless opportunity for interesting stories. And, your group won't lack for fuel to start these stories, due to a nice meta-game cycle system for generating events and missions, the success or failure of which each influence Faction loyalty and the overall strategic picture (specifically the Resistance's degree of popular support, international support, and fighter strength) [these factors are based on respected real-world models of insurgencies]. The overall strategic status of the Resistance affects how long your comrades in the field will be probably able to broadcast the Signal during your missions, which is to say how long you'll have your cool super powers. Meanwhile, earning the favor of the various Factions allows use of their various perks during those same missions (the Makers offer a handsome bribe to an obstacle, a Party undercover agent delays your pursuers, etc.) These factors, plus the fact that XP-gain is tied to the total Loyalty each Faction has to the Resistance, means that there's an interplay between the strength of the Resistance and the strength of the PC's. The missions themselves are built around a core mechanic of using 5 dice, some of which are d10s and other of which are d6's, depending on your competence in the type of action--nicely unified across Combat, Intrigue, and Evasion scenes in a fairly streamlined system. The outcomes of each of these rolls can be modified through a variety of different character traits, each of which are a nice way to subtly push players to flesh out their characters' backstories and roles in the setting. The hybrid of GM-player narrative control comes from the fact that the number of successes (6+ on the die, subtracting any 1's) gained on a roll determines how much of the action its results the player can narrate: 3 or more successes gives the player nominally complete narrative control (barring a few mechanical restrictions and what amounts to social pressure to keep things from going too much off the rails and contravening the established facts/tone), which seems like it opens opportunities for truly creative collaborative scenes. This joint-narrative building does seem like it could slightly clash with at least one meta-game mechanic: the inherent randomness of the regular Faction Loyalty Check. Essentially, at a point during the meta-game cycle, the GM chooses one of the Factions, rolls d6, and then compares the results against that Faction's current Loyalty (which is between 1-5). If the result is equal to or less than the Loyalty, great: you get a boon from them and the opportunity to go on a mission for them and increase their Loyalty further. If it's above, then members of that Faction try to do something...counter-productive to the Resistance's success, the precise nature of which depends on how well the war is going overall: from desperately stupid actions like the Faith sending suicide bombers against civilians when everything looks terrible, to the Old Men carving out their own personal warlord fiefdoms when it could go either way, to (just when you're on the verge of victory!) any of the Factions' extremists joining up with the Regime, murdering the moderates in their own Faction, murdering almost everyone in the next strongest Faction, and then becoming the new hybrid-antagonist as Theocratic Fascists, Stalinists, Corporate Oligarchs, or White Nationalist Fascists (the lattermost of which doesn't actually seem all that different from the existing state of affairs.) That last one in particular seems like a lot to settle with just a die roll, and while I'm thematically excited by the idea of the Great Betrayal, as its called, and I think that the unpredictability of the Factions' actions adds some excitement, I'm anxious about what this looks like in execution. Overall though, I'm definitely looking forward to playing it.