Any Politics?

Gamebooks and political satire have had a bit of an overlap at least since Steve Jackson's Starship Traveller featured a world on which democracy had been taken to such an extreme that the planet didn't even have a name as its occupants hadn't yet reached a consensus on what to call it. The connection became a good deal more overt a few years later, when Dice Man published Pat Mills' Twilight's Last Gleaming, in which the reader takes the place of Ronald Reagan, needing to avoid provoking a nuclear war while still behaving sufficiently derangedly not to be exposed as an impostor. Mills followed this up with the 'dole-playing game' You Are Margaret Thatcher, and more recently we've had Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson's Can You Brexit?, Iain Hollingshead's The Neverending Tory, and now the book I shall be attempting for this Halloween: Matthew Illsley's Dawn of the Donald.

Don't infer any political statement from my playing this book for the blog: I am doing so because it's a gamebook, and because the author gifted me a copy. While not apolitical, I tend to approach voting from the perspective of damage limitation - I've seen too many on both sides of the left/right divide calling for the deaths of millions just for belonging to the wrong demographic to feel comfortable with either. And before anyone comments, I'm not interested in any 'our murderous bigots are better/more justified/less extreme than their murderous bigots' arguments.

Anyway, on with the gamebook. There are predetermined stats, though in a video game-esque wrinkle, I get to choose a difficulty setting which affects them. The descriptions suggest that even on the easiest level it may take multiple attempts to beat the book, so I should probably save the more challenging variants for later. Then again, the rules treat 2d6 as functionally identical to 1d12, suggesting a flawed grasp of probability, which casts a little doubt on the reliability of the difficulty ratings. Nevertheless, I'll stick with the easiest setting, Keyboard Warrior, which gives me:
Survival Index 18
Fighting Spirit 9
Fortune Balance 3
Combat is similar to the Fighting Fantasy system and its imitators, though rolls are made on a single die, and there's no optional mechanic for attempting to increase or decrease damage. As for Fortune, Taking a Chance differs from Testing your Luck in that success requires you to score equal to or above the target score on two dice, and the Fortune Balance increases following a successful outcome and decreases after a failure, making prolonged streaks of either good or bad luck less likely. Having lost at least one FF character to a Luck-based death spiral, I think this more balanced approach could be a good thing.

The rules also list a number of... alternatives to going back to the start in the event of character death or other unfavourable outcome. What some might call authorially approved methods of cheating, each with its own jokily politically-themed name - for example, encountering an Instant Death, turning back to the previous section and choosing a less lethal option is a Presidential Pardon. There are limits to the use of these, so this isn't F.E.A.R. Adventures-level copping-out, but give some players 2.54cm and they'll take 1.609344km. Except that, this adventure being set in the United States, those measurements obviously shouldn't be in the metric system.

On to the plot. It is the year 82 by the recently-introduced Donaldian Calendar (2028 by the old system), and Donald Trump has just declared himself President for Life, marking the occasion with assorted repressive measures and atrocities. My character is a member of an underground resistance movement, and has been chosen to infiltrate the White House, depose the President and restore democracy. This task will be complicated by the fact that my target has been dabbling in the occult, and has purportedly become a lycanthropic necromancer and serial killer. He's also assembled an elite squad of glamorous guards to protect himself. On a more positive note, there is a secret way into the White House, I've been given an enchanted sword of ludicrous provenance, and I have some bottles of water and energy bars to restore points of Survival Index after taking damage.

A trapdoor near the Washington Monument provides access to the D.C. catacombs, and as I descend into the depths, I find myself wondering why this has to be a one-person job, and why I've not been provided with any firearms. At the bottom of the ladder I get my first proper choice: to climb back up and consult with my allies some more, or proceed into the subterranean network of passages.

In case some essential datum or piece of equipment was overlooked, I ascend, only to find that everyone else has gone. The trapdoor begins to close, and as I start to climb back down again, one of the ladder's rungs breaks. I must Take a Chance, and succeed, but my good luck more than doubles the risk of misfortune next time round.

Descending again, I head into the tunnels and soon reach a crossroads. Proceeding straight ahead, I find the fresh corpse of another member of the resistance, killed by a dart to the neck, and realise that, contrary to what I was told, I wasn't actually the first person to be picked for this mission. My predecessor lived long enough to repeatedly write 'The cake is a lie' on the wall, which may be a hint that I've been betrayed, as there was talk of cake in the discussion of the celebrations to follow if I succeed in my quest. Searching the body turns up nothing of use, and causes me to inadvertently trigger another trap. Again I have to Take a Chance, and again I get a favourable outcome, but further increase the odds of future bad luck. 

I move on, and after a while the tunnel is joined by another, which I take to be the continuation of one of the turnings I didn't take at the crossroads. No indication of whether it comes from the left or the right, presumably because this section is reachable from both of the paths that merge here, but it might have been helpful to know. Especially if an Instant Death is the reason why the other passage doesn't also reconnect here. Would adding a section or two to clarify directions have been so bad? The book has 313 sections, so unless that number has some significance that is lost on me, making the total a little higher is unlikely to have spoiled the aesthetics.

Continuing to advance, I reach a candle-lit shrine with an icon of Jeff Bezos, an ashtray containing the remains of assorted burnt offerings, and a wooden box. I risk checking out the box's contents, and find a syringe of snake antivenom, which I take. Trying to steal the icon seems like a bad idea, so I just move along.

Before long I reach a couple of doors, one labelled 'Room 266', the other identified as 'F-451'. F as in Fahrenheit? And if so, does that indicate the room beyond to be a walk-in incinerator, or a depository of books earmarked for burning, which might provide useful information? Maybe I'll find a clue behind the other door.

Nope, that leads to the Museum of Losers, at the back of which Al Gore is manacled to a wall. Trying to free him means Taking a Chance, and this time I only just manage it. Releasing him brings no apparent benefit, though there's still the possibility that it may have beneficial consequences further down the line.

The choice of options when I return to the tunnel implies that going through door F-451 is survivable, so I chance it. The room beyond contains a multitude of archive boxes, a furnace, and a Sheriff I might have heard of if I watched the right American talk shows. He hurls an evidence box at me, and dons some brass knuckles while I'm dodging it, after which I'm into my first fight of the adventure. As regards Fighting Spirit, I have a decent lead on him, but the dice still fall in his favour a few times, costing me 6 points of Survival Index before I defeat him.

Randomness determines what's in the box he was set on burning, and I find a dead cat and a scroll with a Reality Check Spell on it. The spell seems more obviously useful, but I take the cat as well, in case I ever need to distract an attack dog.

After that I must go back to the tunnel again and continue on my way. The passage ends at a steel door, from behind which issues the sound of an organ playing the predictable Bach toccata. It leads to a gantry overlooking a vast chamber in which a baker's dozen of hooded figures are about to sacrifice another familiar-to-my-character-but-not-me figure to an idol depicting one of New York's more infamous mayors. Unlike Steve Jackson, the author doesn't offer an opportunity to throw away my life in an obviously futile rescue attempt.

Discreetly crossing to a door in the far wall, I exit into another corridor, where I encounter the President and run him through. My celebrations are cut short when I realise that he's actually just Alec Baldwin in a convincing mask. On this occasion taking the time to search a corpse pays off, as I find a jar of a restorative beverage that will restore a little Survival Index, and also get to decrease my Fortune Balance, which was getting uncomfortably high.

Continuing along the corridor, I trip on a metal ring attached to the floor, taking minor damage. The ring turns out to be attached to a trapdoor, which I raise, revealing a ladder leading down into unpleasant-smelling darkness. I investigate in spite of the risk that someone might bring my adventure to an end by closing the trapdoor on me (it's been done before), climbing down to a dank room with a fireplace, a sarcophagus, and quotes from Trump graffitied on three of the walls. Pushing my luck, I search more thoroughly, thereby discovering the dot in one of the scrawled 'i's to be a button, which I press. A concealed panel opens, revealing a lever in 'mid' position. I try pushing it up, and a powerful electric charge blasts me across the room and knocks me out.

When I come round, I eat an energy bar to heal some of the damage from the shock, and climb back up to the corridor, with no idea what purpose the lever serves if it's not just a trap. Before long I reach a T-junction, with a compass marked on the floor. Heading west, I see what appears to be a dead end, and opt to take a closer look at it. As I approach, my foot snags on a tripwire, and it's time to Take a Chance again. This time round I am unfortunate, and a big glass tube drops down to imprison me. Recordings of some of Trump's more preposterous assertions bombard my ears, costing me a point of Survival Index, and I'd be in worse trouble if I didn't have that Reality Check Spell, which shatters the glass with the power of objective truth.

Consuming another energy bar, I continue towards the dead end, which turns out to have a glowing orange button set into it. The colour could be a warning sign, but would even this administration set a trap to guard a trap? I push the button, and another hidden panel opens, this one containing a badge with an anti-Clinton slogan on, a small pile of orange dust, a make-up brush, some rolled up hundred-dollar bills and a teaspoon. Donning the badge as a partial disguise, I decide to see if the orange dust is make-up that could help delay my being identified as an intruder if I make it into the White House. Apparently not, as the book has me embarrassedly wipe it off before returning to the junction.

Before heading east I down a bottle of water. Steps lead down to a foul-smelling area containing multiple sewage beds and rusting pipes. The only exit is at the far side of this space, and as I start to make my way across, something nasty emerges from a sewage bed. It's a mythical beast known as a Snallygaster, and I haven't acquired the item that could help me ward it off, so I need to Take a Chance. Luck is with me, and I dodge the monster's lunge and eviscerate it with my sword before it can get its bearings. I sustain minor damage from its death throes, which I make good with another energy bar, but I suspect that I'd have been a lot more seriously injured in a proper fight.

Next to the exit is a first-aid box. Seemingly not coin-operated, so I try opening it. Inside is a mirror in a bad condition, a syringe of clear liquid, and a bottle with a screw-top. Injecting myself with an unknown substance seems very unwise, but I risk opening the bottle. It contains a dog whistle and a parchment on which is written a message suggesting that the President's hairpiece (or possibly a floor decoration) may be able to attack the unwary. After I've read it, the parchment catches light and is rapidly reduced to ash. Pocketing the whistle, I move on.

For now I'll pause the narrative so that I can post this entry on October 31st. After all, it's only a few days until another thematically appropriate date on which I can post a continuation or conclusion...