1793 Patriots & Traitors Stories: Part 1 – Why 1793: Patriots & Traitors?

Hello fellow gamers!

Why 1793: Patriots & Traitors?

by Jason St. Just – Game Designer & Historian

I remember how I dreaded moving to Paris as a 10 year old, I remember how my pillow was soaked in tears when I was told that the move was going to happen…

I also recall how melancholic I was when I had to leave France again 3 years later 😉 In those past years I had very thoroughly adjusted myself to the country, the language, the culture. Paris, the bustling, chaotic world city filled with life, its many monuments, museums and history had left me overawed…since those golden years in the mid-eighties I’ve been a passionate lover not only of French culture but also of history. As an adolescent – this time in Canada – you would often find me with my nose in the books. I had a seemingly unquenching thirst for knowledge…and a peculiar attraction for the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. 

Why the French Revolution? Well, let me quote our good friend Charles Dickens from his opening paragraph in his A Tale of Two cities:   “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…“

Or our good friend and poet William Wordsworth: 

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times,

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once

The attraction of a country in romance!

When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself

A prime Enchantress—to assist the work

Which then was going forward in her name!”

The French Revolution was the beginning of a brand new era in the history of mankind.  

I can hear some reading this and thinking: Yes, indeed a new era…of great bloodshed! 

But please tell me then when there was no period of bloodshed in the history of mankind? And OK one of bloodshed, I will not deny it, but let’s not forget: also one of great opportunity! Allow me to quote again, and this time our good friend Robespierre: “What? Do you want a revolution without a revolution???” 

Consider the French Revolution as simply another step in our evolution: it successfully overthrew an outdated social and political system of government that had dominated Europe for centuries. The revolutionaries’ claim to establish the sovereignty of the people was a milestone and it opened the way to a new kind of modern ideological politics. Whereas absolute kings had claimed their authority from God, almost all regimes since this revolution have tried to argue that they represent the PEOPLE. 

And to all those claiming that the Revolution was a failure: it served as an example for all the revolutions that would follow: from the Haitian Revolution to the Russian Revolution a century later! Up to this very day it is still considered the mother of ALL revolutions. It is the blueprint.    

The message that the Revolution brings is that if you don’t do anything, if you are too afraid to make mistakes you will not learn anything. If you sit in the corner complaining and weeping, you’ll get nowhere! The Revolution taught the world that no matter from which social class you came from, if you had talent and you had daring and dash, you COULD get somewhere…or lose your head of course… 

In short: never in the history of mankind was there so much opportunity for the common man.  

A brand new society was created from a heap of rubble. Certainly not a mean feat if you consider that the people who created this new society were mostly commoners without any previous knowledge in statesmanship. The way these middle-class men – mostly lawyer’s and men of letters – managed to save the Republic in the chaos of 1793 as France was invaded by almost ALL of Europe, brutally divided internally on the political front, torn apart by counter-revolution in the provinces and under extreme pressure from the Paris mob…is nothing more than an amazing feat!

And this is exactly what I wanted to present when I created 1793: Patriots & Traitors: offer the players insight into the French Revolution, let them ‘feel’ how it felt to be those revolutionary leaders in a France that was being torn to pieces. Let players relive that period!  

Could they do better? Or would they fail? 

I wanted to show the players that the French Revolution was not simply a group of bloodthirsty people cutting off the heads of the poor rich aristocrats as it is often portrayed in those terrible movies. While WWII is remembered as a Good vs. Evil event for example, the French Revolution was terrifyingly nuanced—it involved oppressed people fighting the good fight, winning, and becoming pretty twisted themselves. It’s mankind! 

In 1793 the players WILL be confronted by an invasion of the Austrian and Prussian armies, they WILL have to deal with counter-revolution in the provinces, they WILL have to subdue the Paris mob in the streets, they WILL have to work together although they are each other’s rivals…

The players WILL have a lot of problems to solve…and it WILL not be ‘a walk in the park’ but rest assure: the game provides the players with a lot of options. The question is: are you up to the challenge????