A look back at The Establishment

How I got my start in game design

The Establishment: Inner Workings of a Secret Cabal was my first dip into game design. I self-published it through crowdfunding and the support of my friend Dan from DPH Games.

The Establishment features three branching storylines and a set of Influencers who are sent to do the players bidding.

What is The Establishment?

It’s a storytelling game for 3-6 players where you take on the role of a faction leader and member of a secretive group trying to control the fate of humanity. The setting is sci-fi, based in the near future, where humans have colonized Mars and moved into the Inner Asteroid Belt.

Playtesting a late prototype of The Establishment at Mepacon

How did it start?

This game actually started as a roleplaying game based in the world of Vampire: The Masquerade. Each player controlled a clan of vampires and was part of a council that controlled everything going on around them. I wanted to make a game where one session covered more than a few days or weeks. I wanted it to represent years of planning and control. I play tested it a handful of times at conventions and the local game cafe. It was neat, but pretty sloppy and relied too much on the source material. At that time, version 5 of Vampire wasn’t a thing yet, and it was sort of a dead IP.

The original game involved area control mechanics based on the areas of influence that are in today’s version of the game

How it evolved

I wanted to build a system that could be played in any setting the GM wanted to create. It involved a hex-grid map, a bunch of tokens, and some poker chips. There was an element of debate and dealing that continued into the published version. However, I eventually wanted to make a game that didn’t rely on having a storyteller or GM to run it. I wanted everyone to be able to play.

Card-based format

I moved to a card-based format that uses branching storylines. I usually describe it as a Choose Your Own Adventure book for multiple people. There are still some card mechanics rather than traditional dice, but at its core, it’s closer to a roleplaying game (RPG) than a traditional card or board game.

Storylines on the tarot sized cards provide a basic scenario for players, then two options of the flip side. Players place their influence cards to vote on which story to pursue.

The Challenge

Because The Establishment is somewhere between a card game and a roleplaying game, I don’t think I’ve found the real audience for it yet. It’s missing the traditional win condition that board gamers are looking for, but it’s also a departure from the pencil-and-paper expectations of role players. I need to find a way to appeal to a seemingly thin slice of the Venn diagram: players who like board games, but also enjoy trying out one-shot RPGs without a well-known built world.

Dozens of boxes of The Establishment on delivery day. Backers received theirs in November of 2024. (It was raining that day as evident by the rain drops and not fun to move them into the house.)

What does the future hold?

Well, I still have many copies to sell, so I’ll keep trying to figure out how to find the audience and how to better market to them. It’s currently available for sale on the DPH website, at any convention where I or DPH Games are, or in one of the local Harrisburg game shops. I’ll also have it with me at Developer’s Day at Lazarus Games in June.