As An Appetizer To The Rich, You Can Eat the H.I.V.E.
Eat the H.I.V.E. - Abattoir is a hack of Eat the Reich that takes place in a Huge Integrated Vertical Ecosystem.
I’ve been studying up on Eat the H.I.V.E., a new tabletop RPG in the spirit of Eat the Reich, swapping stories of vampires killing Nazis for a Warhammer 40k-inspired game about rising against fascist capitalist overlords, and in this moment in history, I can’t get enough of media like this. The majority of those working in creative fields feel ethically compelled to ensure that their works reflect the surreal and horrifying breakdown of human compassion in the pursuit of “growth,” coming from the corporate world, and the elected despot spreading hate and ignorance from one of the most visible podiums in the world.
Tabletop RPGs should be no exception.
It’s easy enough to recognize that a large portion of the stories written during the Cold War era were Cold War stories. Themes of paranoia and the fear of nuclear annihilation informed a huge swath of the era’s speculative fiction. The glaring problems of today are different, but Eat the H.I.V.E. offers a great alternative to the helpless feeling of doomscrolling. Even as some light cathartic wish fulfillment, this TTRPG lets players punch, stab, or shoot their way through embodiments of some of our modern era’s biggest offenders, namely fascist authoritarians and entitled one percenters. Orcs and dragons haven’t caused our real-world problems, so taking shots at these archetypes feels far more topical (and satisfying).
The primary antagonists of Eat the H.I.V.E. are the Police In the Government’s Service, or P.I.G.S.
Corporations have never been our friends, but now they don’t even pretend to have the best interests of consumers at heart, or any concern for their public image. It would be naïve to say that the madness of environmentally destructive data centers and the push for AI slop and vibe coding are done in pursuit of profit. Far worse, corporations show open contempt for the consumer, since their real target audience is the stockholder. Companies aiming for profit and stability did enough damage. The phrase, “We have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value,” is now the business world’s analogue to “I was just following orders.”
“Where there used to be bigoted dog whistles, now they are airhorns, shouting out every form of hate and intolerance as loudly as possible.”
Both are cases where individual decision-makers justify heinous actions by falling back on the idea of honoring some higher master whose will outstrips any moral agency they might have. The time of corporations bothering to lie to the public now seems downright pleasant, in retrospect. A company’s customers, its employees, even the stability of the business itself, all matter less than chasing the ephemeral concept of shareholder value. That in and of itself is nothing but a form of gambling reserved for the investor class, one which increasingly has nothing to do with any actual financial metrics and more on making impossible promises and burning the world to deliver on them.
In This Moment, Capitalists & Fascists Are Better Punching Bags Than Orcs & Dragons
When markets become tapped out, businesses claim they can simply invent new streams of revenue, creating new services that consumers cannot live without. NFTs were one such attempt, and after some struggle, the fad choked on its own umbilical cord. In the case of LLMs, it seems the corporate world has sunk too much into them to admit defeat, so they attempt to force so-called AI into every facet of life. Our self-made environmental crisis has never been worse, and we have found a new way to efficiently destroy water and waste energy, all to enable AI slop to threaten human writers, artists, and musicians, and for perilously shoddy “vibe coding” to replace jobs in the tech industry.
The upper levels of the H.I.V.E. are occupied by the wealthy elites, but some travel to lower areas to hunt the poor for sport.
The political and corporate world function hand in hand, and the second Trump presidency makes the first four years look cute in comparison. Where there used to be bigoted dog whistles, now there are airhorns, shouting out every form of hate and intolerance as loudly as possible. Comically inept appointees fill every cabinet position. The USA does not have a monopoly on regressive politics or reckless military action, in this moment, by any means. Rather than even appearing to serve as a stabilizing force – always a dubious concept for the country, certainly – our president fuels the fire of conflict with threats, hate speech, and a xenophobic outlook that has emboldened many others to also be on their worst behavior.
Tabletop RPGs with themes of rising against oppression and authoritarianism are not new to the hobby, as any Star Wars-based TTRPG includes such themes, as well as the Blades in the Dark powered sci-fi game Scum and Villainy.
Companies whose figureheads spoke out against the president in Trump’s first term have donated millions in the second, ensuring a steady stream of deregulation that allows them to run rampant. This is despite the president being responsible for stacking the Supreme Court, enabling the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, losing federal protections for the bodily autonomy of women across the country. This is despite the president turning I.C.E. into an occupying army, exhibiting violent aggression and no concern for human life. People have been shipped to mega-prisons in El Salvador, regardless of their own nationality, where they simply wait in indefinite detention, in many cases, facing a possible life sentence without any trial.
“Capitalist overlords hoard the wealth and profit from the labor of the poor, which is just the status quo of the world we live in, set in space.”
The litany of unethical acts taking place feels endless, and every day adds to the tragedies and offenses. Anyone still in denial that these patterns are fascist and authoritarian is probably unreachable. The corporate world acts as an accomplice to all of this, adding their own spin on destroying humanity and the world we occupy. It’s all exhausting, demoralizing, and incredibly stupid. Not even a slick, neon-drenched dystopia with cunning dictators and calculating mega-corporations; our current state would seem like a mean-spirited satire if we weren’t living in it. All of this is to say, there has never been a better time to eat the rich, the corporate world, and the fascists.
The system of Eat the Reich carries over to Eat the H.I.V.E., an easy to learn game designed for short mini-campaigns.
Cold War science fiction gave us a lot of works I love, from Phillip K. Dick’s myriad paranoid mind trips that reflected the tensions of an era of distrust to Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, skipping to the world that would emerge after we blew ourselves up. If we survive this, maybe the dark times we’re enduring will give future generations some good fiction. Much of modern media is stepping up, whether it’s Severance and its takedown of the contempt corporations truly bear for all human beings not in the investor class, or The Boys providing a superpowered and loathsome Trump figure in Homelander.
Other notable anti-fascist TTRPGs include Brinkwood: the Blood of Tyrants, which casts the vampires as the fascistic oppressors.
In the world of tabletop RPGs, there have been a few notable works of protest fiction in the medium, certainly. SIGMATA: the Signal that Kills Fascists obviously shares similar themes to Eat the H.I.V.E., and Monsters of Murka is a third-party Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting that parodies the current state of the USA, to name a couple. Now that we’ve thoroughly established that we absolutely do need more TTRPGs about killing fascists and capitalist overlords, let’s dive more into what the game has to offer. It builds off Eat the Reich, which is a lean, rules-light game where the players portray vampires slaying Nazis and ultimately aiming to kill Adolf Hitler.
Games Like Eat The H.I.V.E. Are A Better Introduction To TTRPGs Than Dungeons & Dragons
Eat the Reich uses very simple mechanics, a straightforward dice pool system where the players roll against the Storyteller to determine if they succeed at their actions, most of which are the violent murders of Nazis. It is largely Narrativist, encouraging players to get creative with their carnage, with little opportunity for Gamist builds or strategies. Eat the H.I.V.E. takes all these elements and repurposes them into a far-future setting that includes many fantasy elements like dwarves, orcs, and elves. Capitalist overlords hoard the wealth and profit from the labor of the poor, which is just the status quo of the world we live in, set in space.
Adding to the ease of jumping into the game, Eat the H.I.V.E. includes several premade characters, each with a distinctly different archetype.
In the game, a crew of Player Character “Commandos” can fight their way to the top of the H.I.V.E. and kill the figurehead of the fascist corpos who dominate the lives of the common people from cradle to grave, a man known as The Marquis. Both this game and Eat the Reich straddle a line between board game and TTRPG, as they’re more designed for “runs” that resolve in about three sessions, rather than year-long campaigns. In truth, straightforward games with easy-to-learn mechanics and a contained scope, like these, are probably much better entry points into the hobby than Dungeons & Dragons.
“If there are people out there daydreaming about being untouchable fascist wealthy overlords, there might as well be people dreaming about eating them.”
Even the 5e rules, among the simplest edition D&D has ever had, can become surprisingly complex in play, and shorter TTRPG experiences provide a better starting point than aiming for a sprawling, epic campaign, right out of the gate. The dice pool system of Eat the H.I.V.E. is easy to pick up, and considerably simpler than many of today’s complex board games, so this is a great way to let friends who are furious at fascists and capitalism vent some of their frustrations, while learning a new hobby. Veteran hobbyists looking for a good game to get back into RPGs might also find it is a good fit, while providing some much-needed catharsis.
The anti-capitalist TTRPG Mad as Hell presents the (increasingly plausible) idea that the evils of capitalism tore a hole in reality, permitting demons to enter.
I’ve long harbored a theory on why so many poor and middle-class people fall prey to divisive propaganda, blaming disenfranchised groups like immigrants or minorities for their financial struggles, instead of the real, and obvious targets: the wealthy. The phrase “Eat the Rich,” which Eat the Reich is a play on, was attributed to Rousseau during the French Revolution. I suspected that many people don’t “eat the rich,” or even properly loathe them, not because they don’t follow the logic that they’re to blame, but because they secretly want to be them. Recently, I observed an internet exchange in the comments of an article which, to my shock, outright confirmed this, as if it were a given.
While Eat the H.I.V.E. is an Eat the Reich hack, it also takes inspiration from the Necromunda skirmish game.
To paraphrase, a responder wrote, “Why would we hate the rich? We dream of being the rich.” This suggests that the dream of being wealthy beyond reason, with no regulation or restriction preventing the accumulation of endless money and influence, is something some people desire so deeply that they’re willing to vote against their own interests, and consistently act against them in other ways. Several other people raised similar sentiments, as if this was obvious, a given, that everyone dreams of being rich - as if everyone wants to be a villain in this cruel satire we’re living in, and the only sin is leaving money on the table.
Spire: the City Must Fall is a fantasy-punk TTRPG from the makers of Eat the Reich which showcases players rising against a bigoted elven regime.
If there are people out there daydreaming about being untouchable fascist wealthy overlords, there might as well be people dreaming about eating them. I obviously can’t speak for every Storyteller in the hobby, as I know many simply enjoy the act of playing TTRPGs (and I agree, they’re incredibly fun). For me, and many others, we start to want our campaigns to be about something, to have themes and meanings, moral parables and life lessons. The TTRPG hobby hasn’t developed the language for it yet, but it’s the difference between discussing Fiction and Literature, Movies and Cinema.
Like Any Medium Of Creative Expression, Tabletop RPGs Can Tackle Important Themes & Subject Matter
As another recommendation, if you are aiming to have more “literary aspirations” as a Storyteller, there’s nothing wrong with dipping your toe in the water with a tight, focused game that shows (an admittedly heavy-handed example) how an ST can tell stories that mirror the issues of the day. The premise is rock solid – commandos ascend levels of the H.I.V.E., killing boot-licking P.I.G.S. on their war to slay The Marquis at the top, and try to foment revolution along the way. The book is under 100 pages, and you can complete a run in about three sessions. The Kickstarter has already funded and is blowing through stretch goals. A pledge at the PDF level is about $20 USD, while a physical copy runs about $60, inclusive of shipping.
Eat the H.I.V.E. is unique because it gives me a target audience right out of the gate. I lean towards lengthy campaigns over short adventures, and seriousness over satire. If I were to invite some friends who share my politics and values, or just people I run into at a No Kings rally, to play a TTRPG for the first time, Eat the H.I.V.E. would be the one I reach for, not any starter set of Dungeons & Dragons.
