Campaigning in the World
of Atlas Shrugged
 

Then I invited my players to create characters for this setting. I provided a series of options for degrees of rationality and irrationality, based on Rand's ideas, with rational characters having superior technological and scientific skills, while irrational characters were better at manipulative social skills such as Fast-Talk. The highest level of rationality called for explicit adherence to a rational philosophy.

I specified that what counted as a rational philosophy was any system of beliefs that included an objective reality independent of the human mind; thus, a Thomist Catholic, a Lockean, or a adherent of the scientific method could be counted as rational, while a fideist Christian or a logical positivist would be irrational. To add nuances, I allowed a basically rational character to have a False Premise, such as belief in God or duty to one's family. Three of the five player characters had such beliefs.

I actually allowed each player to create two different possible characters; then I chose the character for each player whom I could best fit into a story line. The characters I chose were:

Roberta Beauchamp, a woman living elsewhere in northern Illinois who had been a medical intern when the collapse hit, and had then helped keep her community alive and healthy. This character had self-aware rationality but was an adherent of the Gaea Hypothesis and an environmentalist.

Rosa Cavalieri, a woman pilot with combat experience in the New Mexico border clash, who had spent her bounty money on buying a highly advanced aircraft with Galt motor engines. This character had common sense rationality but no explicit philosophical views.

Lindsay Eden, a woman railroad executive of partially Japanese ancestry, working in Taggart Transcontinental's engineering department, who was entrusted with the job of building the new bridge. This character was completely rational.

Patrick Michael Kennealy, a former Chicago district attorney, now living on a farm in northern Illinois, with the ambition of reuniting the state. This character had self-aware rationality but was also a Roman Catholic and a womanizer in the Kennedy idiom.

Xenophon Stark, a former army officer who had become a mercenary soldier. This character had self-aware rationality but also a false premise, belief in "might makes right."

I surrounded these characters with a variety of supporting characters ("non-player characters"), many of them drawn from classic adventure fiction or film noir: a Chicago newspaperman, a Chicago prostitute, a black woman in Chicago who funded many of the new farms in Iowa, a Texan pilot / inventor, and the commander of the Missouri National Guard, among others. Ayn Rand said that the goal of her writing was to portray an ideal man. Our goal, somewhat less lofty, was to portray larger-than-life, dramatically interesting characters and to give the players the pleasure of assuming their personae. On that count, this campaign was a success, and Rand's setting and narrative idiom helped make it so. And conversely, running this series of games not only let us cast light into how things worked in Rand's world, but made doing so a necessity.
 

© 2001 William H. Stoddard