Artist’s Statement
Scab! A Game of Worker Solidarity and Betrayal is a resource-management social deduction board game for 5–6 players, where solidarity is fragile and betrayal may be sitting right beside you. We made this game to create a magic circle that can closely enact a workplace organizing story and let players experience the tensions of workplace organizing without high stakes.
Players take on the roles of workers organizing toward a strike or scabs working quietly to sabotage the movement from within. Workers must build trust, complete organizing missions, and protect morale as they move from their first one-on-one conversation to a full workplace strike. Scabs, meanwhile, conceal their identities, disrupt progress, and may even convert workers to their side as tensions rise.
What makes Scab distinct is that deduction happens inside the living story of a labor struggle. Morale rises and falls with each mission. Organizing cards and union-busting cards draw from real workplace possibilities: making union zines, marching on the boss, intimidation, and sowing division. Every mission deepens the shared narrative of building or sabotaging power in the workplace.
Together, the game creates an immersive aesthetic that blends the fun of social deduction with narrative storytelling, letting players experience the highs and lows of a labor struggle through a tabletop game.
Concept Map
Initial Decisions
Scab! attempts to embody a workplace struggle through game. We hope to make the experience feel close to real-life labor organizing, where building trust, maintaining morale, dealing with union-busting tactics, and deciding who to trust are all part of the process. Rather than treating politics as theme alone, we aimed for the mechanics themselves to carry the dynamics of workplace struggle.
Formally, Scab! is both a multilateral competition and a player-versus-system game. Workers and scabs compete against each other, while also facing pressure from the game system itself. The “boss” is represented through union-busting cards that reduce morale or introduce setbacks, and in earlier versions, through increasing mission difficulty (needing more people to complete missions). This makes the system an opponent in itself, mirroring how real organizing involves both internal trust and external structural pressure from management.
Workers aim to complete organizing missions, sustain morale, and strike. Scabs aim to sabotage missions and deplete morale to prevent that outcome. Core procedures include discussion, voting, hidden roles, and mission participation. Early designs experimented with an open-villain structure where a scab could reveal themselves and become a manager with stronger powers. Although this was later replaced with mid-game conversion to preserve social deduction, it still reflects our design goal to have identity be flexible and enrich the narrative of the gameplay.
Using the MDA framework, these mechanics produce dynamics of escalating conflict and strategic adaptation. The mission track and stage progression speed up tension over time, shifting the game from early organizing into a high-stakes strike phase. Resource management through worker morale creates multiple paths to victory: even exposed scabs can still meaningfully participate in the game, either through conversion mechanics in the final design or managerial power in earlier iterations.
These dynamics shape the central aesthetic of the game: the emotional intensity of labor struggle. Players experience the victory of solidarity alongside mistrust and sabotage. Narrative-driven cards like “make union zines,” “march on the boss,” “sow division,” and “intimidation” ground the mechanics in real life organizing inspiration (much of these are tactics Shuci experienced in their previous union campaigns). To win as workers, players must move from early conversations all the way to a collective strike. All in all, we wanted to center the value of worker solidarity and show the “fun” and stakes of organizing.
Playtesting History
Iteration 1
Our initial prototype was built for 5 players and centered on a power struggle between a collective of workers and an open villain known as the Manager. We designed this version with a 6-mission objective where workers shared a 10-point morale pool while an automated Company system generated capital (money) to be able to use union-busting skill cards. Our first playtest revealed significant confusion regarding the round sequence, and playtesters found that the Manager role felt powerless once their identity was known. We discovered that the mechanics were complicated (e.g. having multiple meters such as a support and strike meter) and the gameplay in general reduced the social deduction aspect which was essential to the goal of the game and leading us to realize we needed to simplify the rules to further fellowship while maintaining design of the game. Furthermore, individual player feedback centered on improving design around the morale system with regard to the ratio of moral taken and provided by union-busting and boss-based cards, which was incoroporated in the next playtest.
Iteration 2
The second iteration pivoted toward a more social deduction aspect where we replaced the shared resource pool with individual morale to increase personal tension. We scrapped the idea of introducing five unique role abilities and instead revamped our voting methodology, including two rounds where the strike leader selects the team to go on missions, then team members on the mission vote to see if they complete it or not. We also added the “Survey” card as a way to investigate other’s roles. Findings from this playtest showed that while the round sequence was clearer and more interactive, the Manager role still felt a bit powerless (even after introducing the ability for them to take over the top three union busting cards). This experience encouraged us to look for a way to have Managers participate in the game, and also helped in expanding designs and rules such as including a voting booth and the need to have physical cards. The team in general felt conflicted on removing the Manager role all together (we introduced the role as a special ability in the next playtest), an design wise, we also also came up with the idea of having a voting booth box to enhance the deduction phase.
Iteration 3
Players overcoming three missions and union-busting card being played
In the third playtest we removed the capital system from the first playtest, revamped the Manager role to first incorporate two scabs, with the ability for one to be chosen to be a manager and take over the top three union busting cards (this could only be done on Mission 4). We concretely established the lead organizer title which rotates clockwise, where everyone loses – 1 morale if no team is selected after 3 rounds. Though we tried to improve onboarding and prevent early-game frustration by establishing that no morale is lost during the first round, we realized onboarding was another challenge we had to undertake. Additionally, we realized that a single scab which could convert another person to a scab during Mission 4, would be the next choice in playtesting, creating a “zombie” like infection mechanic.
Scabs discussing on who should hold the Manager position
By the end of the playtest we received feedback that the Manager role still felt powerless and that introducting a conversion of a worker to a scab would prove to be more interactive and increase the tension among players. Additionally, clarification of abilities needed to be discussed, and whether one could give themselves morale. Lastly, added incentives for scabs in the form of abilities was suggested to promote the experience of game play alongside removing one of the early-on missions, to increase fellowship and friendly competition. All in all, we did incoroporate the ideas of removing the Manager role and replaced it with 4 workers and 1 scab, with the potential to convert a worker into a scab at Mission 4.
