Dictator Of Sweden
View the case- Brand
- Civil Rights Defenders
- Year
- 2021
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Simulation & Strategy
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- Prime Weber Shandwick
Objective
Civil Rights Defenders wanted to reach a disengaged audience with a hard message — that democracy erodes gradually, law by law — while turning that message into a fundraising product: internal research showed 37% of Swedes already feared democratic backsliding, and 25% thought a single strong leader might do the country good.
Solution
Players open the box, draw a secret role card, and find themselves cast either as defenders of democracy or as the Dictator and their Delayers, hidden among the group. Over 30–60 minutes for 5–8 players, they take turns pushing bills through a stand-in Swedish parliament, arguing, bluffing, and reading the table to guess who's on which side, while event cards drop in lobbyists, spying scouts, and viral scandals that swing the vote. Every dilemma is written as a Swedish political scenario, and the round ends when either democracy holds or the table has crowned its first dictator. The game ships for 399 kronor from crd.org and retail partners, with a Tidö Edition and Kulturkriget expansion, plus a pay-what-you-want print-and-play version.
Results
Raised 300% more funds than any other campaign in the organisation's history, roughly tripling monthly donation income within about a month of launch; sold out online and in stores, pushing production up 500%; by November 2023 the game had sold 8,000 copies for more than 3 million kronor in revenue, with about two-thirds of each box's price going directly to the organisation's rights work.
- 1
The game's page on the Civil Rights Defenders website offers a physical box for 399 kronor or a pay-what-you-can print-and-play version starting at 10 kronor; retail copies are also sold at Grandpa stores in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.
- 2
A group of 5 to 8 players, ages 10 and up, sits down for a 30-60 minute session that casts the table as the Swedish parliament; each player secretly draws a role card marking them as a democrat or an anti-democrat, with the anti-democrat faction including one Dictator and several Henchmen (Medlöpare).
- 3
In the setup phase the Dictator and Henchmen learn each other's identities, while the democrats receive no such information and must rely on their numbers alone.
- 4
Turns rotate around the table as one player becomes Prime Minister and publicly nominates another to form a government with them; everyone votes on the proposed government, and if it fails the Prime Minister role passes to the next player and the process repeats.
- 5
Once a government is approved, the Prime Minister and their partner enact either an authoritarian or a democratic decision, which is placed face-up on a shared decision track that the whole table can see and use to read who might be sabotaging the game.
- 6
Additional cards introduce events and special political powers over the course of a game — lobbyists, spying scouts and viral scandals — that disrupt the trust players have built at the table.
- 7
Between votes, players negotiate: each has a hidden agenda, and through bluffing, lying and deduction they try to work out who is on their side and who is against them.
- 8
Every decision in the deck is drawn from real events in countries where Civil Rights Defenders works, restaged as if they were happening in Sweden.
- 9
A session ends once six authoritarian or six democratic decisions have been enacted, resulting in either Sweden's first dictator or a democracy that has held.
- 10
Players who want more content can add expansions such as the Tidö Edition, built around 2022 political proposals and criticism of the Tidö Agreement, and Kulturkriget, based on "culture war" tactics drawn from authoritarian states.
