• System - @ctiv8 uses the Xpress system, a dicepool system using d6's to determine task and combat resolution. Your natural talents - or abilities - as well as your learned skills affect your ability to complete a task. Skills can be tightened down using 'focus', a layered specialisation system that rewards specialisation. The version of the Xpress system presented here also allows for quick template based character creation and more in depth character creation using a point-buy system with self-created merits and flaws.
• Presentation - @ctiv8 uses sparse but demonstrative illustration throughout the book as well as collage images, most notably the cover. The layout is clean and simple, good for printing, and the rules section is designed to be modular so that as further Xpress system games are introduced you can swap rules in and out, printing and using the versions you like the best.
• Keynotes - @ctiv8 does not have advancement rules as in most normal games. The characters you create are competent from the start and do not advance between games. You do not create a single character, you create an ensemble, creating new characters to add to your portfolio for missions when different specialist skills are called for. Characters will die, quite often in the pursuit of their goals. @ctiv8 is overtly political with players taking the part of activists trying to forward their agenda through the conspiracy. The default setting is here and now and has a 'militant liberal' mindset though this can be changed and adapted, as can the setting for use with other modern games.
• Design Notes - 'Political games' has come to mean nothing more than machiavellian machinations as found in games such as Vampire and similar works. Complex weaving networks of alliances and blackmail. These are all well and good but there is a lot of real-world politics and issues that can be just as, even more, interesting. I set out to make a game with an overt political and social agenda as this is something that is so rarely done in gaming but is often seen in other creative media. We live in an age more political and activist based than any other since, perhaps, the era of the Vietnam war. This is my attempt to grab some of that zeitgeist and perhaps make people think a little.
• Supplementary material - @ctiv8 is supported by several sets of adventure outlines which can be found here... 1, 2

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