The Mandate

The Mandate is a political strategy game about accumulating power in the United States House of Representatives and paying for how you got it.

Create a fictional Pennsylvania representative tied to Cambria County. Choose your name, appearance, pronouns, and signature. Your conduct defines your political character.

Take the whip’s office

An emergency leadership election gives you a shot at Majority Whip. Choose whose support completes your count and define the bargain. The secret ballot comes next. Then the Capitol press asks who owns your office.

Your authority comes from the Speaker and the members who elected you. They expect a return.

Pass a good bill through a hungry institution

Leadership orders you to pass the Rural Hospital Rescue Act. Cambria County hospitals need it. The bill must stay clean, and the members whose votes you need have their own amendments and ambitions.

Over six in-game weeks, guide the bill through its committee fight and two separate floor votes. A member can support the bill while opposing the procedural vote that leadership needs. Your coalition for one contest may fail in the next.

Work the count

• Read sourced intelligence. Your staff marks each report with its source and age, tied to the exact contest. A member’s direct word carries more weight than a broker’s claim.
  
• Spend your time. Handle a doubtful member yourself or send staff to verify the count. Political time advances when you act.
  
• Set enforceable terms. Offer access, campaign help, hearings, or public cover. State the condition, hide it, leave it vague, or refuse.
  
• Answer collisions. A reporter’s deadline can overlap a private meeting. A donor can pressure an ally before the floor vote.

People remember the exact words and who heard them. They may understand the same bargain in different ways.

People act when you leave the room

Members verify commitments and file amendments. Reporters check public claims, while donors pressure vulnerable allies and the opposing Whip studies the weaknesses you created.

Each person acts from their own goals and knowledge. Name a member without permission and they may object after a reporter calls. Break a promise, and its holder must learn enough to confront you. Miss a deadline and you may lose the chance for a quiet repair.

Answer for your methods

Staff save calendars and messages. Reporters keep transcripts. Witnesses remember what you asked for. An ally can use an ignored contradiction as leverage; a reporter can publish it.

At irreversible moments, you face the camera and explain the lie, betrayal, coercion, or sacrifice. The game remembers your answer alongside the outcome.

You can keep hospitals open and finish the vote owing favors. The people you exposed and the records you created remain in play.

Build a machine that answers to you

The Speaker controls your first operations. Successful votes help you build a coalition and turn borrowed power into your own machine.

Failure leaves a political wound that rivals can exploit. Take the Speakership or control it from the Whip’s office. If rivals strip away your power, you continue from a weaker position.