Racism and other troublesome elements in games

Boardgames
#131

In this case, I think it comes down to how to abstractify a concept without trivialising it. Both abstraction and trivialisation rely upon reducing an issue down to its core ideas and how that is presented. In this setting, trivialisation could be loosely defined as perceiving an abstraction to focus on the incorrect core aspects of a concept (or at least losing a vital aspect in the abstraction).

With Endeavour, personally I think it works relatively well as the abstraction of slavery is a similar level of abstraction of the rest of the colonialisation mechanics. This isn’t a game with heavy mechanics into the minutiae of colonisation, with an over simplified side of slavery. The whole game is heavily abstract and the use of slavery sits within the game on the same plane. It recognises slavery happened (with benefits to the slaver nation), and it recognises slavery ended.

I can’t see how a game can comment much beyond that without imparting modern sensibilities. It’s fairly matter of fact in its presentation, but as a distant viewpoint it works in basic terms. There’s never going to be a nuanced argument in this level of abstraction.

I think it’s quite brave of the game to acknowledge the economic advantage of slavery to get an edge over rival nations. It’s such a taboo in modern day discussion on the subject, which rightly centres around the abject immorality. The intensity of slavery in this respect is neutered by the distant abstraction of the game.

How it reduces down to a Y/N option is a more nuanced debate than I have the education to participate in. With historical subjects I think it’s important to enable the viewpoint of that time, without revising history to fit with modern views or encouraging people to impart modern morality upon the issue. We learn nothing by presuming everything that has happened since was an inevitability. But that’s impossible within a game unless it was accompanied by a full companion book. So I’m at an impasse on that one! I do respect how the game allows all or none of the players to enter into slavery.

Compare that to Archipelago, where Slavery is one card that one player can take. It really sets an odd tone. Only one nation can commit slavery? The other players see that player as the bad guy as if the rest of colonialism was a party? I’ve played so many games where that one card completely changes the room - people often actively avoid taking that card despite its mechanical benefits. It’s interesting from a social standpoint, but from a game design is so odd.

Endeavour still runs into the same issues of how the audience may respond to the abstraction in an inappropriately light tone, but I don’t think it’s up to the medium to take responsibility for the behaviour of its audience.

2 Likes
#132

I appreciate the big picture attempt to at least address the issue. Adding it into a game that was not about it is difficult and at least they made the effort. I’m not entirely certain the effort is successful. Just going off the two cards shown, for example, why would success on the Underground Railroad in the US cause abolition to happen? Why would the Underground Railroad, which in the form imagined in pop history largely only existed post 1850, and abolition in the US which came in the 1860s be a possible precondition for the Haitian Revolution (1790s to early 1800s)? It seems to be done just for the sake of centering the history of the US when that really isn’t the center of the story of the transAtlantic slave trade nor of the enslavement of Black peoples in the Americas.

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#133

In the game, the abolition of slavery is a general event that applies to all players, and isn’t specific to a particular region (it’s very abstracted). This is achieved by actions that the players take in Europe, so I hadn’t interpreted it as specifically referring to abolition in the USA, although I can see that the chosen events centre the history of that geographic region.

In terms of the Haitian Revolution event, my (admittedly very surface-level) understanding leads me to believe that the abolition of slavery in the French Republic was in part a response to the uprising in Haiti, as the French believed that was the only way they would be able to keep control of the colony. They did later try and re-establish slavery though, which did not go very well.

#134

The game contains a number of different Exploits, with a selection focusing on each colonial power. There’s a lot of variety: the Jesuits, James Cook, Andres de Urdaneta, the South Sea Company & the Dutch East India Company. This is alongside more generic colonial topics, like Globalisation, Western Imperialism, Piracy, the accumulation of saltpeter for weaponry, the sun never setting on the empire (with reference notes to both the Spanish and English empires), and letters of Marque. So the game does focus heavily on colonialism, but much of it isn’t US centred.

Inclusion of the Underground Railways is odd to me, since this was more of an ‘domestic affairs’ event after independence, compared to the others which are more directly linked to colonialism. This seems to be a concession to include the option of more anti-slavery theming to the game.

It does treat historical events as an assortment of events outside of their respected chronology. I can see lots of games do this - many card based war games for example.

#135

I was going off the Underground Railroad card that says if the last space on it is achieved then slavery is abolished.

#136

Yes, that card does seem more as though it should be called “the gradual movement towards the abolition of slavery”.

1 Like
#137

Yes, if that was the only way in the game to abolish slavery, it would be very US-centric, and the Haitian Revolution event would make much less sense! :smiley:

#138

Underground Railroad may be too historically specific a term. There were runaway slaves in the Caribbean and on the South American mainland, such as the Maroons; they didn’t have Canada as a possible destination, and their existence was precarious, but it appears that on the larger islands they influenced the conflict over slavery, perhaps more than the Underground Railroad did.

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#139

Not sure if this is the right thread, but for my next game* I hired a Cultural Consultant to help make sure there was nothing problematic in our use of the theme. That was the initial intent, but then they went on to make lots of key suggestions to help embed the theme and made the game a lot richer for it.

I think a simple rule should just be, if your game uses a theme or setting from a different culture than you’ve experienced first hand, hire somebody to check your work. They could even help you make it so much better.

*Die of the Dead- Dia de Muertos themed dice rolling game- shameless blog promotion- https://radical8games.com/die-of-the-dead/die-of-the-dead-designer-diary-2-theme-and-cultural-consistency/ shameless BGG link https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/292363/die-dead

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#140

This is good advice for developers absolutely.
You’re only going to enrich the work if you have someone come in and look at it from a cultural lens. Particularly if you’re developing a game with a cultural Mexican theme and are - for example - a team of mostly White, or mostly American/British/Canadian (not making assumptions about your team, by the way just as an example).

You reduce the risk of cultural appropriation, you reduce the risk of gamifying cultural practice, its only ever going to do good things.

People get really defensive and assume that their INTENT removes any problematic elements from a game, but intention only gets you so far.

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#141

No you’re spot on. One of the non-negotiables with the designer was hiring a cultural consultant for that very reason. I also specifically looked for a Mexican artist to work with.

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#142

This one also gets missed a ton.
So good on you.

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#143

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2480517/re-alma-mater-representation/page/1 Tom Lehman has said that in the initial printing of Res Arcana they removed an image of the Arab scholar Jābir ibn Hayyān from the cover, because a French distributor didn’t want an arabic man on the front cover because they considered it insensitive to victims of terrorism.

This is the kind of story I thought would be hushed over, until some investigative journalism uncovered it. But there’s no real journalism in boardgames, and apparently it’s blase enough to post about on BGG. Genuinely shocked.

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#144

That’s absolutely atrocious.

The stuff from the publisher of the game actually being discussed in the thread is also disappointing but far more mundane and expected. I’m not convinced being less surprising should be less bad, but somehow that seems to be the way the human mind usually treats things.

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#145

So they moved the image to the rear of the box? Publisher demands are strange.

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#146

Remember the film people’s comment to Terry Pratchett when they’d bought the rights to Mort: “We love it, but can you lose the whole Death angle?”

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#147

Representation, but not too much representation, obviously.

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#148

I prefer the interviewer who didn’t know Good Omens was fictional…

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#149

Or when they changed the cover for Equal Rites by chopping up the old art and putting the two female main characters on the back and putting Josh Kirby’s self portrait in the foreground.
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#150

I’ve never seen that frankly awful cover before.

It’s because I’m old, isn’t it?

1 Like