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. Iâm 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 isnât the center of the story of the transAtlantic slave trade nor of the enslavement of Black peoples in the Americas.
In the game, the abolition of slavery is a general event that applies to all players, and isnât specific to a particular region (itâs very abstracted). This is achieved by actions that the players take in Europe, so I hadnât 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.
The game contains a number of different Exploits, with a selection focusing on each colonial power. Thereâs 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 isnât US centred.
Inclusion of the Underground Railways is odd to me, since this was more of an âdomestic affairsâ 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.
I was going off the Underground Railroad card that says if the last space on it is achieved then slavery is abolished.
Yes, that card does seem more as though it should be called âthe gradual movement towards the abolition of slaveryâ.
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! 
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 didnât 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.
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 youâve 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
This is good advice for developers absolutely.
Youâre only going to enrich the work if you have someone come in and look at it from a cultural lens. Particularly if youâre 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.
No youâre 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.
This one also gets missed a ton.
So good on you.
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 JÄbir ibn HayyÄn from the cover, because a French distributor didnât 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 thereâs no real journalism in boardgames, and apparently itâs blase enough to post about on BGG. Genuinely shocked.
Thatâs 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. Iâm not convinced being less surprising should be less bad, but somehow that seems to be the way the human mind usually treats things.
So they moved the image to the rear of the box? Publisher demands are strange.
Remember the film peopleâs comment to Terry Pratchett when theyâd bought the rights to Mort: âWe love it, but can you lose the whole Death angle?â
Representation, but not too much representation, obviously.
I prefer the interviewer who didnât know Good Omens was fictionalâŚ
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 Kirbyâs self portrait in the foreground.
Iâve never seen that frankly awful cover before.
Itâs because Iâm old, isnât it?
Not to resurrect an old chat but saw this today and thought this was a reasonable response to problematic issues.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Pandasaurusgame/status/1313841688486518784