Playing Colonialism - Board Game Ethics

This live stream is a panel of game professionals and researchers discussing the depiction of colonialism in board games and tabletop wargames. We will focus on the evolution of colonialism's depiction in our games, examine ethical and historical considerations of this depiction and discuss a possible way forward for the hobby.
The panel:
Mary Flanagan: an award-winning game designer and artist, is Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities, Chair of Film and Media Studies, and director of the Tiltfactor game research lab at Dartmouth College. She is the author of eight books, including Playing Oppression.
Jason "ShelfStories" Perez: runs the KZbin channel Shelf Stories focus on education, inclusion, and compassion in our hobby. He is a cultural consultant in the board game industry, including Brazil Imperial, and Puerto Rico 1897.
Brian Train: is a freelance writer and game designer who has published over 50 games, including Colonial Twilight, and historical articles with a wide range of civilian publishers. His special interests in game design are irregular warfare, “pol-mil” games, and asymmetric games.
Cole Wehrle: is creative director at Leder Games, and is co-founder of Wehrlegig Games. He is an award winning board game designer. His most recent game is John Company: Second Edition.
Presented by Luis Aguasvivas, Fred Serval.
Review of Playing Oppression by Luis: www.popmatters...
To support the channel: ko-fi.com/homo...

[@briantrain6315]

Thanks for watching everyone, this was a fantastic panel of people and I was so happy to be on it.

[@HomoLudens1871]

It was great having you Brian, and see you soon!

[@mauriciocv1658]

❤❤ amazing!

[@andrzejdorywalski565]

I was driving so no live comments from me but thank you all for great discussion and Fred for hosting and organizing. Need some reeding to do it seems.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks Andrzej, I am super happy we could put this one together.

[@paulhamrick3943]

This is all very interesting. I think it's clear that, definitely in Jason's case and I think also in Mary's case, they are both very left-wing and their criticism of so many games amounts to "this game should be communicating left-wing political themes, including anti-capitalism, but it doesn't". Unfortunately for them I think that most people, as in 99% of humanity, just want to play a competitive game without too much rules overhead and that has a theme (and let's face it most themes are SUPER pasted-on) that maps onto something in the real world and lends artwork and imagery that is aesthetically pleasing and vocabulary so as to make the game mechanisms easier to internalize and give the illusion of.... "I'm doing the thing", I'm farming, I'm building a city, I'm running a business, and yes I'm battling or fighting in a war. In my view their criticisms of games are eerily similar to various strains of fundamentalist Christians who insist that all music, movies, books, and television shows communicate Christian themes. I've gotten exposure to families like that growing up and they are few in number relative to the general population and they are extreme and therefore marginal, and their one-track mindset inevitably turns people off. If you think it's worthwhile to criticize Ticket to Ride for "erasure", or criticize chess for its treatment of "class", sorry, you are just setting yourself up for irrelevance. But I do realize there is a tiny tiny minority of gamers who want to invest lots of time in these sorts of discussions, and a tiny minority of gamers who do want to play games with complex rule sets that attempt to depict complicated social phenomena.

[@ShelfStories]

Puerto Rico 1897 is not an anti-capitalist game. So, there goes this comment.

[@paulhamrick3943]

@@ShelfStories my observation is about the totality of your criticisms of games in general. Simply stating that your consulting during the development of the new Puerto Rico didn’t result in a completely new game is a clever evasion.

[@ShelfStories]

@@paulhamrick3943 I point out my work on that project to show that I'm interested in new visions and new games (even "clever" ones) for every gamer, not just a tiny minority. I feel you have judged my intention and my work. If you are ever willing to think a different way about my critique, then I would be happy to have a discussion.

[@HomoLudens1871]

I am confused, what is 'left-wing" for you? And what in that definition applies more to Mary and Jason than to any other members of the panel? Specifically on the chess example, you are clearly misrepresenting Mary's point, she never says that chess is problematic, just as an example of how games are not created in a cultural vacuum and says something about the societies they are created in. Once again, I think it's a serious discussion, and making an argument against points nobody made feels a bit disingenuous.

[@peterevans3447]

That chess includes a class system is obvious. It's an explicit reference in the design. Making the point that this says something about how different classes were perceived in this "game of kings" is perhaps less obvious, but, for example - the fact the bishops start closer to the monarchs than the knights in Western chess, is meaningful. I would presume the elephant in Indian versions/equivalents carried meaning too. In Xiangqi (Chinese chess), the leader is surrounded by their closest generals / advisors / guards however you translate. You can't seriously say that doesn't communicate things about who is the most important, and powerful, etc. - and that this can't be used as a data point for thinking about cultures. To give an example of the opposite, I know of one historical example of when representations of class in games *were* cared about, and actually by those in power. I have recently been researching a card game called Karnoffel, which was popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was apparently very popular with Landsknechts during the Thirty Years War. It was also actually banned in several places because of (among other things) the "anarchic" way it portrayed class. This is because certain low cards of the elected (trump) suit could beat higher level ones. Over time, it only survived with any great popularity in Switzerland, and I'd be really surprised if that is not related to the fact it was a country where the idea of ruling aristocrats sitting atop a God-given hierarchy held little currency, and wasn't seen as giving people dangerous ideas. There's not much research out there I've found, but for more on Karnoffel, see: www.parlettgames.uk/histocs/karnoeffel.html

[@WatchItPlayed]

Thanks to all the panelists for the engaging and thoughtful discussion.

[@ShelfStories]

Thanks for tuning in, my friend!

[@HomoLudens1871]

Glad you could watch it! And hope you had a good travel to the UK.

[@WatchItPlayed]

@@HomoLudens1871 After some delayed flights, made it!

[@warrenbruhn5888]

I think it would be good to see an analysis of Victory Games' 1985 Pax Britannica designed by Greg Costikyan. That game was not so much about the actual process of late colonialism from 1880 to the Great War, but rather about the great power competition for colonies and how that contributed to the start of the Great War. Unabashedly jingoistic, with the whole "white man's burden" and Rudyard Kipling thinking, it's likely that Costikyan intended players to get into the mindset of the colonizers as a feature of the immersion and role playing. Flawed game, but lots of people have enjoyed the multi-player diplomacy among the colonizing villains.

[@HomoLudens1871]

HAAAAAA, stop taunting me with this game. I NEED IT!!!!!

[@tamaravelasquez5324]

Surprised that Cole did not discuss his making of Root, considering there is an explicitly anti-colonial faction who are the heroes of the game's story.

[@NiceOneChameleon]

I imagine that Leder don’t like to explicitly acknowledge the Marxist perspective of the game, as that clashes with the cutesy image of the art :p

[@malexander4094]

Merci to Fred & Luis, Mary, Jason, Brian, & Cole. May this be an early step in an ongoing & productive dialogue between designers, players, journalists, scholars, and more.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks and we will keep doing so!

[@benmaddox6567]

It's great to see this form of discussion happen around the hobby it implies a maturation that is very encouraging.

[@HomoLudens1871]

We'll keep having those discussions!

[@mauriciocv1658]

Deluxe panel. Deluxe topic. Brian and Mary together. This is amazing.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks Mauricio, we were super proud of this panel.

[@ShadayAV]

This was great! Great conversation with great contributors! Thank you for organizing this!

[@HomoLudens1871]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@icebergzero]

I work with refugees in Canada and in Greece and I also love wargames. One of the things that I have found to be missing from most wargames is the impact on the civilian population. This really crystallized for me when I came across This War of Mine. This game reflected the experience of my refugee students in an authentic and visceral way. I was also playing Undaunted Stalingrad on my other table and I found that alternating between the two games, even though they reflect different time periods, made me think in different ways about both of these experiences. The two games were talking to each other in my own head in a way that made the whole experience much richer.

[@HomoLudens1871]

I agree with you, the depiction of civilian victimisation is a bit of a blind spot in historical gaming. We actually had a video just about that: kzbin.info2A9WR59fbsI?feature=share

[@brouillarddeguerre]

That was very interesting, merci Fred !

[@HomoLudens1871]

Avec plaisir!

[@JacquesMayhoff]

Ah non quel idiot je suis! Je croyais que cette série avait été laissée pour compte, à mon grand désarroi... Mais il suffisait que de regarder dans la section En Direct! Très content d'en voir un autre épisode.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Il est jamais trop tard! J'espère que tu vas aimer cet épisode. On en prépare un nouveau qui devrait arriver en Octobre.

[@d_n_1589]

Interesting discussion from my favorite board game channel! Would have been interesting with some more diversity in terms of opinion/philosophy. Maybe a defender of euro games and weak themes. If such a person exists? 😅

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks! happy you enjoyed it! I think the opinions were more diverse than people expect, and I'm pretty sure that Mary and Jason are fine with lighter/weaker themes, especially compared to Cole and Brian. The discussion is not that much about the strength of themes in games, but rather what and how they portray their theme.

[@peterevans3447]

Great panel, and a really thought provoking discussion. Thank you everyone! A couple of things I just wanted to add with regards to the god-like perspective that goes with playing the spirits in Spirit Island, is first that this inherently implies the natives are incapable of protecting themselves (they need gods, heroes). But, also, if you switched that by making them responsible for providing for the inhabitants needs as well, I think you'd depict something totalitarian - as it implies the natives aren't even capable of providing for themselves. Messy and difficult indeed! But probably, if you want to depict a native population defending themselves against colonial encroachment, the natives should probably be depicted as having the agency to do it themselves, even if it's just showcasing an exercise in futility. But perhaps the god-like spirits were seen as empowering by the designers? Similar problems abound in the whole of the superhero genre.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Maybe I just need to get the designer on the show.

[@gerardmulder7656]

Colonialism is a fine theme for a game both as glamourous and for critical games or any combination. A game is a game and it can do what we do not want to do in reality. We can explore man’s hopes and fears at the same time without feeling guilt or inflicting actual pain. I welcome new themed and mechanics and will not leave the old ones behind because they simply are too valuable and too good! Indigenous people had their games of power, their own exploitation dynamics and their own trading and exploration. They had different resources and beliefs but those can be fleshed out in stead of ignored or substituted. A great game could be the Vikings versus Inuit on Greenland. The changing climate and the disparate food sources and battle tactics would make it very interesting. Obviously each side would have their own agenda of domination both for their own reasons.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thank you for sharing your perspective. You've touched upon a key point-board games can indeed explore complex themes, such as colonialism, in various ways. However, it's essential to remember that when we're dealing with history, we're not simply dealing with "a game"-we're interacting with representations of real events and peoples. As such, it's crucial that we strive for accuracy and respect in these depictions. This includes not only conflicts and power dynamics but also the unique cultures, beliefs, and experiences of the people involved. Your proposed game concept-Vikings versus Inuit on Greenland-underscores the potential richness of such an approach. Ultimately, our hobby provides a powerful platform for understanding the world, and we must handle it with care. Thank you for engaging in this important conversation.

[@NiceOneChameleon]

I know this is an old comment but Phil Eklund’s game Greenland literally explores this exact topic. Have a look at it!

[@hamishmaxwell-stewart6748]

This is terrific. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. Will circulate this to the historians of colonialism that I work with. Will also make sure I get a copy of Mary's book.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks, I'm happy that you enjoyed it. There are some other videos around this topic that you might be interested on the channel. Let me know what you think of Mary's book, I found it an excellent read.

[@fredkolouch]

Great discussion! Thanks for putting it together. But I had a thought as I was watching, which was the difference between war/conflict games and euro/family/coop style games. Both of these categories deal with colonialism in very different ways. For conflict/war games, the solution seems much more clear and direct. But I find the answer in euro/family games much more nebulous. How do we approach a game like Ticket to Ride with the challenge of de-colonization or at least a recognition of that colonialism undertone without removing the simple fun factor of set collection and route building? How deep does this problem go? At the end, it sounds like we just need to make more new games with new game mechanics and ideas with a deeper understanding of how these colonial tropes creep into simpler games.

[@ShelfStories]

It's actually really simple. Make more games from the perspective of the people, not those in power. Center a version of Ticket to Ride, for example, in the train operator, taking people from place to place, getting personally rich for him/ herself and their family by keeping passengers safe, earning bonuses, etc. Is that realistic? Perhaps it skirts a line. But it's as realistic as being a boss where trains always run on time, never derail, run by workers who are basically invisible while everything runs smoothly. It's a profound failure of imagination that many gamers would see an idea like a people-centered train game, only to immediately reject it because it doesn't sound as fun as being the boss. I argue that is a result of our colonized minds, bought into boss centered propaganda. But I'm a progressive, so what do I know? :)

[@peterevans3447]

@@ShelfStories Funnily enough, TtR is actually "person-focused" by theme. The given theme is not about building train *routes*, but rich folks on a Phileas Fogg tribute race (literally) in 1910. So you're not playing a boss or manager, you're playing leisure-class millionaires with nothing better to do than ride the rails! People read in that you're constructing rail lines or similar in the game because it makes way more sense than the actual theme, as according to that players apparently teleport to whatever city their latest routes connect! 🤔

[@michaelpeloquin6336]

Thank you for this enlightening conversation! J'adore l'effort et la livraison derriere cette excellente video.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Merci Michael!

[@MarkJohnson-hw2xo]

So much to think about. Great panel discussion, which I enjoyed while corner-clipping the next wargame on my table. :-)

[@HomoLudens1871]

It's good counter clipping content. What game were you clipping?

[@MarkJohnson-hw2xo]

@@HomoLudens1871 It was the issue game from Strategy & Tactics 233 (from 2006) called Dagger Thrusts. It's a higher scale look at Operation Market-Garden, contrasted with an alt-hist look at whether Allied resources & planning could've been better used with a Patton push across the Rhine and Siegfried Line. Not very relevant to your good discussion--it's just the next M-G game I'm exploring...before I try to play Arnhem with you. :)

[@HomoLudens1871]

@@MarkJohnson-hw2xo 👀

[@steinfi3]

Loved this!

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks!

[@matthewwallhead5952]

Most gamers are mature enough to know what their games are dealing with. Gaming is escapism. Players can play villains, murderers, zealots, Victorian despots or Nazi tank commanders without agreeing with any aspect of those people in real life. If you restrict the way we game so we all have to play the good guys you create a dull anodyne hobby. Look at The Conquistadors by Compass Games. In it every player is a genocidal villain, we know that, and realise the game is like playing out a play in which the atrocities take place. We learn from it because of the horridness, we are not stopped from such excesses to appease the easily offended. Any study of history will always offend someone, if its any good.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Cool.

[@ShelfStories]

Criticism is not cancellation. I would like to know where in this video anyone here advises we cancel or restrict anything.

[@matthewwallhead5952]

@@ShelfStories True. No-one was advocating Puritanical cancellation, but I think the premise of the discussion was attempting to fix something that isn't broken and to my mind seemed to underestimate the historical knowledge of the average gamer. In my opinion the average gamer can play with a sense of irony and adopt a role without being subconsciously swayed in the process.

[@ShelfStories]

@@matthewwallhead5952 The phrase "average gamer" does a lot of work here, because we both have different views of what that is. For us, the "average gamer" is historically miseducated about the nature of colonization and historical oppressions. Most of the folks I game with, and who comment on my videos, seem to operate on a spectrum from 'colonizers are great' to ' colonizers did bad things but accomplished great things anyway'. This is a VERY limited view of what colonizers actually did and their impact on today's world. If we had better cultural education about all sides of major conflicts, then we might be closer to the same page. But I believe our overall cultural education largely sucks, which is purposeful in maintaining the current social hierarchies. How much does the "average gamer" really know about the real life Puerto Rico? Most don't know anything. They brought that ignorance to the old version of the game and learned nothing new. They only had the lie reinforced that we're always been a happy vacation spot where life is pretty easy. Our answer isn't less games, its MORE games with MORE history. History from all sides, showing the agency of oppressed peoples in resisting colonizers, then and now. Until we get more of that, we only get one VERY distorted half of the story.

[@matthewwallhead5952]

@@ShelfStories That's true. Gamers vary. I may be optimistic but I would like to hope those choosing historical themes bring a certain amount of knowledge to the table or they wouldn't have chosen those themes in the first place. I've never met anyone who thinks colonizers were a good thing, but I'm willing to believe you've had the misfortune to converse with them. Personally I didn't think Puerto Rico (the game) needed much fixing, but I like the new version nonetheless. I understood the political criticism of the old game but I also saw it was just that, merely a game, and like all Euros, the theme was only tagged on for flavour in the first place. It was never about Puerto Rico, no more than Maracaibo is about Maracaibo, or Orleans about Orleans. They were just giving an otherwise bland game about simple mechanics an interesting exotic name, without applying much thought to what that name was. Simulation wasn't really in their thoughts. Perhaps there worse crime was lazy thinking. They couldn't be bothered with simulation because simulation is hard. I agree that orientalism and Eurocentrism are too prevalent and I would love wider subject matters - please not another European Renaissance merchants game, all in shades of brown! Yes more games are the solution, building upon those that came before and wider perspectives on history (history is more than the Battle of the Bulge, D-day, or whatever happened to the USA).

[@heckler73]

I don't want to play sanitized historical games. Political history is ugly...ugly people doing ugly things for ugly reasons and if a game is trying to portray a moment in time _honestly_ it should include those ugly elements because they become teaching points on their own through forcing the participant to deal with the ethical dilemmas directly. The experience is more viscerally effective than some argument about ideals (which may or may not be substantiated). 1:18:54 sums it up succinctly. _understand why the stupid things happened_ If games become designed around some representative's emotional delicacies at the expense of the whole, then it becomes less utile as a pedagogical lever and more amenable to inadvertently becoming a propagandist's tool, never mind being an example of hypocritical 'virtue signaling'. I'm sure there will be a wargame in the future that looks back at this period of history and uses "pronoun people" as a 'faction' of 'globalists' in some political simulation to take over the West. Maybe it will have balloons, too.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Isn't that exactly what the panel is advocating for: do not sanitize, and give agency to more actors in games?

[@heckler73]

@@HomoLudens1871 I did not hear that clearly except perhaps from Mr. Train. To be fair, I was listening passively and may have gotten lost in the rhetorical flourish. I will have to give it another listen and see if I arrive at the conclusion you suggest is the case, paying more attention to those odd spots that left me wanting on the first pass.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Yes it is a complex topic that requires a lot of nuance. Unfortunately, 90 minutes is certainly not enough to go in depth. But even looking at the panel's work it's pretty obvious that they go on the opposite direction of sanitizing: as you mentioned, Brian's work can be brutal, Cole has also been exploring very rough topic very frontally, Jason has worked on removing abstraction from some Eurogames to make them more historically relevant and Mary's whole argument about representation of colonialism is not that it exists, it's that it's tired tropes from the 19th century, and that the depiction could be more historical if anything. If anything, the thing that ties that whole panel is the common wish for more and better quality history in our games.

[@ShelfStories]

@@heckler73 On my channel, I have a whole video about Healthy Misbehavior in Games. We need to misbehave, as long as the game isn't going in the direction of ignorance and whitewashed narratives (which far too many games do).

[@peterevans3447]

Including ugly elements becomes tricky, though, because as a designer you run into gamifying the abhorrent. Because even if we don't want to flinch at the horror of it, or we think the atrocity of something is important to face up to, acknowledge, and deal with... at some point it's going to become gratuitous and obscene. And it's perverse to incorporate something obscene into something that - no matter how much we intend to approach it as a learning tool, or as a model of a conflict, or a simulation or whatever - is also recreational (a game, fun). It's not straightforward.

[@keithjohnston4488]

The progessive opinion is a perspective, and thats fine. But the problem in my experience is that progressives are not satisfied with avoiding the games and themes they dont like. Neither is historical accurancy their aim. Instead they insist that these games cannot be played at all and that if you do you are a "white supremacist" etc. Their activism will go as far as providing bad reviews to games they haven't played and actively calling for boycots of firms and designers. Obviously this is an existential threat to wargames when you can play the Germans, the Confederates or any Imperial forces. Progressives will seek to ban or mangle these games. Ultimately wargaming as a fun hobby cannot co-exist with the progressive worldview because they are puritanical and intolerant. If it is embraced it will hollow out this art form just as it has hollowed out Indiana Jones.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Hey Keith, First off, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. I appreciate your perspective and I think it's valuable to engage in these types of conversations for the betterment of our shared hobby. I see where you're coming from, and while I've certainly seen progressive voices critiquing certain games and themes, I'm not convinced that there's a widespread movement to ban or boycott games based on their content. Rather, what I'm seeing is a desire for more diversity and more nuanced depictions of complex topics, which, in my opinion, could actually enrich the world of wargaming. And that's exactly what you can see in that panel discussion. The beauty of this hobby is that there's room for many different types of games and perspectives, and just as you enjoy playing certain games, others might prefer games with different themes or points of view. This doesn't necessarily mean one type of game needs to be eliminated for the other to exist. They can co-exist and cater to different audiences. Regarding your point about political spectrum, I've had experiences where some have expressed dissatisfaction with certain games or content, or even questioned their place in our hobby. However, I've noticed that these instances come mostly from the conservative side, and they can be very agressive, trust me. So, it's not just a "progressive" or "conservative" issue, but rather a broader conversation we need to have as a community about how ready we are to look critically and constructively at our hobby. And let's not forget, at the end of the day, we're all here because we love board games! Like you, I'm a fan of Indiana Jones, and was very sad about the latest movies, so perhaps we're not as different as it might seem! Let's continue the discussion and, more importantly, keep enjoying the games we love.

[@keithjohnston4488]

@@HomoLudens1871 Thanks I appreciate you doing stuff which is different and takes the hobby seriously. I think Jean Piaget's theories of play are a super-interesting starting point - why do we play, and what is its purpose? For balance on colonialism & war and a post-"post-colonial" perspective I think Nigar Bigger's Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning and his In Defence of War are also fascinating. Equally, I still suspect if you engaged with Biggar it wouldn't only be "The Robber" who would be deemed 'problematic'.

[@gordo6908]

what do mitt romney/bain investments, jan pieterszoon coen/the voc, and asurdan ii/the neo assyrian empire have in common? a destructive, value extracting ethic supported with hegemonic weigh. new puertorico is a failure to me because it replaces that intrinsic dehumanization with an optimistic fiction, though it may be a useful one on the path to finding new mechanisms as mary mentions. contrast w the pax games which are often flexible and expressive enough to no only present the designers perspective, but also completely opposing arguments. but many different games have value, so i hope designs and discussions remain varied

[@HomoLudens1871]

Not sure I got your point.. is it: games should be about colonialism because bitcoin?

[@gordo6908]

@@HomoLudens1871 feint with a non sequitur? sadly, i don't understand yours either

[@HomoLudens1871]

@@gordo6908 very sad

[@gordo6908]

@@HomoLudens1871 interested in explaining it?