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To borrow an idea from John Mulaney, if there is an idea you are willing to engage with, and one that you are not, odds are the one you are not willing to engage with is more sensitive.
So, I want to engage with the idea of unpleasant realities in board games through the medium of 18xx games. This can be thought of as analogous to war in board games, colonization in board games, or any other form of violence in board games to as much or as little as you want.
One reason I want to use 18xx games to approach this topic is the lack of general "hot-button outcry" about the ugliness behind many 18xx games. There is nothing wrong with being upset by the ugliness in the world, but it is not my goal to upset (specifically hurt) people here.
The other major reason is that this is going to sound pretty critical of 18xx games, and it is. But no one should be able to accuse me of being a hatchet man out to ruin the good fun that is 18xx if they know me.
I hope to be critical in the (best) sense of critical theory, looking at something important and trying to illuminate flaws that they might be improved upon. And (perhaps in the spirit of critical theory) I have rambled on for 5 tweets without saying much, so let's get to it.
Let us begin with the overt. The game that popularized 18xx in the US is 1830, a game explicitly about Railways & *Robber Barons* (emphasis mine). It is there in the title. You are going to connive, collude, and swindle your way to the top or go bankrupt trying.
I get that American culture lionizes robber barons and other "captains of industry," but I think even we are coming to view these figures in less flattering terms. These games celebrate greed is good, industrialization at all cost, and the teleology of progress at its worst.
Let me hasten to add that I see nothing wrong with games exploring these themes. The canonical great example of a game exploring without celebrating "greed is good" is An Infamous Traffic by Cole Wehrle. Here you play British opium merchants (for goodness sake!).
The game system makes the avarice of these smugglers and war agitators sensible, putting it in the context of social standing back in London, without *ever* celebrating this mindset. Arguably, the nature of the point prizes holds up a mirror to how hollow these motivations are.
But that is the overt issue with 18xx, I am far more interested in the suppressed issues present, or not present, in these games. Let me take 18C2C, a game focusing on the US Transcontinental railroad connections, as my main example.
As you might imagine based on that description, the drive to connect the Eastern and Western coasts of North America (focused on the US) is a large part of this game. This is something that truly happened historically, as are the settings (more or less) for many 18xx games.
What the game does not capture is the harm done to Native American communities along the routes. The poor conditions and outright atrocities committed against Irish and Chinese American workers.
(Side note, I'm not sure how many of the workers, especially of Chinese descent, were allowed to become citizens. But if you suffer to build a railroad across the US I strongly feel you deserve to be considered an American, if you still want to be considered one.)
And here lies the crux of my question, how much should a game engage with the disturbing conditions inherent in its premise? I am not sure there is a right answer, but I think the industry has found quite a few incorrect ones.
First off, I want to say that I perceive a difference between avoiding the issue and insisting that there is no issue. For example, in Puerto Rico you... import little brown discs representing people who then work your buildings and fields.
The ultimate nature of these brown discs is not specified in the rules, which I think is somewhat grey in terms of acceptability. Where the game crosses the line is the indignant outrage at the suggestion that this might represent slavery.
I understand that this is not a game that is trying to wrestle with the moral festering sore on the zeitgeist of humanity that is our millennia of slavery. There are other games that do this for better (This Guilty Land, Hollandspiele) or worse (Endeavor).
This goes all the way out to nope, nope, NOPE (Pax Emancipation). The point is that these are games that centralize the idea of slavery. Puerto Rico is not trying to do that.
However, if they insist that slavery *isn't* a question that the game can, should, or might address, it comes off a lot like saying slavery wasn't an issue fundamental to the setting the game portrays. This is whitewashing, obscuring the unpleasant historical realities therein.
A separate wrong response is to glorify the problem. I feel that Scramble for Africa probably fit this category, with its description practically evoking European powers drooling over an inhabited continent.
Here arguably 18xx goes to far, glorifying the accrual of wealth in excess of one's peers through any means possible. I would argue that here 18xx remains in the grey, as the rivalries between robber barons were not the real problem with the system, but I am biased towards 18xx.
This leaves me with three strategies that seem morally viable. First, you can acknowledge the problem in the rulebook, ideally prominently and not in an appendix, and then ask the player to engage with the game on other levels.
In academic talks there is a growing habit of acknowledging the tribal land at the start of a talk when giving a talk on what used to be tribal land (most of North America). After doing this, you launch into your unrelated talk, this feels like a good metaphor for this approach.
Second, and perhaps best, you can design and theme your game so that at least part of it is wrestling with the historical problems that it encompasses. To extend the metaphor, this would be giving a talk with a significant component about the disempowerment of Native Americans.
Lastly, and leastly, is dodging the issue in the official game components as long as you do not attempt to silence those who raise the point. I have to admit that this is where I am as an academic, I do not acknowledge the tribal land I am on, but I wouldn't deny its existence.
(Side note, I have discovered the maximum length of a tweet chain that Twitter will support in one go. It's okay, we are almost there, I am pivoting into my conclusion.)
Ultimately, I do not know what should be done, and I have learned to view my own views on topics of oppression with suspicion.
With my background of privileges (look at me, I'm wearing a bowtie for goodness sake!) my best contribution is either a listening heart or my ability to repeat what others more tuned in have taught me in a voice that happens to get listened more frequently (what a coincidence!).
That said, I do think it is possible for games to be serious. I believe we can engage with a complicated and uncomfortable topic through the medium of board gaming. In fact, in some ways I think board games can act as "empathy pumps," helping us envision other perspectives.
The rub is to make sure that the perspectives being normalized are ones that we want to bring greater recognition and acceptance for.
If you are here, thank you for engaging with this topic with me.
If you are here, thank you for engaging with this topic with me.
I want to wrap up with some suggested reading. On morality in board games in general, here is a very topical New York Times article I read in the "before times." The article made me cringe a couple times, but it seems relevant. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/style/board-games-cancel-culture.html
Here's another NYT article about erasure of Chinese workers from the mythos of the Transcontinental Railway. I promise I am not sponsored by the NYT (if they are paying attention, I'm open to it though!). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/us/golden-spike-utah-railroad-150th-anniversary.html
Actually, I remember reading about the poor treatment of workers (Irish and Chinese) when researching a paper I wrote in 8th grade. Since it was that long ago I wanted to refresh my reference before asserting that it was true, and this article was the lowest hanging fruit.
An excellent series of blogs by Erin Lee Escobedo on the design of Meltwater and the nature of games as art and argument. https://hollandspiele.com/blogs/hollandazed-thoughts-ideas-and-miscellany/making-meltwater-part-1-famine
Heck, you should probably just go check out Hollandspiele, home of thought provoking games, if you have not yet. I have referenced at least three of their games thus far (An Infamous Traffic which is no longer in their catalog, This Guilty Land, and Meltwater).
Just don't ask me what hot button issue Dinosaur Table Battles grabbles with.
