"Welp if you don't like it, leave" isn't quite the nuanced nor convincing ethical argument about whether it's cool or not to play Nazis in boardgames that this essay thinks it is

This is *exactly* the attitude keeping boardgame communities & spaces at the 90% white & male (and predominantly cishet) default setting.

Satisfactory accommodations for people suffering discomfort are not "abstracting [Nazis] into a track" or having them be played Automa-style by bots

Scramble for Africa was famously shelved two years ago for its own abstractions of the violent colonialization of Africa, which whitewashed slavery and torture and genocide and boiled it down into cube-pushing, point-scoring, "random events" dreck

My argument is that it's not solely the ethics of a game you bring to your table that determines if it’s right or wrong to play it. This essay should have asked “do these games have the right to exist?” Because that's what it's answering. (The answer is “sure, I guess?")

But rationalizing bringing games like this into your space to subject them to others is a personal choice, an individual opinion, and not a definitive one-size-fits-all ethical argument or solution for everyone.

Games are not sentient; they are abstract concepts made real by boxes of bits and boards.

Essentially every game is a designer’s thought experiment. The designer may not necessarily be thinking of whether it’s right or wrong to be creating it

But once the game’s n the wild it’s no longer a thought experiment. It's subject to an individual's ethics. Who then opens it up to others that may or may not share the same ethics. Questions like “should this game exist?” or “should this game be played?” are now irrelevant

The game ceases to be an ethical abstraction or thought experiment once it hits the table.

*It becomes a living social contract shared by the players*

It’s like auto-clicking a website’s terms of service. By sitting down to play Game X you’re expected to agree upon not only the game’s rules of play, but also possible assumptions and beliefs or suspensions of disbelief held by the designer, and now by other players at the table

Saying “no it’s fine Nazis are ABSTRACT” or “you can always leave you know” is not an ethical solution. It abdicates personal responsibility and accountability. By extension it may be ignoring one’s rules for moderating a space, or one’s stated Code of Conduct

AND it’s implying that the person made to feel uncomfortable has violated the social contract agreed upon for that game at that table in that space by the other players

It pits that person against the others. It infers that the uncomfortable person doesn’t share the same values as those seated comfortably & ready to play the Nazi game. The game's not exclusionary. The players are excluding for deeming it socially & ethically acceptable

Which makes “Nazis are fine” an ethical edge case that, if permitted, moves the trust line of what is acceptable for the *players* in your space going forward. Which may attract people who misinterpret or willfully manipulate that trust.

I think games you introduce or permit in your spheres should be subject to the same Code of Conduct & community standards as the players. If I see Nazi cosplay or pro-slavery kayfabe games welcomed in your space, it tells me you're not far enough removed from potential toxicity

You can't math out or debate club it as purely ethical, because there's also the moral (human) element concerning relationships we have w/fellow players, as we engage with ethical thought experiments (games) in a participatory way where we must enact cruelty or bigotry as "play"

Also! I'm not saying you *can't* play these games. I'm saying if you do, you indicate who is welcome/unwelcome & whether your space is seen as inclusive & safe.

Introducing games that may be considered ethically & morally problematic is an editorial choice that *defines* you