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homullus posted:The new OP could reasonably acknowledge, and summarize briefly (in no particular order) the current issues with: (1) bigoted game companies/CEOs (e.g. Gaming Goat), (2) designers of color, (3) representations of diversity in games (e.g. Alma Mater), and (4) the decolonization of tabletop gaming. Links to fuller discussions elsewhere would be fine, nobody needs to write the decisive NYT article on it. "Community recognition of these issues is growing; many of us talk and think about these more than we used to." I'm sorry but that's an assumption that I don't like. Black people have many different experiences and outlooks and I will never say that somehow simply the color of their (my) skin says that they will have a different experience. Many/most do but not all. I would challenge anyone to play Rising Sun and somehow magically know it was from a Black designer. E: I am a Black woman but I don't speak for all Black people and neither should the thread imply that we do either.
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Dec 27, 2021 17:51
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Mayveena posted:I'm sorry but that's an assumption that I don't like. Black people have many different experiences and outlooks and I will never say that somehow simply the color of their (my) skin says that they will have a different experience. Many/most do but not all. I would challenge anyone to play Rising Sun and somehow magically know it was from a Black designer. You're taking it one step further than you need to, which is why it rings false. The idea is not that people should magically know that A Black Person was involved because of certain Black characteristics they just couldn't help but leave in the design -- that's crazy talk, which is why it sounds crazy to you. It's also crazy talk to say Black Americans all have the same experience. I guess it's mathematically possible for a Black American to have an experience in America 100% free of any racial difference, but the way race is embedded in pretty much everything here, I have serious doubts. The plainest I can say it is that your entire life experience, conscious and unconscious, informs everything you do. Design-wise, it is as much about what you cut out of a game as what you put in. It is how you word things, the media you consume for fun, even how you envision people playing your game. I think a Black American could have produced Alma Mater, for example, and said yes, it makes sense that all these characters are white, but I think it's less likely. That's an extreme example, but I think you may be underrating the relevance of identity in creation/design.
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Dec 27, 2021 18:15
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homullus posted:You're taking it one step further than you need to, which is why it rings false. The idea is not that people should magically know that A Black Person was involved because of certain Black characteristics they just couldn't help but leave in the design -- that's crazy talk, which is why it sounds crazy to you. It's also crazy talk to say Black Americans all have the same experience. I guess it's mathematically possible for a Black American to have an experience in America 100% free of any racial difference, but the way race is embedded in pretty much everything here, I have serious doubts. And I'm saying you're overrating it in the case of Black people. And maybe the thread agrees with you. I'm not in control of what the OP will say. I'm putting my thoughts out here and if people don't agree so be it. Everyone's experiences affect what they do. But I will tell you that within the hobby I have only had two experiences out of 35 years that I felt were racist. They were very limited and would not affect a game I might design in the future, just as my life as a Black woman did not affect the contributions I made to Advanced Civilization.
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Dec 27, 2021 18:25
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This discussion just reminds me of a conversation my fiancee and I were having with my fiancee's friend. Said friend is big into TCGs and regularly goes to stuff like Magic booster releases and YGO tourneys and Cardfight Vanguard tourneys. Said friend is part of a tournament team for YGO and she was telling us about how one of their team members is black and that when he first introduced himself, he told the rest of his team that he knows he's a black guy playing a TCG and he knows that there are jokes to be made about that and that it's okay if they just get the jokes out then and there. Fiancee and I ask the friend what the hell kind of jokes are there about black people who play YGO. We legit couldn't think of anything but the way the friend told the story made it sound like this was some obvious thing, that there is some joke about black people who play card games that lots of people know about. So the friend starts telling us what the joke is supposed to be. "Well, you know, like how black people like fried chicken and stuff"
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Dec 27, 2021 18:32
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If anyone's actually interested in Black board gaming, ABCon was a few weeks ago: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cowriegames/ab-con-the-african-boardgame-convention/description https://theabcon.com 60-some games released from 7 publishers this year. Sorry to goons that hate kickstarter, guess you missed the backing 
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Dec 27, 2021 18:43
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Why are you acting so salty dude, just take the l and move on and stop trying the dredge up your loss in every other post you make
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Dec 27, 2021 18:46
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Mayveena posted:And I'm saying you're overrating it in the case of Black people. And maybe the thread agrees with you. I'm not in control of what the OP will say. I'm putting my thoughts out here and if people don't agree so be it. Everyone's experiences affect what they do. But I will tell you that within the hobby I have only had two experiences out of 35 years that I felt were racist. They were very limited and would not affect a game I might design in the future, just as my life as a Black woman did not affect the contributions I made to Advanced Civilization. So when you're e.g. fighting the good fight on BGG because regressive gamers are in a tizzy that some designer suggested black people existed outside sub-Saharan Africa prior to globalization, or whatever the chud cause du jour is, do you think that your lived experiences are completely coincidental to your point of view on the subject? Obviously, plenty of white guys agree with you, so it's not like there's a 1:1 correlation between race and sociopolitical beliefs. I do think you raise a good point and it's definitely important to recognize that representation is not a magic bullet. No amount of buying games from Black designers is going to fix racism, and reducing them solely to the color of their skin does not do them any favors. But representation isn't nothing, either, and in particular I think that boosting visibility of Black designers is likely to be helpful in combating assumptions about this being a hobby by and for white cishet men. (I would hope that nobody reading this thread needs any persuading on this point, but raising awareness for more casual thread readers may help supply them with ammo when they encounter these attitudes in the wild.)
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Dec 27, 2021 18:54
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the holy poopacy posted:So when you're e.g. fighting the good fight on BGG because regressive gamers are in a tizzy that some designer suggested black people existed outside sub-Saharan Africa prior to globalization, or whatever the chud cause du jour is, do you think that your lived experiences are completely coincidental to your point of view on the subject? Having just gone through an election in California where the Black candidate was a 1000% white supremacist is proof that anyone can care or not care about this issue. And there's plenty of Black people out there like him. And I don't think that Black designers are going to do what (seems like white) people want then to do. Folks it's not Black people's job to save our loving hobby from racism. The hobby needs to save itself from racism. All of us white, Black, Asian, LGBTQ, are responsible for keeping this hobby contextual and representative. So while of course I want more designers, more experiences, more research and cultural differences in our designers, they aren't necessarily going to make any difference in how the hobby presents itself. This is why I don't want any sort of implication that somehow the hobby needs more Black designers.
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Dec 27, 2021 19:04
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I agree 100% that it's not a matter of needing anything from Black designers, but I still think it does help. It's definitely a fine line to tread and you may be right that it's not worth trying to walk that particular tightrope, though.
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Dec 27, 2021 19:09
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homullus posted:The new OP could reasonably acknowledge, and summarize briefly (in no particular order) the current issues with: (1) bigoted game companies/CEOs (e.g. Gaming Goat), (2) designers of color, (3) representations of diversity in games (e.g. Alma Mater), and (4) the decolonization of tabletop gaming. Links to fuller discussions elsewhere would be fine, nobody needs to write the decisive NYT article on it. "Community recognition of these issues is growing; many of us talk and think about these more than we used to."  Points can also be made about queer discourse in board gaming. That does not relate to everything the same way (e. g. colonialism) but it is also a thing that's bubbling more to the surface, and rightly so, because it turns out some people with power in the industry are some form of *phobic. Dancer fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 19:09
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I think it’s very good for the hobby to be a more welcoming space for non-white non-male creators with zero expectations that their identity play any part in the games they design. It is very much not that currently.
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Dec 27, 2021 19:20
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Bottom Liner posted:I think it’s very good for the hobby to be a more welcoming space for non-white non-male creators with zero expectations that their identity play any part in the games they design. It is very much not that currently. As usual BL is exactly right. The main thing is not to expect them to affect the hobby simply because of their identity. I know of Black people designing games and I don't know that they've felt unwelcome because they were Black. Frankly I doubt that at least in the US because the country is so capitalist that anyone who can make a company money is just fine no matter what they identify with. The problem to me is that we don't have enough Black/Latino/Asian people in the hobby in the first place. At the last con, I counted 3 Latino people at a 1000+ person con. Why aren't they at the cons? Nearly 50% of LA is Latino. Where are the Latino board gamers? More Black attendance is happening, getting closer to their representation in the city, but Latino participation is terrible. So what to do? My answer is again more Latino presence in the board games that are made. Mayveena fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 19:30
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Admiralty Flag posted:Can someone give me a quick bullet on how much has changed between Power Grid and Power Grid Recharged? Much appreciated! Didn't see an answer to this and I didn't want it to get lost in the new thread discussion, so I wanted to try asking again; I want to know if it's worth getting Recharged. BTW introduced Power Grid to my wife and daughter a couple of nights ago as "like Monopoly but actually fun", and even though we were a player or two short of optimal it was a big hit.
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Dec 27, 2021 19:33
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Can we put a disclaimer on or exclude Chicago Express (plus his other games) from the list of recommended games? The (white) designer adopts the pseudonym "Harry Wu" for some of his games for some weird reason, which is a practice of cultural appropriation (is this the right term?) that is both very weird and very off-putting to me. I don't know why white people like to cosplay as Asians as much as they do (see also Marvel's editor in chief), but it's really loving weird and they can all go gently caress themselves.
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Dec 27, 2021 19:36
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GrandpaPants posted:Can we put a disclaimer on or exclude Chicago Express (plus his other games) from the list of recommended games? The (white) designer adopts the pseudonym "Harry Wu" for some of his games for some weird reason, which is a practice of cultural appropriation (is this the right term?) that is both very weird and very off-putting to me. I don't know why white people like to cosplay as Asians as much as they do (see also Marvel's editor in chief), but it's really loving weird and they can all go gently caress themselves. We could just say he's an idiot because he is. A very nasty person.
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Dec 27, 2021 19:45
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GrandpaPants posted:Can we put a disclaimer on or exclude Chicago Express (plus his other games) from the list of recommended games? The (white) designer adopts the pseudonym "Harry Wu" for some of his games for some weird reason, which is a practice of cultural appropriation (is this the right term?) that is both very weird and very off-putting to me. I don't know why white people like to cosplay as Asians as much as they do (see also Marvel's editor in chief), but it's really loving weird and they can all go gently caress themselves. Change the rec to Irish gauge?
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Dec 27, 2021 19:57
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GrandpaPants posted:Can we put a disclaimer on or exclude Chicago Express (plus his other games) from the list of recommended games? The (white) designer adopts the pseudonym "Harry Wu" for some of his games for some weird reason, which is a practice of cultural appropriation (is this the right term?) that is both very weird and very off-putting to me. I don't know why white people like to cosplay as Asians as much as they do (see also Marvel's editor in chief), but it's really loving weird and they can all go gently caress themselves. John Bohrer is a deeply weird guy but I would hesitate to call it cultural appropriation. When he stopped using Martin Wallace he said this quote:I discussed the problem with one of my mentor’s, Professor Henry Y. Chaung, the man who taught Switching Theory in Graduate School. Most of my games are Finite State Machines. Henry was a proud Taiwanese-American and Harry Wu came up as pseudonym. OK, Harry Wu it was. So again, deeply weird guy but he's not trying to trick people into thinking he's Asian it's just the name he puts on them. Either way it doesn't count as cultural appropriation. Alternatively threadban train games, that also works. In fact yes threadban train games.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:05
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Aramoro posted:John Bohrer is a deeply weird guy but I would hesitate to call it cultural appropriation. When he stopped using Martin Wallace he said this Train games not done by idiots are good  Bohrer exposed a person's address and phone number on BGG in an attempt to get the person to pay John money which turns out the person didn't even owe. He's always been a negative person, since rec.games.board. gently caress that guy. Him and his stupid patents done by his father.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:13
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Aramoro posted:Either way it doesn't count as cultural appropriation. I don't know how taking an Asian pseudonym is not cultural appropriation, but I guess I'll just let white people decide that for me, an Asian dude.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:16
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Bottom Liner posted:Change the rec to Irish gauge? John Bohrer owns Winsome games so you're back in the Eklund Ion problem. Unless you get a Capstone version I guess?
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Dec 27, 2021 20:19
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Aramoro posted:John Bohrer owns Winsome games so you're back in the Eklund Ion problem. Unless you get a Capstone version I guess? AFAIK the Capstone is the only version available now?
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Dec 27, 2021 20:22
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Bottom Liner posted:AFAIK the Capstone is the only version available now? Ahh I didn't know that, I've only seen the Winsome version. Irish Gauge also benifits by being the better game as well.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:29
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It's like anything else. If you want a community or activity to be more diverse (which is to say, to have its participants be more representative of the actual people who make up the world) you do it by remaking things -- always in a healthy way -- to be more welcoming, inclusive, and accessible. You don't (for example) attract more women to your field by giving it what you think is a "girly" makeover and holding a medal-awarding ceremony every instant one pokes her head through the door. That's crazy and weird. You do it by just making participation and enjoyment more accessible & creating a healthier and more inclusive environment in general. Remove the dismissive poo poo that turns people away, axe the smirking little pissing matches that seem to dominate communities, clear away the garbage that whispers to newcomers "this isn't for you", and -- always in a healthy way -- give people control over their own involvement and the freedom to be and participate as themselves. I don't think we've really figured all that out yet, because if it were easy or came more naturally, it would probably already be done. But it's worth putting effort into because there's so much being missing out on otherwise.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:42
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GrandpaPants posted:Can we put a disclaimer on or exclude Chicago Express (plus his other games) from the list of recommended games? The (white) designer adopts the pseudonym "Harry Wu" for some of his games for some weird reason, which is a practice of cultural appropriation (is this the right term?) that is both very weird and very off-putting to me. I don't know why white people like to cosplay as Asians as much as they do (see also Marvel's editor in chief), but it's really loving weird and they can all go gently caress themselves. I glossed over Bohrer because I truly get the impression he is just and idiot and an rear end in a top hat, and doesn't realize the approriative harm of his psuedonyms possibly out of pure stubbornness, but that is no excuse and you're probably right that it should be included. It's gonna be a long list of bad behavior.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:53
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Bohrer is a petty, spiteful, nasty piece of garbage, and his fawning, toxic BGG fan club (clearclaw, Bruce et al) are no better.
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Dec 27, 2021 21:21
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Looking up the Bohrer stuff, I wandered across his fight with Martin Wallace over Age of Steam. Who knew train games would have so many problems? Amabel's Irish and Iberian Gauge from Capstone should be the train game recommendation.
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Dec 27, 2021 22:41
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Bohrer also got banned from BGG for doxxing. Feck Bohrer. While we're throwing designers under the tracks, 1889 designer Yasutaka Ikeda thinks the news of Obama's arrest for espionage has been censored, and makes facebook posts about Soros.
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Dec 27, 2021 22:56
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Rusty Kettle posted:Looking up the Bohrer stuff, I wandered across his fight with Martin Wallace over Age of Steam. Who knew train games would have so many problems? All I can say is that there is a lot more to that Wallace story that I'm not permitted to tell and of course John took advantage of him but Wallace has a lot of responsibility for what happened.
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Dec 27, 2021 23:31
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Yeah my limited understanding was that neither side comparted themselves at all well.
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Dec 27, 2021 23:58
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Llyranor posted:While we're throwing designers under the tracks, 1889 designer Yasutaka Ikeda thinks the news of Obama's arrest for espionage has been censored, and makes facebook posts about Soros. The last game I backed was Stationfall, until yesterday when I backed 1889. gently caress me.
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Dec 28, 2021 01:21
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CitizenKeen posted:The last game I backed was Stationfall, until yesterday when I backed 1889. gently caress me. Something up with Stationfall? I was looking at late pledging it.
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Dec 28, 2021 01:36
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Chekans 3 16 posted:Something up with Stationfall? I was looking at late pledging it. Scroll up for two pages regarding whether supporting Ion Games and Matt Eklund is supporting garbage person Phil Eklund. (Thread opinion: yes.)
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Dec 28, 2021 01:43
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GrandpaPants posted:cultural appropriation while this is top of mind it sure would be nice if mostly European designers stopped theming games based on non-European cultures. I'm looking at you Targi Ra Goa Bora Bora Tikal Ghost Stories Takenoko Vanuatu At the Gates of Loyang Gugong Tekhenu Rajas of the Ganges Holi Maharaja Jaipur Teotihuacan Aztec T'zolkin Tigris & Euphrates Nippon The Great Wall Santiago Agra Taj Mahal Trade on the Tigris The Great Zimbabwe Imhotep this is just off the top of my head + the BGG top 400. I left off some obvious games about European interactions with non-European cultures. as the hobby grows it would be nice if these names/themes were available to designers from those regions or with the right context/connection to them.
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Dec 28, 2021 01:54
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Fate Accomplice posted:while this is top of mind it sure would be nice if mostly European designers stopped theming games based on non-European cultures. I'm looking at you I don't agree with this take. It's fine to design games about a culture you're not part of as long as you take care to be respectful and get input from those who ARE part of that culture.
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Dec 28, 2021 02:45
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Pretty sure they're not posting in good faith.
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Dec 28, 2021 03:08
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Bottom Liner posted:Pretty sure they're not posting in good faith. I am posting in good faith as a person of Indian heritage. Slimy Hog posted:I don't agree with this take. It's fine to design games about a culture you're not part of as long as you take care to be respectful and get input from those who ARE part of that culture. I’m curious which, if any, of the designers of the games I listed did so.
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Dec 28, 2021 06:57
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Fate Accomplice posted:I am posting in good faith as a person of Indian heritage. I can’t say that any of the games you’ve listed that went through a sensitivity pass, but John Company and Pax Pamir are notably missing from your list & are thread favorites. Do they pass the grade?
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Dec 28, 2021 07:02
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Isn't Tikal about archeologists?
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Dec 28, 2021 07:04
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Triskelli posted:I can’t say that any of the games you’ve listed that went through a sensitivity pass, but John Company and Pax Pamir are notably missing from your list & are thread favorites. Do they pass the grade? I left John Company out among others because it’s explicitly about the manipulations Europeans perpetrated against other cultures. Thematically I separate that from “I’m going to call this route building game Taj Mahal.” Pax Pamir is tougher because it attempts to model a response to European manipulation.
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Dec 28, 2021 07:07
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Indian cultural issues continue to be glossed over by most/all of the board game community. Holi and Jaipur are ok all things considered. Rajas has a random Kali dice holder for reasons. The new Cranio Maharaja is one of the worst offenders by far, and you left out Ganesha which is just as bad. There are BGG threads for both if you’re interested.
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Dec 28, 2021 07:22
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