Everyone wants to be included, everyone wants to be a part, god forbid we are left out. Right? No. Not right. Don't get me wrong, in life, you need to include everyone without any differences of gender, race or anything else. But you can't change history. Maybe if you change history to fit what you want to show you are criminally misleading people. So maybe when creating a board game that is themed on some historic event or place be true to that history.
History is filled with crap, but if we don't know it was filled with crap, how can we change our ways? We need to know that humankind made some horrible things in the past that we don't do any more (or just a lot less...). That way we will not repeat them.
Want examples that really make me mad? Of course you do:
Slavery: In Five Tribes, a game I really enjoy, one type in the commodity cards is slaves. People use to own people in the past. In the time and place where Five Tribes is situated (similar to Tales of Arabian Nights) there where slaves. The Arab Slave Trade was a huge thing from the 7th century until around 1960. People got mad that there are slaves in the game, so the company put out a set of replacement cards to remove the slaves from the game. Now, if the replacements (I think it's snake charmers) were there in the first place, then ok issue diverted. But once you put them there, don't make them disappear. It's like your history teacher coming into class one day and is telling you to forget that slavery existed.
Feminism: Another thing is women in games, a very hot topic in 2016 in game discussions. In any game that is modern, women should be equally represented. But if you make a game about the start of train and railroad engineering putting in female engineers is lying to everyone. Yes, they were all men. Yes, women are as capable. Yes, women were oppressed and didn't get the same opportunities as men. No, they did not work build the first railroads in Russia. How will you teach girl what gender equality means without them knowing what was (and is) gender inequality? All the figures on the cover of Zhanguo are men, because Chinese governors were male at that time, does that make anyone mad? Also, all of them have very neat facial hair, was that a thing? Would anyone rather be lied to with pictures of women governors in imperial China? On the cover of Rococo there's a large figure of a woman, but in the background there are a lot of men. Why? Because high end tailors working for royalty used to be male. Colonialism: Not the game, although the game Colonialism holds no punches back about the European hostile takeovers nicknamed "colonialistic endeavours". On the cover of the game Mombasa there's a smiling native lady carrying produce to the tent of the white bookkeeper. I'm not saying put a sad woman on the cover (that can't be good for sales...), but at least don't lie to me and just paint another scenario. These people were not happy under the arm their respective European lords. In the defense of the creators, they did something I really like. They wrote at the beginning of the rule book that they are a aware of the horrible things that colonialists did in Africa, but the game touches on the financial side of it as it a financial game so the cards just depict cotton or bananas or an explorers hat.
Like it or not, please don't change history. Learn from it instead. If you choose a historic theme, be true to it and not to the picture that you want to paint. I applaud those who tell the story as it is. If you can't be true to your historic theme, make your game about fantasy or space or tiny bugs.
Play games, make games,
Pini!
In the picture, a slave. They existed.
