There's been a bit of a discussion on various blogs about the morality and politics displayed in certain tabletop games and I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.
The original blog entry that sparked the debate: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/179196051/posts/287
It's a generally well written blog post and I agree with a lot of the points, although it comes across as a bit aggressive sometimes. I can understand where the frustration comes from but I think most people who demand "keep politics out of my game!" are often simply ignorant rather than willfully obtuse. To treat them as the enemy will likely just entrench them further, and I personally believe that most harmful attitudes come from a place of misunderstanding and most people have the ability to change their opinions.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain
I love this quote by Mark Twain (it's also absolutely true!), and I feel it's appropriate to online communities as well. If we all had an opportunity to sit with and speak to the people of different opinions and political views, I think we'd find we have a lot more in common than we'd expect, and also a lot of empathy for where they're coming from. It's reductive to assume that someone who says something sexist or racist is 'just a bigot' - it's likely that these attitudes come from a mixture of their own insecurities and fears, and we all lash out when we feel vulnerable.
Now, how are wargames & ttrpgs reinforcing (or helping to dispel) these attitudes?
A lot of wargames are based on historical battles and wars. Also, Dungeons & Dragons (the grandfather of modern RPGs) is based on a historical wargame. A lot of our historical accounts (especially in Western society, and particularly in the English speaking countries) are very male-centric and white-centric. The reasons for this are unimportant to our current discussion, but I have no doubt in my mind that this is where the root of the prejudice lies.
The famous Battle of Rorke's Drift for example featured around 150 British colonial soldiers defending a Christian Mission from an attack of 3000-4000 Zulu warriors. The colonials generally had better training with firearms (and more ammunition) than the Zulus, who were mostly equipped with spear and shield. It's a very dramatic setup for a battle, and perfect for gamifying. It has been done so in many forms, in historical wargames and even in both Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40k.
I'm sure you're aware of the complicated nature of the narrative of the battle. The British Empire were very expansionist, and the whole Anglo-Zulu war was the result of the Empire's attempts at expanding further into South Africa. Generally the British soldiers defending the Mission are seen as the heroic defenders of casualties and civilians, but the reality is a lot more complicated than that. And the Zulus could be easily depicted as savages attacking an innocent Mission Station, but the British Empire essentially forced a war on the Kingdom of Zululand.
These historical influences carry across into our RPG books and our modern wargames. Most historical accounts of battles feature men as the combatants, and so most miniatures available are of male soldiers. This inherently makes the hobby appear to be very male-centric, and coupled with the historically white-centric accounts of the battles we base the wargames on this creates an environment where a lot of wargamers are white males.
The fantasy and science-fiction wargames we have are also often based on these historical wargames, and early examples would have to rely on conversions of historical figures to fit the fantastic setting.
This would definitely look disconcerting to someone not within this specific niche. I know that if I, as a white male, were to turn up to a wargame club and observe that almost all of the games being played featured white people as bad guys, or males in general as helpless civilians/sex objects it would certainly make me think twice about returning.
The solution to this problem is to be more inclusive. In recent years many wargames companies and RPG companies have been stepping up to address the problems and have more inclusive artwork and narratives in their games. Female miniatures are no longer exclusively witches, mothers, bar wenches or scantily clad, and non-Caucasian miniatures are no longer simply relegated to cultural stereotypes.
I don't believe there's anything wrong in portraying the Battle of Rorke's Drift, even with it's problematic real-world history. I do have a problem if that's the only way that the African Kingdoms are portrayed, however. And that's what it all boils down to I think. Wargaming and roleplaying are opportunities to broaden our horizons and explore settings and characters that are far removed from our own lives. Morality and ethics are often encountered only in very small, interpersonal interactions in our daily lives. These tabletop games give us opportunities to explore hypothetical situations, so why not occasionally shift the narratives away from the way history has been presented to us (and in the case of fantasy worlds, the lore)?
In Warhammer 40k the Imperium is a horrific dystopian society; galactic bureaucracy kills millions through misplaced food requisition forms and a difference of opinion can be a crime punishable by death. This doesn't sound like an ideal place to live, and the Imperium certainly seem like bad guys to my sensibilities. So when I come up with 40k narratives for my battles I often have the heroes as heroic types who want to change the system, or have the power to make a difference. The Imperium might be an evil state, but the individuals residing inside it don't have to be. What would I do if I lived in that system and wanted to see change? I'm not sure, but I can use tabletop gaming to explore such hypotheticals.
As to the people who scream 'keep politics out of my game' - I think they're misunderstanding what it's all about. Morality and politics are intrinsically linked even to the concept of war. Without a political system you're not declaring war, you're just attacking someone for no reason. The troops of a country exist to enforce that nation's political agenda (whether that's morally justified or not), be that defending the citizens, or claiming resources the nation believes are rightfully theirs.
I believe that as tabletop hobbies become broader and more inclusive we'll find that more people from different backgrounds will start playing them, and in turn the amount of people complaining about 'political correctness' will diminish, not because they've fled in disgust (although some certainly will), but because their worldviews will have changed, and they'll be more open to different cultures, ethnicities and sexes being a part of their hobbies.
If you have any opinions on my mad ramblings please post a comment below! I'd love to hear what you think.
