This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Winning game designer banned from future Spiel des Jahres events for anti-Israel symbol.
Board gaming is a much bigger hobby than it used to be. The Spiel des Jahres award was created in 1978 to highlight family-friendly games, and I played some of the early winners (Rummikub (1980) and Scotland Yard (1983))--but it was 1995's winner, The Settlers of Catan, that really changed the face of board gaming in the United States. As an established presence in the European market, the Spiel des Jahres evolved from a simple trade award to the gold standard for "must have" games. Like most at-home hobbies, board gaming also got a bump from the COVID pandemic--but more broadly, the nerdification of American culture has fed board gaming in much the way it has fed video gaming, comic books, and other IP-adjacent hobbies.
These days there are three "Spiel des Jahres" awards--the children's award, the regular award, and the "complex game" award. This year's "complex" winner was Daybreak, "a cooperative game about stopping climate change." The creator, Matteo Menapace, presumably wrote his own bio, though I don't know that for certain:
Anyway, Matteo reportedly wore a pin or sticker or something looking approximately like this onto the award ceremony stage. The announcement describes this as
Predictably, a reddit post in the most popular board game sub refers to it as a "pro-Palestine" sticker rather than an "anti-Israel" sticker. These days the line between those things can seem pretty thin, or so it seems to me. The commentary is predictable enough... I suppose in this case I would say that it seems like the political symbol in question "deliberately skirts the border of comprehensibility." Matteo is clearly an activist, who was doing activist things. The Spiel des Jahres people are clearly on board with the DEI rhetoric, and employ it in this announcement, so this may be one of those "leopards at my face" moments, too. But I don't know what Matteo's nationality is (Google suggests maybe he's an Italian living in the UK?), and Germany has some fairly strict anti-semitism laws for, you know, historical reasons, so there may be a culture gap issue here as well.
Ugh, half the posts in the /r/boardgames thread are deleted by the mods (and the thread now locked).
Unfortunately, /r/boardgames is a cesspool and has been for years at this point. I stopped visiting because I was sick and tired of reading people's political opinions in a forum which is ostensibly about board games.
Me too. For a time I tried to write a board gaming blog, and it used to get a lot of traffic when I'd post it to reddit. But eventually the politics of the sub just crowded me out. Especially after the mods themselves started parroting lines like "Everything is political" when I complained that I just wanted to enjoy some escapism. And this was back when people were arguing over Days of Wonder removing slaves from Five Tribes (still have my copy with slave cards), or when a game I backed on Kickstarter, Draco Magi, had it's cover artwork censored to make the woman on it less "sexualized". I think the final straw was when Shut Up & Sit Down posted this terrifyingly Orwellian review of Cards Against Humanity essentially stating it was a terrible game because it caused you to have politically incorrect thoughts, and people should not play it to avoid accidental thought crimes. This point of view was not appreciated.
Things have gotten so much worse since then.
An Elizabeth Hargrave rant wells within me.
That said, Cards Against Humanity is a terrible game that's funny once and then just becomes endless dick jokes.
Do tell? I've been significantly checked out of the hobby. Just broke my heart when GMTGames, one of my last bastions of male, pale and stale that I enjoy so much, cancelled Scramble for Africa in response to massive backlash around it's "colonizing" themes. I heard a smidgen about Wingspan winning all the awards, and some accusations of favoritism because it was designed by a woman. But nothing that implies the sorts of hysterical cancellation games or vote rigging that occurs during say, the Hugo Awards.
Yeah, not liking Cards Against Humanity because it gets boring is fine. Because it does. Not liking Cards Against Humanity because it goes against The Ministry of Truth... that's a whole other things. Leave it to a Brit to treat 1984 like a manual.
I personally think Wingspan is an over-complicated and half-baked game that is highly overrated precisely because it's designed by a woman who's a loud feminist in the game designer space.
However, Elizabeth Hargrave also has gone on repeated crusades against Gamelyn Games (publishers of the Tiny Epic series) because of their "objectification of women." I.e., women are too pretty. Now normally when I see these sorts of complaints, I expect to see chainmail bikinis or women in obvious sexual poses - you know, stuff that is clearly for the "male gaze" and whether or not you think that's a bad thing, you can't deny that that's what it is. But all the examples Hargrave has ever complained about were pictures where the men were also beefcakey, and the women were not obviously "sexualized," just... you know, a little too pretty, a little too hot.
I struggle to suppress uncharitable thoughts about women who resent the existence of more attractive women and reminders that men indeed find such women attractive.
Hargrave has of course also gone on rants about "underrepresentation of women" in game design (i.e., not winning enough awards), which almost got Ryan Dancy, the CEO of Alderac cooked when he made the mistake of trying to respond with the "pipeline" argument and dared to say something about women not taking criticism very well. (Hargrave did not take the criticism very well. Dancy duly groveled and apologized.)
Well, googling what she looks like more or less perfectly matched what I imagined from her politics. So I guess there is that.
Reminds me of Charlize Theron.... in Monster. That hairline in particular made me wonder if we were talking about an actual woman at all, or a person who went the male pattern baldness to estrogen route you start to see more often.
But nobody ever praised board gamer for their looks. Or smell. So you can't say she doesn't look the part.
Man, now I wonder, can you still chew the body odor at Gencon?
More options
Context Copy link
I in no way want to endorse scolds going on moral crusades, but I do think that the boobs+butt torso twist pose is stupid, and that mage is very clearly drawn in said pose.
Also, agreed on wingspan.
Eh, I'll give you the boobs+butt torso twist being a very comic book pose, and the other chick is showing a lot of cleavage, but I maintain that standing next to a half-naked roided axeman, you've basically got highly unrealistic power fantasy body types.
I can't find the other one she complained about, but it was a different game where they clearly tried to "do better" with a female archer on the cover in a more realistic archer pose, but Hargrave still found her objectionable because her butt was too round and she was pretty.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link