#5: Some Fun Thoughts On Colonialism In RPGs!
Hello, readers. Last week’s edition was #4 but I accidentally labeled it #5. This is the real #5. Please do not listen to any strange men in suits with a glazed look in their eye that tell you otherwise. In fact, don’t talk to these men at all. Run!
I. Colonialism in Games
Thanks to twitter-er (tweeter?) Yochai Gal, I came across enthusiasticskeletonboys, a blog by Sam C, a South East Asian game writer / designer. The blog is full of old-school D&D material but Sam’s latest series resonated with me tremendously and I thought I would share them.
The series is titled Designing an Asian Colonial-Era Sandbox and so far two parts are done.
The first part begins with the words “I have a White Whale” and I’m already nodding furiously. The idea of a semi-fantastical, semi-historical setting based on Asia is something that I think most Asians think about - almost as soon as they first come into contact with generic European fantasyland. You know European fantasyland, right? The one with taverns and elves but no brown people? I mean, honestly, but wha is a tavern? Medieval India didn’t have taverns. I’m not even sure Medieval Europe had taverns. Relax, relax. That was me being facetious. What I mean is that “medieval Europe” isn’t really a coherent concept. It’s a thousand year time span across thousands of miles and dozens of cultures. Did medieval Finland have taverns? What about medieval Poland? Maybe they did but they probably didn’t look like that scene from Lord of the Rings when Frodo goes to Bree. That’s all I’m saying.
European fantasyland has this totalizing effect on the imagination. For Asians (and other colonized people), the quest for a recognizable fantasy idiom isn’t just about being bored with generic fantasyland but also connecting to our history and reclaiming some nebulous sense of identity. This isn’t limited to race though. If you’re culturally Italian, you might look like the people in fantasy stories but generic fantasyland reflects almost nothing of your cultural history either. It’s just that some cultures got the rough end of the stick. For more information, see Orcs.
But, hey, surprise, turns out writing a good setting is hard. Which is why Sam C’s posts are so exciting. Even though they haven’t written the setting yet, their formulation of principles is spot on.
To quote a hopefully non-controversial example from Part 2:
1. EVERYONE IS A PERSON
This is the most important one. The tribespeople are people. The colonialists are people. The emperor's court is full of people. Everyone has motivations for what they're doing. Their motivations could be wrong, superstitious, selfish or corrupt, but they're still understandable motivations.
See, we’re already ahead of most “oriental” settings.
To quote a more controversial example from Part 1:
PCs are given ample opportunity to collude - Collusion is far more profitable than resistance. Choices made to collude now result in unforeseen consequences. A job to rid the foreign-owned mine of ghouls means a rapid expansion in the use of low-paid labourers. Clearing the sea-lanes of pirates leads to an influx of brash foreign merchants.
Colonialism is complicated. One of the trickiest parts of it to parse for people today is understanding “collusion” i.e. the members of the soon-to-be-colonized-nation who actively aided colonizers in their mission. In some sense, this is hard because of the way nationalist histories are written but that’s a topic that is too complicated for this newsletter.
It becomes easier to parse when read in conjunction with the earlier quote. Everyone in histroy was a person trying to survive. They did not know they were participating in history necessarily. Which is something that takes on a different (more distressing) connotation today with the global re-emergence of fascism.
I don’t know how I feel about running a game where players could actively aid in the colonization of a nation that is an analogue for my home. In some sense, this takes the objective of decolonizing fantasy fiction and then does the opposite. It’s just roleplaying colonization. I can see how when you’re imagining a game setting for old-school D&D (which has this kind of mythic emphasis on player choice), you might “have” to make this choice. I think it’s a valid political / design position. Malaysian game designer Zedeck Siew has talked about this a little as well and I respect his views. To paraphrase, he sees it as a empty gesture to “force” players to roleplay only the “good” side. Players have to choose.
I connect with that a little. And in my as-yet-unreleased solo game The Spider and The City, I tried to stay true to that principle. But in the end, I feel like I implemented it in a mostly empty way. (I mean you can be the judge when the game comes out.) Because I couldn’t shake the idea that my job as a game designer is to intentionally facilitate specific stories or experiences. The job of any artist or craftsperson, really. This is more or less in line with prevailing thought among non-OSR indie designers. Games have gotten more and more intentional and focused in what kind of stories they want to tell. But just because your game has a highly focused story doesn’t mean it’s good at making you feel what the designer intended.
For example, there are lots of games that tell stories about rebellion and revolution where it’s mostly genre aesthetic. What are you supposed to feel? What is the game supposed to do to you? On the opposite end of the spectrum is something like Dog Eat Dog by Liam Liwanag Burke, a Pay What You Want RPG about colonialism. Make no mistake, this game is exceedingly simple and yet absolutely devious in its construction. It shows you - without really “telling” you - that colonialism is a trap that you’re never going to beat.
Anyway, this is something I’m still thinking about. No answers here! Yet!
(Just to clarify “decolonizing fantasy fiction” and “decolonizing the real world” are very different things and not as related as we might like. This post is only about the former. Go read Sam C’s posts if that sounds interesting. They’re great)
II. Two Little Bits Of News About Asian RPGs
This week, I found this blogpost where the author has a small conversation with Gearoong, a Korean game designer, about the Korean RPG community.
Also, a new RPG translation / publishing company was started this week that will translate indie Japanese TTRPGs into English. They’re called Silvervine Publishing and they did a cool AMA on reddit.
Despite living in Asia, I know nothing about TTRPGs from this continent outside the #RPGSEA community of game designers. I’ll write more about them later because they honestly deserve more space and time than I have right now.
III. Some Relatable Content About Playing Games Online
I have mostly failed at finding games online so with that in mind, please enjoy this little video.
Small caveat: There are lots of really weird GMs out there as well. It’s just that there are probably more weird players.
IV. Miscellaneous
Do you like Masks: The New Generation, the teenage superhero PbtA game? Well, two different designers have written 31 custom moves for the game that you can just drop in. Check out Meghan Lynn’s Roll +Super and Mrs Pineapple Face’s The Editors Napkin. Both are free!
“Learning to Jam with ELECTRIC WIZARDS! - Eclectic Bastion Jam Post Mortem”: A blogger writes about their experience participating in their first game jam and how they went about it.
“I want to play in Shadowrun’s setting, but definitely not Shadowrun. Any suggestions?” I had to laugh at this thread title. Pleasantly surprised that the top post has some excellent suggestions.
“Western films are so visually and thematically distinctive so I wanted my game to feel fucking western too.” A cool Wild West ruleslight RPG? Read more about a Fistful of Dice.
If you play online using Google Hangouts and want to roll dice so everyone can see, you don’t have to switch to Roll20 or some other overly-complicated VTT. You could just use something like Roll For Your Party. It’s a diceroller that you can share with your friends - it has unique “rooms” that you can play in.
V. Small Ads
This section contains sponsored links and advertisements.
MSX™ is a simple, fast, and easy to use OSR RPG. Create unique characters in less than a few minutes and explore the dark fantasy game setting, Shadowlords™. Get your PDF at DriveThruRPG!
You Might Be Wondering How We Got Here is a weekly ttrpg podcast currently playing a modern day DnD homebrew set in the Society of the Weird and Terrifying (SWAT).
These ads help keep this newsletter going and I’m very grateful for them! If you’d like to advertise with the newsletter, the submission form with all the guidelines can be found here.
Was this is a short issue? It felt like one but I’m quite happy with it. Overall, I had a really satisfying week. I hope you did too!
Like, share and subscribe. You know how it works by now. >_<
Do you have a bio or a website or social media links?