Interview with Diogenes Games, and Socialism

Yes, Socialsm: the Game. Diogenes Games is currently running a campaign on Kickstarter to fund this satirical unofficial expansion for Monopoly. Yes, I know several of you are shaking your heads. Comedy abounds. Without further delay:

What's the gaming background of the folks at Diogenes Games?

We all bring diverse backgrounds to our work—the whole team enjoys games, but two of us are really into board games. Personally, I made several games as a kid. In college I was part of a simulation club where we played out very long, very detailed historic simulation and strategy games (maybe a bit nerdy?!) As a Dad, I personally enjoy playing games with my kids – family favorites are Settlers of Catan, Axis and Allies, Ticket to Ride, Monopoly, and Seven Wonders.

To make the game, our professional backgrounds as writers, attorneys, graphic artists, executives, engineers, and manufacturers made the process of creating and publishing the game very smooth.

Talk us through what lead you to develop Socialism: the Game.

The 2016 US Presidential election is CRAZY. A couple buddies and I were talking, and expressing dismay at the socialist and populist themes coming from the left. We started making jokes. Someone said “socialist monopoly”. Drink led to drink. Joke led to joke. And the idea of SOCIALISM: The Game was born. The next day I called an attorney friend (and soon to be SOCIALISM business partner) and said, we’re going to need legal protection. We’re making this. Right now.

Tell us about your economic views. Full on Free Trade, internal Free Trade, or other? Feel free to talk about other sociopolitical aspects as well.

What’s fun about the Diogenes team is the diversity of our views. We are both Democrats and Republicans. Mostly middle and middle right in our politics and economics. Except one guy who is practically libertarian—he really likes to talk but we don’t really listen (kidding). But we are all very pragmatic in our politics. We agree that ideology is a poor substitute for competence and character in a candidate.

We all also agree that socialism is basically un-American. Thomas Jefferson was one of the more left leaning founders of our country. But his ideas of a strong, economically independent nation of land-owning farmers and tradesmen is nowhere to be found now. And we get it—for folks who don’t or can’t “feel the earn” they’re going to “feel the Bern”. They want what other people’s money can buy. But all the members of Diogenes are freelancers or built our own businesses. Socialism kills the entrepreneurial spirit, and maybe the human spirit, too.

SOCIALISM: The Game is a satire on socialist and leftist politics. And what better way to satirize it than to parody Hasbro’s Monopoly?! Socialism would be a game changer for America, the way SOCIALISM: The Game, an unofficial expansion on Hasbro’s Monopoly, transforms one of the greatest games ever. You play on the Monopoly board, with Monopoly money and buildings, but with socialist rules and events dictated by “Fat Chance” and “Communism Chest” cards. Like socialism in real life, it lives by infecting another system.

So capitalistic competition is out, and collective poverty is in. Instead of winning by having the biggest pile of cash, SOCIALISM: The Game, ends when the government owns practically everything and everyone has just 300 bucks or less. But there are a lot of laughs on the way—in SOCIALISM, there are no winners, but there are no losers! Everyone gets a participation award and we achieve equality in dependence (insert group hug here).

Do you anticipate anyone pledging at the 8 or 10k levels? Personally, I'd love to see that as well as your 1M stretch goal. Tell us about those, and the rest of the fun you're having with the campaign.

We are really excited about the $8,000 SuperPAC level. For $8,000 we will distribute 535 copies of SOCIALISM: The Game in Washington DC – one copy for every Senator and member of the US Congress. It will be so much fun to walk into Senator Sanders’ or Representative Pelosi’s office with their complementary game. I’m aware of several people considering it… including one member of Congress.

The $10,000 “Pancake Breakfast” backer level is presenting sponsorship for the “Philadelphia Special Edition” that is available to backers at the $20 level or higher. We chose Philadelphia because ironically, with the Democratic National Convention there this summer, the birthplace of America’s independence may become the birthplace of our dependence if the socialist agenda continues to displace more moderate liberal themes. And we’ll throw a pancake breakfast for you and your friends at your choice of the nation’s capital, or one of this summer’s convention cities—Cleveland or Philadelphia.

The Kickstarter stretch goal of $1,000,000 takes SOCIALISM on the road! We’ll deliver a copy of the game to every governor in America.

Do you have any plans for other unofficial expansions or full games at this time?

We have definitely talked about it, but the timeliness of SOCIALISM: The Game with this election requires our full attention this summer. The team loves to laugh, and we really enjoy working together. Another satirical parody is a very real possibility.

Feel free to rant here.

Laughter is so important right now, particularly with so much tension and bitterness in political discourse. We also need to show our children what all this is all about. And games like this are a great way to accomplish both goals.

SOCIALISM: The Game is serious, and it’s serious fun. It’s a great gift. And great fun with friends. Let’s get social, and as we always say “Please fund SOCIALISM today”!

First, I'd like to say it's nice to see that there are still Democrats and liberals(self-identified) that think Socialism is bad. I'd like to see the 8k level backed, just for the entertainment value. If you're so inclined to join the comedy, please help out.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

Bruno Faidutti, designer of Waka Tanka

I recently asked Mr. Bruno Faidutti for an interview, and sent him some questions concerning Waka Tanka, the "controversy" over the box art, and cultural differences between USA and France/EU. While he did not like the manner of questions I asked, he still graciously provided a statement. Commentary will begin after the statement.

From Bruno Faidutti:

As I have said in my article about this issue, I think the problem with the graphics in Waka Tanka comes from a difference in the codes of racism in the US and in Europe, and the reverse can also happen, with things which would be problematic here and not in the US. That’s why I finally approved the change in the Waka Tanka cover (while I still disapprove of the fakir / slave change in Five Tribes, which is literary revisionism). That’s why also the angry reactions to these graphics came only from the US. Neither the designer, me, nor the illustrator, nor the French and Italo-Brazilian publisher saw any problem with the graphics, and actually I don’t think anyone who is not very well acquainted with US culture and politics could see the problem here. On the other hand, once it had been explained to us, we understood it well and agreed to change the graphics. 

I’ve nothing against social justice warriors, and as a marxist I can be one sometimes. I simply regret that they seem, more and more often, to pick the wrong ennemies. Specifically, I think that race and racism are now mostly a capitalist trick to simultaneously divide and essentialize the working class, which is why it is very important for me not to take race issues too seriously - which I tried to do in my points about the graphics in Waka Tanka.

I am extremely weary of political correctness, especially when it deals with language and representation, but not because it  oppresses opposite views, which are usually not very commendable. I am opposed to it because I think it’s a strategic mistake (which can probably be traced back to Orwell’s theories of language which are now prevalent in most of the western left). It’s putting the cart before the horse - it’s the social reality which must be changed, not the way we describe it. In the end, PC euphemization of descriptions and languages probably prevents actual social change.

Unfortunately, and this is probably the only point on which we will agree, this trend is becoming stronger and stronger, and Europe seems now to be following the US in it.

Injustice Gamer commentary:

 Once again, I'd like to thank Bruno Faidutti for his cooperation and words.

 Bruno is a designer of many games of good reputation, as evidenced on his boardgamegeek page. Some of these games I rather enjoy, others not.  My only personal criticism from my brief interaction with him is the fact that it is intellectually inconsistent for a Marxist to make boardgames, for a company to profit. Onto other commentary, that of content, I found the man to be a gentleman and fair.

Personally, I preferred the original box art:

Here is the replacement art:

My opinion is that while the two are cartoonish, the first is more light hearted, and the second feels darker and not quite right for a 20-30 minute game.  Both have most of the same stereotypes in fact: the red Indian being the only real difference. 

Bruno mentions the Five Tribes change, which I covered here. He states that he is unhappy with the literary revisionism, good and well. Marxists of all stripes have engaged in historical revisionism frequently. The Communist Party in Russia not only disappeared people, but removed them from photographs. ESPN has recently removed Curt Schilling from their Red Sox documentary, after firing him for making statements far less harsh than some they continue to employ; he was simply stating illiberal opinions.

If race and racism are a capitalist trick, I must ask why it is that it's liberals that fixate on it. The fact is that genetic biodiversity states that intelligence is linked to genetics heavily, and scientists have been denied funding to continue the research. Even the SAT shows a gap that is growing.

SJWs are indeed picking the wrong enemies. Perhaps this is because they have picked the wrong causes to begin with. Dividing people and promoting victimhood exposes itself for lazy greed eventually. 

On PC culture, we agree, but not for the same reason. It is a movement to restrict free speech, association, and eventually thought. This restriction does not benefit man, as we grow best through rivalry and competition.

Update: Mr. Faidutti has informed me that being a Marxist does not necessitate being a leninist or communist. He believes that the class struggle is "motor of history". Of course, I think he might struggle withe the differences between an American far right conservative, a libertarian, and a minarchist. He also mentions Mr. Sanders as not playing the race card in politics. On this we disagree; I believe he's doing it more subtly by promising college, and high wages for unskilled work.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

Interview with RPGPundit

When the expansion to Betrayal at House on the Hill was announced, I ended up having a short exchange on twitter with the RPGPundit, @KasimirUrbanski. He suggested I might interview him, and I've taken him up on the offer.

First, thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Thanks!

Give us a brief glimpse into your history with gaming.

Well, I've been an RPG gamer since the 1980s. I started out with the “red box” of D&D, as well as a few other popular games of the time. It was only a hobby until 2005, when I started writing a blog as the RPGPundit. The blog proved quite popular, and eventually I was handed the ownership of a defunct RPG-forum named “nutkinland”, on a bet (the bet being that I couldn't make it work where the previous owners had failed). My interest in the project wasn't just a matter of pride, it was also because the largest RPG forum was (and still is) a high-moderation area that was discriminating against both traditional RPG gamers and people with a different political slant than the main clique running the joint.

Within 6 months, my forum, now called theRPGsite, had become (and still is) one of the major and most active general-RPG forums on the internet. Our area of interest there tends toward old-school RPGs (D&D and its derivatives) but we have threads about all kinds of RPGs, and a free-speech moderation policy.

After that, I started writing some RPGs of my own. The most popular of these have been the diceless RPG “Lords of Olympus”, the old-school Indian-themed RPG “Arrows of Indra”, and especially my latest old-school RPG world “Dark Albion” which takes D&D-style gaming and puts it into a magical version of the 15^th century War of the Roses (the real-life history that inspired Game of Thrones), with a big emphasis on 'medieval authenticity'. It's been blessed with both rave reviews and great sales.

My involvement in old-school gaming, my blogging and my skill as an RPG reviewer led to my being hired as a consultant to help in the design in the newest (5^th) edition of Dungeons & Dragons itself.

I know from the rant over at Problematic Tabletop that you had a hand in Dungeons and Dragons 5e. As a “consultant” to the edition, how much input did you have into the game's development?

Well, obviously the lead designers were the lead developers of the game, and a lot of 5e D&D is based on the best of earlier editions of D&D (including the old-school editions which I'm a huge fan of, and helped with integrating into the new edition). But I'd say I had quite a lot of input as a consultant. I worked directly with the project head Mike Mearls, and over the course of several months we exchanged about 400 emails, where we went into a lot of detail about the early stages of the rules. I helped keep the game modular and simplified enough that it would be appealing to old-school gamers, and helped influence several different areas that ended up in the final rules.

The blogger at Fail Forward stated that you, and others involved in the Old School Rules community are paranoid and nasty people. What's your response to this?

I'd say they're the paranoid and nasty people. They're control freaks out to force other people to do what they want. I'm not the one who wants to blacklist authors and censor books. That's them.

I'll also note that the people behind that blog, and the people who supported it, were behind a vicious attack against me when D&D 5e came out. This attack included making up outright lies about me, including the standard litany that I was sexist, racist and homophobic/transphobic. They claimed that I had been opposed to the use of inclusive language in the new D&D rules, when in fact I was 100% in favor of it and had publicly stated as much. They claimed I'm a transphobe even though Arrows of Indra (a game I had published BEFORE 5e came out) was the first RPG rulebook to feature a transgender character on the cover. They continued repeating these lies in spite of any evidence or statement to the contrary, because obviously the truth is not of interest to their real agenda.

For those of us not in the know, talk to us about the OSR movement, why it exists, and what its objectives are?

The OSR stands for “Old School Renaissance” and what it amounts to is a design movement that has become one of the most innovative and influential schools of RPG-design in the modern hobby. It came into existence thanks to the Open Gaming License from Wizards of The Coast, which essentially provided a legal safeguard to using the D&D rules in third party products. This led to a lot of old-school gamers, gamers who were still playing original D&D from the 1970s and 1980s, making 'clones' of those old rules (because when the OSR started, there was no legal way to buy non-used copies of the old rules), and to write new adventures for old-school D&D.

Eventually, everything that could get 'cloned' did, and later WotC made available reprints of the AD&D and original D&D rules, and PDFs of other early products. But these developments actually led to a new phase for the OSR, of real innovation. In the last few years there's been an explosion of new rulebooks, adventures, supplements and other products that aren't a direct copy of anything from the old-school era but whose design-principles are based directly on the old-school style of system-design.

The OSR today is like a kind of framework of design, where you make the rules 'inside the box' of what fits with the old-school style, but thinking of totally new ways to modify them and totally new and unusual settings that are different from what came before. My own Dark Albion and Arrows of Indra are examples of this, but there's dozens (maybe hundreds?) more, many of which have received awards and commercial success.

Apart from one or two older gaming companies (like Goodman Games), most of the publishers of OSR products are new, small-press or self-publishing enterprises. In spite of its traditionalist bent, the OSR has proven to be a far more successful school of design concept than most previous (more artsy-fartsy avant-garde) attempts to reinvent the rpg-wheel. And the influence of the OSR was proven by the way WoTC reached out to OSR designers while designing 5e D&D.

Given, your previous involvement with WotC in DnD, what’s your response to the list of creators on the Betrayal at House on the Hill expansion?

I don't play that game, so I don't have a personal stake on it. But frankly, I'm not going to judge the creators chosen. Like I said, I'm not a fan of blacklisting or censorship. I suspect that some of those choices of creators were done for reasons totally other than real design skill, but the real proof to me should always be in the product made. As far as I'm concerned, it's the Regressives who care more about who is being picked for a job than how good they are at it; and while if I was going to bet on some of those chosen I'd probably bet against their work being any good, I think that it's the final work itself that should be judged.

The thing is, a lot of the Outrage Brigade crowd are fundamentally incompetents, which is why they want to judge on anything other than ability. In that case, the quality of their work will ultimately prove whether we should give a damn about them or not. Sooner or later, the market will decide.

What games are you currently playing? What other games do you think highly of? What games should be avoided at all costs, and why?

Currently, I'm still running the Dark Albion campaign that I used to playtest my book with, it's been running every two weeks for the last six years or so. I'm also running a second Dark Albion campaign that I host at a local gaming club. Plus, an historical 'wild west' campaign using Aces & Eights; and an extremely gonzo crazy game of Dungeon Crawl Classics (one of those very creative OSR games). That last one will probably end up being a future setting book of mine one day.

To me, aside from my own books of course, I think that old-school D&D and the OSR products are the best gaming material around. There's a ton of great OSR rulesets, each of which is creative in its own way; games like Dungeon Crawl Classics, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Fantastic Heroes & Witchery, and many more. The great thing about them is that these games, and any of their adventures/supplements, are all basically compatible with each other, and they're also all compatible with the old D&D books, settings, and adventures. There's also some OSR games that aren't fantasy-based, like the sci-fi games White Star and Stars Without Number.

There's a ton of other games, non-OSR games, that are really great and worth checking out (past and present), but it would take way too long to list them all.

The games to avoid are mostly the highly pretentious “Storygames” that try to turn RPGs away from being about emulating a character in a virtual world and into some kind of process of “addressing a narrative”. These usually have gimmicky rules and tend to crappy at long-term play (or, I would say, short-term play for that matter). Most of these are really evident if you give them a quick look, but since the rise of the OSR some of these avant-garde designers have been trying to latch on the coat-tails of Old School. I'd warn people who are looking into Old-School gaming to watch out for games like “dungeon world” or “torchbearer”, whose fans often try to claim are 'old school' but are in fact nothing of the sort.
There are worse games than those too, including a couple that aren't really games at all but exercises in what we call 'misery tourism' (where you play some poor victim of some horrible tragedy, often with political overtones), but these are so unpopular you're not likely to find them without really going out of your way to look, and they'll be obvious crap to anyone with half a brain.

Thanks again to RPGPundit. He makes a very good point about judging the final work with regard to the Betrayal expansion, though the track record of certain elements is cause for some skepticism.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.

Interview with Nat Levan, designer of the game New Bedford

Nat got back to me this week, and I've been busy and had headache issues. Comments post interview by me will be in italics.

1. Can you give us an overview of New Bedford, for those unaware of the game?

New Bedford is a game about the development of the town of New Bedford in the 18th century alongside the growth of the whaling industry. Part of the game is sending workers into town to collect resources and build more buildings, which gives players even more powerful actions to take and earns points. At the same time, you’re sending out ships to catch whales for points, while trying to make enough money to pay your crew when the ships return. As you catch whales, you see fewer and fewer, representing the historical effects of over-hunting.


2. Tell us about the disclaimer you and the publisher put in the campaign.

    When we first made the video for the campaign, we made sure to explicitly state that we don’t condone or support whaling, even though we think the history is really interesting.

    It’s really there so that if you are quickly reading through, you know that we aren’t ignoring the issue of modern whaling, but that the game isn’t about it either. I don’t think the backers needed that statement to know we don’t promote whaling, and I don’t think including it was what convinced anyone to support us. That wasn’t the intent. More than anything, I think it shows that we considered all aspects of the subject, not just the ones that were convenient or easy, in order to make the best game possible.


And a fair number of people ignored the disclaimer, and posted on BGG in rage.
 
3. Describe some of the reaction, and how that made you and Dice Hate Me Games feel.

    Overall, we heard very few complaints about the game. I don’t remember any negative comments on the Kickstarter campaign itself. A few people said they were interested but wouldn’t buy it because they didn’t think they’d be able to get it to the table due to the theme. It’s impossible to know the overall impact from people who quietly decided it wasn’t for them.

We did get a few comments on BoardGameGeek online about how whaling is a horrible idea for a game. I definitely tried to engage people to both understand and (hopefully) educate. When I was able to have a conversation with someone, I didn’t find any outrage. There were lots of people who felt like making it a game makes light of the subject, and people who didn’t think it was appropriate to have fun while pretending to participate in such violence. I don’t agree with those positions, but I understand why they feel that way. So that experience actually helped me to talk more intelligently about the game and reach people I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to talk to.

The worst response to get is when someone rejects the game without really looking at it. It feels like people are calling you a horrible person for even having an idea, and you don’t have a chance to try and change their mind. But at the same time, these are the responses you have to worry the least about, because there’s nothing you can or could do.




I think I may have seen more of the reaction than Nat, as I subscribed to the boards that ended up with the most dismissive comments. I wonder how many consider the violence in RPGs they play in the same light, or do they not equate in their minds. Also, I'm of course reminded of the Sad/Rabid Puppies campaigns, and their dismissive, name-calling opponents. Nat may also be trying to be diplomatic as not to alienate future game purchasers.
 
4. What do you feel is at the root of the vitriol?

The answer to your question is that I really don’t know. The people who engaged had very understandable reasons behind their opinions, even when we disagreed. But the people who didn’t engage? I think anger is often a defense mechanism. I don’t know if people feel like the game is criticizing them, or trying to attack them, or exclude them. And certainly none of those feelings were intended. It’s just me trying to share a subject I thought was interesting in a way I find enjoyable.


5. Any games you have in development that you would like to tell us about?

    Well, I’ve just announced my next published game, Time Management which is also coming from Dice Hate Me/Greater Than Games, which will be on Kickstarter April 1st. Later this year, I have a game with the Game of the Month Club from Buttonshy Games [https://www.patreon.com/buttonshy], no spoilers. And I’m going to be at Unpub 6 in April [http://unpub6.unpub.net ] testing a game called One Card Wonder and several other designs.


6. Did the Nantucket museum get back to you/DHMG?


We actually had contact with several groups. The New Bedford Whaling Museum is the first group we tried to contact, because we figured they would at least be interested in the project if not the product and that it might be a good relationship. But to my knowledge, we never heard anything through formal or informal channels. It would have been neat to partner with the museum.

We were also contacted by some people connected to the Nantucket Whaling Museum. I don’t know if they had any official authority with the museum, but they were interested in at least doing an informal game night at the museum/library there on Nantucket, which was neat to see.

Besides the museums, we did get in touch with the town about using the town seal, which would have made awesome art for the game, but apparently that has legal restrictions that make it impossible. And I did a brief interview with the local newspaper, a little bit about the game, and a little bit about the hobby in general. It was neat to see the interest that the story generated locally.

Pity the NBWM doesn't want to engage people more broadly. Hopefully the Nantucket one does something on occasion.

Again, thanks to Nat Levan for his time. I was one of the backers of the game, and seeing the reaction on BGG surprised me greatly, one of the reasons I'm trying to do this blog.

When you play Social Justice, the world loses.