Sunday, November 14, 2021

Another Roundup of Social Issues in Tabletop Games

Gloomhaven designers follow in the footsteps of other RPG companies in working to remove racial and colonial assumptions from their upcoming edition of Frosthaven.

Workers at Paizo follow the footsteps of workers at other RPG companies in raising issues about excessive work hours, low pay, minority tokenism, and other abuses.

Meanwhile, some workers at Broken Token (makers of inserts) posted and/or confirmed stories of abuse and sexual harassment by the founder, leading to many manufacturers and gaming associations to stop working with him.

Board games that address issues of race or gender often do so using a single idea: unequal starting positions and rewards based on your race or gender. The latest to do so are the 50th anniversary edition of Blacks & Whites, a Monopoly clone from the 1970s, and Disparity Trap, a game where, I think, the results of the cards require you to scan QR codes to find the results (the exact rules are not on the site)

Black Progress Game is a more upbeat roll and move game about the Black experience.

2 comments:

Hieronymus Pseudonymous said...

This might interest you. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/21619/toolbox-education-and-social-action

Hieronymus Pseudonymous said...

This might interest you. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/21619/toolbox-education-and-social-action
(Sorry if this is a double-post, I'm not sure how this system works with logging in using a Google account.)