Quote from: SgtSpaceWizard;404703I find it difficult to believe that you don't see the difference. I bet everyone here has played with toy soldiers and no one has played with toy slaves. Playing at war perhaps romanticises soldiers and combat, but it is qualitatively different from disrespect. War can bring out the best and worst in human beings. Being a soldier has been considered a noble and brave calling since before the Iliad.

Whereas with slavery, (and to be perfectly clear, we are talking about slavery in America specifically) no one, except perhaps the author of this game and white sheet enthusiasts, romanticises this era. We are talking about a race of people who were property for 200 years and then were segregated for another 100 or so. That's 3 centuries of baggage to bring to the table. There are people in my group who were chldren when MLK was killed.

So yeah, the idea of a bunch of white folks getting together to pretend to be black slaves makes people uncomfortable. If you play it historically accurate, it is pure misery tourism. If you dial it back, it borders on Blaxploitation. If you fail to understand why an American in the 21st century would find this game to be in bad taste, then I doubt you could understand an African American in the 19th century.

Being at home now, I've just walked a few steps into my son's room and pulled out his graphic novel biography of Harriet Tubman.  Your claim suggests that this is the work of white supremacists for romanticizing the era, or perhaps misery tourism, or blaxploitation.  

I suggest that it is none of these.  It is a tale about a heroic person who saved lives in a dark time.  It most certainly romanticizes Tubman's exploits, which is not the same thing as romanticizing the horrors of slavery as a good thing.  I think that people young and old should hear about such heroic tales.  While it is perhaps a high standard to reach for, I feel that Steal Away Jordan games are fully capable of reaching the intellectual standards of this comic.  

I can see a few options here for disagreement:

1) The comic book is blaxploitation trash.  

2) A Steal Away Jordan game by people who aren't professionals in the field couldn't possibly match the nuance and sensitivity represented by this comic book.  

or possibly something else that I'm missing.

Quote from: Jason Morningstar;404715Sigmund, this really feels like a reductio ad absurdum cross examination. I will respectfully disengage. If I've read you wrong, my apologies, and good luck finding the answers elsewhere. Talking to the designer is your best bet, followed by the linked audio interview as a good starting point.

I'm sorry you find simple questions easily answered by simply looking in the book and then paraphrasing what it says somehow leading to some absurd conclusion.  I'm simply trying to clarify your self-contradictory statements. You started out in this thread defending this game from it's detractors, yet when questioned about it can only repeat some mantra about asking the designer. Am I sceptical of whether anything you tell me about it is going to change my opinion? Of course, but then I have been open about that from the beginning. I wanted to give you the opportunity to prove me wrong, however. I'm not interested in expending the time and effort to contact the designer of a roleplaying game which I presently find to be ridiculous. If I'm truly forming my current opinion on faulty information, and she has any interest in setting the record straight, she's welcome to register on this site and correct this if she can. Unfortunately, nothing you or anyone else has contributed has in any way refuted what Chauncey DeVega wrote, or what was written in a follow up article. The game comes across to me and many others as a bad idea with an impossible goal. I find the fact that ya'all seem to think you have somehow gained any kind of insight at all into what being a slave was like to be almost laughable, if it wasn't so disturbing and perhaps even kind of sad. If you truly can't understand why gaming about WWII (or even Vietnam) is different than gaming about black slavery in early America (from the point of view of, and with the goal of empathising with the slaves) to many Americans then I'm not sure I can help you understand. What I'd ask then is that you simply accept our assertion and move on, just as I'm accepting that while I think the game is horrible on many levels, you seem to like and enjoy it and that'll just have to be ok.

Quote from: jhkim;404720I can see a few options here for disagreement:

1) The comic book is blaxploitation trash.  

2) A Steal Away Jordan game by people who aren't professionals in the field couldn't possibly match the nuance and sensitivity represented by this comic book.  

or possibly something else that I'm missing.

I'm guessing that the authors of the graphic novel did magnitudes of order more research just coming up with the title than the designer(s) of Steal Away Jordan did for the whole game.

Also, like all literature, the graphic novel is telling a story, not asking the reader to pretend they are a slave.

Quote from: BWA;404717I think your opinion is seriously lacking, then.

Merely agreeing that something was wrong is not the same as understanding it.

The way to understand something (slavery, World War II, the Alaskan gold rush, the life of Roman gladiators, etc) is to learn about it and think about it in different ways. An RPG can be part of that, if you want.

I think your thinking is seriously lacking then. Neither you nor I are capable of understanding it in the way an actual slave did. Nobody alive today can understand how being a black slave in early America felt. We can understand that it was tragic and unpleasant. We can understand that it was wrong to treat people that way. We can not understand how it felt. The author of the game can't understand how it felt. No matter how old she is, she couldn't possibly be old enough to have been a slave herself. If she can't truly know what it was like, do you honestly think she could design a game that could simulate the feeling in any kind of meaningful way? If she was in fact a slave, do you truly believe it's possible for a tabletop pen and paper game to provide an experience even remotely approximating the reality of living life as a black slave in early America? Do you think that playing an rpg about WWII actually allows you to experience what that war was like from the point of view of a soldier who actually fought in it? One can learn facts about things like Roman gladiatorial combat, and can engage in vague and inaccurate mental simulations of Roman gladiatorial combat using a rpg, but there's no way we can know what it was like. The vast majority of rpgs don't even try to approximate a true experience of these things, they instead bask in the romanticized and watered-down version such as authors and Hollywood types have created. This rpg, however, is seeming to claim something different, and therefore is flawed from it's very foundations.

Honestly, it has nothing to do with it being "heavy". It's simply a ridiculous assertion that any kind of rpg can impart any kind of true sense of the experience it's abstracting. When I play a jet fighter pilot in an rpg, I in no way consider myself gaining any kind of insight into how flying a jet fighter feels. To suggest such would be absurd and folks around here would rightly ridicule me for saying it.

Ya know, in a very small way, I'm actually wrong. If one were to approach an rpg with the goal of learning how it feels to play an rpg, then an rpg could provide an authentic experience. Otherwise, forget about it.

Quote from: One Horse Town;404719They are not mainstream games and the subject matter is neither mainstream nor representative of the hobby as a whole. They are fringe games representative of story games.

Okay, sure, agreed!

Steal Away Jordan is definitely not a mainstream game, nor a popular one. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good game, or an interesting game, or a valuable game.

If every single game must be "representative of the hobby" to be credible or worthwhile, we'd have a pretty stagnant hobby.

Quote from: StormBringer;404722I'm guessing that the authors of the graphic novel did magnitudes of order more research just coming up with the title than the designer(s) of Steal Away Jordan did for the whole game.

I'm not sure how you know that, if you've never read the game.

But, even if that were true, this makes it sound like your objection is to some specific amount of historical research that must be done to make a game acceptable. If the author of Steal Away Jordan told you she'd spent a year researching the game, would that change things? What's the number of research hours required to confer credibility?

Sorry. I don't mean to be argumentative, but the goalposts for objecting to this one little game keep shifting wildly all over the place.

It's like no one can say *why* they don't like it, they just know in their hearts it must be bad.

Quote from: One Horse Town;404719The problem comes when people seek validation from the mainstream - say wanting judges on a mainstream awards panel who "get" these games.

They are not mainstream games and the subject matter is neither mainstream nor representative of the hobby as a whole. They are fringe games representative of story games.

You entrenched, codified, regimented, polemical motherfuckers are the fringe.

Steal Away Jordan may be the biggest piece of shit game ever to be put down on paper and it may offend women, children, and men of faint constitutions all over the world, but this attitude that our hobby is rightfully limited and restricted to the parameters of a handful of games published between 1976 and 1989 (or whenever) is what is truly offensive.

I'll likely never play Steal Away Jordan or ANY of the more thematic games of that sort, because I'm not interested in the subject and I like a bit of crunch in my system. No, those sorts of games will never sell tens of thousands of copies, but so fucking what? I'm just glad someone is out there pushing at the boundaries and definitions of what an RPG can be.

It's research, development, and artistic expression, not some sort of assault on decency.

Quote from: jhkim;404720I can see a few options here for disagreement:

1) The comic book is blaxploitation trash.  

2) A Steal Away Jordan game by people who aren't professionals in the field couldn't possibly match the nuance and sensitivity represented by this comic book.  

or possibly something else that I'm missing.

Possibly that a comic book, as fixed media, with distinct roles of creator and audience, is fundamentally different from an RPG.

Quote from: BWA;404725Okay, sure, agreed!

Steal Away Jordan is definitely not a mainstream game, nor a popular one. But that doesn't mean it isn't a good game, or an interesting game, or a valuable game.

If every single game must be "representative of the hobby" to be credible or worthwhile, we'd have a pretty stagnant hobby.

and i'm saying that games like this one are an offshoot of RPGs, shit, someone even came up with a name for them - storygames.

Now, if you're (not you, general you) then pressing for mainstream recognition for games like this one, then you are engaged in evangelising, missionary activity, call it what you like. You are trying to change the definition of what has traditionally been called a roleplaying game.

I actually typed that tripe...

I don't actually care who calls what what and who plays what where.

However, if you put even a smidgeon of it in the public domain, whether forum, pdf or whatever, then you better expect some backlash if it's dodgy and let's face it, many of the storygames/forge darlings' (bar Luke Crane) releases have been dodgy.

They aren't "edgy", they're not "hip", they aren't "groundbreaking" it's same shit, different day, except with added tentacle rape and misery.

Quote from: Tim;404726You entrenched, codified, regimented, polemical motherfuckers are the fringe.

Well, that's obviously wrong.

Quote from: Tim;404726You entrenched, codified, regimented, polemical motherfuckers are the fringe.

Steal Away Jordan may be the biggest piece of shit game ever to be put down on paper and it may offend women, children, and men of faint constitutions all over the world, but this attitude that our hobby is rightfully limited and restricted to the parameters of a handful of games published between 1976 and 1989 (or whenever) is what is truly offensive.

I'll likely never play Steal Away Jordan or ANY of the more thematic games of that sort, because I'm not interested in the subject and I like a bit of crunch in my system. No, those sorts of games will never sell tens of thousands of copies, but so fucking what? I'm just glad someone is out there pushing at the boundaries and definitions of what an RPG can be.

It's research, development, and artistic expression, not some sort of assault on decency.

Lighten up Francis.

Way to refute an argument that wasn't even made. That straw man is feelin it for sure.

Quote from: StormBringer;404722I'm guessing that the authors of the graphic novel did magnitudes of order more research just coming up with the title than the designer(s) of Steal Away Jordan did for the whole game.

Also, like all literature, the graphic novel is telling a story, not asking the reader to pretend they are a slave.

I don't have any information on how many hours of research either author did.  I do note that Julia gives acknowledgment to her mother's help and support - and her mother is the Director of the African and African-American Studies Program at University of Memphis.  I take that as a favorable sign from an expert in the field.  I don't know anything about Michael Martin other than his publishing credits.  From those, I can see the list of the eight other books he published in 2006 along with the Harriet Tubman graphic novel:  Gladiators; Alien Abductions; ESP: Extrasensory Perception; Apartheid in South Africa; Modern Mummies: 20th-Century Wonders and Beyond; Skateboarding History: From the Backyard to the Big Time; The World's Deadliest Snakes; and The World's Fastest Cars.  Based on these and having read both books, I can't make any definite conclusions, but my opinion the amount of research for each was comparable.  

As for the pretending as opposed to reading, I understand that you consider it important, but lacking a coherent argument, I don't agree.  For example, a bunch of 5th graders wrote and performed a  play about slavery - which I take it you regard as offensive.

In the spirit of compromise, I googled and gandered at the Stone Baby Games website blurb for Steal Away Jordan....

QuoteSteal Away Jordan is a vehicle for players to tell a collective story of the lives of people who live inthe shadow of slavery. The emphasis here is on the people, not the place or time. The institution affects everyone, from the child born into bondage to the man who owns him. Steal Away Jordan is a role playing game written in the spirit of neo slave narratives like Margaret Walker's Jubilee, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Octavia Butler's Kindred. Like these fictional accounts of slave life, players explore the social and psychological implications of life in a society where people can be property. Ultimately, players consider slavery's long-term impact on a society and on the descendants of slaves and slave owners.

This at least doesn't sound as extreme as some of the other folks who claim to have gained some insight into what being a slave was like have made it sound, but I'd still question whether this game can even come close to approximating it's goal. Even the neo slave narratives it's claiming to be inspired by are fictional stories informed by hearsay that while imparting a small measure of how horrible slavery must have been, in no way claim to provide a true sense of what it was like. I think that if the players and supporters of this game wish to avoid creating negative reactions, they should refrain from claiming any kind of high-minded or empathic revelations from playing them. I still don't even see how it would be entertaining to play this game, and if I want to be educated (more than I already am), I'm confident there are superior avenues I could pursue.

In the end, I'm left paraphrasing the same question Chauncey DeVega did in relation to the Follow the North Star game in the article linked by the OP... I wonder if players can be whipped, branded, physically disfigured, manacled, or raped and defiled to complete the "historical" experience? Is it extreme? Yes, but without it how could anyone possibly understand what the experience was like?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;404727Possibly that a comic book, as fixed media, with distinct roles of creator and audience, is fundamentally different from an RPG.

Can you give a reason why this is relevant?  

Why would it be OK for me to write about a character who is a slave, and not OK for me to role-play a slave?

Quote from: jhkim;404720Being at home now, I've just walked a few steps into my son's room and pulled out his graphic novel biography of Harriet Tubman.  Your claim suggests that this is the work of white supremacists for romanticizing the era, or perhaps misery tourism, or blaxploitation.  

I suggest that it is none of these.  It is a tale about a heroic person who saved lives in a dark time.  It most certainly romanticizes Tubman's exploits, which is not the same thing as romanticizing the horrors of slavery as a good thing.  I think that people young and old should hear about such heroic tales.  While it is perhaps a high standard to reach for, I feel that Steal Away Jordan games are fully capable of reaching the intellectual standards of this comic.  

I can see a few options here for disagreement:

1) The comic book is blaxploitation trash.  

2) A Steal Away Jordan game by people who aren't professionals in the field couldn't possibly match the nuance and sensitivity represented by this comic book.  

or possibly something else that I'm missing.

The something else you are missing, is that we are talking about an RPG. Not a textbook. Not a movie. The medium makes a big difference. I think slavery trading cards would be crass and exploitative too. The thing is, most people play games to have fun. No one goes bowling to learn about physics. Making as "unfun" a topic as slavery in colonial America into something "fun" doesn't sit well with most people. The idea of a bunch of white guys sitting around in metaphorical blackface and claiming to have an educational experience from it sounds incredibley pretentious, if not entirely offensive.

Quote from: jhkim;404736As for the pretending as opposed to reading, I understand that you consider it important, but lacking a coherent argument, I don't agree.  For example, a bunch of 5th graders wrote and performed a  play about slavery - which I take it you regard as offensive.

The question is, did the 5th graders then feel like they knew what it felt like to be slaves in Antebellum America, or were they simply acknowledging their realization of the wrongness of slavery while telling a story involving a famous personage of that era? I don't think anyone is saying that the subject can never be explored artistically, just that we're dubious that rpgs are the proper medium. Especially when it seems rpgs attempting to be artistic usually fail at attaining their goal. These are games, played by the vast majority of us for the purposes of entertainment and escape. Computer games are similar in that respect, and I certainly wouldn't play GTA: San Andreas and expect to gain insight into what it must be like to grow up in Compton.