"Is it ethical to make and play war games?" Topic

The gaming industry and its customers should be prepared to put up with an increased level of moral scrutiny

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I'm not buying a subscription to read this.

Best regards
Russ Dunaway

Moral scrutiny?

If a group of do gooders turned up at a con or a FLGS game day with an agenda, (noisy, destructive or otherwise) I suspect it isn't something they'll opt for twice.

Take it on down the line, thanks.

Have a good day.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

m'bye

Systemic Stupidity (Copyright 2020 – 2022) IS real.

The moral ambiguity of "war" gaming comes up every few years. That and metal contamination and plastic pollution.

I'm surprised we aren't all in the gulag. Can I bring my dice?

Bored Mr. Elmo?

Since when did some idiot suggest it was immoral to learn about history by using toy soldiers? Get a life! Despite the current admin trying to take away our freedoms and make us pay for their idiotic schemes, we will continue to enjoy our hobby!

Like Russ, I refuse to pay anything to read such a story! I refuse to financially enrich someone who does not share in my beliefs!

Big Red- You bring the dice and I'll bring the figs!

This has been looming a while. And I think I sort of expect it to keep looming until cancel culture fades. With video games and certain kinds of music not to mention movies I think the book-burners have other things to get excited about. Puerto Rico got itself woke, and minor changes have occurred with other games, but it seems people can't really seem to get worked up enough over games. There's no big industry to blame, nothing to cancel. What are the activists going to do?

Very easy to write an article. And it got our attention, didn't it? It's just talk and will likely stay that way.

And there will be a thread or two here every time a journalist somewhere decides to earn their supper by singing this particular song.

Exactly Andrew, this has come up periodically ever since I started (late 70s), regardless of administration, cancel culture, wokeness or whatever.
I guess it's related to the moral/religious outcry against D&D. Although that seems to have tapered off.

You want me to pay for a subscription to read this?

And shall we discuss the morals of our present scrutinizers? We could start with the morality of some of the real wars our lords and masters have gotten us into, and then progress to the morality of fighting wars half-heartedly and incompetently.

Red, Dye, I'll bring the terrain. Or I can just bring one of my 2mm laptop carrier setups.

Lets do it, Robert!

Bored Mr. Elmo?

It was part of my news feed. So was MtG 30th selling out…maybe Hasbro stock will recover.

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Normative or descriptive moral, realist or anti-realist?
Answer depends on what you ask for.
As a rule of thumb, however, I consider anything that increases self-complexity and does not cause demonstrable harm to others to be morally justified.
There are exceptions, but they are rare.

This seems about video gaming and not miniature gaming or did I miss something?

Yes, the article does seem to be mostly about video games. However the throw away comment about "if you have ever had the misfortune to play a board game with a poorly matched couple" is, I think, more interesting. I've always found that playing a (tabletop) war-game does tell you something about your opponents personality.

Wow!
of all the ethical and moral depravity in world today someone picked this hill to die on?

Next topic please!

Wingnut

someone picked this hill to die on

No, someone just entertained the bored FT audience with a halfway interesting easy weekend leftover topic.
That's what he is payed for.
He simply had to deliver something.

Them* don't want you to be happy, so therefore… No Games For You! ;-)

* Control freaks, neo-Puritans, pronoun-obsessives, whatever…

"There's no big industry to blame, nothing to cancel."

I think it's more that there's no big industry to sue or threaten with boycotts so it hands over large amounts of money.

Didn't read this, but there is no reason to ever think military gaming would be left alone. The movement is totalitarian by design. Once the higher profile fields are tackled they will get to us.

My answer to this rather obvious thick headed author is this paragraph written by the late HG Wells on the last page of his amazing book, "Little Wars".

"And if I might for a moment trumpet! How much better is this amiable miniature than
the Real Thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is
the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster—and no
smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country
sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that
tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, and
charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to
be the reality of belligerence. This world is for ample living; we want security and
freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to
see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our
children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind—splendid cities, open
ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more—and so I offer my
game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch
and that silly scare-monger, and these excitable "patriots," and those adventurers, and
all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple of War, with cork carpets
everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and
fortresses, and unlimited soldiers—tons, cellars-full—and let them lead their own lives
there away from us."

If the author wishes to discuss the morality and ethicality of video games in which he is an awful sniper, then I suggest that before he even starts to ask these questions of the industry, and/or other players that he take a good long look at himself in the mirror and ask himself a couple of very serious questions….

yes

I would comment on that most immoral and Anti-ethical
'game' called 'politics' but I'd probably be jailed

Not concerned about ethics. I can say that I enjoy playing war games, immensely! I mostly play fantasy games, but I also play Army Men games, which are not historical simulations of any kind, mostly Tan's versus Greens, with the Gray's serving as allies for one side, or the other.

They are games, played for fun. If anyone is uncomfortable with that, I won't discuss it with them, nor will I invite them to my games. Problem solved. Cheers!

War is a pretty fun game. A nightmare of a reality, but a pretty fun game.
I have about a ton of books about war and probably a half a ton of painted and unpainted miniatures. You probably do, too.
About 3 years ago I got a conflicted feeling about accepting war books and military miniatures for Christmas and reading war books and painting miniatures on Sunday, trying to be a better Christian I suppose. So I stopped doing those things and using electronic media on Sundays, no tv, no radio or recorded music, no video games and I started reading the Bible. Just read 10 chapters every Sunday, not hard to do.

It didn't take long to realize a very good bit of the Old Testament is nothing but war. I would say to anyone if they really wanted to try to understand what war is, start with the Bible. It's brutal and vicious and most importantly, the basics haven't changed much over the last 4,000 years.

Still a pretty fun game though. Not gonna stop wargaming. Although now I'd like to get some ancient Hebrews and Philistines.
Cheers, and Happy Holidays!

The author, and a bunch of other people apparently, can kiss my a$$.

Send them after the chess club, since chess is just an abstract war game.

Ah, the stupid thing people will fixate on in order to feel morally superior.

I shouldn't be, by now, but the sensitivity of TMP readers to alleged attacks never fails to surprise me. Many of us seem certain that our hobby is under relentless attack from a totalitarian mob of deranged hippies, despite the fact that for the vast majority of the political left -- and right -- we are completely and utterly trivial, and of absolutely no concern. The article was about video games and the perception that playing a game in which you personally and graphically kill another human was at least potentially morally problematic. Not about historical games, miniature games, board games, or whatever.

So the thought police are looking for some crimes?

"a totalitarian mob of deranged hippies" sums up our Caring People pretty nicely, Hans. I may borrow it. Any sane honest person not yet under attack knows it's only a matter of time.

And if anyone posts links to articles behind paywalls and provides no summary, he can expect speculative replies. If the article had only to do with video games, why post a link on TMP?

" Many of us seem certain that our hobby is under relentless attack from a totalitarian mob of deranged hippies, despite the fact that for the vast majority of the political left -- and right -- we are completely and utterly trivial, and of absolutely no concern."

If you think we're safe because we are involved in a small hobby that relatively few people are involved in, take a look at the state of ACW reenacting today. It's been devestated by woke.

+1 Murphy, HansPeterB & God bless H.G. Wells. There's humor in everything. Years ago, my gaming group was running an ACW demo outside the game shop in a mall. A gaggle of teenage girls noticed us & one said "Oh, my god; it's real war!"

It's already happening:
On April 7th, prominent publisher of board wargames GMT Games released a statement announcing that they'd pulled a game from their pre-order list: Scramble for Africa. The game, portraying the eponymous invasion of the African continent by European powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, seemed like one that portrayed the colonial period in Africa in a simplistic way, ultimately rewarding players for being the best at recreating a piece of history that included genocide in Namibia and mass enslavement in the Belgian Congo Free State. It had come under heavy critique from board gamers for, in the words of GMT's own statement, "both topic and treatment" of its colonialist historical setting.

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I can see this going to the next level as the virtual virtue signallers are always on the hunt for their next victim and attempting to outdo each other.

Playing the CSA in an ACW game is racist. Playing the Germans in WWII makes you a Nazi. Playing a Crusade game makes you an Islamophobe. The Roman Empire enslaved about 40% of the people they conquered so playing the Romans means you approve of slavery. All war games are Dog Whistles for committing acts of violence. Etc.

Don't be surprised if a group of Anarchists show up at a convention and throw red paint all over hundreds of miniatures in a show of Solidarity to some perceived slight against some minority group. Since 99% of gamers at a convention are white automatically makes it a White Supremacist event.

Personally, I never let my kid play first-person shooter video games but that did not stop him from joining the Marines and doing the real thing.

Wolfhag

I will note that BattleCry by Hasbro/AH is a fantastic game, entertaining and even educational. It's OOP, probably for other reasons, but I guarantee that in the current Woke climate, it won't be returning, as the so-called Confederate Flag is fixed to various grey plastic miniatures (as is the Union American Flag of the era to blue figures) and obviously Someone Would Be Offended by that. I hope I am wrong, and that the pendulum is starting to swing back against these fools, but in this day and age I'm not confident for the side of sanity.

Neo-Puritans & proper thinking "cultural crusaders" are always lurking. I started reading E.R. Burroughs when I was 10 years old & this definitely enlarged my vocabulary, introduced me to Victorian lit, & early 20th century Sci Fi. He's been noted as a racist. But he also had non-white heroes & ass-kicking villains; the Waziri, of whom Tarzan became chief, kicked WWI Germans' & Arab slavers' asses & the Black Pirates of Barsoom were the most fearsome warriors of that warlike world, the Yellow Martians had noble traits, while his White Martians were evil cultists. Of course, Tarzan & John Carter were both tall athletic heroic Anglo Saxons.

I have had people make the same argument about chess.

The people who wrote this are probably the same ones who watch TV with all its mindless violence and think nothing of it.

Scramble for Africa

Thank God, I play 'Settlers of Catan'.
The classic family friendly board game with a land grabbing theme.
Game design by a German.
And the robber is a black guy.
You can't top that.
There must be a scientific paper about it out there, someone that made his Ph.D. thesis in social sciences on it.

Except for the VICE article [0], I haven't looked into this case, but honestly, the GMT guys were unlucky and apparently didn't have the budget and a spin doctor [1] on hand that could have straightened things out.

[0] Boardgame cancel culture – On VICE
[1] Spin Doctor: The Card game of Dirty Politics

If you really want to ponder about abstraction/history ethics/education in gaming, you should have a look at
Train from Brenda Romero.

But then again some see cozy trenches as the romantic realities of war, but can't stand the corpses rotting in them.
What's a trench without the stench?

And to end my rant on a funny note:
The game of life is hard to play

The article was about video games and the perception that playing a game in which you personally and graphically kill another human was at least potentially morally problematic. Not about historical games, miniature games, board games, or whatever.

I find video and shooter games bring. Does that make me more virtuous, as a tabletop miniatures player, than those who enjoy them? I also don't care for foosball or air hockey, so I suspect the boredom comes less from the content and more from poor hand-eye coordination or some such thing.

I'm certainly not going to bother reading this article, but maybe for reasons different from those of others who have commented here. And I'm also not going to take this thread as a springboard for hyperventilation about perceptions of current affairs, other people's politics, or conspiracy theories -- these being even more boring to me than shooter games.

So why did I plow through this thread to the end? Just hoping to see more things as witty as Arjuna's posts. Thanks, Arjuna.