I got an email the other day with an update link to the pdf for a game world for Fate that I have, as it seems in final edit they missed something. The message with the link made great apologies for the insensitivity of using hurtful language that goes against the social justice ethic of the publisher. The reason for the revision? In the description of one adversary (a specter), it notes that if attacked, it will defend lamely, as in ineffectually. The apology makes it clear that the publisher and writer does not endorse "ableism", therefore requiring a revision.
I declined to get the previous two Fate Worlds, one of which set off a firestorm on G+ over the observation by one poster that: 1) the setting is about crews in stuffy, cramped deep sea submarines with all manner of exposed pipes, conduits, and controls, and 2) one of the pre-gens is a character in a wheelchair. There is evidently no effort to reconcile how a wheelchair bound character maneuvers in the environment described, or deals with the raised hatches through compartments. The poster began a conversation stating that it broke willing suspension of disbelief, and was initially addressed by another poster who as an engineer gave some plausible reasons to accept the conditions. The firestorm quickly degenerated into a virtual lynching of the original poster for being an oppressive white male able-bodied jerk and he was banned for 30 days to suffer his guilt which led to an excessively vile post bloated with vitriolic invective against everyone else which led to the whole thread being removed.
Go, go social justice...
As I write about games as art and game design, I have always the burner to my left the awareness of "social justice" as a priority with most of the game designers in the indie sphere that interests me most. And yet, I find that I respectfully disagree with them. The fact is, that as a Christian, I too have a particular worldview that informs how I think people should be treated and what is in good or bad taste. Very often, the actions I take are the same as those of the social justice warriors of a more leftist slant. My problem is, that I think while their actions may sometimes be right, their underlying motives are based on a false worldview. They were in the instance above, willing to viciously destroy a real person online for not holding a politically correct view of white male ableist guilt because he questioned an entirely fictitious character in a situation that was certainly not described believably. They claimed that they wanted to be as inclusive as possible to everyone, but assumed guilt from the original poster without addressing his idea (beyond the engineer who initially tried). The neo-liberal worldview of intersectional political victim claiming, is something that I cannot endorse.So as I read games and design notes and designer blogs, I am constantly thinking about how to write and design games artistically, in a way that as Aristotle would describes it, represents "not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance".
Of course, sometimes a game is just a way to relax and have fun, but I do like the notion of a game being able to transcend just that, becoming in the play, an experience as well, like a novel or good movie. In thinking about ways I might explore ideas and thought experiments I am informed by my worldview. This is not to say that I am inclined to make games that are religious per se, or require them to be squeaky clean. I do want them to be true though. Life is messy, and people are messy, foolish, selfish and sinful, and in spite of that, there are moments in which people shine and are heroic. This is part of the reason that Fate as a system is so appealing to me - it makes the failures and flaws as important as the rest to the fiction. I am interested in that quality, and I simply can't find that sort of honesty in social justice political correctness that seeks to demolish the world and whitewash the pieces.
It is perhaps because I hold the Christian worldview dear that I am not disturbed to dip into Lovecraft's mythos for games and stories. His weird fiction shows his own worldview, and while I think he is dead wrong about that, that worldview does present a consistency that promotes madness for those who follow it far enough. And that mad world is indeed one that shows something terrible and destructive, and shows those who dare to try to hold it back for another day as in The Dunwich Horror. To face and fight against that seems very true to the right way to address the problem of inimical entities who assume morality is irrelevant and are bent on destruction. My worldview grounds the action in the notion that ultimate goodness is ultimately rational, and that it is appropriate to fight monsters, and disregard the nihilists who idolize them too far. After all, if interacting with and discovering the occult reality of these immensely powerful malignant alien entities drives one mad, and the mad men tell us that the world is ultimately futile and meaningless and insane, how can we trust them? Are not the thoughts of mad men and their understanding of reality suspect?
But what of things less mind-destroying and closer to home? What of social justice? I believe that what is good and right is what a Jewish carpenter said was good and right. I don't believe that people's feelings determine what is good and right. I don't believe that writing to make sure that nobody feels unrepresented in a story makes a story good. I don't believe that including a word that might make someone feel bad and "trigger" them makes a story bad. I think that a story must be taken as a whole to determine it's worth. As for a submarine with a wheelchair bound character - I would not include that without some discussion on why the wheelchair is not more of a liability than the crew can bear, and I think the engineer in the aforementioned discussion presented some thoughts that the writer of the Fate world did not. I think that hand wringing over the use of the word lame because it might somehow offend someone with a walking disability is childish and promotes a pathological and divisive mindset more than it solves one. I think that respecting human persons does not require respecting all their ideas, shortcomings, or feelings, nor is it oppression to disagree. I do think that I can appreciate and learn from designers with whom I disagree. I wonder if some of them would offer the same courtesy?
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