Dansky
Very often when we talk about game games pushing boundaries
We talk about it as if it were something that only began happening in the last few years
But this is not a new phenomenon
We often talk about games pushing boundaries only in the context of video games
But this has been done long before we had screens to work with
Games doing more, games as an expressive medium, games as an art go back as far as games themselfs
This is something that's starting to be acknowledged when discussing truly ancient games
But we somehow often leave out our more recent history when asking the question
"What more can games do?"
James was talking about this to a friend of his, when that friend stopped him and said
Let me send you something I worked on 25 years ago
Sometime later this book arrived at James' doorstep
And with it came this note
James,
I won't say enjoy it's not that sort of book
It came from a place of frustration over all the adult material we were doing while shying away from the real hard questions
And since Wraith was already out in the boonies public awareness, they let me take y shot
So nearly 20 years old, a laybor of love, here it is
This work moved James enough to put together this episode
So Richard Danksy this episode goes out to you
For having to do this at a time when the very thought of touching such topics in a game might have caused you your career
The book is Charnel Houses of Europe the Shoah
It's a devastating book about the Holocaust
It uses the wraith universe to let people tell stories and explore the horror of that time
It's a book that understands what taking on a role means
And that sometimes there is more that we can do by standing in someone's shoes
Than just feel heroic and empowered
It is amazing that this book got made
Even today many game publishers are terrified of touching the subject
Think of how many times you have played World War 2
How many times have you stormed the beaches of Normandy or defended Stalingrad?
How many times have you perhaps even played as a nazi without even giving it a second thought
Now think of how many times you have entered a concentrationcamp in those games
Think of how often genocide and slaughter was even mentioned
For all the times we fought and refought this war in our virtual landscape
We've almost never approached what is perhaps it most important lesson
And yet here in 1997 Richard and his crew got this pushed through
They were working on a sub label at White Wolf
A label called Black Dog, created to make more adult games
Ofcourse many people there took this as a license to wallow in sex and violance
And follow the same juvenile path that we usually do when we talk about creating adult work
But their small team took this as an opportunity to do more with games
To show the unique power that roleplaying has to make us empathise and to help us understand situations
That lie well outside anything we may experiance
And they did so determind to do it right
They knew they were gonna hear a lot of angry voices saying: "You can't talk about these things in a game"
But they also knew that that wasn't true
In the same way that you'd never say that such important topics shouldn't use the medium of television
Or people shouldn't make movies that discuss such serious things
You can't say that something isn't appropriate for a medium
That type of generalisation doesn't even make sense
It's not in the medium, but rather how we use it. To determine wether we are treating a subject with respect
With that in mind they made a book that unflinchingly looks at the horror of that time
That is a treasure trove of information without being dull
That is engaging without lessening the blow
Or trying to shield this from the magnatude of humanity's crime
It goes into detail without being fetishistic
And explores how modern awareness of these events without being accusatory
But perhaps to me one of the most brilliant parts of this book is that it uses the game world to help support the discussion they're trying to create
In Wraith the game, Wraith's benefit from being remembered
From having people in our world hold on to their memories or presurve aspects of their lifes
And so here it is being used time and again without being ham handed or beating you with a point
To talk about what we're doing in the real world to remember these events
Or how they're being burried over
But it's perhaps best said by just reading you a few excerpts from the introduction
An introduction written by a novelist who writes about the Holocaust
Not some game producer or manufacturer
The novelist was sceptical at first
Here let me use her own words
She explaines why this work is important better than I ever could
For those of you who do read Charnel Houses of Europe the Shoah, forgive me for chopping up and pasting together this intro
The whole thing is worth the read and I would read it all here if i could
But here we go
"On the day Richard Dansky called me to ask me to write this essay
I started to argue
But a voice inside my head stopped me
"We must teach them through the tools with which they are comfortable" It said
Once upon a time I thought there were bards and storytellers who past down the words of the elders around campfires
Then came the erea the pen was stronger than the sword
But there are few bards now and thus we approach the millennium the pen deminishes in power
It is not the N-word or the J-word or what's politically correct or what's not that matters
It's learning that we're setting eachother apart without regard about human dignity
And making it possible for genocide reoccur when we say things like:
"There is a black man at the door." Instead of "There is a man at the door."
Or "I bought the car at a great prize, boy did I Jew. it him down"
And again I ask
"What do we do about it?"
"What can we do about it?"
The answer is that we must do what we can
Each in our own way
In short stories, in essays, in poetry and novels
And o so clearly in games
And so my thanks go out to you Richard Dansky and everyone who worked on this book
As well as people like Brenda Romero with her excellent experiment about mechanics as metaphor train
Or Luke Benward who has gained imagination as the only escape was never released because of it's subject matter
And his attempts to take on this topic really did almost end his career
And all the other designers out there pushing these boundaries in ways that demand respect
These are stories that must be told
See you next week