Gloomhaven episode Frosthaven isn’t even out yet, and it’s already going to be one of the biggest board games of the last decadeSo it’s very cool to see how the game is portrayed differently from the portrayal of its “races” versus more traditional fantasy storylines.
in the A major update that was posted on the game’s Kickstarter page last weeksays creator Isaac Childres, the development team recently “brought James Mendez Hodes on the Frosthaven Team to do cultural consultancy work “that goes through the entire narrative of Frosthaven and the different cultures depicted in it and … ensures that everything is internally consistent and that there is no real co-optation – world concepts or ideas that are for gamers or real cultures can be harmful. “
Dungeons has been doing something similar latelyWith the welcome changes, which basically revolve around the idea that some of the ideas and terms that fantasy literature is based on look a little cooked in 2021. Things like the use of the word “race” at all, when it is generally an imprecise term to distinguish completely different species, but then also things like the application of generalized characteristics to every member of that “race”, which is a reflection of the prejudices of the Reality borders. World racism.
And it doesn’t even have to be overt, deliberate racism. As Childres writes, some of his creations are for Gloomhaven “Hew dangerously close to very damaging stereotypes of real cultures because of … my own subconscious prejudices.”
Childres insists that none of this changes how games like Frosthaven become playThey are simply changes to the narrative of the game world and the way different characters and species are portrayed. Here is another one Example of some of the types of changes they will make (though not really the case Changesbecause the game is not out yet!)::
When you see the history of Frosthaven I wrote during Kickstarter that you might notice the religiously fueled colonialism vibe that runs through you. This in itself is not a problem. Such is the main human nation in this fantasy reality. But since then I’ve gotten uncomfortable with the way the story was written in this update forces the player to log in and participate in this behavior without choice. Some people may not be comfortable with it.
So we postponed the story like that Frosthaven is an independent unit that does not want to take over any area inhabited by other peoples by force by default. History is still as rich or richer than it was before, and certain people will still come in and recruit you to advance the capital’s colonial agendas, but now The player has an influence on how the story plays outwhat is always good.
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Everyone wins. Aside from the select few pissbabies upset about this expansion of the game’s horizons, the Childres – as he has done with anyone who, according to previous updates, “didn’t think black lives mattered” – are happy to get a full refund offers.
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