Legends Untold Board Game Review

@Sevej

No apology necessary. I hope that you don't feel that I came on too strong, or that I gave you the impression that I was upset. I have been enjoying our conversation. I think that you have expressed strong feelings in an exemplary manner. You have broadened my perspective and I appreciate that.

I agree that perhaps Michael's language may be a bit strong. However, as another member commented, when given feedback about the lack of diversity in their game they brushed it off. So maybe stronger language is needed to motivate them to grow. (P.S. note that I said "maybe," which means that you can potentially convince me otherwise as I am not sure)

Sevej wrote: There you go, the dude demands it. Who was it back then said the reviewer didn't demand it?
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Who cares about the opinion of other races?
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I'm still bugged as hell with non-white characters in typical fantasy. You'd better do a super fantastic job with it, or it's just forced diversity, and we "minorities" are just trophies for your diversity badge.

This is absolutely true. It is really cringey when it is done poorly.

I care about the opinions of people of other races, particularly people I know F2F who have opinions about my "White People games." and pass them up to play the my less white games.

Also, I said that I didn't demand it. I didn't say Michael didn't demand it because I can't speak for anyone but myself.

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I don't mean to lecture. I have assumed that readers have the same basic knowledge that I have, especially since we have so many history buffs on this site. However, just in case people don't...

The designers of this game have clearly stated that this game is meant to be a board game for historical LARPers. Which means they are trying to be historically accurate to a specific time and place. That place is a city with sewers in Northern Europe. The characters are average inhabitants of that city. One of the characters is this person who is described as being Achean, which means he is from Greece.



Putting all these pieces together, as well as the illustrations of the various characters clothing, it is pretty clear that the historic time and place of this game is a city built by the Roman Empire and the time is Late Antiquity (sometime during the first 5 centuries CE).

The populations of these cities were ethnically diverse, with inhabitants from across the Roman Empire, including those from Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (both Northern Africa and Aethiopia as it was called at the time). It is estimated that at least 20% of the population of urban areas in Northern Europe, if not more, were not of Northern European origin. We know all this from the study of human remains in these areas, as well as written documentation. Which means that there would be Black and Brown people living in this city.

The designers are clearly aware of this as they have included a person from Greece in the game, which is entirely historically accurate for this time and place, as would be a person from North Africa or Aethiopia living in this city. Therefore having a character in the game that looked like, for example, the Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus who ruled the Roman world from Britannia for a period of time or the soldiers he brought with him, many of which were from Africa, would not be shoehorning ethnic diversity into the game in an artificial way, anymore than including a person from Greece is. In fact, they could have made this character a Greek of African origin, because as I stated in another post Greeks of African origin were not uncommon.

Personally, I believe that the designers and publishers of this game, just like the many publishers I have interacted with over the years, believe that their market is white and only wants white characters, and illustrations. Therefore, as part of that market, I am speaking up here to say that is not true. And by purchasing games that have a greater diversity of characters that is not forced or stereotyped, like Western Legends, I am speaking with my wallet to let publishers know that this is what I want and need. I want to be able to pull a game off my self and not have it greeted with "Oh, another one of your White People games." And, although some of the readers here may not feel as strongly, they certainly aren't put off by playing a non-white character in a game, or looking at non-white illustrations. So there is nothing for publishers to lose, and there is something to gain by recognizing that their market is not as homogeneously white and male as they think it is.

I'm also going to take a closer look at Atlantis Rising.