The Wordsmith's Forge

The PDF copies of Coyote and Crow have been released. This is my second post, following the Overview, which lists my relevant credentials and skims over broad areas of the gamebook.  Continue with Religion and Argument Fuel.

Earworm warning: I have been arguing in my head over some of this stuff, which is intense and controversial, since I started reading the book. I'm writing it down to get it out of my head. If you are prone to this problem, you may want to skip the book/game -- or the following discussion -- to avoid that. I'm happy to have read it, and still like the game overall, but it has eaten up a lot of headspace in the last day or two.


Goals

The prerelease materials talked a bit about the game's theme and purposes. Some of the goals include:
* To express Native American culture.
* To create jobs for tribe members.
* To have fun with the game.
* To encourage tribe members and nonmembers to play together.

They're all viable goals, but sometimes they get in each other's way. Some of the attempts to avoid problems are liable to cause as much or more trouble than they prevent.

So here we have to talk a bit about the theme. Normally with a made-up world you can say "It's just a game, it's not real, it's no big deal." The moment you bring in real content, like historical cultures with living descendants, that stops being 100% true. The cultural theme in general has its roots in real cultures, and the noncolonial theme in particular ties into a very wide trend of "decolonize your life" efforts around the world. So now we're not just talking about a game; we're talking about very real, very touchy issues. The game is still just a game, but it contains and impacts things that aren't, and people will have to deal with that.

The designers made concerted efforts to predict, manage, and avoid conflicts. I think some of those choices are problematic, and others simply ineffective, and not all the materials agree precisely which opens up even more room for things to go haywire.


Playing Together

First is the point about playing together, or not. If you want people to play in a mixed group, which the prerelease and game materials say they do, then you need to support and encourage that -- and not spook people. If you have included themes or other things that are likely to make people leery, if they are going to wonder "Am I doing this right? Should I be doing this? What if I offend someone?" then you have to spend extra effort to assure them, "Hey, don't worry, it's just a game. Relax, have fun. As long as everyone's having fun, it's all good. You can't really mess it up." Then you'll probably convince most of them to give it a try.

Problem is, the game says that and then adds stuff that is going to make skittish gamers and performers of "woke antiracism" back away for fear of doing something wrong. There are enough "If you're not a tribe member, don't do this" warnings to make people terrified of tripping over something that isn't labeled and causing offense. A lot of those folks are going to shut the book and walk away. The people who are most likely to cause problems? They don't give a fuck, and they probably aren't reading anything but the character generation and combat sections anyhow.

EDIT 12/6/21 -- A reader has confirmed that anxious people are, indeed, choosing not to play a game they would very much like to play, for fear of offending others.  That's exactly what I predicted, and I really appreciate the confirmation, but it's frustrating as hell to see a gorgeous game underused because of it.

Now, the designers aren't swinging at shadows. That kind of conflict is very real, and in a game like this with a mixed-heritage gaming group, very likely. Pretty much all Native Americans have sensitive issues in areas that this game will come near or crash right into. People are going to step on each other. But mixed-tribe groups do it too, other mixed groups do it, and most gaming groups of any kind find something to bicker about. You can't quash conflict, because people are aggravating and they disagree over stuff. You have to find some way of handling the spats.


Player Divisions

What the designers have chosen to do is sort people by race, instead of by knowledge or other personal factors, into two categories. This begins in Chapter 2 "A Message to Players" and continues with sidebars later in the gamebook. Native American gamers get one set of extra rules or advice, and non-Native American ones get a different set. So far, the trend is "If you are a Native American, these are the additional things you can do" and "If you are a non-Native American, these are the things you can't do." I can think of reasons why they'd do that, but I believe it's going to cause more problems than it solves.

First, the binary approach is a problem because of local-America's extremely fucked-up past. We don't have tidy divisions between "Native American" and "everyone else." We have a long, sloppy spectrum that people have in the past murdered each other over and occasionally still do. And they argue about what "is" Native American or not and who gets to decide that and how and why. The gamebook divides players by race, but it does not seem to say anything about how those categories are defined. Won't it be fun when 6 players and a Storyteller have 7 different ideas of what "Native American" means? No, no it won't. That is exactly the argument that crops up inside tribes, in reservation towns or bordertowns, and intertribal squabbles at powwows. It's never fun.

There are some, not all that many anymore, people descended entirely from one tribe or one other culture. A lot of tribal folks have ancestry from multiple tribes and/or nontribal sources. Now we get into the really messy stuff: the blood quantum and the tribal identity card and the history of who "counts" legally as native or not. It's only partially about genetics, and a lot more about politics, and now also very much about money. So there are people with only a small amount of native genetics who are tribe members, and people with a lot who aren't, and people who were but got evicted due to politics. There are towns in or near reservations where people mix freely, both socially and genetically. Some of the people from that mix went, "Our identity is Metis, we're not either group, we're in the middle," or various things to that effect in several widely separated cultures and languages. And this gamebook attempts to draw a crisp line down the middle of that mess.

The problem I see coming from this is a whole lot of new arguing over who "is" Native "enough." We already have enough people going "Not you, halfbreed" and "You don't have a card, you're not a real Indian." City Indians vs. people who live on a reservation. People who have a card, but that's the only real connection they have, because they were raised by white folks. People who grew up on the reservation in a mixed town and all their friends are tribe members but they aren't. People who have studied a tribe their whole life, and know just about everything about it, and people who are members but don't know much about the culture or actively avoid it. Black Indians of several tribes, who may or may not be currently or have ancestors who ever were acknowledged in the official counts. And folks argue about this stuff. All. The. Time. This gamebook just handed them a new stick to hit each other with. I don't think that's a great idea.

Trying to sort a very messy spectrum into two pigeonholes is awkward at best, and harmful at worst. It's the kind of problem you get when you base things on race rather than, say, "Do you know what you're doing? Yes: here are some advanced ideas. Some: here are the standard rules. No: this is the easy version. Everyone try to play nice." The advanced-standard-basic approach is one I have seen deployed effectively in many games.


Second, there's the issue of racism, and it has two halves. One is the history of genocide, slavery, and other racial mayhem in America. The other is what racism is unto itself. That is 1) the belief that superficially visible features constitute "race" which matters, 2) that some "races" are inherently better or worse than others, 3) that this entitles you to abuse others for being different; and in some paradigms also 4) you have the power to act on your beliefs by harming other people.

That's a very slippery slope. As soon as you start dividing people based on some conceptualization of race or ethnicity, you're stepping into that territory, and you don't have to go very far before it starts causing problems. "Don't play this" is mild compared to most of what goes on, but it's still risky in ways that make me uncomfortable.


Third, we have game imbalance. This has a perceived and a concrete aspect. 1) Players who believe that other players have an unfair advantage, or who see someone else getting more than they do, are likely to complain about it. This can create social imbalance that impairs player interactions and exasperates the game master. It is a common cause of game breakups and most gamers have seen it. 2) If characters get advantages or options that other characters do not, they may be able to accomplish more. This can create an imbalance in game mechanics. Again, most gamers have run into imbalances of game mechanics. They're less likely to break up a groups, but are a common cause of players choosing to play a different game. But another common response is just to change a rule, because after you've shelled out $25 or $50 or more for the materials, it sucks to waste that.

Certainly the potential for social imbalance, and thus argument, is there just because the players get divided by race and given different instructions. This would not be so bad if those two boxes had "Your options are ABCD" and "Your options are CDEF" but they're not. Native players get more options, period. Based on my observations of human nature in general and gamers in particular, that alone will start arguments.

I have not yet seen anything in the game mechanics of Coyote and Crow that would give Native American players a concrete gaming advantage over non-native players. That's a good thing. I've seen other games that do encode that kind of advantage. For example, Ms. Monopoly pays female players more than male players. So the first thing I had to do was decide whether to play as a woman (I have a female body) or a man (I'm genderqueer leaning masculine). I dithered over it a while, examining it from different angles. I think I ultimately decided "Screw the rules" and split the difference. Now, I'm a scholar, I know how to have this kind of argument with myself, and I'm old enough to know my identity so a game isn't going to injure me. But for someone who doesn't know how to have that kind of argument safely, or isn't secure in their identity? That can be miserable. I have cleaned up after that and it is no fun at all trying to explain to an upset friend that sometimes game designers don't think of things and then trying to work through the identity crisis or other issue. While it's an interesting concept in theory, I don't think it's advisable in practice. It can be illuminating, but it also tends to be aggravating. If the game is supposed to be fun, it tends to undermine that. If the game is intended to be educational, it might be worthwhile, but is still risky. At least education usually gives people a bigger toolbox for dealing with the issues.

A key point in game design is always balance. You have to crunch the numbers so the probabilities do what you want, and don't do unexpected things that wreck play. There is both art and science to balancing different character parameters, whether that is species, profession, or some other game-particular division. Most of the time, you want them able to do different kinds of things so players have choices about what they want to do, but approximately the same amount of things, so you don't have characters that suck and characters that are great.

The original Dungeons & Dragons made an interesting different choice with balance. Magic-users started out very weak but became extremely powerful over time (if you could keep one alive long enough). The balance was not lateral, character-to-character within a single level; but rather vertical, a lot of extra work in the beginning with a big payoff later. However, many players and dungeon masters found that this made for frustrating and imbalanced play. Pretty much every subsequent edition has tinkered with character parameters in pursuit of better balance. If players feel that something is imbalanced (whether it actually is or not, and whether it affects just players or just characters or both) then they will bitch and bitch about it.

You also have to try and predict gamer behavior, which can be really hard. People will always think of something you didn't, no matter how careful you are. If your target audience is diverse, as Coyote and Crow intends, then you are pretty much guaranteed that the parallax will screw your predictions. You just have to do your best and compensate for the problems you can predict, then hope your game is robust enough to weather all the stuff you didn't think of. Playtesting helps, and lets you fix whatever glitches it reveals, but as soon as you open to a wider pool, you'll hit all new things. Classic example: the Mox gems in Magic: The Gathering. They caused a severe game imbalance, which would've been downright ruinous if they'd been common instead of rare, just because nobody on the design team or playtesters spotted a loophole that later players did. Subsequent editions made changes to compensate for this.


Possible Reasons

I can think of several reasons why the game designers might have decided to divide players by race. These may or may not overlap with their actual reasons.

1) They've seen non-Native Americans behave horribly and want to discourage that. There is a lot of this; the concern is quite valid. People are often rude, and the genocide is ongoing.

2) They want to encourage Native Americans to explore their own culture and experiences. Non-Native American players probably don't have those connections and experiences, and the designers clearly don't trust them to behave responsibly without it. The first part is valid; the second is only sometimes valid.

3) They know that Native Americans have been trampled on enough that most of them are tired and sore, so the designers want to protect them from fellow players being pesky. The damage is real, and there's something to be said for taking extra care of people who are low on energy and patience. To my knowledge, no game has managed to eliminate gamer peskiness, but many designers make a valiant attempt to minimize it.

4) They wanted to say different things to different people, and this was the best way they could think of.

5) They've been stepped on enough that they want a turn stepping on someone else. This is incredibly tempting. Few people can resist it. Hell, I've done it, with various topics from racism to sexism. I'm sure plenty of Hispanic people would find Los Conquistados ouchy, just as some other folks enjoy seeing this world's conquistadores get a whacking. I've also seen it cause some nasty arguments, and that makes me think before writing a piece like that. So yeah, it's tempting. It's also a slippery slope, and the bottom of that slope is a seething pool of piranha and things like Israel building a wall with which to oppress people. And feeding the black wolf is not a good idea, no matter what puppy eyes he makes or what cute tricks he tries to get that sausage out of your hand.


Rules for Non-Native American Players

Here is the "don't" list for non-Native American characters in Chapter 2:

Please avoid the following:

• Assigning your Character the her-
itage of a real world tribe or First Nation.

• Assigning your Character a Two-
Spirit identity.

• Using any words taken from In-
digenous languages that aren’t
used as proper nouns in the game
materials or listed as being part of
Chahi (see below)

• Speaking or acting in any fashion
that mimics what are almost cer-
tainly negative stereotypes of Na-
tive Americans.


The first item is limiting but not damaging. It might annoy some players, but is unlikely to harm anyone. There are plenty of in-game fantasy tribes/nations to choose.

The main drawbacks here are: 1) some players get to do things that other players don't, based on out-game factors, and that invites resentment and arguments; and 2) for anyone who has deeply studied Native American culture or tribes, it shuts them out of using a lot of that knowledge, which is a significant group of people who'll be attracted to this game.


The second item is horrible. If you're cissexual and straight, you can play a character who shares your sex/gender/orientation; if you aren't, you can't. That's using a common definition of "Two-Spirit," which is a catchall term spanning all the individual tribal language terms and some European borrowings for the QUILTBAG in Turtle Island. But there are lots of definitions, they don't all agree, and the gamebook very unhelpfully does not furnish a canon definition. This point is just plain erasure, and it is not okay. And only Native American players are free to choose from the whole palette of human sex/gender/orientation, which is not exactly helping to free up everyone's awareness or acceptance of same.

EDIT 12/7/21 -- An enby reader has said they would not play this game because the above rule excludes their identity and they wouldn't want to be stuck with only straight cissexual characterization.  This is exactly what I expected, which is sad, but I appreciate having the confirmation.

EDIT 1/14/22 -- An anonymous reader found an entry later in the book saying that tahood or tahud (meaning "third") is a catchall term other genders in Makasing, and that people are free to use that or their own terms.  While less than perfectly clear, and not entirely agreeing with other parts of the book, it is at least arguably  usable and certainly preferable to what I found previously.  See page 131 (probably, there may be some differences between versions).

I can see why the designers would do that. Non-Native Americans have been shitty to Native Americans about this topic. But hey, Native Americans have been shitty to each other too. You think they won't start fights with each other over it? Think again. They're just as catty about it as non-Native Americans are. If you want to protect people, don't do it by stepping on someone else. You want to avoid that whole mess, you'd have to leave sex/gender/orientation out of the game entirely, which in fact is what most games do, excepting a very few sex-focused games like the Book of Erotic Fantasy.

So that brings up another problem, and now it's everyone's problem. If you cut out sex/gender/orientation, you're cutting out a big part of what has made Turtle Island cultures distinctive. Historically they were very positive about this stuff, and offered diverse options for people to be themselves, and that's awesome. Some of them are trying to reclaim that, which is also awesome. Locking it away is not so awesome. The bitchfests in modern tribes are also not awesome. There's no way that these concepts in Makasing would match the narrow European-derived set, so cutting out the tribal style diversity really warps the setting, unless you simply refrain from mentioning it at all.

Now, if you and your gamers don't care about sex/gender/orientation and want to leave it out, and you're telling stories that don't involve it, fine. Plenty of people feel that way. But there's at least a 10% chance, probably higher, that you have at least one QUILTBAG player in your group, and you might not even know who they are. They might be quietly upset but say nothing and just not come back, or they might spectacularly melt down over it. Or they might not care and just want to shoot things. You won't know which until they hit Chapter 2. O_O


The third item is not damaging, but it is stupendously limiting. Worse, it hits hardest the people who have done the most work with tribal languages. Polyglots have a tendency to jump to the "best" word in context, across languages; I've had friends who codeswitched across 6 languages in one sentence without realizing it. To such a person, this rule turns this game into a road full of potholes. Your brain keeps wanting to say things you've been told not to say. This is a really miserable experience. And come on, outside of a tribe, who but a giant language nerd is going to know a tribal language, own a tribal dictionary, know where to look up tribal words, or in any other way be able and interested to do the thing they've been told not to do? Racist jerks wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole. Careless people usually won't do that much work. The ones most affected are the ones trying to help keep the languages alive.

Another problem is that it cuts off some of the most useful applications for this game beyond plain entertainment, which is language practice. People will want to play the game (well, try to) in whatever tribal language they're learning. It's also a terrific example of something to translate into indigenous languages. But if you can't use words from other languages, then you can't do those things. These are really super important uses, because language revitalization is hard, and one of the hardest parts is motivating students -- especially kids whose parents plunked them in the class, as adults may motivate themselves. Gaming is one of the rare things that can drive people to do really hard things. It's fantastic bait. I have watched kids teach themselves statistics and probability so they could minmax a character as much as possible. If they'll do that, they'll also throw themselves into language learning if the payoff is high enough. With translation, it's hard to find something fun enough to translate, let alone already broken into convenient sections. Use that potential, don't waste it.

I mean really, this gamebook ought to be translated into Diné Bizaad, Tsalagi Gawonihisdi, and Lakȟótiyapi at least. (I was literally just writing about the "don't use other languages' words" rule and then I wrote that line. Because linguistbrain. I have approximately a 0% chance of following that rule in a game. Although admittedly I would also be splattering Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and a dozen or so conlangs amongst fragments of, hm, at least six or so Turtle Island languages.) More would be better. Let's Rosetta this thing to all four coasts. Now if you had it in a tribal language, you'd have a self-filtering product. Only people fluent in the language could use it, and anyone who'd invested that much time in learning the language would almost certainly be compatible with the culture. You can't upload a language to your brain and not get any of the culture on you, although there is a dropoff between people who think in another language and people who translate in their heads. And that's why some tribes have or want to have a linguistic requirement in their membership parameters, which is a whole nother argument.


The fourth item is ... laudable of intent, but almost pointless in practice. First you have to know what makes a stereotype, then you have to know the list of stereotypes about Native Americans. Then you have to know how to sort what kinds of "speaking or acting" would match those so you can not do them. This is hard enough. The kind of people who most need to be told this version of "don't be a dick" will neither read it nor care about it. The kind of people most likely to pay attention are also less likely to need it, and more likely to worry about it, which will cause some of them to avoid the game. Now add the completely bonkers part: you have to do this while playing a game that is entirely based in the cultures you're supposed to not mimic stereotypes of. O_O Riiiiight.

Okay, you can try to play only the things in the gamebook, but how are you supposed to keep those separate from the mishmash of rather similar things that you've picked up elsewhere? What if you're a Turtle Island nerd and/or a gaming nerd, and you've played the other handful of native-themed games? More importantly, how do you convince other players that you've gotten Thing A from the gamebook, not somewhere else? You'll have to stop and look it up while everyone else twiddles their thumbs. Maybe you can find it, maybe you can't. How many times will a gaming group tolerate this before breaking up or saying "fuck it" and ignoring that rule? I'm guessing not a lot. Just for comparison, my gamers lasted about 5 minutes when I tried to look up something during a game before they started complaining. I said they could either wait patiently for the real rule; or I could shut the book, wing it, and they'd be stuck with the results. They said shut the book. I shut the book, and that's how I've played ever since. It has worked. YMMV.


Other Possible Solutions

There are plenty of other things the game designers could have done to resolve issues, some of which they have done with other topics and some of which other game designers have done in different games. There are also things that you as a gamer could do if you decide to buy the gamebook (which really is good in many ways).

Because the racially divided sidebars seem to contain advice and orders, but not game mechanics, there's a simple solution if you find the racial division of players objectionable for any reason: ignore the sidebars. It won't break the game mechanics. (If there are game mechanics in later boxes, that may change. But it would probably be tidbits rather than anything critical.)

A solution that the game designers have used in some areas, but not the above, is providing an in-game alternative. Frex, there are no alcoholic beverages in Makasing. This prudently avoids the massive, painful issue of alcoholism. But now people need a place to hang out other than bars and also some other social lubricant. For these purposes, the designers have furnished tea houses, most of which serve ordinary tea in daylight and mind-affecting tea at night, some of which serve stronger and less-legal things. So the sorts of things people might want for game play -- particularly the ubiquitous "tavern" or equivalent to swap gossip and quests -- are covered by a substitute which elegantly matches local color of Makasing. If they'd done this with all the topics they didn't want non-Native Americans to treat like a bull in a china shop, that would've been great.

People also do this in everyday life. Tribes figured out how to make inactive, ornamental kachina figures and sand paintings because outsiders really wanted them and would steal loaded ones which is insanely dangerous. (I don't think stealing is okay, but if they won't quit, you have to find some other solution.) Now people can buy safe lookalikes and the real ones are kept securely to their proper uses, and everyone is happy with that and nobody gets hurt. If they can figure out how to turn powerful artifacts into ornaments, somebody can figure out substitutes or other workarounds in a game.

Remember, nature abhors a vacuum. If you only tell people "don't do this," and you don't give them a good substitute, you are unlikely to get the results you want. It is much easier to redirect than block, whether you are dealing with physics in martial arts, a toddler who wants a cookie, or a gaming group. So if the don't list bothers you, or you find other stuff where no substitute is given in the gamebook, a good option is just to use the gamebook as inspiration for making up your own fictional substitute. Because the worldbuilding is so great, there is lots of material to use for this purpose.

And oh, it was only in writing that when I realized another problem. "Joe, you're Cherokee, you can do all the things. Make us a thingie for this part so it's done right." A lot of people are going to get real tired of that, real fast, especially if there's only one Native American player and/or they want to be players not Storytellers. I think I saw, somewhere in the book, a request not to bug the Native American players for information or help. Well, when you've cut off everyone else from doing their own homework, what the hell do you think is going to happen? They are going to pester the Native Americans. It is going to be just as annoying as every other time someone gets pestered to do racial work, and the rules funnel right into it. The least-worse scenario is people who want to ask for those answers or constructions will instead bite their tongues, and be frustrated at not having it, which isn't a fun gaming experience. And they've been beaten over the head with how they're not allowed to solve that on their own. Perfect storm.

Another option, which will work best with experienced gamers who already know each other, is simply to talk it out among yourselves and agree on what parameters you want to use. If you all think the divisions and restrictions are silly, or dangerous, you can dispose of them without hurting anyone's feelings; or if there's one you agree to keep, you can keep just the one you agree is useful. You don't have to let someone else tell you what to be offended by or how to walk on eggshells. You'll get more precise parameters by talking to your friends than reading rote rules from a book.

If you decide to tinker with the rules, do it mindfully. And don't do it without a compelling reason. This is probably safer in a homogenous group than a mixed group, but if you know your friends, a mixed group might work too. If you can't agree on parameters, play something else. If you have a ball with a jerryrigged version of the rules ... it's probably polite to keep that to yourself. What you do in the privacy of your own space is your business. What you trot out in public becomes everybody's business, and you might not like the feedback.

Also, for all the warnings aimed at keeping non-native players from offending players or Native American culture in general, I have seen nothing aimed at keeping native players safe from themselves, each other, or America's crapsack history.

I would say that in an all-native or mixed group, it is crucial to ask players, "Is there anything you don't want showing up in this game? Any hot-button issues we should try to avoid in general?" This is always a good idea before starting a roleplaying game, but it becomes super important in any game with an edgy theme that's likely to raise less-fun emotions. I've seen that landmine go off most frequently with domestic violence or sexual violence, but those are by no means the only mines in the field. If the game touches on insanity (like Call of Cthulhu) then you really should discuss that first to make sure everyone is comfortable with it. If not, make adjustments or select a different game.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of several current issues in tribal culture that could cause problems, but the most likely is missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and two spirits. About 4/5 of indigenous women are affected by violence and a lot of men are missing female relatives; sex/gender variant people are especially high risk. With those statistics, quite a lot of people will need or want "no female victims in the plot, please" for fun and safety reasons. And of course, non-natives too, but the stats are higher for natives.

I also haven't seen anything like "Cousins, it's a game, let's not have the Tribal ID Card Fight here" or any other attempt to quash the kazillion other mean things Native Americans do to each other that are quite likely to come up in the context of a game about the noncolonial alternate history of Turtle Island. Nor is there any warning like, "This science fantasy game imagines a world without colonization. While it's a lovely thing to imagine, our own world isn't always a nice place. The contrast and/or the content of the game may bring up strong feelings, especially for Native American players or non-Native American players whose ancestors were involved in historical violence. Please be gentle with yourself and each other. Take a break if anyone gets overwhelmed. Here are a few resources about coping with historical trauma and emotional surges."

I'd love to play this game. But I sure as hell wouldn't play it without someone skilled in emotional first aid. I am not shy about opening a powderkeg on the gaming table. I ran Hitler as an NPC in Dead Inside once -- but I knew my players, and I probably wouldn't have tried it in any other game (well, he's popular in historic wargames but I don't play those). If you're going to put heavy issues on the table, you have to be prepared to handle the fallout, and you have to think about more than one dimension of what could hurt people. Swinging wide of one person only to conk another is not reducing the total pain in the world.

I can think of one really terrific use for the gamebook as it stands: excerpt that Chapter 2 "A Message to Players" section, hand it out in a college class on racial interactions, ethics, anthropology, game design, etc. and say, "Discuss." The fur would fly, but that's expected in those types of assignments, that's the point. You want students to analyze the material, formulate a personal stance, and defend it using principles from the course subject. It's really some of the best material I've seen for that use, because the game is interesting, the pictures are pretty, and it's not written by psycho racists. It's written by people trying to solve a very messy problem in a way that probably just alters the type of arguments it'll start.

You can't solve that kind of problem without talking about it a lot, then trying lots of different solutions with extremely varying degrees of success. I'm pleased to see a tribal team taking a solid swing at these issues, regardless of how well or poorly it plays out. It's a fantastic discussion starter with a different perspective, and we need those.


Who Matters?

Underneath all the issues about the game itself and the interactions of people playing it, there are the cultural and ethical issues about speech and choice.

Who has a right to complain? Who has a right to talk about things? What can you say or not say? There are people who will insist that nobody except Native Americans has a right to criticize the book or game. Others will say that freedom of speech is a thing and you can say whatever you want. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" is another option.

Who has a right to decide what happens? Who has a right to decide what gets used or not used? Who has a right to define sex/gender/orientation for themselves or others? There are people who will insist that it's wrong and racist to do things you've been asked or ordered not do, by a member of an ethnic group, when it involves something related to that group. Others will say that it's nobody's business but their own what their sex/gender/ orientation is, in everyday life or in game play.

Who matters? Who gets hurt? Who gets respected? What happens when two or more vulnerable groups butt heads, who do you protect? What happens when two or more of your ethical principles conflict, which do you choose? Or do you try to find some other way?

If you're running a game con, and somebody wants to do a pickup game of Coyote and Crow, do you allow it because Native American representation is good, decline it because Chapter 2 could hurt QUILTBAG people, or open the can of worms about skipping that rule? What if you're running a college gaming club and someone claims that Chapter 2 violates the school policy against racism because it divides players by race? Honestly, I'm not sure there's a way out of that stuff without offending somebody.

Sometimes there aren't any easy answers. Usually, if trait-having people make a request regarding trait-relevant issues, I prefer to support that. However, I'm not comfortable doing that if it violates my ethics. Meddling with someone else's sex/gender/orientation conflicts with my belief that everyone gets to describe and present those things as they please. So I can't go along with that one.

How do I resolve it when ethics conflict with each other? Sometimes one is more important. Sometimes one is simply more active. I might be able to come up with a way to break up the conflict. But I always feel that I have a right to think about that tangle for myself and make my own decision how to handle it, because I'm the one who has to live with the results whatever I choose. I chose to write this down to get it out of my head, and I chose to post it because -- well, that's what I'm for. I'm a bard, it's my job to say things, especially uncomfortable things.

I think in the end, I believe that Native Americans can ask but not demand in this situation. Same as anyone else.

Some other situations, it might fall out differently. There's a huge debate about sweat lodges, their safety or lack thereof, and who has a right to lead them or not. I don't think that Native Americans have a right to ban sweat lodges for everyone else, because similar activities happen around the world; but they absolutely do have a right to say things like, "You cannot call yourself a Lakota sweat lodge leader unless you have been trained and approved as such by another official Lakota sweat lodge leader." And just to be an equal opportunity irritant, this stance agrees with neither most of the Native American opinions I've read (many of whom would like sweat lodges restricted to tribal use only) nor with the American government (which generally doesn't care who does them).

Just because you care about someone, doesn't mean you have to agree on everything or go along with something you think is a bad idea just because they asked you to or got mad if you declined. Being ethical means you think about possible choices, which will do most good and least harm -- and whether any harm is outweighed by the good.

Sure, I could say "I don't agree with Chapter 2, so I'll just shut the book." It wouldn't hurt anyone. But that would be a waste of a damn good book, and it wouldn't get us any closer to cleaning up the clusterfuck race relations here. Talking about it might ruffle feathers, but at least is has a chance of raising some useful insights. Because who knows, maybe someone else will have insights that I didn't. I hope so, because I didn't just buy a book for myself. I sent one to a reservation library too. I really, really hope I didn't start a ghastly argument with it when I was just trying to keep the gift moving. But that's the thing with books, you never know what they're going to do. You just have to cross your fingers and turn them loose.


My Stances

My stances include, but are not necessarily limited to:

* You have a right to your informed opinion.

* Judge people based on their actions, not chance of birth.

* Don't try to censor other people, and don't let them censor you. Talk it out, agree to disagree, or walk away. But without talking, even arguing about difficult topics, nothing is going to get solved. Ever.

* Don't let other people override your ethics. That way lies "just following orders" and contextual abuse. Just because someone tells you to do a thing, or that doing it is safe or polite, doesn't mean you have to do it if you think it's wrong or risky.

* If you are writing a book or making a game, you can do whatever you want with it. If people don't like it, they don't have to read or play it.

* Once you release something into the wild, you give up control over it. People will do stuff with it, and you might not like all that stuff. If you're not comfortable letting it go, leave it in a drawer where it'll be safe.

* It's okay to share things, or not share things, but "Here it is, you can't have it" is rude and causes problems. Giving things to one person, but not the person sitting next to them, foments resentment, jealousy, and arguments.

* Just because you can do something, doesn't necessarily mean you should.

* If you buy something, you can do whatever you want with it. If it's a game, you can tinker with the rules for any reason or no reason. Other people can play with you, or not, as they please.

* If you read a book or play a game and think, "This doesn't work, they should've done X instead," you are free to go write book or game X. You can also write a review of the original one to discuss its strengths and weaknesses; be prepared to back up your claims with specific examples.

* When setting up a gaming group, talk first. Make sure everyone is on the same page. Agree on a game that will be fun for everyone and what your priorities are.

* House rules solve a lot of problems with games. They can start arguments, but then so do official rules. Do whatever works for you and your current gaming group.

* If you do the work, you can play the character. If you use statistics to minmax a powerhouse, or historical research to draft a brilliant scholar, I'll just adjust the game challenges to suit your character's abilities. You've earned it.

* Don't be a dick. If something annoys you, don't do it to other people. If you upset someone, apologize and work it out.


So yes, it was kind of aggravating to argue with myselves for hours, and I blew much of a day on just these two posts. But it was also interesting, it got me thinking about a lot of stuff regarding game design, game play, historic issues, current issues, safety, other other things I may use even if I never play this game. I still like the game and will keep reading the book. If "not boring" is a key thing you want from a book, Coyote and Crow is certainly that.

... what else would you expect from a book named after two Tricksters? They're probably laughing their tails off.