Thanks so much for this panel!

I'm interested how all three papers in some way offer body histories of video games- the skulls worn by characters, the decision to feed people through resource management, and the attribution of skills and abilities based on types of bodies. Can you discuss if/how the history of bodies/embodiment influenced your scholarship?

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I'm also curious about religion since that theme is present in the paper on Assassin's Creed and there's the moral panic over DnD. Can any of you talk about the change over time where a game sets off moral panic and later a game reinforces notions of 'civilized' vs 'uncivilized' religions?

/u/jbdyer, the discussion was basically too awesome, so we ran way out of time and couldn't get your thoughts on that final question, so I want to pose it to you now!!

What kinds of lessons do you feel players are getting specifically from a game like The Sierra Leone Game, and what kind of impact do you think they have on their understanding of that topic?

Thank you for three great papers and a fantastic discussion!

A more meta question from me: there's often a perception within the gaming community of a dichotomy between 'historical accuracy' and 'playability', or that gamers need clear signposting (skulls as signifiers in AC Valhalla) and a simplified gaming experience (the removal of political factors in the Sierra Leone Game and the categorisation of races in D&D) to truly enjoy a game. Does such a dichotomy even exist? How can historians address the concerns of game developers and gamers alike that the inclusion of 'history' decreases the 'fun' factor in games?

This may be a longshot, and may butt up against the 20 year rule, but do you have any thoughts on the trend of more and more e.g. DnD players opting for traditionally 'monstrous' races? The parties my characters are currently members of include minotaurs, robots, bugbears, half orcs, snake/fish/cat/frog-people, satyrs, tieflings, dragonborn, and so on; the traditional fellowship of the ring 'good guy' races -men, elves, dwarves, hobbits halflings- seem more noted by their absence. Is this just optimizers being optimizers, or does this reflect some change in attitude concerning fantasy races, or is it nothing?

Thank you for the really cool panel! How do you think video games can be used to actually, accurately teach history? Is it possible in the first place? Is it worth trying?

A more light hearted question, as gamers yourself, how do you like to see history get used in games? Any particularly good moments that stand out, or something you'd like to see more of?

What sort of different perspectives/changed narratives do you think new methods can offer?

Good afternoon and welcome to the Players gonna play, play, play, play, play: History in Games, Game in History conference panel Q&A! Moderated by me, Sarah Gilbert this panel explores relationships between gaming and history, and what they tell us about both the history we leisurely consume and the games themselves.

It features:

Adam Beirstedt (/u/sagathain) and Emmet Taylor (/u/For-cith) presenting their paper, Corporeal corruption: Skulls as non-Christian religious signifiers in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla

*This paper explores how Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla uses skulls, both human and animal, to depict medieval British and Irish religious practices. Christianity, the iconography of Roman paganism, and the imagined home of the Norse gods in Asgard are portrayed with a notable absence of skulls or bones, creating a perception of moral rectitude and familiarity. Old Norse paganism and some forms of Celtic paganism have human and animal skull decorations, but exclusively as set dressing - these have an innate moral ambiguity. Finally, Old English paganism and other forms of Celtic paganism feature skulls worn over and obscuring the human face, and are explicitly negative, dangerous, and malignant religious practices that exist to oppose the player and be aggressively opposed by the player.

This use of skulls in religious practices is based on modern expectations and perceptions of pre-Christian religions as more "natural" and less ‘civilized’, Othering these religious practices while simultaneously invoking both fear and curiosity on the part of the modern observer. These modern expectations the game draws on partially invert historic evidence of these religious practices. The bones of Christian Saints are important relics and objects of religious practice for medieval Christianity, so common and important that entire trades would develop to trade both legitimate and fraudulent bones between individuals and institutions. Comparatively, there is an absence of evidence to suggest the use of skulls in particular in non-Christian religious practice for the religions depicted in the game, though human and animal sacrifices are sometimes attested. In doing so, the game prioritizes modern expectations over historic realities, and depicts certain religions as lesser to others by invoking problematic images of naturalism and incivility.*

Jason Dyer (/u/jbdyer) presenting his paper, Reconstructing The Sierra Leone Game

*In 1962, the District Superintendent for Schools in Northern Westchester County, New York approached the company IBM about a collaboration in education: the staff of the school districts could work with the technical side of IBM to produce new research, leading to Project 2841, where three simulation games were to be tested on a group of sixth-graders.

One of these games, has had almost no discussion from scholars, but—despite it not spawning the same legacy The Sumerian Game did—is historically interesting in its own right: The Sierra Leone Game. The author, Walter Goodman, "felt that the economic problems of newly-independent African countries were important for pupils to understand" and had assistance from Frank Karefa-Smart, from the staff of the United Nations (and brother of Dr. John Karefa-Smart, the first Foreign Minister of the newly independent country), who by extension became the first African involved in computer game development.

This paper describes the history of The Sierra Leone Game and my attempts to reconstruct it, making it missing no more, and reconstructing how it stands near the front of a long lineage of strategy games.*

And Adam Franti (/u/PartyMoses) presenting his paper Not naturally adapted to horseback: Race and race theory in Dungeons and Dragons. *Dungeons and Dragons, a popular tabletop roleplaying game, allows players to create fantasy heroes to play through fantastical adventures. Among the many choices given to a player is the choice of race. Each race in the game comes with particular strengths, weaknesses, and attributes that affect the player’s approach to the world.

Many of the racial elements involve essentialist elements: dwarves live underground and love gold; elves are graceful and great archers, but “not naturally adapted to horseback;” orcs and other monster races are brutish, violent, and dimwitted. These ideas did not originate with Dungeons and Dragons, yet they are ideas so common to fantasy fiction of various mediums that they have become axiomatic. Though fictional, many of these elements are based on real-world ideas, rooted in real-world theory.

Attempts to explain why some societies achieved “civilization” and others remained “primitive,” led Enlightenment and colonialist thinkers to speculate on biological causes of different “levels” of civilization around the globe, leading many to formulate elaborate, essentialist theories about of biological categories of humanity called races. These explanations were enthusiastically employed in the defense of chattel slavery and imperialist conquests, and spawned a number of knock-on pseudosciences like phrenology and eugenics. Structural effects of governments embracing these ideas linger to this day.

So how did a role-playing game come to include such theories? This paper will examine the intellectual theories and pop-culture inspiration behind the ideation of race in Dungeons and Dragons, and how popular culture can inadvertently perpetuate harmful institutional theories*

AMA!

Is there any place I could download the papers to read?