Historical themes in board games: playing history or pushing wooden blocks?

How can history and games be connected? Why are historical themes sometimes helpful? Why can authors, publishers and designers also get their fingers burned by them? Daniel Bernsen answered these and other questions about history in board games in his guest article.

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The article is a revised and fully written version of a lecture on historical themes in games, which was given at the specialist conference “Spiele-Entwicklung” of the Spiele-Autoren-Zunft (SAZ). The contribution was first published in March 2020 as a PDF on the blog Medien im Geschichtsunterricht and is available under a “CC BY-SA 3.0” licence.

The game “Troia” by Thomas Fackler was awarded the unique “Geschichte im Spiel” prize by the Spiel des Jahres jury in 2001. In the justification for the game, it states:

“A perfect simulation of the work of an archaeologist and at the same time a stimulating, interesting game. […] With the special prize Geschichte im Spiel, the jury recognises the successful and precise implementation of serious academic research into an accessible game. The discovery of our historical roots through the persistent, painstaking work of archaeologists, who want to publish their research findings and compete in doing so, is brilliantly achieved in this game. […]”.

If you look at films or literature, you will find awards there that are oriented towards genre or target group, such as best short film, poetry prizes or the award for the best young adult book, as well as genre-specific awards for fantasy, crime or horror films and books. This is not (yet) the case with games. There is orientation towards target groups (e.g. Spiel des Jahres), player count (e.g. for 2 players: DuAli) or material (e.g. cards: À-la-carte-Kartenspielpreis). These are all formal, external criteria. Themes, on the other hand, seem to be less important. An award for the implementation of a theme, as with Troia above, is a rare exception. Twenty years ago, a regular, genre-specific award in the games sector would have been difficult due to the small number of new releases. In what is now a globalised industry with well over a thousand new board and card games each year, awards based on thematic genres could provide important guidance, especially for players, but also for publishers and authors.

In the introduction to the game “Zug um Zug Deutschland” (Days of Wonder 2012) by Alan R. Moon, it states:

“At the turn of the century in Germany … Amidst autumn drizzle, a cloud of smoke at Munich Central Station announces the arrival of the 16:15 train from Nuremberg […] bound for Berlin, the capital of the German Empire …”

The game is clearly located in time and space. If you look at the map of Germany underlying the game board, you notice that both the east – including, for example, Breslau, the fifth-largest city in the German Empire around 1900 – is missing, and that, among other things, Alsace-Lorraine with Strasbourg, which was annexed after the war against France in 1871 and belonged to the German Empire until 1918, is marked as “France” on the map. Further anachronisms can be identified on the cards. This historical misrepresentation is probably due to the fact that the game draws on the map from the Märklin edition (2006) of Zug um Zug, which shows Germany within its current borders with the federal states, and adopts its map with few changes. Whether the uncorrected adoption of a modern Germany map was due to poor research or disinterest cannot be determined. What was interesting was that a search in various online player forums, including those for the Zug um Zug series, did not reveal any indication that anyone had noticed this faulty map and publicly discussed it.

Thesis 1: In games, history is not important.

Nevertheless, in the case of “Zug um Zug Deutschland”, this historical setting was chosen rather than simply designing a blank board with coloured lines. If you look at the Top 100 games on BGG at the end of February 2020 (as of 24.02.2020), you will find a total of 46 games there that have a historical theme. If you review the games awarded the Spiel des Jahres prize for families and connoisseurs, as well as the nominations and recommendation lists over the ten years from 2010 to 2019, you come to around 60 games with a historical connection. From this, it can be concluded: History sells! History sells. Analogous (as well as digital) games are part of a constantly growing range of everyday and pop cultural representations of history, which include so-called medieval markets, historical novels, numerous magazine titles, films and TV series. As early as 1993, the history didactic Klaus Bergmann wrote: “There has never been as much history as there is today.” The boom in history has continued unabated since then. Publishers’ interest in selling books, films or games meets a broad interest among buyers in historical themes. In addition, historical themes in games, unlike current ones, do not seem to “age” but can – an important argument for publishers.

Thesis 2: History is important for games.

How important history can be is shown, among other things, by the marketing of games. Examples include excerpts from promotional texts for two games by Frosted Games – a publisher that has one of its focuses on publishing games with historical themes:

• Revolution of 1828: “Frosted Games is delighted to bring history to life. […] Revolution of 1828 is a fast-paced tactical duel by successful author Stefan Feld and authentically illustrated by Alexander Jung. 2 players can experience an exciting election campaign in a turbulent time here in 30-45 minutes.”

• Watergate: “With very catchy rules and completely different card decks for each of the two opponents in the game, Watergate manages to make history tangible in every thrilling game. […] Watergate is a playful treat with tactical and strategic elements by successful author Matthias Cramer and authentically illustrated by Klemens Franz with real photographs from the era. 2 players can re-enact a historic scandal or rewrite history here in 45 minutes.
  
  (All emphasis by the author of this article.)

If you read these promotional texts, the question arises: What is history, actually? First of all, it must be noted that history is not identical to “the past”. The past is over and not directly accessible to us. History is a selection of aspects of the past that we can remember because sources (including letters, laws, architectural remains, bone finds) have been preserved, and that we want to remember, i.e. where we ask questions about the past out of interest and try to answer them with the help of interpreting available sources. This means that history does not show “how it really was”, but is a construct, and history is – contrary to the popular saying – alive. In a constantly changing world, each generation asks new questions and reinterprets the available sources from its own horizon of experience and knowledge. History consists of narratives that describe change over time and its effects on our present and future. As such, history has an orientational function and is part of our own identity construction. However, these historical narratives are not arbitrary but are bound to the available sources.

From sources and depictions, the conditions of historical situations or developments can be worked out and then “played through”: thus, one can “tell” history, depict it, and therefore also “play” it. What happens in the game is always reduced to a few points and at the same time highly abstracted. An “experience” of history, or even a “bringing the past to life” or “experiencing the past” is therefore not possible.

These 3: You can “play” history, but not “experience” it.

A key difference between the depiction of history in games and other cultural works such as books, comics or films is that players become actors in the game. They make decisions. This raises the question of what roles players take on in history games: rarely are they individuals, and if so, only particularly powerful ones to whom great scope for action and play is attributed, or they are abstract entities that are personalised by the players: a country, state or company. Ordinary people or less influential social groups (for example, beggars in a medieval city) rarely appear in games. At first glance, these seem to have less agency in the game and thus offer fewer interesting decisions. However, there are successful counterexamples, such as “Agricola” (Uwe Rosenberg, 2007), in which players take on the role of farmers in “Central Europe, 17th century”. Games also include one or more game objectives, which define winners and losers at the end. This means that history in games is usually depicted through competition and confrontation. This results in a restriction not only of player roles but also of the selection of themes, which seem highly repetitive. Thus, there are numerous board and card games themed around economy in the Middle Ages and early modern period, conquests in antiquity, the Middle Ages, colonialism, and particularly popular for two-player games, the power struggle between the USA and USSR during the so-called “Cold War”.

In the latest issue of Spielbox magazine 2019, Harald Schrapers, currently also chairman of the “Spiel des Jahres” jury, writes in a note on the game “Watergate”:

“Is it a documentary or a fictional piece? […] The material used appears documentary and is committed to the facts. But in reality, the outcome of the Watergate affair can be turned on its head. […] The outcome is not a game result dependent on randomly drawn cards. Instead, the actors are guided by a more or less pronounced moral framework or represent certain interests. Watergate could only work as a game if it refrained from giving the impression of a realistic historical depiction with an uncertain outcome. Here, it failed to introduce a minimum level of abstraction.”

Clearly such a controversial stance that editor-in-chief Matthias Hardel felt compelled to address it in the editorial and add:

“A game is never a documentary, but in my view, it may look like one. Nothing can be simulated with paper and cardboard, even if an entire genre of games claims to do so.”

Of course, historical processes are complete: winners and losers are determined, the Titanic sank, and Germany lost the First and Second World Wars. History therefore initially seems unsuitable for games, because games necessarily require an open outcome with various possible (game) developments; otherwise, they wouldn’t be a game.

“Playing” history means that history in the game can unfold differently from how it is documented in historical sources. This is called “counterfactual”, which is not to be confused with “alternative facts”, the 2017 non-word of the year. It’s not about different facts, but about a hypothetical thought experiment. We know that history didn’t happen this way, but through different decisions or events, it could have unfolded under certain, openly disclosed and thus comprehensible conditions. This is precisely the core of what a model is. Models are simplified representations of our perceptions of reality, characterised by a reference to something else, for example, current perceptions of the Punic Wars, the Cold War, or trade in the Middle Ages.

Models are necessarily reductions: only relevant aspects are selected and included in the model. They always serve specific functions, such as entertainment, illustration for visitors in a museum, or learning history in school. It’s not about supposed authenticity. In terms of the model-like nature of games, it’s not crucial whether historical details like clothing, weapons, or buildings are accurately depicted in the game, for example through photos or illustrations, but whether the core mechanisms aim to represent a plausible model of a historical system or process. This is exactly where Watergate fails: the realism in the depiction contrasts with game mechanics that have nothing to do with the decision-making possibilities of individual people. Yet it is precisely these decisions that form the core of the affair.

Players do have the opportunity to do this, however. So the rule is: if games can use core mechanics to represent historical conditions and processes in a simplified and condensed way, then they can also model history. Board games even have an advantage over digital offerings: the conditions defined by the authors are open and can therefore also be subject to criticism. It is thus possible to check whether the relevant aspects have been included in a model, or whether important aspects are missing that limit or even completely call into question the scope of the model’s statements.

Thesis 4: Games can model historical processes.

Aside from games as models or games for learning history, two further functions of history in board games can be identified:

1. History can serve as a backdrop: The historical reference in names and in the design of the packaging and game components is intended to help sell the game. For example, “Dominion” (Rio Grande Games, 2008), the Spiel des Jahres 2009, clearly references the European Middle Ages. However, this reference remains purely visual. Although “Dominion” draws on the terminology and imagery of the European Middle Ages, the game could just as easily have a completely different theme without changing the rules or gameplay.
   
   
2. History provides the story for the game: Not only the packaging but also the story and possibly the characters or roles of the players have a historical reference. However, the rules and gameplay are not intended to represent historical processes or facts. Information about the historical background appears, for example, on character cards, in the instructions or additional materials. Examples include “Plus Ultra” (Meridiano6, 2016), set in the time of Charles V, or the game “Schinderhannes” (Clicker-Spiele, 2009).

A green square in the game can represent a marketplace. With the label “marketplace”, players immediately know what to do here: it is a place where goods can be bought or traded. If a grey figure in the game represents a knight, this also immediately triggers abstract, clichéd associations: a knight moves faster than other figures because he has a horse, and he can fight; otherwise, the figure would have been labelled something like “mounted messenger” or similar.

Games are always abstractions. If you link the game components to a theme, for example a historical one, the associated ideas can be used to turn abstract rules into a narrative. In many games, the mechanisms have nothing to do with the portrayal of history in the game; instead, the theme – and this applies not only to history – serves to make the rules easier to understand and remember. What’s more, a theme usually makes a game more interesting and appealing.

Historical settings have several advantages from the perspective of authors and publishers: on the one hand, there’s no need to invent new worlds, names and stories, as the historical references already provide a setting for the game as well as a guide for designing the materials, and possibly even for shaping the rules to make the game “narratively” coherent. On the other hand, history offers an inexhaustible reservoir of interconnected elements that provide plausible, credible game worlds.

Thesis 5: History offers countless existing and plausible game worlds.

To create a historical world for players, board and card games have various elements at their disposal. Each of these elements can establish a historical connection. Some games use just one, while others combine several of the following elements:

• Texts: Descriptive texts can be found, for example, on event cards in a board game, in the rules or as additional explanatory texts about the “historical background”. Excerpts from sources sometimes appear as quotes in so-called “flavour” texts to give the game more “authenticity”. These texts are purely illustrative and have no bearing on the game’s progression.
  
  
• Images and maps: Games also depict ideas of history visually. They show places, people, objects, buildings, rooms, landscapes, border lines, etc. This is done with varying degrees of historical accuracy, using photos, simplifications or caricatured exaggerations. The game board can provide a spatial representation of a specific place, a building, a city or a region. For example, a map – usually reduced to a few elements – can serve as the game board.
  
  
• Time: Board games can represent the passage of time through the game’s duration, the progression of rounds, via tracks, indicators, clocks or cards. Different time models can be distinguished here, including the players’ experience of time, narrative time conveyance or game-mechanical time conveyance.
  
  
• Mechanisms: These form the core of games and distinguish them from other cultural products. Through the mechanisms, players gain agency: they make decisions that change the further course of the game and the resulting narrative, and – if the game is well designed – reveal historical dependencies and connections to them. Different causes and factors are taken into account to varying degrees depending on the type of game and the target audience. Simulations, for example, aim to consider as many relevant factors as possible and to depict connections as precisely as possible. The authors of conflict simulations (or CoSims for short) usually use academic literature when developing games to translate its findings into game mechanics. Simulations are therefore relatively complex, with extensive rules and require a correspondingly long playtime, meaning they only reach a small number of people. They show how games, as model reconstructions, can provide insight into decision-making possibilities and interdependencies in economy, society, politics and the military.

The history boom, which has been ongoing for about 40 years and spans from medieval markets to novels, films and, indeed, digital and analogue games, is often explained by the desire for distraction, relaxation and entertainment, the opportunity to immerse oneself in foreign, often pre-industrial worlds – in other words, forms of escapism and exoticism. This explains the recurring themes and relatively narrow selection of historical places and times. At the same time, history is always also part of identity construction, both personal and group-related. So history is always also about orientation and identity formation. The closer a topic is in time and space, the more we know about the history, and the more this history plays a role in shaping identity. The closer a topic is in time, therefore, and the more relevant it is to the identity construction of particularly media-present groups, the higher the probability that it will lead to conflicts or criticism of the historical representation in the game. Conversely, this could lead to the following thesis

Thesis 6: The further removed a topic is in space and time, the more “exotic” it seems and the more “room for play” appears to exist.

In my observation, however, this is not accurate. I would like to demonstrate this with two examples that have caused particularly heated controversies in recent years.

The game “Mombasa” by Alexander Pfister (Eggert-Spiele 2015) was accused of trivialising the exploitation of Africa by Europeans during colonialism by omitting central aspects. In the game “Five Tribes” by Bruno Cathala (Days of Wonder 2014), the “slave” cards were replaced by “fakirs” following protests, particularly in the USA. The exoticism is evident in both cover images, as it is in “Istanbul” by Rüdiger Dorn (Pegasus Spiele 2014), which won the Kennerspiel des Jahres award in 2014. “Five Tribes” and “Istanbul” are part of the phenomenon known as “Orientalism”, which, in a long tradition since the 19th century, describes a Eurocentric, highly romanticised view of the societies of the Middle East and the Arab world.

At first glance, it seems that a historical setting, with its often spatial but always temporal distance, expands the moral boundaries of what is accepted by a majority of players within the magic circle of the game. Actions that represent waging war, murdering, cheating, looting or robbing would be difficult for many players in games set in their own present and might even lead to the rejection of the game. Many would probably have issues playing a warlord in present-day Afghanistan or Congo, unlike in a historical setting, such as in one of the many games related to the Viking Age. There, these action options are generally accepted, seemingly because players assume that was just how things were back then and it has nothing to do with us today.

The first two games mentioned are quite far apart in time and space – yet they sparked fierce controversy. Why is that?

There are essentially two main reasons. First, there’s the globalisation of the games industry. Games have long since stopped being produced for a single national market and are now increasingly distributed worldwide. The criticism of “Five Tribes” came primarily from the US, where slavery remains a central, identity-defining issue – both for large parts of the population and for the nation’s self-image. In a globalised world, it’s not just your own group’s identity that matters when choosing a theme and how to represent it; you also need to consider other group-based identities. Second, in the specific case of “Mombasa”, Germany’s colonial past – which had largely been forgotten for a long time – has become a societal topic again, thanks to numerous postcolonial projects in major cities, the lawsuit by the Herero and Nama regarding German colonial crimes, discussions about “reparations”, and public debates on the restitution of art and cultural objects from museums. “Colonialism” and its consequences have always been highly relevant to the people and states of former colonies, but now the crimes associated with it are also affecting Germany’s self-image, as most Germans had long ignored this part of their history.

Authors and publishers share the responsibility here. They should examine whether the chosen theme – or aspects of it – forms the core of their own or other group identities. This requires mental sensitisation and diversity. The board game scene is still disproportionately dominated by white European and North American men. We need more diversity among authors, editors, and, where relevant for game designers, ideally in test groups too. Regardless of how history is represented in a game: games with historical themes – just like novels, comics or films – are part of popular historical culture and thus always convey historical images. They cannot avoid this. Therefore, it’s irrelevant to ask whether a game is “authentic”, whether it’s based on sources, or whether it aims to depict history “accurately” or not, or to what extent it is fictional. In my view, this is also what the publisher and author of “Mombasa” – originally titled “Afrika 1830” – failed to understand despite the early and clearly formulated criticism up until the game’s release. It’s commendable to include a booklet with historical games to contextualise the game and provide information for interested players. In “Mombasa”, this is a short section titled “Game and History”, placed at the beginning of the rules. It contains the following explanation:

“Even though Mombasa is loosely set in this period [= the age of colonialism], it is in no way a historical simulation. Mombasa is a strategy game with an economic focus that only very roughly uses historical categories, embedding them in a fictional and superficial narrative.”

The short excerpt reveals the misunderstanding: every game with a historical setting conveys a historical image, even or especially through omissions. The fact that history in the game serves only as a superficial backdrop does not prevent this, as another example shows. Even the seemingly innocuous “Catan” reflects colonial patterns of thought, such as the idea of supposedly uninhabited areas whose resources can be exploited. Choosing a theme is a conscious decision by the author and/or publisher, usually intended to help sell the game. However, the final decision on whether to play games that convey a problematic or false historical image rests with the players.

Thesis 7: Games with historical themes always convey historical images.

Historical images are tied to location and individuals. This cannot be prevented, but as authors, we should reflect on it by investing a minimum amount of research into the chosen themes and incorporating this work into our game proposals to publishers. To illustrate what this means, let’s take the Stone Age as the final example. The Stone Age is a popular setting for games (“Stone Age”, “Paleo”, “Tribes”, “Honga”, “Jäger und Sammler”, etc.). There’s a popular, media-reinforced notion that there was already a gender division for certain tasks during the Stone Age. However, there is no evidence for this. Current research shows that women and men performed the same work and tasks in the Stone Age.

A game that graphically and/or mechanically depicts women exclusively doing tasks like cooking, childcare and berry gathering, while men go hunting, would rightly be criticised today, because this also concerns identity – namely gender identity. Like other media, games can reproduce clichés and stereotypes that are projected back into historical settings, thereby repeating, reinforcing and permanently embedding them in many people’s minds. However, it must be noted that reception research – i.e. whether and how historical representations in games are perceived, processed and retained by players – is still in its infancy. Initial studies on this topic now exist for history in video games. In general, research on digital games is more advanced and conducted more intensively in many areas – and some of the findings, especially regarding the representation of history, also apply to board and card games.

Games are abstractions, working with simplifications and clichéd ideas. They are not scientific treatises, nor do they aim or claim to be. Games have their own specific forms of expression and limitations as a medium. Nevertheless, as authors and publishers, we should keep in mind and critically examine the images we convey through the theme and its implementation.

As shown by the example of gender roles in games about the Stone Age, a simple division into unproblematic and potentially problematic historical themes is not possible. For the recognition of analogue games as cultural assets, it would also be desirable if authors and publishers dared more to tackle seemingly difficult historical themes in games. In the field of digital games more than analogue ones, there have already been exciting and very different examples in recent years, such as “This War of Mine” (already adapted as a board game based on the video game), “Valiant Hearts” or “Through the Darkest of Times”, which show that games, as a relatively new medium for depicting history, still offer potential for innovative developments.

For further reading

• Klaus Bergmann, “So viel Geschichte wie heute war nie” – Historical education in the face of the omnipresence of history, in: Angela Schwarz (ed.), Politische Sozialisation und Geschichte. Festschrift für Rolf Schörken zum 65. Geburtstag, Hagen 1993, pp. 209-228.
• Daniel Bernsen, “Mombasa – fictional and ‘just’ a game?”, in: https://geschichtsunterricht.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/mombasa/ [last accessed 30.03.2020].
• Daniel Bernsen / Till Meyer, “History in social games”, in: Felix Hinz / Andreas Körber (eds.): Geschichtskultur – Public History – Angewandte Geschichte. Geschichte lernen und Gesellschaft, Göttingen 2020 (forthcoming).
• Uli Blennemann, “Die Geschichte der CoSims”, in: https://ghs-kosim.de/index.php/2019/07/14/die-geschichte-der-cosims/ [last accessed 30.03.2020].
• Charlotte Bühl-Gramer, “Per Brettspiel in die Vergangenheit”. Historical reality in game worlds, in: Public History Weekly 2 (2014) 25, DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2014-2253 [last accessed 30.03.2020].
• Bruno Faidutti, “Décoloniser Catan. Postcolonial Catan”, in: http://faidutti.com/blog/?p=3780 [last accessed 30.03.2020].
• Daniel Giere, Computerspiele – Medienbildung – historisches Lernen. Zu Repräsentation und Rezeption von Geschichte in digitalen Spielen, Schwalbach/Ts. 2019.
• Nico Nolden, Geschichte und Erinnerung in Computerspielen. Erinnerungskulturelle Wissenssysteme, Berlin/Boston 2019.
• Eugen Pfister, “Wie es wirklich war.” – Against the authenticity debate in digital games. In: Blog of the working group Geschichtswissenschaft und Digitale Spiele “gespielt” 18.05.2017, http://gespielt.hypotheses.org/1334 [last accessed 30.03.2020].
• Angela Schwarz, “Game Studies und Geschichtswissenschaft”, in: Klaus Sachs-Hombach / Jan-Noël Thon (eds.): Game studies. Aktuelle Ansätze der Computerspielforschung. Köln 2015, pp. 398–447.
• Felix Zimmermann, Digitale Spiele als historische Erlebnisräume Ein Zugang zu Vergangenheitsatmosphären im Explorative Game. Master’s thesis, Universität zu Köln 2018, available online: https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/8286/