In an earlier blog post about opening up a trunk of old games, I extolled the virtues of The Empire of the Petal Throne, a world setting devised by M. A. R. Barker.
Less than a half-hour ago as I write this, I was reading the introduction to Playing at the World, 2E, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson. It’s a history of the origins of the game Dungeons & Dragons, following the trail from the influences of the wargaming world in the 60s to the game’s publication in 1974. I wrote a blog post about the first edition.
In his introduction, Peterson talks about how this history is dominated by white males. There’s almost nothing about contributions from racial or gender minorities, nor is Peterson sure how to go about finding any data. He points out that this research is relevant today; it turns out that some gamers playing the sides of the Confederate or Nazi forces in miniatures gaming actually believed in those sides’ point-of-view.
Then I got to the last sentence in the paragraph.
The recent revelations that M. A. R. Barker, a wargamer and early role-playing game designer, had pseudonymously authored a work glorifying Nazi ideology and served on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denial journal, has cast serious doubt on the notion that all of that fascist talk in wargaming was just “Let’s Pretend.”
I had no idea.
I checked out Barker’s Wikipedia entry, which confirmed that sentence. The Tékumel Foundation, the literary executors of Barker’s work, published an acknowledgement and repudiation of Barker’s views.
I had no particular plans to re-read any of Barker’s Tékumel materials. I’m far enough behind on my reading, and have many other books I hope to re-read. This revelation doesn’t change any plans I had for the future.
This is becoming a too-familiar story: Someone has a brilliant idea or concept and shares it with the world, only for the world to later find out that the originator was an odious person.
Barker died in 2012. I wish antisemitism had died with him.
However, I find that I can never again recommend The Empire of the Petal Throne to game-world designers as an example of excellent world-building.