As you can see, I'm a bit of a fan of Phil Eklund games. And this isn't even my whole collection. I've just said that a big part of their appeal for me is that his games are games of ideas. They give you something to think about. That doesn't mean that his ideas are necessarily very palatable. For example, Phil seems to be some sort of American libertarian. I'm all in favour of personal liberty, but the Ayn Rand style libertarianism that Phil seems to champion is more about liberty for corporations. The entrepreneurial spirit of capitalism operating in free markets is the great driver of human progress. At least that is what the rule booklet for Pax Renaissance tells me. My response to that is – tell that to the people in Bhopal. Pax Porfiriana, Phil's epic game of the Mexican revolution, teaches us that the world is divided into makers and takers, in other words taxation is simply extracting money with menaces. I prefer to think of taxation as a (very imperfect) common purse, to which we all contribute for the common good. Bios Megafauna, Phil's simply magnificent game about the last 250 million years of evolution, has a throwaway line in the rules about mankind's heroic efforts to avoid the next "snowball earth" by digging up and burning as much fossil fuel as possible. So much for the scientific consensus on climate change.
But I don't really mind all that. The great thing is that Phil Eklund reads widely and deeply, and builds his often heterodox conclusions into the structure of his truly excellent games. Giving me not only something great to play, but some truly interesting ideas to chew over and disagree with. Give me that over the latest idea-free Euro-deckbuilder any day.
6 comments:
How long do you think it'll take to play? Looks very interesting. Pax Porfiriana is one of my favourites.
I reckon an hour and a half perhaps. But it's a bit prog-rocky Iain – be careful! :)
I'll grit my teeth during the guitar solos.
In the spirit of the power of ideas behind Pax Renaissance, i wanted to correct one false impression: i am anti-corporation. Indeed the very concept of "corporation" is a government-created legal fiction whose purpose is to obscure individual responsibility. A "corporation" cannot commit a crime, only individuals can do that. UC did not cause the Bhopal disaster, certain individual decisions did that, including certain employees of the work force and of the heavily regulated factory safety department, and members of the local government. I describe more of my anti-corporate ideas in a short essay in the upcoming game "John Company", about one of the world's first corporations: the British East India Company.
By the way, this is Phil Eklund. I did not intend to reply anonymously.
Thanks for the clarification Phil, that's very interesting. I'm feeling tempted to pre-order john Company. You're not the designer, is that correct? How much input did you have into the design?
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