On Satire

Satire is a deeply misunderstood genre. If we want to have satiric board games, it behooves us to understand it better. Satire is not another word for comedy. Satire is not another word for commentary. It's both, but it's not just both. Satire is "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices." However, like most simple definitions of complex ideas, this does not adequately convey what satire is. You cannot simply make fun of people you find to be stupid and call it satire. So, let's take a closer look at what satire really is and how it can be expressed in board games. 

Satire seeks to "embarrass, humble, or discredit its targets." Those targets could be people, institutions, ideas, or systems. Satire may involve gentle, good-natured mocking or anger and outrage. Satire generally purports to be serious, mimicking the structure of the thing it is satirizing and pretending to values it does not hold. Satire must argue that something about its target is wrong and may call for some improvement of the situation. Satire employs parody, but must go beyond parody to commentary in order to be satire. (Munchkin is parody, not satire.) 

There are two key pillars of satire that often trip creators up. Firstly, satire "must take aim at a target that is larger or more powerful than the author." Satire must punch up. Punching down is just bullying. So, I cannot satirize an oppressed group, but in theory I could satirize their leaders if they hold considerably more power than I do. (This is highly context dependent and possibly a bad idea for other reasons, but we're only looking from the angle of defining satire at the moment.) 

The second is that the preponderance of the audience must be aware that your work is a satire. (Without labelling it as such.) In order to parody something in a way that expresses disapproval which is evident to the audience, satire usually employs an absurdism of extremes. The text of A Modest Proposal reads earnestly, but the suggestion it makes is absurd. Simply 'unrealistic' content does not go far enough to qualify as satire. Twilight Struggle examines seriously a political concept that has been throughly discredited. But the concept is not ridiculous enough for the average lay person to recognize it as absurd. I would classify Twilight Struggle as commentary but not satire. The side benefit of absurdity is that it generally adds humor to satire. (Comedy is a side effect, not the primary goal.)

There are some more general rules that I would put forth to board game designers trying to design a satiric game:

• The game needs to have a firm understanding of the subject matter. If too many of your details are ahistorical, your game will not be framed well enough for you to satirize your subject. For example, the thematic details of Puerto Rico are such a mess that the game can barely be said to be set in Puerto Rico. (I'm not saying Puerto Rico claims to be a satire, but that it couldn't if it wanted to.)
• The game needs to be self-aware of the harm done by the subject of the satire. Not only can the game not punch down, but it must understand how the framework it adopts has harmed various groups. Spirit Island is an example of self-aware commentary on colonialism. (It fails at being satire because it does not pretend to be pro-colonialism.) Many board games can appear self-aware when played by one group of players and not when played by another, such as Ladies & Gentlemen. This harkens back to one of our key pillars: the audience must be aware of the satire. 
• While the game must adopt the framework of the target, the game must be clearly not serious in its adoption. If most of your audience thinks you were serious, you failed at being satire. Applying your framework to an absurd extreme is the most easily recognizable form of satire, however you bear the risk that your audience may take your extremes seriously. See also: Fight Club, the movie, and its unfortunate fanboys. 
• The game must have a single, simple message. My game, Deadly Dowagers, contains two conflicting messages, one satiric and one cathartic. Since the cathartic message was emergent from the theme rather than intentional, I can't easily remove it to draw focus to the satire. As a result, the satire is muted and less apparent to the audience. I actually think this tension makes the commentary in the game more interesting, but it fails as effective satire. 

Now for a few best practices. I think, although I do not insist, that satire in board games needs to be absurd ideas with serious execution. The reverse, serious ideas with absurd execution, seems to fall down on a number of levels. But more generally, broad parody in the illustration seems like it would reliably undermine satire in board games. Satire uses parody but that does not mean that all forms of parody are suitable for satire. In the case of board games, ridiculous art has been used so often for purposes other than satire that the message would likely be lost or muddied. 

I also feel that board games are better suited to satirize systems and ideas rather than people or particular institutions. Highly topical satire tends to be ephemeral and the development cycle of a board game is not well suited to take aim at a person who may not be quite so relevant by the time the game is released (at least not if you want the game to be good.) Additionally, if you want the game to have broad appeal and age well, aiming at more general systems and injustices seems the better route. 

What game is a good example of satire? It's hard for me to say whether a game works as satire or not without playing it or listening to someone else critique it. (I'm relying on the critique of people I trust for most of the games mentioned in this post.) There is one game, though, that has all the hallmarks of satire on its face. Campaign for North Africa is (supposedly) a functional war game. It also appears to be a satire of war games as a genre. The play time and level of simulation are intentionally absurd and certainly self-aware. Richard Berg certainly knows the subject matter. I also don't believe he ever seriously expected anyone to play the full game. The message could be "some people take war games too seriously, but even they won't play this game." Campaign for North Africa is arguably satire as performance art rather than satire as board game, but it is the best fit for what I have been outlining. 

Even in literature, satire is relatively rare. Satire is extremely difficult to pull off well. But board games are well suited to commentary on systems and thus deserve exploration as vehicles for satire. Even barring that, many of the points I make here are good guide posts for more effective commentary in games. The main difference is the level of sincerity with which you present your subject matter. Critically thinking about systems and the impact they have is an admirable goal when designing a game, whether your game is satirical or not. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.