Why Role Reversal Works

(Yes, this is another post about Deadly Dowagers. Look, I've been kicking these ideas around for 2-4 years. Now that my game is out, please humor me. I promise to write about more general topics soon.)

I've been interested in role reversal as a literary device for a long time. In my undergrad directing class, I directed a scene (The Battle of Bull Run Always Makes Me Cry, 1995) in which I chose to gender flip all the roles. The scene was light fare (i.e. appropriate for an undergrad). Think David Ives, but less zany. The scene is about a woman recounting a date with a man to her female friends. It's trope-y (and fails the Bechdel test for what that's worth). So I explored those tropes through role reversal. 

At one point, one of my actors approached me to ask how gay I wanted them to play the scene. I didn't have the language then that I do now, but I tried my best to redirect the question. The characters weren't supposed to replace female tropes with gay tropes. I wanted them to play it straight—not in sexuality, but in earnestness. I was trying to explore the idea that sensitivity and vulnerability in relationships are not a single gender's issues. To be frank, this was around 2007 and I don't think my actors understood or believed me, but they toned down the acting style. 

You see, when we switch up roles it allows us to view our assumptions from a more critical angle. We can begin to question tropes and the status quo. We can refresh tired material or we can take risks. Sometimes we can do both at once. Of course, my undergrad directing class was pretty low stakes. Let's switch to board games. 

There are a lot of games with male murderers. Every Jack the Ripper themed game, for example. This is one way Deadly Dowagers explores role reversal, however it would be a mistake to think that this is the reason some people are uncomfortable with the theme. (It's the relationship between murderer and victim that is upsetting, which I address in the previous post.) 

The real role reversal I wanted to explore was that of turning powerful men into the game's resources. Women and minorities have long been resources or resource generating mechanics in Eurogames. There is one game in specific that I had in the back of my mind as I designed Deadly Dowagers, because it put women on the cover and in the title but relegated those characters to late game resources. (The game was not so successful that I feel comfortable calling it out by name, but it got attention from the major reviewers.)

You could argue that I reversed that scenario of minorities as resources in my game as a 'tit for tat' design flourish. But as discussed, role reversals exist to help us question our assumptions. The men functioning as resources are not a way of saying, "Oh yeah, two can play at that game!" but rather, "Is this ever ok? Either in real life or in games?" 

You may be now thinking, "If it's never ok, why did you put it in the game?" Because I believe that punching up is sometimes ok when you have a deeper message than just the punch. That is after all, the definition of satire. No message means you are being mean for no purpose. 

I've imagined every possible way you could tell the story in Deadly Dowagers. Men murdering their wives for their money does not work because it punches down. (There are other routes we could have gone that would have watered down the message by introducing other implications outside of the scope of the intended story.) The role reversal of giving power to the powerless is a strong storytelling tool because we can explore the positives and negatives of having power from a different angle than we usually encounter in the real world. 

Role reversals make you question your assumptions. If you aren't questioning your assumptions, either the message of the work was lost or there was no message to begin with.

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