Do I offend?

European boardgamers are a pretty polite lot. And so are the designers, developers, and publishers that bring these boardgames out of the dark recesses of the mind and onto the table in 3-dimensional wonder. Sometimes, either intentionally or not, a mainstream Eurogame manages to offend someone out there.

[ 1: What's In A Name? ]  [ 2: Modern Art ]  [ 3: Sexy Time ]  [ 4: War & Oppression ]  

1. What's In A Name?

When German games make their way to English players, the names often don't survive the translation process. The result is sometimes a source of either amusement, consternation, or in rare cases, shock and awe. The word dicke in German actually means thick. So you get Dicke Luft in der Gruft and Dicke Kartoffeln, translating to Thick Air in the Grave and Thick Potatoes, but which cause more than a few snickers. And worse, kunst translates as art, resulting in the unfortunately named Kunst Stücke, or Art Objects. One can only imagine why the Knizia game was never named Modern Kunst.

Spielboy Nugget: Suggestive Game Titles

It doesn't take much of a leap of faith to understand why people are careful when referring to the abbreviated names of Kardinal & Konig das Kartenspiel or Kohle Kie$ & Knete. A missing ampersand could lead to misunderstandings: K&KK or KK&K are acceptable shortenings, but KKK is generally not. It could be read as Ku Klux Klan, or at least it could expose the writer as someone unfettered by common sense. The point is partially moot, anyway, since most boardgamers now refer to KK&K as I'm the Boss (or, if you prefer, ItB), since it was renamed for an English reprint by publisher Face 2 Face.

Speaking of the KKK, the following picture highlights an interesting cultural disconnect between the US and Germany. On the one hand, the image depicts a friendly ghost helping children learn a new game at Essen 2003. On the other hand, it, well, it speaks for itself.

Merz-Verlag

The picture was lifted from the Merz-Verlag website.

Funny how folks aren't quite so careful when referring to Fisch, Fuppen & Frikadellen. You usually see it referred to as FFF rather than the more accurate FF&F. But that game had its own brief moment of controversy when a well-meaning English speaker loosely translated the title as Fish, Fags, and Fricassee. The word fags is a reference to cigarettes, but some gamers mistook the reference as a slight towards swishy she-males and denounced the game as offensive.

Sometimes, it's better just to rename the game than invite the possibility of negative connotations. For example, the game Dragon Delta from Eurogames Descartes was originally titled "The Dragons of Mekong". But anyone in the US over 30 years old probably recognizes the Mekong Delta as the hotly contested area of Vietnam that served as a stage for clashes between the Americans and the North Vietnamese. Rather than risk bringing up negative emotional connotations, EGD-USA Managing Director Ron Magin asked that the name be changed to Dragon Delta. According to Mr. Magin, "It still has the Asiatic feel and thematic feel of the game play, but without all of the negativity." The French edition is still known as "Les Dragons du Mekong".

Dragon Delta	Dragon Delta

In another interesting example, the up-coming game Struggle of Empires from Martin Wallace was originally titled Birth of Nations. The similarly titled movie Birth of a Nation, directed by DW Griffith in 1914, suffers from the distinction of being one of the most racist movies ever committed to celluloid. Some called it "three miles of filth", and the movie is partially credited in rejuvinating the Ku Klux Klan in the American South. Not wanting to invoke the ghost of Griffith, Mr. Wallace changed the name of the game to Struggle of Empires when he found out about the movie.

Birth of a Nation

Some stories about unfortunate game names turn out to be apocryphal. One example is the cardgame Shit! from Reinhard Staupe. The rumor is that the designer and publisher (Adlung) did not know the word shit was considered profane in the US. But, according to Mr. Staupe, that is just not true. "My original protoype was called "Hop oder Top", a typical German expression which means something like "all or nothing". [During playtesting], some of the players explicitly called out 'shit!'. In Germany a lot of people use the word "shit" if something goes wrong, for example like knocking down a glass in a restaurant. We were absolutely aware that "shit" is a swear word in English-speaking countries." They decided to use the name anyway, and Shit! was born, so to speak. Mr. Staupe is aware of the difficulties a game named Shit! might face in the US marketplace, but, he says, "I believe that it's not the name which decides about the success, it's the game itself that matters."

Shit!

Some folks don't care what the game is called. One comment on the Boardgamegeek claims "[Shit! is] not an ironic title, spot on in this case." Mr. Staupe is also behind the unfortunately named games Kunterbunt and Der Plumpsack Geht Um. These games have been released in the US as Catch the Match (Kunterbunt) and Sherlock (Plumpsack) from Playroom Entertainment.

NEXT 2: Modern Art