Steal Away Jordan: an RPG Set in the American Slave South

This is really interesting - my friend Ben reports back from GenCon that this indie tabletop game, Steal Away Jordan, by Stone Baby Games and designed by Julia B. Ellingboe, got a lot of buzz, and you can see why: it's an RPG set in the antebellum American South. Here's a blurb:

This is not simply a game about slavery. Steal Away Jordan is a vehicle for players to tell a collective story of the lives of people who live inthe shadow of slavery. The emphasis here is on the people, not the place or time. The institution affects everyone, from the child born into bondage to the man who owns him. Steal Away Jordan is a role playing game written in the spirit of neo slave narratives like Margaret Walker's Jubilee, Toni Morrison's Beloved, and Octavia Butler's Kindred. Like these fictional accounts of slave life, players explore the social and psychological implications of life in a society where people can be property. Ultimately, players consider slavery's long-term impact on a society and on the descendants of slaves and slave owners.

The game designer Julia notes on her blog that at GenCon, the demoing of the game produced mixed reactions:

I'll start with the commerce aspect. I demoed my ass off at the Forge/IPR booth, which paid off. Steal Away Jordan made people uncomfortable, sometimes pleasantly so, sometimes unpleasantly so, sometimes somewhere in between. I had one couple pretend to get a cell phone call that they had to take. I had another guy tell me that he couldn't relate because, "there never was slavery in Canada." What-evah.... But lots more people stayed on the ride, and came out the other side.

My friend Ben was impressed and intrigued, but refrained from buying it because he wasn't sure how he would feel comfortable gamemastering it. He describes:

You've got the designer, a nice black lady named Julia, sitting down with you to run a game about being a slave and you are almost certainly white, probably male. And you probably didn't know what the game was before you sat down to play. Now in this demo, you're playing a precreated character. So you have a little background - one player was a rice farmer before he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. As it happens, his master has decided he wants to grow rice, but hasn't had a lot of luck. Now, the player's character has a name but he isn't allowed to write it on his sheet. Instead, when you're bought, the GM assigns your character a name and that goes on the sheet.

Your character has a "worth" stat. It's based on some other things about your character. Gender, age, skills, and experience, really. When you get in trouble, you're testing your worth. If your worth ever drops to zero, you're dead.

Also, there's a Death die. Any time you are involved in anything violent, you roll the death die. On a 1, you're dead.

So, the basic story of the demo is this: our male rice farmer slave, Caesar, turns around the plantation's fortunes. The Master notices this, and wants to reward Caesar. He offers Caesar a cabin, with a floor, that he can share with an attractive female slave, Button. Because what the Master really wants is slaves with a good pedigree. Anyway, so in the demo I was in, Caesar accepts. No conflicts. Everything's cool.

But then, of course, one day, Caesar's out working. And the Master gets drunk. So he goes after Button. Button screams, and Caesar hears it. Caesar barrels through the door and knocks the Master over. Caesar doesn't die from the death die, and makes his worth check. Button doesn't get killed immediately either, but fails. So she gets punished. Her worth goes down. Then both of them are sold.

End of demo.

Here are some other descriptions: Kon and The Forge. Also, Ben took a photo, and you can just tell from the body language of the players how they feel about the demo. This is truly tough stuff.

I just finished the elegantly tragic, morally complicated and deeply rooted novel The Known World, so I find this particularly intriguing now. How long until we see a videogame treat this subject with seriousness and sensitivity and unflinching frankness?

You can buy the game here.

Comments

[starwed]

How long until we see a videogame treat this subject with seriousness and sensitivity and unflinching frankness?

Ok, not sensitive, serious, or even a real game, but...

[Parthenia]

Thank you for discussing my game! I hope people will move past the discomfort of playing a slave, play with people they trust, and play my game. It's tough stuff, but fun can be had.

I just want to clarify one of the mechanics mentioned:

Your character has a "worth" stat. It's based on some other things about your character. Gender, age, skills, and experience, really.

Yes that's correct, but...

When you get in trouble, you're testing your worth. If your worth ever drops to zero, you're dead.

Not really. When you're in conflict and at risk of being punished, sold away, or otherwise injured, or you're bargaining for something major like your freedom or someone else's freedom, you roll your worth to test your luck. If your worth ever drops to zero, you don't die. You just can't engage in major bargains or conflicts without the assistance of your allies. You lose "worth" through injury, illness both mental and physical, age, and being considered a problem slave. This is a dice-abundant game, and worth fluctuates both positively (learning a skill, etc.) and negatively it would be pretty hard to go down to a worth of zero. Your character will always be worth something to someone.

Thanks for the review!

Julia B. Ellingboe