Some of the old classics are in dire need of well made teaching videos, but it seems no-one wants to make them because it obviously won't get as many views as a video about "hot new thing X". Thanks for putting in the work, this will be useful for years to come.
Thanks, Rick! i struggle with this... i even wonder if videos of older, more venerated games will fare better than vids of The New Hotness, due to the games' proven logevity? To my surprise, our How to Play The Castles of Burgundy video is one of our most-watched. Maybe i'll do one for Root (or something) and compare the results?
Setup at the end is GENIUS. Because the viewer is already familiar with the components, it's easier to take in and more memorable! LOVED your handling of the theme.
@@carterke Yes and no. Good to call it out, I agree, but for purposes of the video, I think calling it out and then calling them by the name in the game would have made it more accessible. No need to give a guilt trip to those just wanting to learn to play a board game by repeating it over and over. On a more objective tone, calling them by the name of the game will result in no confusion either.
@@carterke But it's not like it would be wrong for the designer to call them slaves if that's what they are. I had no idea they were supposed to be slaves, honestly. Interesting that they are!
Add me to the list of people applauding your clear, concise, and clever how-to-play videos. I know there are quite a few "older" titles that could really do with an updated treatment. Great work. Subscribed!
Thanks, erik! i own some absolutely great games that have been lost to time because they're three - sometimes FOUR - years old at this point. Expect to see them pop up on my channel in the near future.
Your videos are some of the best on RUclips. I found your Concordia video and have watched every single one of your videos even if I know how to play the game just because you are so entertaining! My friends have always felt that way about the Colonists, so it was funny to see you state it so obviously!
While not every joke landed for me, I get the point and they did succeed in keeping this video from being too dull. Even with the extra bits of humor this was still a clear and concise breakdown of Puerto Rico that put everyone at my table on the same page.
Just about to play this on BGA and wanted a rules vid. i really enjoyed this - very clear rules, along with some good gentle ribbing of the theme. I find it fascinating how you do the setup at the end. Kinda makes sense! I've just never seen that or considered that before. It might have been good to mention the playercount differences, but you still got yourself a new sub.
Thanks! As you well know, hooking people off the top of the video is really important. i can't think of a worse snoozefest than board game setup, so i relegate it to the end (and split it out into its own video, AND link to it as a chapter on RUclips). i figure most people who find my work aren't necessarily sitting there ready to set up the game anyway. Those who are can easily find the Setup section if they need to.
And I love it that even though we don't interact with the other players (unlike Catan or Smallworld, for example), it is quite social and our actions directly impact their game!! I love that naughty effect!
Thanks for the great teaching video - clear, concise and entertaining. And thanks also for recognizing the social context of the game theme - we need to push the design community towards more honest treatments of the themes they purport to be about.
Snap! Same here. I love PR and do not have a problem with the theme. I too, use air-quotes when explaining 'colonists' to new players (South Park reference to 'student athletes'). I find white-washing re: 'colonists' offensive. Hence, I get the humour during the rules teach. I also love the responses in the comments section. It's (dark) humour, people! If it's not your thing, move on and find another channel that teaches PR without the sark and sass. Keep it up!
"The first player is the last person to subjugate an island nation for profit using slave labor. First player gets the Governor card, and places a blue indigo plantation on her island." I do not understand this. How is a player selected to be the Governor on the first round of play?
Great explanation overall, with one minor gripe. I understand why you choose to call the colonists slaves, but it makes the rules explanation needlessly confusing since none of the text of the buildings or actions in puerto rico use the term "slave." It would have been better to add the forewarning but then use the official terminology for rules clarity sake.
Although you are correct about being consistent, I admit that my friends and I always call them slaves when explaining or playing. We read "colonists" but we know what they are...
These videos are great and the production is wonderful. Some of the best instructional videos for games out there. Keep up the great work. I love the stop motion animation... must take a long time. Thank you and looking forward to whatever is next.
Repeating "slave" so many times has made me feel much more apprehensive in even owning this game. I did get the sense that the little brown pieces were little workers in previous plays, citizens that toil for someone else's benefit, but not slaves; honestly. I don't think I tried hard to think about it, after all the university allows "slaves" to man any building, including offices, customs house, and guild halls. I don't think they would put slaves in charge of buildings of such importance. I'll stick to calling these pieces colonists, because I don't think they're supposed to be exclusively slaves, if at all. I'm not a history expert on the time or place of this game, what you're suggesting is entirely probable, but I think if the designers called them colonists, we should call them colonists.
You're correct in that the rulebook explicitly calls them "colonists," but i think a lot of people took umbrage with the fact that they were little brown discs that arrived in historically slave-staffed Puerto Rico on large ships in order to work on plantations. And like i said, maybe you're okay with them being slaves and maybe you're not, but i can't see the optics being much better if the discs were white or black. But let's say they were blue. What's the harm there? i guess that if we take it at face value, like you suggest, the issue is that the colonists arrive in Puerto Rico and get rich running plantations and constructing administrative buildings, and the game never mentions "oh, btw... here's who was doing the work. Here's who enabled all these goodies to be produced and ship back off to the old country." Some people took similar issue with Maracaibo, which is set in the Caribbean and depicts 98% white colonizers on its cards.
Hi, ex-spanish colony citizen here. It is all in your mind, you are not RPGing as a slave owner. It is just a game, please chill. Please don't feel sorry for us, we hate that, hurts our pride. Please don't over think this game, it is just a game. We play it too and enjoy it. Please stop ruining games with your PC culture. Thank you.
Unfortunately, that's not how it worked though. If the ruling class believes slaves to be subhuman (as was true with north American chattel slavery, but not all instances of historical human slavery), they'll let them guard the crown jewels. After all, a non-human worker is much less likely to rebel or plot against the ruling class, right? So yeah, they were forced to guard important buildings as well as work for every dime the colonizers earned.
Rules/gameplay aspect of this video is great. Clear and concise. Social commentary aspect is obnoxious and unnecessary. In a how-to-play video, just show us how to play.
Just checked the rules in the latest edition. It seems to say that the residence earns you points for any plantation space with a plantation or quarry tile on it, rather than actually manned tiles only.
Yep! An error on my part. It's already in the addenda on the website, and there should be a card in the video drawing viewers' attention to it. nightsaroundatable.com/2018/10/24/how-to-play-puerto-rico/#puertoricoaddenda
@@NightsAroundaTable I saw cards at the end of the video but none that corrected that part about the rule, and I'm not seeing a card when you were talking about the residence. Regardless though, good job on summarizing this game rules.
@@nitorishogiplayer3465 What you're referring to at the end of the video is called an "End screen," not cards. The card indicating the rule error appears at 13:42:09. It should look like a little white circle with an "i" in it at the top right of the video, unless you've disabled it. If that's the case, click the Setting gear in the bottom right corner, and turn Annotations on.
Great video. I wish I'd discovered you sooner. Keep making those play vids witty and accessible. They make life so much easier when I have to strong-arm my fellow gamers into watching a dreaded 'how to play' video. Thanks
Thanks for a humorous and thorough playthrough! Funny how you managed to offend both sides of the aisle! Love reading the comments of the offended too! Good times!
It's very good! i can also highly recommend Keyflower that has some thematic similarities, with different mechanics (it's more auction-heavy than taking a single role card) ruclips.net/video/nCYRYUxArMA/видео.html
While there are obviously some slaves being shipped over in the colony ships and put to work in the plantations, I would argue that there must also be European colonists on those ships as well as some of the disks are placed in the city buildings to do government and merchant work as well. Don't think slaves would have been given those jobs.
"A tile with a slave on it is said to be 'occupied.' Remember that word for later, cuz it's important." 🤣🤣 I wonder what's worse, being the killer in Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, or the colonizers in Puerto Rico. We do have a lot of interesting themes in this hobby, don't we?
Very good breakdown of the rules. It's worth mentioning that Puerto Rico is also an excellent 2 player game. There are official 2 player rules published online by the game creators, as well as various player created variants. It's regrettable that such a great game has a theme in such poor taste.
I love the passive aggressive anticolonial snark in the commentary. I love this game, one of my favorites of all time. But whenever I teach it, it’s the same kind of “wink wink colonist” thing where everyone really knows what’s going on and it’s a bit off putting. But damn the game play is enjoyable. Looking forward for more info on the new reprint in 2023
Good of you to not ignore the slavery theme. Hope this game gets an overhaul someday because I love the game itself. The theme can go tho. Back to San Juan.
Hadn't played the game for 5+ years, thought I'd refresh myself on the rules. Of course the comments are full of people getting offended that the tutor dared call out the 'colonists' for what they actually represent historically. The game is mechanically good; its treatment of the theme is less-good.
Thanks so much for this explanation of the game. I own it but it's been so long since I've gotten it to the table, it's a good refresher! That said, I'm not sure you needed to mention the colonists verbiage. It would have been far more offensive if they had actually chosen to go with the word 'slave'. At least they aren't completely trying to erase history or rewrite it like new games are.
Sounds like a little semiotics brush-up is in order here. Why would it have been offensive for them to use the word "slave," if the plantations were legitimately worked by slaves? "Slave" isn't a bad word, but it describes a bad thing. Slavery is offensive. Calling slavery "slavery" is not offensive. But calling slavery something else, as this game does, IS - to my mind - offensive. If you're going to be offended, be offended by the *actual* offensive thing - not by the word we use to signify the offensive thing.
@@NightsAroundaTable I'm not saying I disagree that they should have said slaves vs colonists. Just that I understand why they did it and there's no need to call them out for making the choice they thought would be less offensive to all players. If it just comes down to semantics, there's no need for it to be offensive either way they went with the word, yet you rip on the game quite a bit for similar choices. Not sure it was necessary for a teaching video.
@@briarrose7016 Like i said - and on my own channel, i can speak as freely as i please - the bit i found dodgy here was that the "colonists" are brown, they arrive packed on ships, and they are set to work on plantations in a game set in a real, named place at a real time in history, and we know that that place at that time employed slave labour, both from other countries and from the native people of that country, to produce resources for their colonizers. Yet the work of those people, and their suffering and losses due to slavery, are not acknowledged or admitted by the game in any way. That's tantamount to erasure. All the publisher had to do was to throw a little blurb in the rulebook and it'd likely be more palatable. But they didn't, so i'm here to do that on their behalf, correcting their error of omission. If you came away from this video having been taught something beyond how to play, i'm delighted! We're already seeing a shift away from land-raping as a common theme in board games due to pressure that critical evaluation has placed on game designers, and i'm pleased with that outcome as well. For more on this, stay tuned for my comparison of Skymines and Mombasa a little later on.
@@NightsAroundaTable I don't need to learn anything, I'm quite well educated. I just don't require my board games or their designers to be politically correct (or 100% accurate), and don't feel the need to call out designers or publishers who made a good game. I don't assume their intentions and don't believe their games need explanations outside of rules and run throughs. It's sort of why they get to be designers while the rest of us are consumers, when they make choices that we don't like, we don't have to buy/play. As much as you can speak freely on your own channel (thank goodness), I can speak as freely by disagreeing with certain directions taken. It doesn't make either one of us inherently wrong, just expressively agreeing to disagree. Their omission didn't feel like erasure to many people, and 'land raping' games happen to be really good despite their supposedly controversial theme. There's room for all types of games, including those, and there's no need to shame designers for past decisions. I understand your take on your channel, I'm just giving mine as a consumer. Your condescension and patronization in the video and comment were not lost on me or others. But it's cool, I bet you're actually a really sweet guy irl.
@@briarrose7016 I tend to agree with you. I usually play games to be entertained and challenged, not educated. If a game does provide some education, then it's just a bonus. But PR doesn't set out to do that, nor does it come across as taking a pro-slavery stand. It mimics a certain time (albeit very sad and troubling by our different standards and perspectives today) in history where this sort of practice was accepted and carried out. By referring to the slave pieces as colonists, it perhaps attempts to make the game more palatable to play without glorifying the institution of slavery. If you asked the designer, Andreas Seyfarth, you could probably get his take on his design decisions rather than taking a self righteous stance on a subject that most of us agree with anyway. As an aside, I was all for supporting the new iteration of this game, Puerto Rico 1897, but some of the design decisions and missteps in both publishing and packaging left me rather disappointed, so I've decided to hold onto my copy of PR for now. In contrast, Freedom the Underground Railroad presents a game where slaves are trying to gain freedom, and yet as players, we realize that some pieces (slaves) will need to be sacrificed in an effort to help a greater number of others. Most players don't see this as being problematic - it includes a plethora of historical references that add to the thematic element of the game. And it sets out to illustrate an aspect of slavery that is difficult to process, and does so tactfully. But I don't think Puerto Rico was attempting to make a point about slavery the way Freedom the Underground Railroad was. So to me, it's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.
This is by far the best rules explanation video I've ever watched. :) I stopped playing this game years ago, but was requested to play it today and decided to brush up on the rules. This brought back all the reasons I originally stopped.
Thanks for your honesty in making this how to play. I think it's important to have this discussion about the game being built on slave labor. I'm learning that being unwilling to talk about race or slavery just keeps racism alive, but hidden under the surface. And it's a problem that we need to face up to in our hobby before we can fully fix it. So thank you for your honesty. The theme is a deal breaker for me, so I will not be playing this one. Slavery isn't a game, at least not for me. I'm not going to tell people not to play it if they enjoy it. It's their choice to grapple with the theme to the extent that they want to. But for me, in a world of games where I can become virtually anything for the space of an evening, I don't want to be a slave owner. It's a shame that this game has been so widely acclaimed with its distasteful theme tied into every aspect of it. It's a shame that the designer, clearly otherwise competent in making a mechanically interesting game, made the morally problematic design choices he did.
Well you could just get 100 or so little white wooden discs to be 'colonists' and use them instead of the brown ones which would make it ok. Would it not? After all if they were white discs included in the game to start with nobody would probably really have concluded they were slaves at all, and if they did it would not be racist as the pieces were white. Right ? :)
Plenty of games out there where you can explore the fun of murder, genocide, pillaging, theft, lying, survival of the fittest, and all other horrific action taken throughout history by every race, religion, anti religion, and basically any grouping of people. But racism is the flavor of the week right now so yeah, that where we draw out line in the sand.
@@travisspencer6704 I like what you said about games giving a relatively safe space to explore difficult topics. If we make conscious effort to work through and discuss these topics in our gaming, I think games can increase our empathy and understanding. They aren't perfect vehicles for those conversations, but they can be a starting point. For what it's worth, I tend to draw my personal lines away from games that glory in murder, etc. because they generally give me an icky feeling. There are so many good games out there, so I tend to play the ones that leave me feeling better for having played them.
FANTASTIC VIDEOS! Excellent annotations, good audio, nice clear explanations and a healthy dose of humour! Also thanks for calling them out on the slave issue. Perfect to send to friends beforehand - we literally played put first ever game last night, mainly using your video! Minor feedback: 15mins is probably the longest a rules video should be, just cos a lot ppl switch off after 10-15mins. Regards, Salman
Thanks, Salman! i hear you. i honestly worked as hard as i could to get this down to 15 mins. My next how-to-play video is for a game that, in real life, takes me 40 minutes to teach (!) i'm hoping that vid can clock in at 30 mins. It's often just down to the complexity of the game.
@@NightsAroundaTable Btw what software and equipment do u use? Your videos are very high quality, they must take absolutely ages to make! Storyboarding, taking multiple pics with progressive changes, then animations to overlay and sequence. All the while making the audio line up. Really impressed. But it seems ur mainly into Euro-games, and I need rules videos for older Ameri-thrash games like Chaos in the Old World etc. So I might try making some myself. Would love some advice from someone with your high calibre. Regards :-)
@@salmanqaisar7377 i use a (comparitively) old Canon Rebel 2ti to shoot. i have very big bulbs in my lights... bright lighting is really important! i use a remote shutter button to get the stop motion shots without moving the camera. i use a clapboard slate to sync up my audio - i just look for the spike. (This is my first clapboard video... in previous videos, i just clap my hands to create a spike.) i record on a Zoom h4n, with a cheap $15 lav mic. i don't storyboard, but i do write a script and annotate it before i shoot, to decide which shots i need and how the board is supposed to look to support what i'm talking about. i use Adobe Animate for fancier animations, like when the goods swing onto the screen, and Adobe Premiere Pro to cut it all together. i process the audio in Adobe Audition, but i still am very new to the audio stuff, so i just fumble through.
Sometimes, I think, if the players are aware that they are role-playing evil slave-owners, then it's okay--because we play evil, murderous people in other games, and it's not really talked about as how we have to, at least, be aware that we are simulating something morally represehensible. But, other times, I think it's not really comparable. Even though I would take being enslaved over being killed--because, at least when enslaved, there is still possibility that it could get better--it still doesn't feel as "okay" as playing a game where you're a murderer or a monster. Maybe because murder was never as institutionalized as slavery was. I dunno.... I mean, for example, I am very interested in playing Five Tribes, so I remember having the same conflicted feeling about slaves in that game (I know there's a new version that takes out the slaves; just a thought project.). At least, with Five Tribes, I think the kind of slaves you have are the slaves every society had for hundreds of years--citizens of the enemy country who are captured and enslaved during war. But why does that feel like it's not as bad as the mass enslavement of Africans in the Americas? Maybe because we're STILL feeling the repercussions today... Oy. This whole thing is just super sticky. What are your thoughts?
It's tough, right? Would you rather be murdered, or kept alive in a miserable existence? And yes, i definitely do think it's stickier because the repercussions of American slavery are being keenly felt at this very moment. But i'm taking a quick glance at my board game shelf... i see Merchants & Marauders and A Feast for Odin, and i always raise an eyebrow at how we conveniently gloss over rape with those two groups (Vikings and pirates) in particular. Just give the harassed woman in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride a plate of food and it's all fixed, right? We play Nazis in Memoir '44, and sometimes we win the mission, and we're happy that we did. Mass loss of life is implicit in King of Tokyo, but it's a fantasy theme. And i have a bunch of games that are vaguely about colonization and conquest (Scythe, Race for the Galaxy, Catan). In Terraforming Mars, you can introduce pets to the planet, and then feed those pets to predators. :) Anyway, my biggest beef is not that we play slave owners in Puerto Rico, but that the game doesn't acknowledge it. It doesn't give slaves the credit for doing all the work. To borrow a line from Hamilton, "We know who's really doing the planting."
Hi, ex-spanish colony citizen here. It is all in your mind, you are not RPGing as a slave owner. It is just a game, please chill. Please don't feel sorry for us, we hate that, hurts our pride. Please don't over think this game, it is just a game. We play it too and enjoy it. Please stop ruining games with your PC culture. Thank you.
I loved all the parts where you spoke the truth about the exploitation of puerto rico. I also want to thank you for reminding me the game mechanics. It has been over 12 years since I last played it.
Great job! I wish a new funky version of the game could be produced as well as your video. It's a brilliant game but even at the time of release the components felt pretty skimpy. Anyway, I'll be taking another whiz of this round the table.
Tom Lehman has done a Race for the Galaxy themed game with many of the same mechanics (New Frontiers). In that game, Colonists are actually colonists, since they're settling new worlds.
I appreciate the succinct explanation of a set of rules that are mind-boggingly complex. Could do without the social justice commentary. History is as it was.
WOULD have been a great video...if it didn't bum me out so much every time he referred to them as slaves. Ok, it was funny to poke fun at first, but I want to show this video to new players, and they don't want to play after all his negativity. We just pretend that it's in an alternate universe where African's colonized the world instead of Europeans...wish he would have done that instead of making an otherwise good video unsable for me.
@@NightsAroundaTable thanks for the tip about the game update. No thanks for the snarkiness. My point stands, my friends were turned off from a great game because of the unnecessary repeated use of the word slave at every opportunity. The valid point was made in the beginning, and it was witty. No need to have doubled down so hard.
i guess your media comprehension is low, then? “Slavery is bad” is a truism, and was not the point i was making for about 7 seconds of a 15 minute video. My point was that making the claim that plantation owners did all the growing is bad. But thanks for playing - we’ll send you off with the home version of the game, along with a swift kick in the ass.
Helpful video. Although if we are going to bring in the history, the non-slave ships should be slave ships too. There was a triangular route. Slaves to Americas, materials to Europe, goods to Africa and repeat.. a full ship is a profitable ship!
An interesting point! But by the same token, you could technically say that slave ships *weren't* strictly slave ships, because two thirds of the time they were transporting not-slaves.
Oh no you won't. I love this game! Each player can only touch their own city, but you can still damage the other players and manipulate their actions. It's brilliant! Oh oops did I do that??
Wanted to find a video to show my guests how to play a game I enjoy. Arrived at a video harping on “slaves.” Good job Bud. Maybe stick to the actual game next time.
i’m not your bud, pal. If you were so irked by a brief comment that felt to you like the entire runtime of a 15 minute game teach, maybe keep scrolling next time.
Not sure if the video tried to criticise the presumed racism underpinning the game, but in reality the use of slave and the little jokes around makes the video look more racist that what it criticises...
1. The jokes are intended to be at the publisher’s expense 2. “Slave” is not a dirty word. We shouldn’t excise words from our language that describe ugly, unwanted things, because when those ugly things arise again (as they inevitably will), we will lack the terminology to name them for what they are.
i'm far from the first one to point it out. Even Catan Studio decided to change their robber figure from black to grey in later editions. But the rulebook also didn't resort to calling him the "resources liberator."
Sounds like you harbour illusions (like the game does) about who worked Puerto Rico's plantations. A quick glance at the Wikipedia page should clear that up for you. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico
@@NightsAroundaTable the problem was your jokes really came off as though you preferred the slavery roleplay. I think if there were less lighthearted references and jokes about it and a more serious lesson/explanation in the beginning Your point would have been more clear.
@@claireleroy3452 Thanks for your input. My channel doesn't really do serious. There are many better places to learn about and discuss human history and human rights than on a board game channel hosted by a flippant white guy. And yes - come to it, i DO prefer roleplaying as a slave owner in this game. Because at least in that situation, credit is going where it's due. i don't like the way the game pretends that the plantations were worked by anyone other than slaves, and that somehow it's the colonists who deserve an attaboy for all their hard work and effort exploiting the island.
@@NightsAroundaTable If there are better places to learn then maybe a quick word in the beginning and then just refer to it how the game does. Just a thought.
Thanks for all the PC content of your tutorial....next time can we just have instructions for the game without the slights....OMG, I wrote this in the start of the video, now that I'm further in.....It's a F'ing game dude....I can't watch any more.....
"It's just a movie." "It's just a book." "It's just a painting." Statements like those come from people who believe that art doesn't matter - that art shouldn't ever be taken seriously, or that it can never have any sort of impact. That might be your stance. It's not mine.
@@NightsAroundaTable Youre taking the "its just a X" out of context. What I am saying is that not everything has to be a social commentary. Here the author wanted to make a fun board game, and thats that.
@@TheFilipFonky You're right. And Puerto Rico was fun when it was released, but i find the colonization/subjugation theme is so played out at this point that i'm eager to experience other themes (but it's still so prevalent!). i just wish the designer was more honest about those brown tokens. Are they slaves? Then call them "slaves," not "colonists." Even new versions of Catan have changed the robber token from black to grey.
@@NightsAroundaTable That's a point I can get behind, about the theme being not too original. I think they're called colonists not because the author is a hypocrite, but to keep it family-friendly. "Hey dad what are colonists?" is a question I'd rather receive than "Hey dad what are slaves?"
@@TheFilipFonky See, and that's... i mean, "Let's play a game, kids, where you put the star people on fun-fun trains and march them into the sleepytime showers!" At some point, the euphemism is worse than the theme itself.
Thank you for taking a moment to highlighting the obvious colonizing theme with all of its slave exploiting undertones. Pointing it out will keep designers and publishers accountable and discourage people from using those themes.
i'm working on a video right now for Hadrian's Wall that also has slaves on it, but the way it's addressed in their rulebook is (to my mind) perfect. It acknowledges the role slavery played in the story, while simultaneously affirming that slavery is bad, but without pretending that the slaves were hired contractors or something. Yes, they were slaves. Yes, that's lousy. Yes, a good chunk of the Hadrian's Wall accomplishment is owed to them - so let's not pretend they had nothing to do with it by giving all the glory to their owners and pretending they didn't exist, merely because the concept of slavery makes people uncomfy.
@@NightsAroundaTable it's too easy to treat these issues lightly because they feel like ancient history to us white people who didn't suffer generationally from a very racist economic system. But it's not ancient history. And slavery still happens today. I think recognizing the role of slavery in colonialism is better than pretending crops planted and picked themselves. But still, I think I'd rather just see games with different themes. There's a whole world of options.
@@NightsAroundaTable it's pretty cool to see the hobby making room for others at the table. Makes me happy to be in it. As a lesbian, I've felt very welcome and safe in this community.
It’s infuriating how insensitive this video is towards slavery. How is this video not demonetized yet? If I were an advertiser, I would be ashamed to have my ad on this video.
How is it insensitive to slavery? The video bothers to point out that the exploitation of Puerto Rico's resources occurred through the labour of slaves, while the rulebook calls the people working the plantations "colonists." The game's rules don't tell the whole story, while i'm just filling in that conveniently glossed-over point. Or maybe you feel that ANY use of the word "slave" is distasteful in any context? Slavery is an ugly, awful practice, but i don't feel we're best served by pretending it didn't (and doesn't) exist.
@@NightsAroundaTable Great video BTW. Have you played Endeavor: Age of Sail? It has a section explaining the Slave era and the "slave" cards it's uses.
@@Nasher1976PSN i have not! But i don't think i'd have a problem with that. My issue here was that pieces that are obviously slaves were being churched up and called "colonists." If slaves worked those plantations, slaves should get the credit. We don't need to sugar-coat it because slavery is bad, or the designer doesn't like the connotation.
Wanted a how to play video, turned it off very fast. All that "colonist" crap is not relevant to how to play the game. Go virtue signal somewhere else or at least put in you title so people dont waste time with that crap
It was a very poor choice of colour for the colonist tokens. there was no reason why they could not have been white or pink? anything other than the brown that they chose! (except perhaps black!)
Lol, liberals offended that the past exists. Funny every time it happens. Try not to read to deep into things. Just because something is brown does not mean it is trying to recreate skin color. Not every thong has to be about race my dude. But if your logic is true I am not sure what Catan is trying to say with thier brown pieces?
Catan has already changed their robber from black to grey, taken indigenous people off the cover of Seafarers, and ditched “Settlers” from the game name entirely.
@@NightsAroundaTable still got brown player pieces. And since they have admitted through action that the color of the pieces represent skin color than I guess that can only mean that the white pieces are representing white people, brown for brown people, I guess red for Asian people but I'm not sure what the blue green and orange colors are for? I mean obviously everything in the liberal mind set has to be in the context of race so we really need to figure this out before next board game night so I don't accidently hand my Brazilian friend the wrong game pieces. Funny how we need racial justice for a fictional place.
@@revimfadli4666 it's suppose to ne a facetious argument. Colors should not be used in association with people and skin color. People's ideologies that dictate that they must see race in everything become obsessed to the point of doing stupid stuff like associating the black robber token to being a social political comment on black/African people.
@@NobdyInfinite and mine was a facetious response as well How did it even disappear lol In Catan's case it might indeed be "must see race in everything", but in Puerto Rico's case when it's appropriate to the historic setting of the game(as opposed to Catan's fictional setting with locals who aren't harmed at all)? Isn't that like denying the existence of Detroit & the companies featured in City of the Big Shoulders? Just because there are legit cases of people "seeing race when there isn't" and other kinds of overly deep reading, doesn't mean that's always the case everytime, especially when it's appropriate in context, such as one which involved slavery Maybe you're being "must see people seeing race when there isn't, even when there actually is"?
@@revimfadli4666 This is the issue with you people, you will see whatever you want to see. If I create a board game based in South Africa and there are red, yellow, brown, black, white, and teal game pieces for players to select from. People like you, regardless of the developers intent, will believe that the white ones must represent anglo colonists, the black and brown are obviously representing black and brown people of Africa, and have no comment on the other colours because that is as far as your logic stretches before any more critical thinking would disprove your own wanted bias. If you want to believe these game developers had racist intent to want to send a subliminal dog-whistle message through a board game then go ahead and believe what you want, just remember that if all you do all day every day is here dog whistles, then it is likely you are the dog. *note* I am not denying that there is the possibility that indeed the developers may have been raging erection racists like you believe them to be. I just choose to live my life without assuming every person's intent is driven by racial motivations and human beings are at least in some capacity able to make any decision in their life without race being a factor, try it someday, makes life a little more reasonable.
Some of the old classics are in dire need of well made teaching videos, but it seems no-one wants to make them because it obviously won't get as many views as a video about "hot new thing X". Thanks for putting in the work, this will be useful for years to come.
Thanks, Rick! i struggle with this... i even wonder if videos of older, more venerated games will fare better than vids of The New Hotness, due to the games' proven logevity? To my surprise, our How to Play The Castles of Burgundy video is one of our most-watched. Maybe i'll do one for Root (or something) and compare the results?
Totally! I think it'll get these games back in popularity. I just bought this game 2nd hand, so I'm glad you made this video!
This game is old but superb! I have also today bought it second-hand because I never actually had my own copy but I so want to teach the kids!
Setup at the end is GENIUS. Because the viewer is already familiar with the components, it's easier to take in and more memorable!
LOVED your handling of the theme.
Thanks so much! Watch out for an unboxing vid when the new campaign ships.
i appreciate your bluntness in approaching the theming that has been presented by the game designers.
we call them "colonists", and then next breath "we place slaves in plantation" LOL :)
I love that he does that. He's not letting the designer off the hook for his lame attempt to circumvent the truth of history.
@@carterke Yes and no. Good to call it out, I agree, but for purposes of the video, I think calling it out and then calling them by the name in the game would have made it more accessible. No need to give a guilt trip to those just wanting to learn to play a board game by repeating it over and over. On a more objective tone, calling them by the name of the game will result in no confusion either.
@@carterke But it's not like it would be wrong for the designer to call them slaves if that's what they are. I had no idea they were supposed to be slaves, honestly. Interesting that they are!
@@carterke Is that what you think? Do you really think Andreas Seyfarth had a cunning plan to sneakily rewrite history Eklund-style?
@@whothennow24 werent most of them actual colonists, though?
You are literally creating some of the best instructional videos in the business. Very well done, you have taught me there games this week.
I'm up to here games myself!
Add me to the list of people applauding your clear, concise, and clever how-to-play videos. I know there are quite a few "older" titles that could really do with an updated treatment. Great work. Subscribed!
Thanks, erik! i own some absolutely great games that have been lost to time because they're three - sometimes FOUR - years old at this point. Expect to see them pop up on my channel in the near future.
Your videos are some of the best on RUclips. I found your Concordia video and have watched every single one of your videos even if I know how to play the game just because you are so entertaining! My friends have always felt that way about the Colonists, so it was funny to see you state it so obviously!
Gosh! Thanks!
While not every joke landed for me, I get the point and they did succeed in keeping this video from being too dull. Even with the extra bits of humor this was still a clear and concise breakdown of Puerto Rico that put everyone at my table on the same page.
Glad it helped!
Every joke landed for me! 😄🛬
Just about to play this on BGA and wanted a rules vid. i really enjoyed this - very clear rules, along with some good gentle ribbing of the theme.
I find it fascinating how you do the setup at the end. Kinda makes sense! I've just never seen that or considered that before.
It might have been good to mention the playercount differences, but you still got yourself a new sub.
Thanks! As you well know, hooking people off the top of the video is really important. i can't think of a worse snoozefest than board game setup, so i relegate it to the end (and split it out into its own video, AND link to it as a chapter on RUclips). i figure most people who find my work aren't necessarily sitting there ready to set up the game anyway. Those who are can easily find the Setup section if they need to.
One if the best board games I've ever played. Perfect mix of strategy and chance.
And I love it that even though we don't interact with the other players (unlike Catan or Smallworld, for example), it is quite social and our actions directly impact their game!! I love that naughty effect!
0:48 Let's call them (slaves) "colonists"
0:53 You place your slaves!
McBane: That’s the joke.
Thanks for the great teaching video - clear, concise and entertaining. And thanks also for recognizing the social context of the game theme - we need to push the design community towards more honest treatments of the themes they purport to be about.
Thanks for the great comment! :)
Some versions of public school textbooks in Texas refer to slaves in the US as 'immigrant workers'
The Sass in this video is TOP NOTCH! 10/10 would recommend.
Snap! Same here.
I love PR and do not have a problem with the theme. I too, use air-quotes when explaining 'colonists' to new players (South Park reference to 'student athletes').
I find white-washing re: 'colonists' offensive. Hence, I get the humour during the rules teach.
I also love the responses in the comments section. It's (dark) humour, people! If it's not your thing, move on and find another channel that teaches PR without the sark and sass.
Keep it up!
I came to learn the rules.
I laughed the whole time.
You killed me with Worf.
And is it weird that I always watch your dance at the end of each video?
It’s my alluring hip motions!
"The first player is the last person to subjugate an island nation for profit using slave labor. First player gets the Governor card, and places a blue indigo plantation on her island." I do not understand this. How is a player selected to be the Governor on the first round of play?
Governor/first player are synonymous terms.
Great explanation overall, with one minor gripe. I understand why you choose to call the colonists slaves, but it makes the rules explanation needlessly confusing since none of the text of the buildings or actions in puerto rico use the term "slave." It would have been better to add the forewarning but then use the official terminology for rules clarity sake.
Although you are correct about being consistent, I admit that my friends and I always call them slaves when explaining or playing. We read "colonists" but we know what they are...
This is a great summary, thank you! I appreciate you putting time into this old game.
Great video, and a lot of fun. I really like your humor 😂👍
Thanks, Tore!
These videos are great and the production is wonderful. Some of the best instructional videos for games out there. Keep up the great work. I love the stop motion animation... must take a long time. Thank you and looking forward to whatever is next.
Thanks so much! What's next is something a wee bit complicated...
@@NightsAroundaTable Twilight Imperium IV? 😁
@@GuillotinedChemistry i've considered it! But no... maybe halfway between that and Uno.
Repeating "slave" so many times has made me feel much more apprehensive in even owning this game. I did get the sense that the little brown pieces were little workers in previous plays, citizens that toil for someone else's benefit, but not slaves; honestly. I don't think I tried hard to think about it, after all the university allows "slaves" to man any building, including offices, customs house, and guild halls. I don't think they would put slaves in charge of buildings of such importance. I'll stick to calling these pieces colonists, because I don't think they're supposed to be exclusively slaves, if at all. I'm not a history expert on the time or place of this game, what you're suggesting is entirely probable, but I think if the designers called them colonists, we should call them colonists.
You're correct in that the rulebook explicitly calls them "colonists," but i think a lot of people took umbrage with the fact that they were little brown discs that arrived in historically slave-staffed Puerto Rico on large ships in order to work on plantations. And like i said, maybe you're okay with them being slaves and maybe you're not, but i can't see the optics being much better if the discs were white or black.
But let's say they were blue. What's the harm there? i guess that if we take it at face value, like you suggest, the issue is that the colonists arrive in Puerto Rico and get rich running plantations and constructing administrative buildings, and the game never mentions "oh, btw... here's who was doing the work. Here's who enabled all these goodies to be produced and ship back off to the old country." Some people took similar issue with Maracaibo, which is set in the Caribbean and depicts 98% white colonizers on its cards.
Hi, ex-spanish colony citizen here. It is all in your mind, you are not RPGing as a slave owner. It is just a game, please chill. Please don't feel sorry for us, we hate that, hurts our pride. Please don't over think this game, it is just a game. We play it too and enjoy it. Please stop ruining games with your PC culture. Thank you.
Agreed, it was annoying.
Think of them as slaves that were freed and upgraded from the fields into factories or office jobs. 🤷
Unfortunately, that's not how it worked though. If the ruling class believes slaves to be subhuman (as was true with north American chattel slavery, but not all instances of historical human slavery), they'll let them guard the crown jewels. After all, a non-human worker is much less likely to rebel or plot against the ruling class, right?
So yeah, they were forced to guard important buildings as well as work for every dime the colonizers earned.
""colonists""
Rules/gameplay aspect of this video is great. Clear and concise.
Social commentary aspect is obnoxious and unnecessary.
In a how-to-play video, just show us how to play.
We live in a politically correct world now where liberal twats get offended by reality of history.
Just checked the rules in the latest edition. It seems to say that the residence earns you points for any plantation space with a plantation or quarry tile on it, rather than actually manned tiles only.
Yep! An error on my part. It's already in the addenda on the website, and there should be a card in the video drawing viewers' attention to it.
nightsaroundatable.com/2018/10/24/how-to-play-puerto-rico/#puertoricoaddenda
@@NightsAroundaTable alright. Dunno if you meant annotations when you said cards though since they got rid of it.
@@nitorishogiplayer3465 No. i meant cards.
creatoracademy.ruclips.net/user/pagelesson/cards
@@NightsAroundaTable I saw cards at the end of the video but none that corrected that part about the rule, and I'm not seeing a card when you were talking about the residence. Regardless though, good job on summarizing this game rules.
@@nitorishogiplayer3465 What you're referring to at the end of the video is called an "End screen," not cards. The card indicating the rule error appears at 13:42:09. It should look like a little white circle with an "i" in it at the top right of the video, unless you've disabled it. If that's the case, click the Setting gear in the bottom right corner, and turn Annotations on.
Great video. I wish I'd discovered you sooner. Keep making those play vids witty and accessible. They make life so much easier when I have to strong-arm my fellow gamers into watching a dreaded 'how to play' video. Thanks
Best tutorial I've seen in a long time! I was about to give up learning puerto rico because of annoying videos. Congrats!
Thanks for a humorous and thorough playthrough! Funny how you managed to offend both sides of the aisle! Love reading the comments of the offended too! Good times!
Making everybody angry at me seems to be my spiritual gift.
Amazing as always! Thanks again!
Thanks, Caleb! Don't Puerto Rico it all in one place.
I think this is the best game I played. It's so fun
It's very good! i can also highly recommend Keyflower that has some thematic similarities, with different mechanics (it's more auction-heavy than taking a single role card)
ruclips.net/video/nCYRYUxArMA/видео.html
@@NightsAroundaTable thanks! I will check it out
Superb rules explanation
Thanks, Paul!
Great video, thank you.
While there are obviously some slaves being shipped over in the colony ships and put to work in the plantations, I would argue that there must also be European colonists on those ships as well as some of the disks are placed in the city buildings to do government and merchant work as well. Don't think slaves would have been given those jobs.
Yep, true. Colonists on the upper part of the board, slaves and exploited locals on the lower part.
"A tile with a slave on it is said to be 'occupied.' Remember that word for later, cuz it's important." 🤣🤣
I wonder what's worse, being the killer in Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, or the colonizers in Puerto Rico. We do have a lot of interesting themes in this hobby, don't we?
(To say nothing of Train!)
Very good breakdown of the rules. It's worth mentioning that Puerto Rico is also an excellent 2 player game. There are official 2 player rules published online by the game creators, as well as various player created variants.
It's regrettable that such a great game has a theme in such poor taste.
Interesting! Don't think i've ever played with only 2.
Well explained. Thank you.
Roger that, Seth!
In the German edition, which I believe is the original, the term "Arbeiter" (workers) is used rather than "colonists."
That’s about halfway towards honest. But it’s a little like calling soldiers “marchers.”
4:30 There are 4 empty spaces but you put 5 colonists tokens on the ship
It’s a slave ship, not a luxury cruiseliner.
Great video!!! Classics like PR needs some modern videos like this!! Hola desde actually Puerto Rico! 👋🏼🇵🇷
I love the passive aggressive anticolonial snark in the commentary. I love this game, one of my favorites of all time. But whenever I teach it, it’s the same kind of “wink wink colonist” thing where everyone really knows what’s going on and it’s a bit off putting. But damn the game play is enjoyable. Looking forward for more info on the new reprint in 2023
Totally. i fully expect the remake to be set on the moon, a la Skymines ;)
Thanks! The game actually is starting to make some sense now. Do you do any play throughs as well?
i don't, but i could... Just trying to give the people what they want! :)
This game with few adjustments could become a very nice mod as a Dune. you would have to ship Spice out of your Arrakis colonies.
Very true! To be really thematic though, it would need a little asynchronous addition so that everyone could play with different faction abilities.
Great tutorial, thanks a lot!
My pleasure, Elvis!
This the best explanation of the rules I've seen to date. Thanks for your hard work.
Good of you to not ignore the slavery theme. Hope this game gets an overhaul someday because I love the game itself. The theme can go tho. Back to San Juan.
With the recent Castles of Burgundy redo and the Mombasa overhaul, i wouldn't be surprised to see a Puerto Rico redux in the near future!
What. A. Find. Amazing video, fun style, brilliant editing skills. Articulate, engaging. Nobody else comes close. We needed you! Badly!
Gosh! Thanks!
Hadn't played the game for 5+ years, thought I'd refresh myself on the rules. Of course the comments are full of people getting offended that the tutor dared call out the 'colonists' for what they actually represent historically. The game is mechanically good; its treatment of the theme is less-good.
Thanks so much for this explanation of the game. I own it but it's been so long since I've gotten it to the table, it's a good refresher! That said, I'm not sure you needed to mention the colonists verbiage. It would have been far more offensive if they had actually chosen to go with the word 'slave'. At least they aren't completely trying to erase history or rewrite it like new games are.
Sounds like a little semiotics brush-up is in order here.
Why would it have been offensive for them to use the word "slave," if the plantations were legitimately worked by slaves? "Slave" isn't a bad word, but it describes a bad thing.
Slavery is offensive. Calling slavery "slavery" is not offensive. But calling slavery something else, as this game does, IS - to my mind - offensive.
If you're going to be offended, be offended by the *actual* offensive thing - not by the word we use to signify the offensive thing.
@@NightsAroundaTable I'm not saying I disagree that they should have said slaves vs colonists. Just that I understand why they did it and there's no need to call them out for making the choice they thought would be less offensive to all players. If it just comes down to semantics, there's no need for it to be offensive either way they went with the word, yet you rip on the game quite a bit for similar choices. Not sure it was necessary for a teaching video.
@@briarrose7016 Like i said - and on my own channel, i can speak as freely as i please - the bit i found dodgy here was that the "colonists" are brown, they arrive packed on ships, and they are set to work on plantations in a game set in a real, named place at a real time in history, and we know that that place at that time employed slave labour, both from other countries and from the native people of that country, to produce resources for their colonizers. Yet the work of those people, and their suffering and losses due to slavery, are not acknowledged or admitted by the game in any way. That's tantamount to erasure. All the publisher had to do was to throw a little blurb in the rulebook and it'd likely be more palatable. But they didn't, so i'm here to do that on their behalf, correcting their error of omission. If you came away from this video having been taught something beyond how to play, i'm delighted! We're already seeing a shift away from land-raping as a common theme in board games due to pressure that critical evaluation has placed on game designers, and i'm pleased with that outcome as well.
For more on this, stay tuned for my comparison of Skymines and Mombasa a little later on.
@@NightsAroundaTable I don't need to learn anything, I'm quite well educated. I just don't require my board games or their designers to be politically correct (or 100% accurate), and don't feel the need to call out designers or publishers who made a good game. I don't assume their intentions and don't believe their games need explanations outside of rules and run throughs. It's sort of why they get to be designers while the rest of us are consumers, when they make choices that we don't like, we don't have to buy/play. As much as you can speak freely on your own channel (thank goodness), I can speak as freely by disagreeing with certain directions taken. It doesn't make either one of us inherently wrong, just expressively agreeing to disagree. Their omission didn't feel like erasure to many people, and 'land raping' games happen to be really good despite their supposedly controversial theme. There's room for all types of games, including those, and there's no need to shame designers for past decisions. I understand your take on your channel, I'm just giving mine as a consumer. Your condescension and patronization in the video and comment were not lost on me or others. But it's cool, I bet you're actually a really sweet guy irl.
@@briarrose7016 I tend to agree with you. I usually play games to be entertained and challenged, not educated. If a game does provide some education, then it's just a bonus. But PR doesn't set out to do that, nor does it come across as taking a pro-slavery stand. It mimics a certain time (albeit very sad and troubling by our different standards and perspectives today) in history where this sort of practice was accepted and carried out. By referring to the slave pieces as colonists, it perhaps attempts to make the game more palatable to play without glorifying the institution of slavery. If you asked the designer, Andreas Seyfarth, you could probably get his take on his design decisions rather than taking a self righteous stance on a subject that most of us agree with anyway.
As an aside, I was all for supporting the new iteration of this game, Puerto Rico 1897, but some of the design decisions and missteps in both publishing and packaging left me rather disappointed, so I've decided to hold onto my copy of PR for now.
In contrast, Freedom the Underground Railroad presents a game where slaves are trying to gain freedom, and yet as players, we realize that some pieces (slaves) will need to be sacrificed in an effort to help a greater number of others. Most players don't see this as being problematic - it includes a plethora of historical references that add to the thematic element of the game. And it sets out to illustrate an aspect of slavery that is difficult to process, and does so tactfully. But I don't think Puerto Rico was attempting to make a point about slavery the way Freedom the Underground Railroad was. So to me, it's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison.
This is by far the best rules explanation video I've ever watched. :) I stopped playing this game years ago, but was requested to play it today and decided to brush up on the rules. This brought back all the reasons I originally stopped.
Thank you for doing this (especially the jokes that I burst out laughing at).
God bless you!
Man, I want to play a game, not be moralized.
Well then don’t worry - you’re in no danger of it.
first "how to play" on this I've seen this pointed out.. I wish my copy said slaves now though... to make it more accurate. Cool video overall
It's a quick job to take a Sharpie to your rulebook. :P
Thanks for your honesty in making this how to play. I think it's important to have this discussion about the game being built on slave labor. I'm learning that being unwilling to talk about race or slavery just keeps racism alive, but hidden under the surface. And it's a problem that we need to face up to in our hobby before we can fully fix it. So thank you for your honesty.
The theme is a deal breaker for me, so I will not be playing this one. Slavery isn't a game, at least not for me. I'm not going to tell people not to play it if they enjoy it. It's their choice to grapple with the theme to the extent that they want to. But for me, in a world of games where I can become virtually anything for the space of an evening, I don't want to be a slave owner.
It's a shame that this game has been so widely acclaimed with its distasteful theme tied into every aspect of it. It's a shame that the designer, clearly otherwise competent in making a mechanically interesting game, made the morally problematic design choices he did.
Well you could just get 100 or so little white wooden discs to be 'colonists' and use them instead of the brown ones which would make it ok. Would it not? After all if they were white discs included in the game to start with nobody would probably really have concluded they were slaves at all, and if they did it would not be racist as the pieces were white. Right ? :)
Plenty of games out there where you can explore the fun of murder, genocide, pillaging, theft, lying, survival of the fittest, and all other horrific action taken throughout history by every race, religion, anti religion, and basically any grouping of people. But racism is the flavor of the week right now so yeah, that where we draw out line in the sand.
@@travisspencer6704 I like what you said about games giving a relatively safe space to explore difficult topics. If we make conscious effort to work through and discuss these topics in our gaming, I think games can increase our empathy and understanding. They aren't perfect vehicles for those conversations, but they can be a starting point.
For what it's worth, I tend to draw my personal lines away from games that glory in murder, etc. because they generally give me an icky feeling. There are so many good games out there, so I tend to play the ones that leave me feeling better for having played them.
3:02 is triggering.
i can't recommend any video by the Dice Tower then :)
@@NightsAroundaTable Hahaha. Fair enough. Yours was just so sudden in the middle of the video.
Came here to know how to play a genre-defining classic game, got a history lesson & commentary on slavery. Not disappointed
FANTASTIC VIDEOS!
Excellent annotations, good audio, nice clear explanations and a healthy dose of humour!
Also thanks for calling them out on the slave issue.
Perfect to send to friends beforehand - we literally played put first ever game last night, mainly using your video!
Minor feedback: 15mins is probably the longest a rules video should be, just cos a lot ppl switch off after 10-15mins.
Regards, Salman
Thanks, Salman! i hear you. i honestly worked as hard as i could to get this down to 15 mins. My next how-to-play video is for a game that, in real life, takes me 40 minutes to teach (!) i'm hoping that vid can clock in at 30 mins. It's often just down to the complexity of the game.
@@NightsAroundaTable Btw what software and equipment do u use? Your videos are very high quality, they must take absolutely ages to make! Storyboarding, taking multiple pics with progressive changes, then animations to overlay and sequence. All the while making the audio line up.
Really impressed.
But it seems ur mainly into Euro-games, and I need rules videos for older Ameri-thrash games like Chaos in the Old World etc. So I might try making some myself.
Would love some advice from someone with your high calibre.
Regards :-)
@@salmanqaisar7377 i use a (comparitively) old Canon Rebel 2ti to shoot. i have very big bulbs in my lights... bright lighting is really important! i use a remote shutter button to get the stop motion shots without moving the camera. i use a clapboard slate to sync up my audio - i just look for the spike. (This is my first clapboard video... in previous videos, i just clap my hands to create a spike.) i record on a Zoom h4n, with a cheap $15 lav mic. i don't storyboard, but i do write a script and annotate it before i shoot, to decide which shots i need and how the board is supposed to look to support what i'm talking about. i use Adobe Animate for fancier animations, like when the goods swing onto the screen, and Adobe Premiere Pro to cut it all together. i process the audio in Adobe Audition, but i still am very new to the audio stuff, so i just fumble through.
Thank you very much, we had a big trouble figuring out the captains rules but you made it very simple to understand 7:33
MAY-----OAR
Remember that word for later; because its Im-Por-TanT.
@@doublebear00 i grew an extra moustache just to say that line.
Nice job dude! Well done.
Sometimes, I think, if the players are aware that they are role-playing evil slave-owners, then it's okay--because we play evil, murderous people in other games, and it's not really talked about as how we have to, at least, be aware that we are simulating something morally represehensible. But, other times, I think it's not really comparable. Even though I would take being enslaved over being killed--because, at least when enslaved, there is still possibility that it could get better--it still doesn't feel as "okay" as playing a game where you're a murderer or a monster. Maybe because murder was never as institutionalized as slavery was. I dunno.... I mean, for example, I am very interested in playing Five Tribes, so I remember having the same conflicted feeling about slaves in that game (I know there's a new version that takes out the slaves; just a thought project.). At least, with Five Tribes, I think the kind of slaves you have are the slaves every society had for hundreds of years--citizens of the enemy country who are captured and enslaved during war. But why does that feel like it's not as bad as the mass enslavement of Africans in the Americas? Maybe because we're STILL feeling the repercussions today... Oy. This whole thing is just super sticky. What are your thoughts?
It's tough, right? Would you rather be murdered, or kept alive in a miserable existence? And yes, i definitely do think it's stickier because the repercussions of American slavery are being keenly felt at this very moment. But i'm taking a quick glance at my board game shelf... i see Merchants & Marauders and A Feast for Odin, and i always raise an eyebrow at how we conveniently gloss over rape with those two groups (Vikings and pirates) in particular. Just give the harassed woman in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride a plate of food and it's all fixed, right?
We play Nazis in Memoir '44, and sometimes we win the mission, and we're happy that we did. Mass loss of life is implicit in King of Tokyo, but it's a fantasy theme. And i have a bunch of games that are vaguely about colonization and conquest (Scythe, Race for the Galaxy, Catan). In Terraforming Mars, you can introduce pets to the planet, and then feed those pets to predators. :)
Anyway, my biggest beef is not that we play slave owners in Puerto Rico, but that the game doesn't acknowledge it. It doesn't give slaves the credit for doing all the work. To borrow a line from Hamilton, "We know who's really doing the planting."
Hi, ex-spanish colony citizen here. It is all in your mind, you are not RPGing as a slave owner. It is just a game, please chill. Please don't feel sorry for us, we hate that, hurts our pride. Please don't over think this game, it is just a game. We play it too and enjoy it. Please stop ruining games with your PC culture. Thank you.
The slave stuff was so unnecessary.. Holly smokes
I loved all the parts where you spoke the truth about the exploitation of puerto rico. I also want to thank you for reminding me the game mechanics. It has been over 12 years since I last played it.
My pleasure! Have you played the new Puerto Rico (Now with 30% less exploitation!)?
Concise explanation. Would be perfect without the constant (misplaced IMO) white man guilt reminder. Thanks anyway.
BUT IT’S ALL MY FAULT!
Great job! I wish a new funky version of the game could be produced as well as your video. It's a brilliant game but even at the time of release the components felt pretty skimpy. Anyway, I'll be taking another whiz of this round the table.
Hopefully at night! ;)
Tom Lehman has done a Race for the Galaxy themed game with many of the same mechanics (New Frontiers). In that game, Colonists are actually colonists, since they're settling new worlds.
I appreciate the succinct explanation of a set of rules that are mind-boggingly complex. Could do without the social justice commentary. History is as it was.
The history is that slaves worked the plantations, not colonists.
Good video thank you for making it!
WOULD have been a great video...if it didn't bum me out so much every time he referred to them as slaves. Ok, it was funny to poke fun at first, but I want to show this video to new players, and they don't want to play after all his negativity. We just pretend that it's in an alternate universe where African's colonized the world instead of Europeans...wish he would have done that instead of making an otherwise good video unsable for me.
The update, Puerto Rico 1897, might help with some of that white guilt you’re apparently feeling.
@@NightsAroundaTable thanks for the tip about the game update.
No thanks for the snarkiness.
My point stands, my friends were turned off from a great game because of the unnecessary repeated use of the word slave at every opportunity.
The valid point was made in the beginning, and it was witty. No need to have doubled down so hard.
@@NightsAroundaTable oh yikes I just looked it up and it seems there are a lot of problems with the production of the updated game.
Came here to see how the game plays because I wanted to buy an economy board game, got a lecture that slavery is bad instead.
i guess your media comprehension is low, then? “Slavery is bad” is a truism, and was not the point i was making for about 7 seconds of a 15 minute video. My point was that making the claim that plantation owners did all the growing is bad. But thanks for playing - we’ll send you off with the home version of the game, along with a swift kick in the ass.
Damned fine video. I’m gonna subscribe!
Damned fine comment. i'm gonna heart it!
Helpful video. Although if we are going to bring in the history, the non-slave ships should be slave ships too. There was a triangular route. Slaves to Americas, materials to Europe, goods to Africa and repeat.. a full ship is a profitable ship!
An interesting point! But by the same token, you could technically say that slave ships *weren't* strictly slave ships, because two thirds of the time they were transporting not-slaves.
"Lets not call them slaves, lets call them colonist, ok, lets put the slave" LOl
very intersted and good thanks a lot
I think I enjoyed watching that more than I would playing it.
Oh no you won't. I love this game!
Each player can only touch their own city, but you can still damage the other players and manipulate their actions. It's brilliant!
Oh oops did I do that??
Wanted to find a video to show my guests how to play a game I enjoy. Arrived at a video harping on “slaves.” Good job Bud. Maybe stick to the actual game next time.
i’m not your bud, pal. If you were so irked by a brief comment that felt to you like the entire runtime of a 15 minute game teach, maybe keep scrolling next time.
@@NightsAroundaTable You’re right. You’re not my bud. You’re kind of an ass, to be honest. And no, we couldn’t get through your instruction. Peace
Not sure if the video tried to criticise the presumed racism underpinning the game, but in reality the use of slave and the little jokes around makes the video look more racist that what it criticises...
1. The jokes are intended to be at the publisher’s expense
2. “Slave” is not a dirty word. We shouldn’t excise words from our language that describe ugly, unwanted things, because when those ugly things arise again (as they inevitably will), we will lack the terminology to name them for what they are.
Thank you for this illuminating video. It truly shows how blind gamers can be, when it comes to people of color.
i'm far from the first one to point it out. Even Catan Studio decided to change their robber figure from black to grey in later editions. But the rulebook also didn't resort to calling him the "resources liberator."
I think its disgusting they should make all the pieces grey on a grey board.
(if i have offended any grey people i am truly sorry ):)
I don't like at all your continuous reference to slaves...
Sounds like you harbour illusions (like the game does) about who worked Puerto Rico's plantations. A quick glance at the Wikipedia page should clear that up for you.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico
@@NightsAroundaTable the problem was your jokes really came off as though you preferred the slavery roleplay. I think if there were less lighthearted references and jokes about it and a more serious lesson/explanation in the beginning Your point would have been more clear.
@@claireleroy3452 Thanks for your input. My channel doesn't really do serious. There are many better places to learn about and discuss human history and human rights than on a board game channel hosted by a flippant white guy.
And yes - come to it, i DO prefer roleplaying as a slave owner in this game. Because at least in that situation, credit is going where it's due. i don't like the way the game pretends that the plantations were worked by anyone other than slaves, and that somehow it's the colonists who deserve an attaboy for all their hard work and effort exploiting the island.
@@NightsAroundaTable If there are better places to learn then maybe a quick word in the beginning and then just refer to it how the game does. Just a thought.
wowzer! I have never seen an instructional video that implements political correctness with such irony / sarcasm. This is AWESOME to watch. Well done!
*chuckle... wharf...
Thanks for all the PC content of your tutorial....next time can we just have instructions for the game without the slights....OMG, I wrote this in the start of the video, now that I'm further in.....It's a F'ing game dude....I can't watch any more.....
Thanks for watching! Hope you enjoyed it until then.
oh come on with all the slave talk, its just a game
"It's just a movie." "It's just a book." "It's just a painting." Statements like those come from people who believe that art doesn't matter - that art shouldn't ever be taken seriously, or that it can never have any sort of impact. That might be your stance. It's not mine.
@@NightsAroundaTable Youre taking the "its just a X" out of context. What I am saying is that not everything has to be a social commentary. Here the author wanted to make a fun board game, and thats that.
@@TheFilipFonky You're right. And Puerto Rico was fun when it was released, but i find the colonization/subjugation theme is so played out at this point that i'm eager to experience other themes (but it's still so prevalent!). i just wish the designer was more honest about those brown tokens. Are they slaves? Then call them "slaves," not "colonists." Even new versions of Catan have changed the robber token from black to grey.
@@NightsAroundaTable That's a point I can get behind, about the theme being not too original. I think they're called colonists not because the author is a hypocrite, but to keep it family-friendly. "Hey dad what are colonists?" is a question I'd rather receive than "Hey dad what are slaves?"
@@TheFilipFonky See, and that's... i mean, "Let's play a game, kids, where you put the star people on fun-fun trains and march them into the sleepytime showers!" At some point, the euphemism is worse than the theme itself.
Thank you for taking a moment to highlighting the obvious colonizing theme with all of its slave exploiting undertones. Pointing it out will keep designers and publishers accountable and discourage people from using those themes.
i'm working on a video right now for Hadrian's Wall that also has slaves on it, but the way it's addressed in their rulebook is (to my mind) perfect. It acknowledges the role slavery played in the story, while simultaneously affirming that slavery is bad, but without pretending that the slaves were hired contractors or something. Yes, they were slaves. Yes, that's lousy. Yes, a good chunk of the Hadrian's Wall accomplishment is owed to them - so let's not pretend they had nothing to do with it by giving all the glory to their owners and pretending they didn't exist, merely because the concept of slavery makes people uncomfy.
@@NightsAroundaTable it's too easy to treat these issues lightly because they feel like ancient history to us white people who didn't suffer generationally from a very racist economic system. But it's not ancient history. And slavery still happens today.
I think recognizing the role of slavery in colonialism is better than pretending crops planted and picked themselves. But still, I think I'd rather just see games with different themes. There's a whole world of options.
@@thenerdgirl1 Sure, and you see certain companies finally addressing this by changing the themes for certain games - look at Mombasa/Skymines.
@@NightsAroundaTable it's pretty cool to see the hobby making room for others at the table. Makes me happy to be in it. As a lesbian, I've felt very welcome and safe in this community.
@@thenerdgirl1 That's good to hear! Because unfortunately, it's not like that everywhere. Just stay away from Reddit ;)
It’s infuriating how insensitive this video is towards slavery. How is this video not demonetized yet? If I were an advertiser, I would be ashamed to have my ad on this video.
How is it insensitive to slavery? The video bothers to point out that the exploitation of Puerto Rico's resources occurred through the labour of slaves, while the rulebook calls the people working the plantations "colonists." The game's rules don't tell the whole story, while i'm just filling in that conveniently glossed-over point.
Or maybe you feel that ANY use of the word "slave" is distasteful in any context? Slavery is an ugly, awful practice, but i don't feel we're best served by pretending it didn't (and doesn't) exist.
12:53 :-)
That's my Nerd Detector at work. You've been found out!
@@NightsAroundaTable Great video BTW. Have you played Endeavor: Age of Sail? It has a section explaining the Slave era and the "slave" cards it's uses.
@@Nasher1976PSN i have not! But i don't think i'd have a problem with that. My issue here was that pieces that are obviously slaves were being churched up and called "colonists." If slaves worked those plantations, slaves should get the credit. We don't need to sugar-coat it because slavery is bad, or the designer doesn't like the connotation.
Wanted a how to play video, turned it off very fast. All that "colonist" crap is not relevant to how to play the game. Go virtue signal somewhere else or at least put in you title so people dont waste time with that crap
i look forward to your continued support!
This game is awesome but it's in desperate need of a new version that changes the color of the colonists
i mean, if Catan can change its robber...
Spray paint is your friend.
It was a very poor choice of colour for the colonist tokens. there was no reason why they could not have been white or pink? anything other than the brown that they chose! (except perhaps black!)
Then new 2020 version has purple colonists in the box.
Incredibly well-produced video, but for me, your humour leaves a lot to be desired.
Lol, liberals offended that the past exists. Funny every time it happens. Try not to read to deep into things. Just because something is brown does not mean it is trying to recreate skin color. Not every thong has to be about race my dude. But if your logic is true I am not sure what Catan is trying to say with thier brown pieces?
Catan has already changed their robber from black to grey, taken indigenous people off the cover of Seafarers, and ditched “Settlers” from the game name entirely.
@@NightsAroundaTable still got brown player pieces. And since they have admitted through action that the color of the pieces represent skin color than I guess that can only mean that the white pieces are representing white people, brown for brown people, I guess red for Asian people but I'm not sure what the blue green and orange colors are for? I mean obviously everything in the liberal mind set has to be in the context of race so we really need to figure this out before next board game night so I don't accidently hand my Brazilian friend the wrong game pieces. Funny how we need racial justice for a fictional place.
@@revimfadli4666 it's suppose to ne a facetious argument. Colors should not be used in association with people and skin color. People's ideologies that dictate that they must see race in everything become obsessed to the point of doing stupid stuff like associating the black robber token to being a social political comment on black/African people.
@@NobdyInfinite and mine was a facetious response as well
How did it even disappear lol
In Catan's case it might indeed be "must see race in everything", but in Puerto Rico's case when it's appropriate to the historic setting of the game(as opposed to Catan's fictional setting with locals who aren't harmed at all)? Isn't that like denying the existence of Detroit & the companies featured in City of the Big Shoulders? Just because there are legit cases of people "seeing race when there isn't" and other kinds of overly deep reading, doesn't mean that's always the case everytime, especially when it's appropriate in context, such as one which involved slavery
Maybe you're being "must see people seeing race when there isn't, even when there actually is"?
@@revimfadli4666 This is the issue with you people, you will see whatever you want to see. If I create a board game based in South Africa and there are red, yellow, brown, black, white, and teal game pieces for players to select from. People like you, regardless of the developers intent, will believe that the white ones must represent anglo colonists, the black and brown are obviously representing black and brown people of Africa, and have no comment on the other colours because that is as far as your logic stretches before any more critical thinking would disprove your own wanted bias. If you want to believe these game developers had racist intent to want to send a subliminal dog-whistle message through a board game then go ahead and believe what you want, just remember that if all you do all day every day is here dog whistles, then it is likely you are the dog.
*note* I am not denying that there is the possibility that indeed the developers may have been raging erection racists like you believe them to be. I just choose to live my life without assuming every person's intent is driven by racial motivations and human beings are at least in some capacity able to make any decision in their life without race being a factor, try it someday, makes life a little more reasonable.