(no subject)

[elfs]

I loathe Chutes and Ladders. Of all the children's games that Kouryou-chan owns, it has to be my least favorite. Chutes and Ladders combines the very worst of moral lecturing with the very worst of the human inclination towards fatalism.

The game is one hundred squares broken up into a 10x10 square, numbered sequentially going back and forth, rising up. Each player tosses the die and moves ahead that many spaces. If you're fortunate enough to land on a virtue, you take a ladder up to your reward; if you're unlucky and land on a vice, you fall down the chute to your punishment. There are little pictures that accompany the vices and virtues: a little boy reads a comic book hidden behind his history book in one square, and that chute drops him down to a square showing him with a dunce cap.

Players never make any choices in the game. It could just as easily be played by a computer. You never get to choose to commit a vice or practice a virtue: the game implies you have no free will. If you commit a bad act, it's the roll of a die. The winner is determined completely by the luck of the draw: losers the same. Because it's easy to get shuffled backwards and forwards, you can even repeat the same vices over and over: you haven't even got operational, compatibilist free will. Because virtues put you ahead, it's unlikely you'll repeat them: you're much more likely to be vice-ridden than virtuous.

Since the game takes no brain power, my mind drifts while playing. What would an adult version of this game look like?

• Little Suzy tried meth and her heart exploded.
• Billy had unprotected anal sex with fifty men in one night and now must take AZT four times a day
• Little Jimmy rode his motorcycle without a helmet. Now he rides a wheelchair
• Cammy had five shots of Jack Daniels and then drove her car into a tree at 90MPH
• Dougie ordered kiddiepr0n off the Internet and now must be kept in solitary for his own protection
• Sam went to Vegas and lost his self-control. Look at his kneecaps now!
• Angel ate at fast food every day for twenty years and can no longer reach parts of herself to wash them
• Little Greg thought big muscles would attract women, but steroids made him impotent
• Jill liked her boyfriends to be wild. Her daughter will need therapy for years

Comments

[solarbird]

Sam went to Vegas and lost his self-control. Look at his kneecaps now!
BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

[katybeth]

I always loved Chutes and Ladders. I'm not sure why; even as a kid I knew it all depended on the roll of the die.

We used to play it backwards sometimes -- up chutes and down ladders.

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

I wonder why it changed from snakes and ladders to chutes and ladders...

Probably so Milton Bradley could trademark it I guess.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

So America does know about the Snakes and Ladders form?

I have seen variants of the game which are tie-ins with other stuff; I think the most recent was using Harry Potter. But I don't recall anything with quite the fucked-up morality you describe. Chutes and Ladders sounds like a product of the neo-con alien brain-eaters.

[tonyawinter.livejournal.com]

Even as a kid I didn't like that game. Gah!

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

Actually, Chutes and Ladders (or Snakes and Ladders) is an extremely old game, which originated in India and was enthusiastically adopted by the Victorians (much like pachisi/Parcheesi). It has always had moral content, and has always been chance-based. There are other similar morality-themed chance-based board games from the Victorian era, one of which is included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Activity Book. Sorry, I no longer remember the name--I think it was something like The Garden of Temperance or the House of Contentment or something like that. The board is a spiral, with an idyllic little picture in the middle and an alarming series of bad behaviors (including drunkenness, gambling, and theft) and bad consequences (including Gaol, The Poorhouse, and The Gallows). The book, by the way, is fantastic. It includes, among other things, a paper model of the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. But anyway. Here's a link about the history of Snakes & Ladders:
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Moksha-Patamu.htm

[zonereyrie.livejournal.com]

Chutes and Ladders has been pretty much the same for probably 40 years, I remember playing it when I was little (I'm 34) and it was the same thing as today. Good deeds advance you, bad acts drop you back. I don't think it has changed.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

The real problems with Chutes and Ladders (as well as Candyland)are 1) you can get sent way far back and so the game can go on forever 2) since it's completely by chance, a four-year-old can beat a grownup and the grownup can't do anything about it.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I actually don't mind the second; it's one of the reasons I approve of CandyLand as a game where the child gets to learn the basic mechanics of gameplaying: how to play fair, how to move a piece, understanding the start and obective of a game. Candyland is boring (although a pint of beer or a glass of wine always helps the adults survive) but it's not maudilinly moralising.

But once a kid is five, the basic strategy and mechanics of a game like Sorry! or Trouble! should be well within their grasp. Or maybe I'm just spoiled on having smart kids.

[slfisher.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, she's learned how to play checkers by now.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I never liked Chutes & Ladders either--it was dull and boring. Sorry! was much more fun, but as soon as we were old enough to grasp the concepts the adults taught us card games. I have fond memories of playing pinochle with various relations.