Daniele Tascini is an Italian game designer who started on RPGs, then worked on Magic: The Gathering and then board games. Tascini is the talent behind popular games like Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar and Teotihuacan: City of Gods. Zatu included Tascini in their top 7 board game designers round-up at the start of the year.
However, concern swept through social media this week when Tascini shared some of his personal views on Facebook and over this interview (Italian).
Board&Dice designs, develops and publishes board games. They’ve moved swiftly to release a statement.
They conclude;
Board&Dice hereby immediately suspends all collaboration and work with Mr. Taschini. While we are under contractual obligation to continue to support previously released board games designed by Mr. Tascini, we will not consider any future designs of his for publication.
On Facebook, Tascini has apologised;
He notes;
We live in a time when the words we say are very important and the impact goes well beyond our personal sphere. As a prominent board game designer I have the responsibility to set an example by my words and actions. So even though I never meant to hurt anyone I have to take my responsibility (sic) because it happened.
Find out what fellow roleplayers are talking about with one quick scan of the chat portal.
I hope for a day when we can learn to forgive for mistakes and not be ourselves what we condemn others for being. I for one believe Daniele. No racist ever said, “I’m not racist.” They embrace it. Daniele is most certainly not racist. We should forgive and move forward. Ask yourself this, “ have you ever done anything in your life you wish to be forgiven for or are you perfect?” DONT expect perfection from others when you yourself are not perfect either.
Apology without change is manipulation- no one here is asking for perfection, they’re asking for the acknowledgement of wrongdoing and actions that show commitment to change. Where in the US of A did you get the idea that racists don’t deny that they’re racist? Donald Trump said that he’s the least racist person on the planet. Segregationists regularly argued that ‘separate but equal’ was for the benefit of African-Americans.
Apology is an acknowledgement of wrongdoing by definition my man.
Every Racist says “I’m not Racist”
If every racist you know says theyre not a racist I think that says more about you than it does about other people.
In my opinion to call someone a shitty person is much worse that what Tashini wrote. For most italians (and he wrote in italian, so probably for italians) there is nothing offensive there. You are judging someone using your culture, and this is not fair at all.
You are considering Mr. Tascini as racist, just evaluating a translation (done by who?) from italian of a facebook post without knowing the contest too. Knowing the sensitivity of the U.S. people on the topic we can discuss about the opportunity of writing certain things (it is so easy to be misunderstood), but saying that, from these words Mr. Tascini is racist and making such an economical damage to him is, from this side of the world (Europe), completely out of sense. It seems like a Kafkian story. I am really sorry for him.