Can a free RPG be considered Art?

[thedeadone]

I think this post might be a bit out there, but I'm sure many of you are aware of Robert Ebert's controversy statements that Video games can't be Art (note the capital A). Well I recommend everyone to read this . It's damn good read and extremely thought provoking on the question of what is actually art and what that means for computer games. I'm not going say any more about it, because I'd spoil the conclusions, just go read it, now!

After reading it and digesting it a bit, I started thinking about roleplaying games. TBH I never actually thought RPGs could be "sublime art" or create an experience of such. Many popular RPGs are celebrations of "kitsch" (as described by Brian Moriarty in that above link). And that's fine and cool. I love my pulp adventures, superhero heroics and zombie bashing as much as the next fan.

But in particular free RPGs are unburdened by commercial pressures (unlike video games). Putting aside status-chasing of sites like theforge, free RPGs are the works of individuals. There is a potential there for these individuals to be genuine artists and to create something that could be deemed by some to be art or to provide an experience of such. We create these games, not to make money (the industry is way too small), not necessarily for popularity (though that's always very nice) but because we want to. We want to create something and hopefully maybe find an audience. I know there is a focus on "productizing" our work with art, layout and PDFs, but I see them as just being the process currently in place and not one everyone has to follow.

On a different note, can an RPG create an experience of art? Something thought provoking, reflective, transformation, etc. I think it might, more so than a video game or other types of games because an RPG can just use the mechanics of a game to create a unique story or experience.

What say ye?

[Onix]

Although my ego would love to say yes, the practical side of me says no. Although art in an RPG could be considered Art. To me Art is about delivering a message and not just a message but one message. That message can have many applications but the message and the delivery are singular. RPGs are about many messages.

Another litmus test to me is if I could see it in an art museum someday. To this description, even movies are a red headed step child.

No, I think RPGs can contain Art and could help to create Art in an ideal setting but are not the Art themselves.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[Onix]

[SheikhJahbooty]

Also, I think part of this whole dealio is just our weird cultural standards.

Have any of you watched Hikaru no Go?

They take Go very very very seriously. If you walked up to them and said:

"Sumi is an artform; Haiku is an artform; Go is a game and thus inherently less art than those others. The conflicts of great masters of Go cannot be appreciated as much as a great Haiku."

then you would have greatly offended a whole lot of people by insisting on your ignorant point of view of their culture.

I think any actual play recording that you could listen to and be moved and entertained is art. Watching people play D&D may be boring, but what about Ben Lehman's Polaris? I have listened to people play Amber the way people listen to audiobooks. I have watched someone play Halo, when I could have been watching movies. Halo may not be a great art form, but watching someone play Halo certainly beats watching a great deal of the sci-fi movies that exist.

Plus, if I can go back to Japanese culture for just a moment, the two (art and game) are only really separate in specific cultures. Have you ever sat around and written renga with your friends? Have you wracked your brain to try to come up with another verse that will follow the rules of what is a legal addition to the renga? Some of the really classical rules are thematic, which really blew my mind when I first learned them. Renga is a respected and old art form in Japan. Rengas written together by famous poets are highly respected art. But people make them together according to rules, just the same as we would play a game.

To say that games cannot be or have never been art is a bit of cultural elitism, not like offensive cultural elitism (we can't expect everyone to be super cosmopolitan), but just a little bit annoying cultural elitism.

Me personally, I do think that Go is an art form, specifically because it kind of forces certain values on the player. You will suck at it and totally botch a game of Go if you struggle with your opponent. If you just kind of let stuff go and be cool and have fun with it, like, "I will put this little round thingie in the most perfect spot it can be in and then let it go." then you will rock at the game and thoroughly trounce your opponent. You win if you give up trying to win.

And there are a lot of RPGs that fall into that category of forcing values on people. Take Dogs in the Vinyard, where you can only really win a conflict if you are willing to bring everything into, start talking, eventually resort to violence, get bystanders involved, etc.

[Onix]

So is the process of making the renga the art? or is the resulting poem? That's important in my view.

I'd agree that Go can be an artform, but not Art. An artform is a craft and Go or Chess would fall into that category nicely. (Incidentally I can't get anyone to play Go with me in America, nobody I know can get the flow of the game.)

So to be clear, anything that takes mastery is an "artform" or craft. Art is something that you place on a pedestal and admire. Painting is an "artform" or craft. The product of the artform is (or can be) Art. So an RPG is the process, the how to. A how to is not Art. It could produce Art and it can contain Art, but is not Art by itself.

There needs to be a different word than 'Art' people get it confused with 'art'.

[SheikhJahbooty]

Oh yeah, sorry, English grammar fail.

Dead and Back is art.

Sonnets are art.

Casablanca is Art.

We were playing Dead and Back and we let in the zombies and destroyed NEST 2, like Zed destroying Vortex 4 in Zardoz. It was Art. (provided you are enough of a hippy to find Zardoz to be Art.)

Is this then perhaps a semantic issue? To be Art must something be an artifact (a painting) or an instance, a performance (a concert). If something is a method or a structure is cannot be Art and must then be art. A game cannot be Art because Haiku cannot be Art. Haiku is an art, but individual Haikus can be Art or kitch or rubbish.

Atlanta had a pretty good Go scene, but I can't find anyone in New Jersey. There are some Go groups in New York but I haven't had a chance to just "be" in New York without specific business. Been very busy trying to put my life back on track.

[thedeadone]

[Onix]

[thedeadone]