Are we as cool as Shakespeare?

[lumpley]

This is my thousand and first Forge post!

The weekend before GenCon, Meg and I went to As You Like It, performed by Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Mass. It was very good. It presented a serious challenge to me as a roleplayer and as an rpg designer. I went into GenCon shaken, I was like, what am I doing, I'm wasting my time, I need to be a novelist instead. I came out of GenCon fully renewed. Conversations and actual play at GenCon gave me my answer, and it was a better answer than "I need to be a novelist instead." But I'm going to pass the challenge on to you, the Forge, at large.

This is from Shakespeare and Company's mission statement:

A Statement of Values that Unite Us
Under all Shakespeare's plays are three vital questions:
What does it mean to be alive?
How should we act?
What must I do?

By making the performance and exploration of Shakespeare's plays the center of our lives, it follows as the night does the day that we must ask ourselves these questions in all our actions. The plays themselves demand that we take ourselves out into the social and political fields, making connections between the arts and humanities, arts and government, arts and business, arts and education, arts and spirituality.

I don't think it's only Shakespeare - I think that all the arts ask those questions. The arts are how we talk about such things, seriously, as a society. Whatever your own art form, being an artist, living as an artist, demands that you make the same connections.

And it reminds me of the hard question in Ron's Narrativism Essay:

The second, larger question is much like the Gamist one: why role-play for this purpose? Why this venue, and not some more widely-recognized medium like writing comics or novels or screenplays? Addressing Premise can be done in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of artistic media. To play Narrativist, you must be seizing role-playing, seeing some essential feature in the medium itself, which demands that Premise be addressed in this way for you and not another. What is that feature? If you can't see one, then maybe, just maybe, you are slumming in this hobby because you're afraid you can't hack it in a commercial artistic environment.

It's not an easy question, and let's just totally set aside the "commercial" part - maybe you can hack it maybe you can't, whatever. That Sunday night I participated in an exchange with people who were really serious about Premise. They live breathe eat drink and most importantly perform Premise. They were there on stage showing me how we should be, as people, and I was rapt. Me and a couple hundred other people.

So, Forge people, is roleplaying an art form? Actual play, I mean: when we play, are we taking on those questions in any kind of a real, serious artistic way?

What do the games we choose to play contribute? Anything? And what about the games we design? (Just look at Shakespeare & Co's articulation of Premise and tell me they don't.)

And then if so, and this is the hardest part, are we making the connections that our art demands? The humanities, government, business, education, spirituality. Are we there? Are we even close?

-Vincent

[Eero Tuovinen]

So, Forge people, is roleplaying an art form? Actual play, I mean: when we play, are we taking on those questions in any kind of a real, serious artistic way?

Of course it's art. It's just that it's a more primal form, from before there was really art. Before art there is only unadulterated will to do, and that's what roleplaying really is. Nowadays we have to dress it as art, and thus expand the definition of the latter, but that's all to the best.

What might be throwing people in this regard is that there is good art and bad art, and likewise in roleplaying. Sure, if you compare good art with bad roleplaying you might get the illusion that they are different.

It might seem a little cold, but I deal with this stuff analytically: roleplaying employs the same drives and techniques (frex. rhetoric) that other arts do, so assuming that art is defined by method or motivation, rpg is art likewise. This is an empiric fact, only to be disagreed with if you can point out how roleplaying does not share these qualities with other forms called art.

In the above, Premise resides in "motivation" department. That is, if art is Premise, then roleplaying is art because it has Premise, too.

What do the games we choose to play contribute? Anything? And what about the games we design? (Just look at Shakespeare & Co's articulation of Premise and tell me they don't.)

It depends on the game. D&D can be a surrogate social activity, or illusion of success, for example. kpfs can be transformative experience of power. Sorcerer can ask and answer those Shakespearean questions as well.

The world is a plurality of values, and not all art is good in this regard. Likewise not all roleplaying games endorse the same values. Values they will have, regardless.

Differentiating between design and play is useless in this context, by the way. It's all just artist defining art, and for actual play the game is a tool. The hammer might make the nut look like a nail, but other than that it's all players as artists.

And then if so, and this is the hardest part, are we making the connections that our art demands? The humanities, government, business, education, spirituality. Are we there? Are we even close?

The scale is different. The audience of roleplaying is smaller, more private. Thus the connections that are formed are between individuals.

On the other hand, if you're talking about art as transformation, then sure, roleplaying could do it as well. Check out the column series "No Good" by Juhana Pettersson in RPGnet, the discussions there touch on this: if you're willing to break the wall of complacency that the basically bourgeoisie industry has built between roleplaying and humans, there could be personal transformation. It's just that the whole point of "art is entertainment" slogan is to protect people from art: "roleplaying is entertainment" means likewise that you should play as ritual, not as transformation. There is a legacy of entertainment stopping people from using roleplaying as the tool of philosophy that art is meant to be. There'll be no activism before you open yourself to seeking the meaning.

[Matt Wilson]

And then if so, and this is the hardest part, are we making the connections that our art demands? The humanities, government, business, education, spirituality. Are we there? Are we even close?

So there's two parts to this, I think.

One is expression. Roleplaying is a completely, utterly distinct method of expression for me. I write, and I've acted (like on stage and stuff!) and I've written music and recorded it and performed it in front of an audience and everything, but roleplaying is different. I find valuable parts of everything else combined in roleplaying. It might be the best form of expression I've ever found.

So part two, then, is that thing about reaching people and making a difference. I mean, by "connections" you're asking "did someone consider thinking about life (or something) in a new way because of what I did."

You may get a ton of chances with a room full of people at, say, open mic night, but I don't know that you'll get the kind of quality that you can in an RPG session. Sure, I'll read something like Globalization and its Discontents, and I'll think, huh, that's something to think about, but the real stuff happens when I talk about it with my wife or my friends. Roleplaying gives you the book and the discussion all at the same time.

Of course, that all depends on whether (1) is the best fit for you. If you're happier writing than roleplaying, you already have your answer, and vice versa.

[John Kim]

So, Forge people, is roleplaying an art form? Actual play, I mean: when we play, are we taking on those questions in any kind of a real, serious artistic way?

What do the games we choose to play contribute? Anything? And what about the games we design? (Just look at Shakespeare & Co's articulation of Premise and tell me they don't.)

And then if so, and this is the hardest part, are we making the connections that our art demands? The humanities, government, business, education, spirituality. Are we there? Are we even close?  

Well, yes, I think so.  

1) As for taking on the questions seriously, I feel that role-players have from early on tended to take their craft seriously.  They do not usually have a literary-criticism attitude which analyzes in terms of issues, but that doesn't mean they aren't serious about them.  To me, the question is one of investment and expression of meaning.  That is, a four-year-old's painting of his family can (and probably does) have this seriousness.  If I listen to people's stories about the games they have been in, I often hear their issues.  

2) I think the games we play have a lot to do with this.  Your parenthetical comment compares game designs to scripts -- but that's not how I see them.  A game design is more like designing a theater, and possibly the sets and costumes too.  These are all vital parts of the play, but you can't look at them by themselves and figure out the human issues that will be addressed.  Similarly, just becuase a game doesn't have numeric stats for "angst" and "pretentiousness" doesn't mean it doesn't contribute to the artistic process.  

3) I'm not sure what you mean by connections.  RPG gamers as a community are very well educated, and frequently include material from various disciplines into their games.  On the other hand, RPGs are sorely lacking in outreach -- i.e. role-players do not generally connect to their churches, their educational institutions, and their government.  

To my mind, one problem is balkanization.  i.e. RPG players are divided into many enclaves which are often hostile to each other.  But even within each enclave there is often a lack of outreach.  RPG players frequently are sensitive, even ashamed, of admitting such.  The balkanization furthers this as even other role-players tend to promote stereotypes (i.e. White Wolf players say D&D players are juvenile geeks, indie players say that White Wolf players are pretentious gits, etc.).  

Hand in hand with the balkanization is a lack of recognition.  i.e. Players of certain games refuse to recognize the art in other people's games.

[Ron Edwards]

Right on, John. (said with sixties inflection; said also with complete commitment, no irony/sarcasm)

Best,
Ron

[Callan S.]

I'd like to go further on the outreach element. I think this is where the power and urge to be a novelist Vincent felt, comes from. These performers are having a real world impact with their story...they are to some degree affecting how many people think and feel on an issue.

Indulge this; were very much a species that likes to learn from each other. It's part (perhaps all) of the reason were dominant on this planet. Other species do it, but I'd say were the species who go nuts at it. We will learn skills that have no other purpose except to help learn other skills (learning to talk so as to be able to speak with others and learn more things).

Well, even if that doesn't sit well it's clear that movies and books have an effect on culture.

Now, let's have a look at a commonly shared story which isn't really nar or anything: Jack and the beanstalk

Jack screws up on a deal, has some wacked thing happen, he goes into a castle and after seeing the hen, loots it and just leaves. Not content with that (unlimited wealth), the thief goes back for the giants harp and loots that, then manages to kill the enraged bad guy giant. (Yes, I was reading this to my son last night and thinking how wack it is).

I mean hell, I've been on plenty of D&D dungeon crawls that will give you a more sophisticated/engaging (to a child) tale to tell than that. Dungeon crawls that were full of crunch, no less. But look at that strange Jack and the beanstalk story and a G, N or even S game session...which gets handed on? Which get's repeated even as just an oral tradition?

Have the most brilliant sessions where amazing gamist tactics (that could even apply in the real world) are done, or deep, moving addresses of premise that reveal shocking truths about life as a human, or the power and majesty to be felt by stepping into another world entirely. So what? It all dissapears. Sure, your group remembers, but suppose in RL you were all in another country and had some amazing experience...but refused to speak about it with friends and relatives when you got back, let alone write about it in a book or contribute an article on it in some other media.

I think the experiences of roleplay excite us, because were primed to go and share excitement with others, who might share it with others and so on, the knowledge being shared and strengthening the community, potentially. But with roleplay, we neuter ourselves and just keep the experience in that one cell of people.

Let me be clear here, a session of roleplay doesn't have to enter into shared cultural knowledge (like Jack and the beanstalk). What I'm saying is that the current habits of roleplayers is that it never even gets a chance. I'll be honest and say that I think Nar probably has the best chance of entering shared cultural knowledge in some small way, but how? When those who experienced make sure it's insulated from the rest of the world, or atleast from people who don't roleplay.

The fact is, your game session might be worthy...it might get repeated and repeated again by others mouths. Sure, it'll get a little chinese whispered in the process, but so will that shakespear groups message. But does it get the chance, even through mediums like anecdotes you might mention during conversation at a party?

And damn, I can't find the thread I started months ago on creating some sort of artifact from play. I think I mentioned in it the idea of taping good sessions (preferably humourous), editing them slightly and then getting some air time at your local public radio by some means (I can think of a few valid ones). Also mentioned a few other things, that slip my mind.

Anything else come to mind for other posters?

[Ben Lehman]

Well, for what its worth, I am a novelist (and, much as I hate to admit it, a poet), and I think what we're producing is far cooler than just more literature.  I mean, I am fond of new literature.  I read good books and write mediocre ones, and I'm very cool with that and it excites me.

But it is not what we are doing.  What we are doing is not "like" fiction writing, nor is it "like" theatre.  It is a totally novel artform, although perhaps one rooted in oral traditions and mythic storytelling.

So let's not worry about whether we are as cool as Shakespeare.  We are cooler than Shakespeare.  The Shakespeare of RPGs will come thousands of years from now, and he will be building on the artform that we are making and defining, right now.

I cannot stress this enough.  We are making a new way of understanding and communicating with the world and each other.  This is awesome.

The question to ask is not about Shakespeare.  The question to ask is about Thoth and Mimir and Odin and Prometheus and Pan and Inanna.  Are we (and I use the collective to mean we, all of us, the people who play RPGs) as cool as them, those ancestors who wrent from the stuff of our minds not only new art, but new artforms, who didn't just have something important to say, but an important way of saying that?  The people so important that they have become gods?

Are we as cool as them?

yrs--
--Ben

[eef]

What does Shakespear have that RPGs don't?  (aside from godlike talent in the strictest sense of the word)
Something acting companies can show others.  Imagine if acting was purely for actors, without an audience;  I believe theater would be very marginalized, as marginalized as RPGs are.  Shows and movies allow for a passive form of theater, as well as the active.

Can we make movies about RPG sessions?
It's been done.  If you haven't seen 'The Gamers', get yourself to www.deadgentlemen.com.
'The Gamers' was pure farce, pure inside jokes.  Would it be possible to have movie about a serious RPG session, showing people confronting a serious moral problem that they could not confront in real life?

Problems:  you've have two hours max for the story.  I think that's reasonable with a focused group, but just barely.  
I think it is worth a try.

There was a _very_ brief web site called 'RPG Radio' that had snippets of live RPG broadcast over the web.  It didn't work that well.  Listening to an RPG session drove home to me how much of it is body language and non-verbal communication.

[Callan S.]

I think something more like the BBC program 'Hypotheticals', except with the conceit of ongoing characters facing various situations in the same way the hypotheticals were suggested.

Indeed, looking back at it that show was almost full on roleplay. There's a new way of describing roleplay to newbs.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Well, I was there with Vincent at GenCon.  Truth to tell, I did some serious percolatin' on the question.  And I'll be doing more - probably about a month more.  I'l be heading out of town for a while, and I'll be thinking on this more than I should, maybe.  But so far . . .

Shakespere and Company had their hundreds of people at the play.  Peter Jackson has got his millions and millions watching LOtR.  Roleplaying has just me, and you, and you (and maybe you, and you, and you - or so).

And - know what?  My life is really more about me and you (and you and etc.) than it is about hundreds or millions.  

The opportunity in roleplaying is, I think, much bigger than we give it credit for.  And it is often unfulfilled - sometimes for the reasons John points to, and other times just because of  . . . whatever.

I think I'd like to change that.  That's what I'll be thinking on, long and hard, over the next month-ish.

Gordon

[John Kim]

The fact is, your game session might be worthy...it might get repeated and repeated again by others mouths. Sure, it'll get a little chinese whispered in the process, but so will that shakespear groups message. But does it get the chance, even through mediums like anecdotes you might mention during conversation at a party?

And damn, I can't find the thread I started months ago on creating some sort of artifact from play. I think I mentioned in it the idea of taping good sessions (preferably humourous), editing them slightly and then getting some air time at your local public radio by some means (I can think of a few valid ones). Also mentioned a few other things, that slip my mind.

Anything else come to mind for other posters?  

In Japan, I know that there is the practice of publishing "replays" -- essentially edited transcripts of play sessions about certain games.  In the U.S., I suppose the closest thing we have are comics about gamers (i.e. Knights of the Dinner Table, Dork Tower, and others).  I don't know of any decent dramatic treatments -- about the closest I can think of is http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0087065/">Cloak & Dagger, though one can't forget the vile "Mazes and Monsters".  Certainly there is room for better.  

When I talked about outreach I was thinking more about exposing more people to actual games -- arranging with teachers at local schools, for example.  I think tabletop RPGs or LARPs can be great for studying micro-histories.  Alternatively, there are the Swedish games "http://www.rollspel.com/engelsk/theway.htm">The Way" and its successors which were developed for use in church youth groups.  I have a page on http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/whatis/education.html">Educational Uses of RPGs.

[Christopher Weeks]

So, Forge people, is roleplaying an art form? Actual play, I mean: when we play, are we taking on those questions in any kind of a real, serious artistic way?

Both the actual play and the game design are art forms.  Clearly, we're addressing those questions.  I'd rephrase the first as "What does it mean to be human?" and the first and most resounding answer that we give in play is "Humans are social and creative."  We explore how to act and what to do in all our play.  I've seen this discussed here before, but I'll give an annecdote.

E.g. When I was an adolescent, I could have gone either way -- you know, light or dark.  I was expelled from school.  I was a petty criminal.  I was typical early 80's disaffected youth.  But I was also bright and friendly.  And a gamer.  This guy in my area ran an incoherent, system-lite game called Crime Wave.  We started out as petty criminals and stole and murdered, gradually carving out a small organized crime "family."  We played this game for about two years on and off.  We played it like the characters were kind of a party.  Occasionally characters died, but mostly we were unreasonably successful.  The game ended when my friend's PC shot mine in the back over a trifle.  I reflected on that.  I thought it was realistic.  And now, here I am with a job and a family and pets and everything.  You'll have to take it on faith, but that actual play, which wasn't anything special, clearly informed my "How should we act?" and "What should we do?" questions.  I'm an atheist and a moral relativist.  I don't believe in morality in the sense that most of you do.  But there is real pragmatism behind being "good" and that's one of the many, many answers that we come to through actual play.

What do the games we choose to play contribute? Anything? And what about the games we design? (Just look at Shakespeare & Co's articulation of Premise and tell me they don't.)

Contribute?  Like to the greater good?  How about refinement of understanding?  How about vehicles for entertainment?  I finished reading Dogs last night.  Just reading it made me think about stuff.  I was enriched.  You, Vincent, contributed to me.  When I get to playing it, it'll be better.  But even better than that, we players will get to consider and decide on moral and pragmatic issues.  Those games of Dogs aren't happening in a vaccuum.  People are going to be incorporating play experience into their lives.  Is that a contribution?  I think it is.

Or maybe I've missed the meaning of "contribute."

And then if so, and this is the hardest part, are we making the connections that our art demands? The humanities, government, business, education, spirituality. Are we there? Are we even close?

I have a different interpretation of what they're saying:

The plays themselves demand that we take ourselves out into the social and political fields, making connections between the arts and humanities, arts and government, arts and business, arts and education, arts and spirituality.

I think that making those connections is something that naturally follows from popular public performance.  Those connections aren't necessarily the ones that our art demands.  Our art -- actual play is what I'm talking about, I believe (and I think other posters have touched on this), is more intimate.  We have a much smaller audience, but we can touch them more deeply.  My best Shakespear experience is seeing King Lear at the Oregon Shakespear Festival in '97 or '98.  It was awesome.  But it wasn't a good game.  Not really knowing the end point is part of the art of most RPG play.  Crafting the story is the thing.

We might even make some or all of those same connections, but much more slowly because of at least three factors: the smaller audience, the personal creative investment that our art requires of the audience makes it inherently (I believe) less popular, and lack of mainstream acceptance (which may be merely a result of the other two).  But our play does not "demand that we take ourselves out into the social and political fields."

Chris

[lumpley]

The word I used at GenCon was "monastic." There's still a particular kind of isolation in addressing premise in roleplaying, unrelated to the intimate size of our audience:

I can mention to my coworkers that I saw As You Like It at Shakespeare & Co, and I can tell them something meaningful about it, like how smart it was and how deftly they handled the gender commentary.

I just can't do that with my roleplaying. They wouldn't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Now, that mattered a lot to me going into GenCon, and it seemed like a hopeless problem. It matters a lot less to me coming out - and y'know, maybe there's hope, too. Maybe what we're doing now will create something years and decades from now - like Ben's vision - create something that fits into society in such a way that people can address premise intimately and talk about it at work the next day.

Or but maybe not. I guess we'll find out, huh?

-Vincent

[Matt Snyder]

Agreed, Vincent. I think the co-worker issue is a matter of the broad awareness and acceptance of Shakespeare, rather than the theatre art medium per se.

Similarly, in some rosy universe we could have that conversations with co-workers about the ubiquitous My Life With Master, and discuss just exactly how your session cleverly addressed (say) gender issues in dysfunctional families.

I think this has happened in one way with D&D -- people identify with one another and can talk about how they dealt with Room XX in Keep on the Borderlands (or whatever, especially tournament modules like the Slavers modlues, for example). "You died too!?! I know, that room sucks!" But, I don't view it as something that cherishes the human condition in the way art can. It's more like talking about video game challenges, which I see (and take part in) all the time. Social, sure, but not terribly enlightening.

[Ben Lehman]

As far as the coworker issue is concerned, I'd like to remind people that actors and playwrites and directors were traditionally considered (and, in some places, this lasted well into the 20th century) scum of the earth, filth, and on par with prostitutes.  This is thousands of years after the genesis of theater as an artform!  I mean, wow, talk about a long wait for "legitimacy."

I think that gamers are in the same state and, in all honesty, may be there for a while.  I mean, no one talks about how their night at the strip club went, right?  Or, if they do, they only talk about it in the company of like-minded individuals.  I admire those trying to change this, but I don't see it as a major problem for the artform as a whole right now.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  I am suddenly struck by the constant comparison of gaming/comic stores to porn shops, and also by the large number of gamers that I know who have worked in porn or related industries.  Huh.  Neither here nor there, I guess.