RPGs as art form?

[clehrich]

I entirely agree with you, M.J., but I don't think these examples go against my point.  You put what you said so clearly that I must have put mine not so clearly.  Let me restate very simply.

I think that music is basically about sound, about tone and rhythm and such, and that thus it's basically about performance in a sound medium.  There are exceptions.  There are those who can read a score without hearing it and still assess it.  There are works that challenge our sense of sound.  But still, music does not include the Mona Lisa.

I think that RPGs are basically about play.  There can certainly be exceptions, although this is all totally hypothetical unless some nut wants to take up my gedanken experiment or something like.  

But basically the work of art in RPGs resides in the medium of play, just as the work of art in music resides in the medium of sound.  Everything, but everything, orients itself to this medium.  The nifty thing about RPGs is the oddity of the medium, which is not the same as social group: it's everything to the right of Social Contract in Ron's Big Model.  That's a weird medium.

Does this make sense to you?

[M. J. Young]

Oh, yeah.

I can read a score pretty well, and I love Ives, but I have a lot of problems with any music that you can't perform.

My point, though, is while whether or not you can perform a piece of music is an important factor, it does not in and of itself determine whether it's art.

I do a bit of keyboard work, but I'm absolutely horrible at it. (As an aside, I'm looking for a music program which will let me use my midi keyboard to set parameters for the sound, but then will play what I write--I can write far more precisely than I can play keyboards, and every program I've seen is big on the "you don't even know how to read or write music" bit, when to my mind the key to doing music is the reading and writing. If anyone has a lead on such a program, please let me know.)

There are more well-written musical works for piano and organ that I cannot play than that I can play. I've written some myself. Setting mine aside, I'm sure that Beethoven's and Gershwin's piano works are still great works of art even if I can't perform them--I've heard them performed by others.

I am equally sure that a musical composition could be a great work of art even if no one can perform it today. It might be that it is never performed, or that it is not performed for centuries. It does not cease to be art because it is not performed. There are collections of written music which were never performed because there was no opportunity during the composer's life and after his death they were forgotten (many of these are being performed and recorded now).

On the other hand, it's also perfectly possible that something can't be performed because it's artistically very bad.

Whether or not we are able to play a role playing game is an important factor, but it does not in itself validate or invalidate that as a good work of art. I suspect that the vast majority of such works (if they exist) are schlock, and possibly largely for that reason (or perhaps the other way around--not schlock because unplayable, but unplayable because schlock). I want to allow that a game might be unplayable by us because it is beyond our ability, but is still a great game for the right players, who just don't happen to exist in this age.

Certainly playability is a correct standard to use in writing a game review; but I think even in an architectural review you could say that a building was striking, solid, well-built, beautiful, and inspiring, even if it was terrible at serving its intended function. It's important to understand that the service of the function is part of what makes it artistically meritorious, but not the whole of the matter.

I think we're probably agreed?

--M. J. Young

[Emily Care]

Doesn't this mean that you could have a system/setting/etc. that is unplayable but still a work of art?  

HOL (Human Occupied Landfill) may be an example of this.  So, I'd say yes, the work may stand alone and apart from its playability.  However, HOL may be more of a work about rpg, than be an rpg itself, in some ways. It may be more analogous to PDQ Bach than the work of anyone else.

--EC

[Paul Czege]

Hey Chris,

But basically the work of art in RPGs resides in the medium of play...

I agree with you. But there's a lesson to be learned from Nicotine Girls, I think.

It won the "Best Free Game" category of Andy's Indie RPG Awards more than a year after it was released, despite never having been played by any of the voters. And folks routinely go out of their way to post publicly or email me privately that they'd never play Nicotine Girls.

So, by all accounts but my own, Nicotine Girls is an art-object game. It's an art object because of how people react to it. They perceive it to be broadcasting a message and then feel the need to position themselves relative to it.

So, saying that the art in RPGs is the experience of play is just us firing off an opinion of how we'd personally like the aesthetic sensibilities of the world to work, because empirically, that's not how the world understands the art in RPGs.

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

The playability of HOL is debatable. Certainly I've talked with people who say that they have played it. But I'd agree that it fits the bill here. Violence*, possibly as well.

Consider an RPG that required the players to actually kill themselves at the start, and then to come back to life to finish the rest of the game. I'd call that impossible to play. Still, it could be a work of art on it's own. One could have a play as a similar text, and it could certainly be considered a work of art.

That all said, I think that an RPG's text's playability can be a work of art, and facilitate art, and as such that's what I'm after, personally. But I wouldn't discount other forms out of hand.

Mike

*Actually, I'm not sure it's Violence (Hogshead) I'm thinking of; that might be playable. But in the game I'm remembering, you are supposed to actually (you the player, not the character) do vile things that come up in play. Anyone?

[Mike Holmes]

And folks routinely go out of their way to post publicly or email me privately that they'd never play Nicotine Girls.

He's talking about me (amongst others). I can appreciate Nicotine Girls from afar, but you'll never catch me playing the damn thing. If I had to choose between that and Violence, I'd probably pick Violence.

Hmm...what does that say about me? :-)

Mike

[Paul Czege]

Hey Chris,

Earlier in this thread you wrote:

There is no question in my mind, at least, that RPGs have no intrinsic limitations from achieving major artistic goals. There are a number of historical reasons why they have not as yet been accepted as such, but I think there are two especial reasons arising from the medium as it stands.

1. The art-object has no audience. Insofar as it can be said to have an audience, that audience is sufficiently constricted (only experienced RPG players) that outside criticism cannot see the value or achievement. (See the Confused Agendas post.)

2. Very few RPGs have taken this goal seriously, or attempted to do more than entertain and sell some copy.

And I just wanted place the lesson of Nicotine Girls relative to your notions of the lack of an RPG art appreciating audience. Roleplaying games achieve sustained popularity through play. And art, to most folks, isn't something you experience like that. It's a broadcast that you form an opinion about. If Nicotine Girls ever achieves popularity it won't be from some emergence of a community of art-appreciating gamers; it'll be because folks ultimately realize that it is what I say it is, a game experience.

And the membership of any community of "RPGs as art" appreciators that might arise probably won't be characterized by much actual play.

Paul

[clehrich]

1. The art-object has no audience. Insofar as it can be said to have an audience, that audience is sufficiently constricted (only experienced RPG players) that outside criticism cannot see the value or achievement.

And I just wanted place the lesson of Nicotine Girls relative to your notions of the lack of an RPG art appreciating audience. Roleplaying games achieve sustained popularity through play. And art, to most folks, isn't something you experience like that. It's a broadcast that you form an opinion about. If Nicotine Girls ever achieves popularity it won't be from some emergence of a community of art-appreciating gamers; it'll be because folks ultimately realize that it is what I say it is, a game experience. ... And the membership of any community of "RPGs as art" appreciators that might arise probably won't be characterized by much actual play.

Slight misunderstanding here.  I mean that the "art-object" in RPGs is normally actual play, by which I mean actual play.  Like Phil and Harry and Janet and Zeke get together and talk at each other and roll dice and stuff for about 5 hours.  That talking and rolling stuff that's happening?  That's the art-object.  So it's performed by a tiny number of people with only themselves as audience.

Somebody made the comparison to amateur chamber-music players, such as a not-terribly-skilled amateur string quartet.  They play for themselves, not for an audience.  But their play refers to a situation in which there would be an audience.  That is, classical music in our culture does seem to presume the concert situation as normative; listening to a recording at home is becoming normal, but it's passive and not active (as a rule, thus "background music").  RPGs, by preference, work the other way around.  That is, they're not usually played in front of an audience.  I suggest that this points to a second reversal: in music we think of the quartet as "playing Mozart," in the sense that the art-object is Mozart's String Quartet #1; in RPGs, we are tricked into thinking that because we normally say they are "playing Sorcerer" that means that Sorcerer is the art-object, where I suggest that it is only secondarily so, and that the events occurring among the players right now at this moment are the art-object.

So the art-object in an RPG has, as a rule, no audience.  Whatever audience there is has to be pretty experienced to make a serious evaluation; that is, if you sat down and watched a session of somebody else's game, would you be able to make a serious artistic judgment about it as an artistic event?  I suggest that this would be tricky for even the most hard-core gamers among us, because we've never taken that goal seriously (not that we necessarily should).  So what happens when a random person sits down and listens to even a pretty hot session?  "Well, it looked like they were having fun.  Some of it was very cool.  I guess I could see doing that, too -- how do I get into this?"  That's the very best you can expect.  You can't expect, "My god, that was better than the Boston Symphony!" or whatever; they're not going to treat it as art.

See what I'm getting at?

[Mike Holmes]

The performers aren't also audience? Or is that a special sort of audience?

Mike

[clehrich]

Oh, they're certainly audience, but yes -- that's a special sort of audience.  I'd argue that this is importantly true of ritual as well as music, i.e. that the performers are themselves their own audience, but it is a somewhat unusual way to look at things.

[Mike Holmes]

Well, I'd say that they're similar enough as sorts of audiences that the end result is the same. Someone is there to appreciate the result of play as an objet d'art.

For the text it's the reader, obviously.

Mike

[Emily Care]

So the art-object in an RPG has, as a rule, no audience.

The music analogy seems a bit stretched here, because almost all music is intended to be viewed by non-musicians.  Let's take sports as a performative analogy for a moment:  a group of rpg'rs playing is more analogous to a group of friends playing baseball in the yard.  They are the only audience they need; anybody could watch but the real enjoyment comes from participating. The audience really is the participants.

The question of ritual is an interesting one.  There is performative and also participatory ritual, both of which are intended to create a psychological/spiritual effect or change in the viewer/participant.  Generally, the more successful the ritual, the fewer participants view themselves as audience.  RPG is similar in that it has an internal effect on the participants, but it's just not intended for mass consumption the way big rituals can be, or music.  What is it that makes rpg in general so boring to watch, yet so interesting to take part in?

Also, to answer Paul about Nicotine Girls--it may be true that if NG becomes popular it will be because it gets played, but it seems quite plausible to me that that game and others could become cult  hits, and enjoy great popularity with little to no play happening.  Those who say they've played HOL aside, when that game got popular most folks bought it to put on their shelf.  KPFS may have similar appeal, though it's a quite playable system so who knows.  Also, most of the gamers I know own many, many more systems than they've actually played, so play isn't necessarily a requirement for purchase.  

I guess what I'm saying, is that rpg's have at least two levels of audience appreciation: the game text itself, and the system in play.   As Mike said, the text can be and is an objet d'art for the reader.

--EC

[John Kirk]

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines art:

art: ... 4 a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination esp. in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced ...

By this definition, I think it is clear that there are some RPG's that are art and some that are not.  All that art requires is the deliberate use of one's skills and imagination to produce something that is, primarily, aesthetically pleasing.  That doesn't mean the artist succeeds.  The world is full of "bad" art.  All that is important is the attempt.

Some role-playing games are strictly utilitarian.  I believe most, if not all, of the games produced by "committee" fall into this category.  D&D is a prime example.  D&D is produced to satisfy the needs and desires of customers.  Period.  That doesn't make it a bad role-playing game, it just doesn't meet the definition that its major aim is aesthetics.

In contrast, many Indie RPG's are the opposite.  They are an attempt to create the "perfect" set of rules where the judgement of whether one rule is better than another is essentially left to the aesthetic preferences of a single author.  If a game designer's primary goal in designing a game is structural "elegance", then it definately falls into the art category.  On the other hand, if a game designer is working to attract the largest audience and is willing to sacrifice internal consistency and "elegance" in that endeavor, then he/she is taking a utilitarian approach.  The game he produces would have a far lesser claim on the term "art".  However, he may very well lay claim to a larger bank account. ;-)

[John Kim]

All that art requires is the deliberate use of one's skills and imagination to produce something that is, primarily, aesthetically pleasing.  That doesn't mean the artist succeeds.  The world is full of "bad" art.  All that is important is the attempt.

Some role-playing games are strictly utilitarian.  I believe most, if not all, of the games produced by "committee" fall into this category.  D&D is a prime example.  D&D is produced to satisfy the needs and desires of customers.  Period.  That doesn't make it a bad role-playing game, it just doesn't meet the definition that its major aim is aesthetics.  

I couldn't disagree more with this.  Artistic merit should be decided on the basis of the work, not on your analysis on the motivations of the author.  I think many great works of art are so because they followed what people enjoyed.  This is a core of most oral tradition: with many repetitions, stories get modified, dropped, or extended based on what people like to hear.  You can see a similar thing today in, say, comics.  Superman, say, has much in common with earlier myths, in that he has evolved and changed based on popularity.  I would say that this doesn't make him less important as art -- I would say it make him more important.  

People respond to aesthetics.  Now, it's not the only thing they respond to, but it contributes.  Therefore, someone who is seeking only to make a popular work will produce aesthetics -- perhaps unknowingly or even unwillingly.  Robin Laws has an excellent article comparing RPG criticism to early film criticism, available on The Oracle at
http://www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/hiddenart.html

He points out that early film criticism tended to disparage popular works in favor of their preconceptions of what "film art" should be like -- i.e. being like recognized artistic books or plays.  However, later criticism came to recognize artists like Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford -- who produced blatantly commercial and popular entertainment, rather than "art films".  They exposed art in things which are unique to the film medium.  

I think that the same may apply to RPGs.  The first tendency will be to label certain things as "art RPGs" because they imitate other, non-interactive art.  i.e. An RPG is good art if it produces a narrative like the narratives of artistic books and films.  However, I don't think that is the whole picture.  Playing an RPG is fundamentally different than reading a summary of what happened in the session.  

In short, I don't think that you can reject D&D as art solely because it is popular (and tries to be), nor because it doesn't produce stories like artistic  books and movies.  I think it definitely should be regarded as art, even if you later conclude that it's artistic worth is small.

[John Kirk]

I think many great works of art are so because they followed what people enjoyed. This is a core of most oral tradition: with many repetitions, stories get modified, dropped, or extended based on what people like to hear. You can see a similar thing today in, say, comics. Superman, say, has much in common with earlier myths, in that he has evolved and changed based on popularity. I would say that this doesn't make him less important as art -- I would say it make him more important.

You make a very good point here.  I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind that the Superman comics are works of art.  But, let's look at how Superman evolved.  The character of Superman was initially created by two men, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.  Thereafter, there were many different comics created that featured Superman as their main character.  But, each of those stories in itself is a work of art created by one (or a few) individuals.  You didn't see each story going through countless revisions as to exactly how Superman should defeat Lex Luthor or other super-villain.  Each story stood on its own.  Yes, each was a pop work created to attract as much money as possible and yes, Superman's powers and weaknesses changed over time to suit the reader's desires of the day.  But, each story was a complete work essentially told by a single (or small number) of authors.

The same can be said about the oral traditions.  For example, the Greek myths slowly evolved over time to suit the needs of the ancient world, but each telling was told and embellished by a single orator.  This process eventually resulted in the great works of Homer.  Nobody denies the contributions that generations of Greek orators made to the Greek mythos prior to Homer.  Those contributions are certainly art, as are Homer's.  I would argue that each contribution was made for aesthetic reasons, whether to simply entertain or to explore some moral issue.

So, on these points at least, we agree.  If we aren't going to talk in circles forever, though, we'll need to come to some mutual definition of what exactly constitues art and what doesn't.  If you don't accept Webster's definition, what definition would you propose?  Or, if you do accept Webster's definition, what is it about my interpretation that you disagree with?

So to me, the role-playing rules text is a set of instruments, maybe a mixing board, and perhaps extending the analogy even to the bag of snacks set aside for breaks. Without play, it all just sits there. Nothing there is the music, except when in use.

I agree that most instruments are utilitarian.  A bag of snacks is utilitarian.  Many RPG's are utilitarian.  These are merely tools with which the musician produces his music or a person fills the emptiness in his tummy.  However, I believe a Stradivarius violin or a chocolate soufle cooked by your mom to impress her guests can reasonably be elevated to the status of art.  The reason for this is that the creators of these works had some definate aesthetic goals in mind beyond normal utilitarian needs.

On the other hand an instrument's artistic power is solely dependent on the knowledge and skills of the musician.

I must disagree.  If this were true, Stradivarius violins would not be in such high demand.