Forked Thread: D&D needs to grow up (ala scifi in the mid-20th century?)

[Dragon Snack]

We have in this discussion a bit of a mix between seeing "growing up" as meaning becoming critically acceptable, and becoming mass market acceptable.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I also don't think you need overwhelming success at either for RPGs to "grow up".

Maybe Comics and SciFi didn't actually do anything to "grow up", maybe they just caught the wave of cultural zeitgeist at the time. Maybe D&D and RPGs just missed their wave, maybe Gen X'ers just don't have the oomph to power their niche stuff through (I realize not all gamers are Gen X'ers, but that is when D&D came on the stage). Comics and SciFi rode the Boomers into the mainstream, but D&D/RPGs got overrun by technology before it had a chance to "grow up"...

 

[Mercurius]

The difference between role-playing games in general and those recent super-hero movies is that movies are something you can consume. You don't need to work to enjoy The Dark Knight - you just visit the cinema for a few hours.

In contrast to that, to truly enjoy role-playing games you have to put a lot of effort into them. D&D, as the most popular role-playing game, needs to represent a "common denominator" that's easy to get into (and 4E is a step in the right direction), and thus can't be too abstract or conceptual.

If you want to have some more "mature" or "grown up" role-playing games, take a look at various Indie games - or at Transhuman Space (for settings). But since many of those require more work to play and run, don't expect them to replace D&D any time soon.

Jürgen you make a good point: that D&D is not a "consumer product"--well, it can be, but playing it isn't--and most popular entertainment is pretty passive, with little to no self-creative elements. And it is only getting worse, so it doesn't speak well for an imagination-based activity like RPGs taking off on a larger scale except as a possible backlash to the continual 1984ification of culture.

 

[Mercurius]

I'm interested in the question of D&D's artistic legitimacy too, and I'll try to answer it here and now...

...D&D is not an art form, legitimate or otherwise, nor is anything gained by attempting to frame discussions of D&D as if it were. D&D, considered as a form, offers no special tools for investigating human experience, unless, of the course, the experience in question is the disposing of a troll corpse with fire oil. Then again, most games aren't suited for the task of the illuminating the human condition in and of themselves. Not even chess.

Taken as a whole, D&D better considered as a platform for delivering problem-solving/tactical challenges, not as a particular set of tools for artistic inquiry.

Which isn't to say D&D isn't a creative outlet (it is), nor is it to say that D&D can't be art. Sure it can be, in isolated cases (heck, I think a pile of Brillo boxes can be art, so why not a few D&D campaigns?). Of course, the same can be said about SF novels, literary novels, paintings, poems, and once in a blue moon, dance. The sad fact is most art forms aren't art, outside of isolated cases...

What's gained by attempting to brand D&D, or RPG's in general, as an art form? Is it a prestige thing?

I agree and disagree with you here, because you are saying different things at the same time. I hear you saying that D&D isn't an art form but it can be art. This is really no different than any artistic modality; music is an art form but is all music "artistic"? Or is it a matter of degree? It gets tricky, because we probably all have different criteria as to what art is, let alone "good" art. I'd like to keep it open and say that art = a creative activity that is self-generated, active and not just mimetic or passive. Or to put it another way, art is what artists create. So it is more a matter of discussing what an artist is than what art is.

I also agree with Ycore Rixle's slight twist on what you are saying:

Actually we probably agree. I think we just have different ideas what an art form is. I think what you're saying is that RPGs can be good art, but usually they're not, so therefore they're not a "form." Me, I would say that RPGs can be good art, but usually they're not, so therefore there's not a "large body of great work in the form."

This, I agree with, although would offer that it is hard to make a sharp distinction between good and bad art. I can look at pretty much any RPG and see some degree of artistry, or at least creativity. It may not be "good" in the sense that Rembrandt or Van Gogh is "good" (to say the least), but it is still art. Actually, one of the positive cultural developments that I've seen, especially with my own Gen X and later, is that everyone is an artist, or at least a self-fashioned artist. The Boomers are sometimes called the "cultural creatives" and Gen X takes it a step further. Later generations (or sub-generations) seem to take it to greater extremes: either more artistic and individual, or less so, depending on the degree to which they are lost with the gadgetry of 21st century entertainment technology. But that is another conversation, so won't go there.

Back to RPGs. One of the most creative aspects of RPGs, in my mind, is campaign world creation, which is something it shares with scifi and fantasy writing. I see world design as a potential art form in itself, even divorced from RPGs or novels. Why not create an imaginary world just for the sake of it? Like drama it can be a kind of "meta-art" that incorporates many different more specific forms. The problem, of course, is putting it out there--if one wants to, that is--which requires some kind of marketable, accessible form. Let us not forget that for Tolkien Middle-earth was primary, the Lord of the Rings secondary. Tolkien created Middle-earth to play with mythology and languages, especially in terms of what a syncretic European proto-mythology might look like. This began to the take the form of the Silmarillion; the Hobbit was basically a transcript of an ongoing story he told his children, and the Lord of the Rings the result of the Hobbit's publisher asking for a sequel. But the creative act itself, Tolkien's art, was first and foremost Middle-earth itself.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

We have in this discussion a bit of a mix between seeing "growing up" as meaning becoming critically acceptable, and becoming mass market acceptable.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I also don't think you need overwhelming success at either for RPGs to "grow up".

Agreed.

Critical acclaim? A well written setting can be as compelling as any short story or novel, and it is conceivable that it may even inspire the creation of such.

Mass market acceptibility? Well, start by NOT releasing bad derivative works- D&D movie #1, anyone? If you release good genre fiction, it can stand on its own. I think this Summer's list of blockbusters is an indication of this- almost every one was a derivative work of genre fiction.

In general, that's the starting point for acceptability.

In the USA, though, there is an additional set of hurdles not really faced in most other countries- the power of our religious right coupled with the history of the "Satanic Panic" of the late 1980s really stigmatized the game here. Some people simply don't realize that D&D is just a game, not a gateway to eternal damnation.

Maybe Comics and SciFi didn't actually do anything to "grow up", maybe they just caught the wave of cultural zeitgeist at the time. Maybe D&D and RPGs just missed their wave, maybe Gen X'ers just don't have the oomph to power their niche stuff through (I realize not all gamers are Gen X'ers, but that is when D&D came on the stage). Comics and SciFi rode the Boomers into the mainstream, but D&D/RPGs got overrun by technology before it had a chance to "grow up"...

Actually, both did change their character to become more mature.

In sci fi, you saw the rise of anti-heroes, and characters that no longer acted like their pulp fiction antecedents, but like you and me. Instead of a futuristic take on manifest destiny, more stories concentrated on logical consequences of RW actions...translated in time and space in order to be more palatable.

In comics, you saw that in several ways- graphic novels taking on RW subjects, like in Maus, or thoroughly fictitious characters with RW problems, like Tony Stark's alcoholism, Northstar's homosexuality, and characters actually dying.

In D&D's case...well, role-play in general, you need products that have mature and tasteful art (something not every company has gotten the message on yet), good writing, quality binding and printing. Some products have achieved all of this, but they're still the exception rather than the rule.

The Gen X thing has some merit. We simply never had the purchasing power of the Boomers, and we've already been surpassed by Gen Y.

The good news, though, is that roleplay is a more popular and robust hobby than possibly any other time in its life. If nothing else, its considerably more acceptible in the mainstream- you need look no further than the RPG section of your local big-box bookstore for confirmation.

3Ed was a BIG part of this. 4Ed, dislike it though I do, may prove to be even more accessible to the Gen Y players than its predecessors. If so, the future of gaming as a viable industry is secure, especially if, like its predecessors, it also acts as a gateway to other good RPGs.

 

[Mokona]

In comics, you saw...thoroughly fictitious characters with RW problems, like Tony Stark's alcoholism, Northstar's homosexuality, and characters actually dying.

Adding adult themes to comics does not represent "growing up". Comics can and do achieve intelligent stories and critical acclaim without becoming Rated R. The idea that you need to add elements that are inappropriate for minors in order to grow up is silly but it comes up again and again.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I also don't think you need overwhelming success at either for RPGs to "grow up".

They aren't mutually exclusive. But they aren't strongly linked, either. It would help do not muddle between them indiscriminately.

That's why I posted the sales numbers - it seems to me that while Asimov, Bradbury, and Heinlein may have raised the quality of the literature in a critical sense, the numbers don't support the idea that the non-fan public sees them as particularly legitimate. The non-fan public ignores the genre, for the most part.

Maybe Comics and SciFi didn't actually do anything to "grow up"

This is part of why I stress the different aspects of growth. I think it is clear that the genre has grown far more sophisticated in a critical sense. However, I think we can still question how "grown up" they are in the sense of being seen as "legitimate art" to the larger public. The genre's biggest sellers - the movies - are still generally presented as diversions for hot summer days, rather than "legitimate art", no?

 

[Umbran]

Adding adult themes to comics does not represent "growing up". Comics can and do achieve intelligent stories and critical acclaim without becoming Rated R. The idea that you need to add elements that are inappropriate for minors in order to grow up is silly but it comes up again and again.

The alcoholism, homosexuality, and death referenced in no way made those comics "Rated R". They were all handled in manners well within the Comics Code, which puts them in the PG range.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Adding adult themes to comics does not represent "growing up". Comics can and do achieve intelligent stories and critical acclaim without becoming Rated R. The idea that you need to add elements that are inappropriate for minors in order to grow up is silly but it comes up again and again.

I don't neccesarily mean "Rated R," just that things are handled without hypersanitizing something to the point of nonsense.

I mean things like showing that violence has consequences- I'd rather have a kid (who is old enough but still a minor) realize that shooting a gun at someone hurts or kills them, rather than the old "G.I. Joe" model, in which gunplay happens all the time and everyone is smiling and clean at the end of the comic or TV show.

Or that vigilantism isn't universally respected and appreciated by law enforcement.

Or that someone who uses drugs isn't going to kick the habit with easy grace.

Etc.

And really, as was pointed out before, the stories weren't presented in lurid or purient ways- it was generally done with taste and style.

Once kids reach 7-10 years of age, you have to stop sheltering them completely. The revelations should come in incremental doses, but there's nothing wrong with a kid old enough to read Superman being exposed to RW life lessons in comic books.

(OTOH, I have a bit of a skewed view on this- I was reading at the college level in second grade, so I had read the Illiad and the LotR books by age 8.)

Besides, its not as if comics are just for kids. There is also nothing wrong with having the myriad of Spider-Man titles offerring storylines of varying sophistication. One could be exclusively for the kiddies, one for Y-A audiences, and still others could be for the 18+ age group.

 

[The_Universe]

It seems to me that we're comparing apples to steaks, here.

D&D is a game, and at best a hobby - not an art form, or a literary expression, or whatever.

Asking whether D&D needs to "grow up" is like asking whether or not Model Train hobbyists should try to increase their social relevance - kind of ridiculous.

 

[Tervin]

It seems to me that we're comparing apples to steaks, here.

D&D is a game, and at best a hobby - not an art form, or a literary expression, or whatever.

Asking whether D&D needs to "grow up" is like asking whether or not Model Train hobbyists should try to increase their social relevance - kind of ridiculous.

Just like a grocery list is not a poem or a passport photo is not fit for an art gallery, most roleplaying isn't art. On the other hand, I have seen and taken part in roleplaying that was using artistic techniques from drama and literature, in ways that made it be called art.

In no way is "artistic" RP better than other RP. It also seems to be a lot more rare now than 10-15 years ago. No need to say it doesn't exist though.