Is D&D Art?

[CuRoi]

I believe it is creating art - it's why I require my players to refer to certain spells in their generic form, such as "Acid Arrow", "Magic Aura", "Faithful Hound", "Secret Chest" etc. Lawsuits are a real drag when attempting to play your weekly game....

Seriously though I'll vote Art. Intentional or not, I have seen lots of things called "art" and I see no reason why an RPG session with acting, creative play, storytelling, entertainment, controversy, artistic expression, etc. isn't also art. It's highly subjective of course, but again, that's art.

 

[Janx]

A popular contemporary definition for art is "If you define art, you limit it to less than what it is."

In other words, it's been "smurfed". The term has no limiting definition. If I call it art, it is art. If you say it isn't, it isn't.

What I posted was more about the language and ideas within which historically art has been discussed. Art doesn't require the concepts of this language, but demanding something be art can often shrink our ideas and conversations to these particulars and I don't care for that. Ditto for narratives.

your first definition smells like a double edged sword. being advisement not to think limitedly, and being a cop-out that someone can claim that crap is art.

On your second statement, I suspect the second half "If you say it isn't, it isn't" isn't applicable. I think if anybody thinks it is art, it is art. Once raised to that status, its stuck there, regardless of what a naysayer says.

In any event, I mean everyone of my D&D sessions to be a work of art that entertains, moves and impresses my players. I have always done so. Is this art?


I asked my wife, a trained art person. Her answers trended toward subjectiveness on the nature of the session. A really good GM's game could be art. I asked her if every thing you make in art class is art. She said no, thinking of color charts, and even disagreed on assigned subjects(where the student is told, draw that apple). She did seem to agree that if the teacher tells me to draw the apple, and I'm so good it looks great, then technically, it's still art.

Which gets me thinking to a different tack. When did everything become Art. If you take an art appreciation class or art history, you look at sculptures and paintings. Stuff you hang on your wall or put on a pedestal.

At some point, everything else became Art, too.

In this vein, Performing Artists aren't. They are rappers, singers, vocalists, musicians. They aren't artists, they are performers, and we migtht refer to their trade as an art, it's no more the Art than competitive Magic the Gathering is a Sport.

If my suspicion is right, there's some point in time (and i suspect the 20th century) where before that, art was paintings and stuff, and writing was fiction, music was music, and theatre was theatre.

If I can nitpick that D&D isn't a game because it lacks a definitive winner/loser competition trait, than it also isn't Art because you can't put it in a museum.

 

[prosfilaes]

If my suspicion is right, there's some point in time (and i suspect the 20th century) where before that, art was paintings and stuff, and writing was fiction, music was music, and theatre was theatre.

If it is so, and I don't see any evidence for it, it was long before the 20th century. The Yale Literary Magazine, 1838, called oratory an art, and The Edinburgh Review, 1840, talked about theater as an art. There's The Complete Art of Poetry, 1718, and The Greek theatre of Father Brumory, 1759, that discusses the dramatic art.

 

[Janx]

If it is so, and I don't see any evidence for it, it was long before the 20th century. The Yale Literary Magazine, 1838, called oratory an art, and The Edinburgh Review, 1840, talked about theater as an art. There's The Complete Art of Poetry, 1718, and The Greek theatre of Father Brumory, 1759, that discusses the dramatic art.

That nixes that theory. At least I tried to find an alternative line of reasoning to support "it's not art"

 

[Sepulchrave II]

My gut reaction is no.

I do not associate D&D with the word "art" in the way that I associate sculpture or music with the word "art."

I suppose a case could be made, but why bother? D&D transcends art. To categorize as merely art is to do it a disservice. D&D is a mode of being.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I suppose a case could be made, but why bother? D&D transcends art. To categorize as merely art is to do it a disservice. D&D is a mode of being.

Wait, what?

I wasn't aware the "art" descriptor was such a buzzkill.

 

[prosfilaes]

Personally? It's a game. The ultimate goal is not to produce a piece that's observable and appreciable by outsiders. It's like the paint splatter board I saw along the side of the road; I can appreciate it aesthetically, and could imagine it in a museum, but it was just trash, not art.

The Harvard Natural History Museum has a room devoted to glass replica flowers, along with replica dinosaurs and what not. None of it is art, though statues of dinosaurs or glass flowers certainly could be art if it were made for that.

 

[Hussar]

Wait, what?

I wasn't aware the "art" descriptor was such a buzzkill.

I believe he was being rather tongue in cheek.

But, to be fair, the few times I've seen people refer to their "art" when talking about gaming, it has been rather pretentious and off putting. When I make an adventure, I'm not thinking about creating a work in and of itself. It's more akin to my lesson plans for teaching a class - a series of points which I want to cover in the time alloted.

I hope that my classes are fun and productive and I hope that when I DM, it's fun and productive. But, at no point do I consider myself to be creating art.*



* Actually, that's not entirely true. I've been lurking at the cartographersguild.org site for a while now and trying (when work isn't beating the crap out of me) to do some cartography. But, that's somewhat tangential to gaming - I'm doing the maps because I like it and I like creating pretty maps (or at least attempting to do so). But, it's like mini-painting, something of a side, related project, not part of gaming itself.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I believe he was being rather tongue in cheek.

If so, I obviously missed that angle in this serious intellectual thread.

Moving on...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I bet you have. Go back to my post and read the first two paragraphs. What I describe there is a conscious decision to create art.

Artistic effort is conduct designed to elicit an emotional response in the audience observing the product. That product may be a performance, a statue, or a snow angel. It may also be a shared story created with the use of improvised descriptions, dice, and rules.

So to answer Croesus' question, if the product is designed to elicit an emotional reaction, it's art. A short story is art, whether or not it is presented as fiction. Acrobatic maneuvers can be art, depending on why the person is engaging in the acrobatics (and regardless of the locale). Making a snow angel is art. Falling down (unless you intend the result to elicit emotion, such as a Charlie Chaplin pratfall, or a painter dousing himself in paint and falling onto a canvas) is not art because it is nto intended to elicit emotion.

You mean these?

I think roleplaying game absolutely involve a conscious effort to create art. While the primary effort is to have fun, a secondary effort of any roleplaying is to entertain the other members at the table. You play a character to get a positive reaction from the other players and the DM. You are trying to evoke an emotional response, whether it's kudos on a clever solution to an obstacle, laughs from a particularly funny antic, or even expressions of sympathy when something tragic occurs.

The DM, particularly, is attempting to evoke an emotional response from the players because that's how a DM involves players in the story. The players are being induced to feel concern for their own characters or the NPCs, fear of what may happen next, surprise when it happens, tension as the conflict is resolved, and release when it is over. These are the classic elements of art according to Aristotle, and I think it applies to D&D and any other role-playing game.

I read 'em. I didn't agree with them, therefore, I stand by my statement.

The conscious effort I put into campaign design is to create a fun game environment, not art. The effort I put into PC design is to create a fun game piece, not art.

That something evokes an emotional response, induces feelings of concern, fear of what may happen next, surprise when it happens, tension as the conflict is resolved, and release when it is over, even intentionally, does not automatically create art. Nor does any form of intentionally evoking a positive- or even negative- emotional response. See hate speech. See lies. See political or religious rhetoric.

Making a conscious effort to entertain does not automatically create art. Consider fake fart sounds made with hands, armpits and other anatomy; practical jokes; tickling, "knocking boots."

Doing these things with the added intent of creating art, OTOH...