Aberzanzorax
Hero
I do have a reason to potentially exclude RPG products, which I came upon while mulling over a potential RPG product.
For RPGs, there is the product, and then there is the experience of using that product. The experience is much more variable than, say, the experience of seeing the Mona Lisa, or even of playing the same video game.
One might contend that the art in rpgs...that the very medium we're discussing...is NOT the product itself. Instead, the art is the "game experience" and is as much the product of the players and the GM as it is of the designers of the game/book.
As an example...a musical instrument itself is not commonly a piece of art. (One might argue that a Stradivarius or other exquisitely created instrument is itself art...but I digress.) Mozart's sheet music is art, in a way certainly, and he is the creator...but it is inaccessible as art until it is performed.
A clever recipe that makes an eater think new things about the expression and experience of eating is in its truer artistic form not on the page of directions, but in the creation of the dish.
So, asking us to name an RPG is akin to asking us to point to the directions for a (fantastic and artistic) culinary recipe or set of sheet music. Yes, the artistry is there in a latent state, but it only becomes meaningful when it is expressed through it's intended, separate medium (of food or of music). The medium for rpgs is in the playing.
All that said...of course Mozart did create art when writing his symphonies. As such, and while difficult, it is possible to see in an rpg product this same potential. Just as a high school band could butcher Mozart, so too could poor GMs and players butcher a game. In understanding an rpg as art, one needs to consider how it would play at its best by talented "musicians" or "cooks"...talented and skilled rpgers.
I still need to think on this some more before nominating a product. However, I'll say that I'm considering two different potentials, and may propose one of each:
1. Adventures. This is more likely to create a shared experience, elucidating a similar artistic "message" or feeling. It has a story, it has characters, it may have an intended meaning or subtext representative of some greater phenomenon.
2. Roleplaying game systems. This is more likely to address deeper foundations than a single adventure, but the experience will diverge more (and as the earlier part of my post describes, it is the experience of playing that is the truer "art" in RPGs). However, art isn't intended to provide the same meaning or messge to every member of its audience. When I think of "deeper meaning" in systems, the failings of man often come up as an artistic message. Vampire and Mage (probably all of WW's systems in WoD) address grappling with one's dark side and losing humanity/innocence and the reality of the world versus one's bending of that reality. Call of Cthulhu addresses descent into madness (primarily as horror, but this is not "painted on horror"; it is the horror innate in man's psyche).
As I said, I'll need to think more on this before I'm prepared to put forth and back a champion.
For RPGs, there is the product, and then there is the experience of using that product. The experience is much more variable than, say, the experience of seeing the Mona Lisa, or even of playing the same video game.
One might contend that the art in rpgs...that the very medium we're discussing...is NOT the product itself. Instead, the art is the "game experience" and is as much the product of the players and the GM as it is of the designers of the game/book.
As an example...a musical instrument itself is not commonly a piece of art. (One might argue that a Stradivarius or other exquisitely created instrument is itself art...but I digress.) Mozart's sheet music is art, in a way certainly, and he is the creator...but it is inaccessible as art until it is performed.
A clever recipe that makes an eater think new things about the expression and experience of eating is in its truer artistic form not on the page of directions, but in the creation of the dish.
So, asking us to name an RPG is akin to asking us to point to the directions for a (fantastic and artistic) culinary recipe or set of sheet music. Yes, the artistry is there in a latent state, but it only becomes meaningful when it is expressed through it's intended, separate medium (of food or of music). The medium for rpgs is in the playing.
All that said...of course Mozart did create art when writing his symphonies. As such, and while difficult, it is possible to see in an rpg product this same potential. Just as a high school band could butcher Mozart, so too could poor GMs and players butcher a game. In understanding an rpg as art, one needs to consider how it would play at its best by talented "musicians" or "cooks"...talented and skilled rpgers.
I still need to think on this some more before nominating a product. However, I'll say that I'm considering two different potentials, and may propose one of each:
1. Adventures. This is more likely to create a shared experience, elucidating a similar artistic "message" or feeling. It has a story, it has characters, it may have an intended meaning or subtext representative of some greater phenomenon.
2. Roleplaying game systems. This is more likely to address deeper foundations than a single adventure, but the experience will diverge more (and as the earlier part of my post describes, it is the experience of playing that is the truer "art" in RPGs). However, art isn't intended to provide the same meaning or messge to every member of its audience. When I think of "deeper meaning" in systems, the failings of man often come up as an artistic message. Vampire and Mage (probably all of WW's systems in WoD) address grappling with one's dark side and losing humanity/innocence and the reality of the world versus one's bending of that reality. Call of Cthulhu addresses descent into madness (primarily as horror, but this is not "painted on horror"; it is the horror innate in man's psyche).
As I said, I'll need to think more on this before I'm prepared to put forth and back a champion.
Last edited:
