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<blockquote data-quote="Misanthrope Prime" data-source="post: 9599721" data-attributes="member: 6776166">I have a background in philosophy, literary studies and art criticism. I firmly believe games are art, tabletop games are art and D&amp;D is art.There is the notion of a separation of &quot;high&quot; and &quot;low&quot; art- contrast the images we associate with &quot;opera&quot; to what we associate with &quot;folk songs.&quot; High art is significantly more respected than &quot;low art&quot; (though one could argue that in the modern era low art is far more useful for propaganda), and any new art form that seeks prestige will attempt to present itself as high art. High art is defined, in part, by its canonicity (hence where we get the nerd fandom term &quot;canon&quot;); that there are iconic works in an art form that everyone knows and if you know anything about art, you know the canonical examples inside and out. A big part of artistic canons are the personages and figures we associate with art; a canon is a codified mythology and a pantheon of gods at once.We as RPG fans trying to prove our worth with a nascent artform, barely 50 years old, are attempting to create and assert our canon in order to have the art be seen as &quot;high&quot;. To do that, we engage in hagiographic appeals to authority, picking guys who were, frankly, just schlubby midwestern nerds and treating them like philosophers treat Plato or political scientists treat Machiavelli.TLDR: The idea of &quot;Gary Gygax&quot; as a great artist is significantly more important to the rhetoric of tabletop games and the cultural position of tabletop games than the man made of meat ever was or ever will be.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Misanthrope Prime, post: 9599721, member: 6776166"] I have a background in philosophy, literary studies and art criticism. I firmly believe games are art, tabletop games are art and D&D is art. There is the notion of a separation of "high" and "low" art- contrast the images we associate with "opera" to what we associate with "folk songs." High art is significantly more respected than "low art" (though one could argue that in the modern era low art is far more useful for propaganda), and any new art form that seeks prestige will attempt to present itself as high art. High art is defined, in part, by its [I]canonicity[/I] (hence where we get the nerd fandom term "canon"); that there are iconic works in an art form that everyone knows and if you know anything about art, you know the canonical examples inside and out. A big part of artistic canons are the personages and figures we associate with art; a canon is a codified mythology and a pantheon of gods at once. We as RPG fans trying to prove our worth with a nascent artform, barely 50 years old, are attempting to create and assert our canon in order to have the art be seen as "high". To do that, we engage in hagiographic appeals to authority, picking guys who were, frankly, just schlubby midwestern nerds and treating them like philosophers treat Plato or political scientists treat Machiavelli. TLDR: [B]The idea of "Gary Gygax" as a great artist is significantly more important to the rhetoric of tabletop games and the cultural position of tabletop games than the man made of meat ever was or ever will be.[/B] [/QUOTE]

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