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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 8211955" data-attributes="member: 18182">Eh.Are there fans, of any art form, who take on an air of expertise they don't possess, and use it to unfairly criticize art they consume? Sure. I certainly see plenty of that on this and other RPG forums. I don't think that's what [USER=7029838]@Pleroma[/USER] is talking about however. I think they are saying that the average person, or perhaps the average RPG fan, couldn't recognize quality it it walked up and bit them on the nose. Which is utter elitist crap.Many of our most revered pieces of art over the centuries began as "trash loved by the ignorant masses", only over time and popularity they take on the patina of unquestioned quality. Shakespeare is a great example of this. I'm not saying that any particular RPG book is the next "Hamlet" . . . but to dismiss what the "average person" likes as not possible of containing quality, and to dismiss the "average person's" ability to recognize quality . . . utter elitist crap.What makes something a quality piece of art is pretty damn subjective. What's quality to me? Something that I like and gives me pleasure. It might be riddled with spelling errors and bad grammar, it might be derivative of other art, it might be illustrated with "cheap" drawings . . . but if I get enjoyment and pleasure out of it, it's a quality piece of art. You might not take the same pleasure and enjoyment out of the same work, and find that it's not a quality piece for you. Doesn't make me wrong.Expertise in art is real . . . but overrated. How many cult-classic movies were trashed by the expert reviewers? The entire sci-fi and fantasy genres were denigrated for decades by literary experts, and now they are a dominant art form in books, comics, movies, television, and games.When an expert reviews a work of art, including a tabletop role-playing game book, they aren't really telling you whether it's quality or not, objectively. They are telling you whether THEY find it a quality work, according to THEIR tastes. The only value their opinion holds is that if, over time, I find that their tastes tend to align with mine, and I can trust that their judgement is a valid predictor of my own enjoyment of a work. That's it.EDIT: I'll add . . . an expert can, sometimes, deconstruct a work and point out elements of it that I might not notice on my own. This can be useful when I'm deciding whether I'll enjoy the art myself. This doesn't require expertise, but is more easily accomplished with expertise. I certainly don't mean to say that expertise itself is a fantasy, but I do feel that it's often overrated.The "false expertise" or "unearned expertise" you mention some fans take on . . . . attempts to deconstruct a work in such a manner, but often focuses on things that are not really there or not going to overly affect someone's enjoyment. The best RPG example I can think of is all the cries of "it's broken!" when assessing new rules elements for D&D, or any other game. Are they? Are they really? To the point where my fun will be ruined if I use them in my game?</blockquote>

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