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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9016638" data-attributes="member: 42582">My view on the making of RPGs is probably a bit different.I agree that illustrations in RPG books may be art. Perhaps also some maps.I don't think that instructional prose generally counts as art. Nor do I think technical rules design normally counts as art: I see it as (roughly) analogous to engineering. (A comparison: I admire the ingenuity of much statutory drafting; but it's not art.)I don't think that imagining things - say, owlbears - is per se art. When children imagine themselves as fairies and flit around, they are playing, but I don't think that they are per se creating art.LotR is a work of (literary) art, but I don't think Appendix B - the Tale of Years - in itself is a work of art. It's an imaginary catalogue or index of events. I don't know of many works setting out RPG settings that I would consider art. I do know of some. In RM Companion VI, there is a short extract which set out to explain the Unlife by way of a short story, the Tale of the Loremaster Elor Once-Dark. I would count it as art. I think that 1990s White Wolf books had similar sorts of fiction interludes that might well count as art.The more that an adventure module counts as a work of (literary) art, I think the less apt it is for RPGing as I understand the activity. (And the closer it becomes to something like a script or at least an outline, that might engender art through being performed.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9016638, member: 42582"] My view on the [I]making[/I] of RPGs is probably a bit different. I agree that illustrations in RPG books may be art. Perhaps also some maps. I don't think that instructional prose generally counts as art. Nor do I think technical rules design normally counts as art: I see it as (roughly) analogous to engineering. (A comparison: I admire the ingenuity of much statutory drafting; but it's not [I]art[/I].) I don't think that imagining things - say, owlbears - is per se art. When children imagine themselves as fairies and flit around, they are playing, but I don't think that they are per se creating art. LotR is a work of (literary) art, but I don't think Appendix B - the Tale of Years - in itself is a work of art. It's an imaginary catalogue or index of events. I don't know of many works setting out RPG settings that I would consider art. I do know of some. In RM Companion VI, there is a short extract which set out to explain the Unlife by way of a short story, the Tale of the Loremaster Elor Once-Dark. I would count it as art. I think that 1990s White Wolf books had similar sorts of fiction interludes that might well count as art. The more that an adventure module counts as a work of (literary) art, I think the less apt it is for RPGing as I understand the activity. (And the closer it becomes to something like a script or at least an outline, that might engender art through being performed.) [/QUOTE]

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