That 80's Gamer

In the midst of the 1980's, at the height of what I have referred to as my own personal golden age of gaming, I began to exhibit a perplexing behavior - that of purchasing games for the sheer sake of reading and studying them, but without ever actually playing them. I was fascinated to see what the authors had done, how they approached combat, magic and character generation, how they described their worlds and adventure scenarios, and how all the bits fit together to form their respective titles.

I began to fancy myself as something of a game "connoisseur," if such a thing can exist, and had opinions of just about every system that was then on the market. When I finished with a title though, up on the closet shelf it went, and I was off to study the next game.

I consumed as much as I could of the popular games of the day (including RuneQuest, Traveller, and Star Frontiers, to name just a few), but was particularly drawn to titles that seemed to me to be more obscure (think Powers & Perils, Lords of Creation, Star Rovers, Stalking the Night Fantastic, and High Fantasy.) I remember seeing an ad in Dragon magazine for a game called KABAL: Knights and Barbarians and Legerdemain, that had a picture of a dark forest scene with some adventurers lurking beneath the trees and, although the few reviews I have found of it are not exactly up to what I had hoped, I still regret never having obtained a copy to read through it!

When I think back on it, I can very easily liken my game "fetish" to people who collect other items of aesthetic interest to them, such as comic books, stamps, and a wide assortment of topical paraphernalia. If I stretch my imagination a bit, I can even liken my accumulation of pencil-and-paper role-playing games to the behavior practiced by collectors of music, literature, paintings, statuary and other fine art. I believe I shared a very similar kind of intellectual and sensory stimulation and satisfaction in my savoring, admiration, and appreciation of games, to that which these other people derive from their preferred objects d'art.

As I mentioned in a previous article, I am of the opinion that RPG authors can be equated to artists, and their games to works of art. There is something special about a given author's work that draws me to it, something special about their ideas, a feeling conveyed by the way that they write and express themselves, in the way they have crafted their rules and their imaginary worlds, which is what I enjoy and admire about their games.

That being the case, in this article, I would like to very respectfully disagree with the late Mr. Gygax (whom I very much appreciated and admired), and examine how I believe that traditional role-playing games, or at least elements of them, are not only capable of artistic enactment, but actually constitute "art" in their own right.

Creating Something out of Nothing

An overly simplified definition of "art," derived from my own admittedly pedestrian interpretation of the term, is something that an individual, an artist—drawing upon personal abilities and elements within him or herself—manifests in the physical world through a creative process as a means of expression. Reflective of something extant in the outer world, an idea, or symbolic of something intangible within, the end product of the artist's effort is conveyed through a variety of media and becomes available, either temporarily or in a state of greater permanence, to others to witness, observe or experience.

Like magicians, productive artists, in this mystical act of begetting, bring forth something physical from the ethereal, something temporal from the timeless, and, having completed their incantation, create something out of nothing.

This process of creation, of reaching within to produce something without, of giving worldly expression to something in one's inner self or imagination and bringing it into material being, seems to be an almost universal constant at the root and in the production of much of what we refer to as art.

This version of the artistic process, then, can be summarized as the act of bringing something one imagines into physical being, which basically describes the process of creating anything. By this definition, however, there are a multitude of things that we do not typically define as art (such as atom bombs, hammers, and toothpicks), even though the ideas for these things are begotten through a similar creative process. For this reason, it is important to emphasize that, in creating art, the artist's motivation is more likely to contain an expressive component than be purely utilitarian.

The Mob's Rules

The next most important element in terms of authenticating what constitutes art is the social agreement component. By means of consensus, it ultimately falls to us, the audience, to either accept or reject an artist's work, lending it social credibility by agreeing that the end product is indeed art, and christening it so.

Stopping short, then, of saying that everything that has ever been created is art and that everyone who created it is an artist (which may be valid from a different perspective, but is outside the scope of this article), I think it is safe to assume that a majority would agree that the fundamental building blocks used in the creation of traditional pencil-and-paper role-playing games - namely creative writing (including rules generation, especially those created with the intent of simulating real life...holding up a mirror to life, anyone?), drawing, and painting - fall into the realm of what we have collectively agreed to define as art, and that these disciplines are commonly practiced by people we both historically and contemporarily refer to as artists.

The Candy House

If I were to take an especially strong hallucinogenic (cue In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida), move to Candy Land, and build a house for myself, I could start by laying a foundation of hard toffee. I might build the walls of alternating bricks of dark and milk chocolate, add a chimney inset with jellybeans, lay down licorice carpet, and surround the property with a fence of orange sticks. Then I'd top the whole thing off with a roof made of interlaced lollipops, and outline the walkway to the street with gumdrops.

When asked what my confectionery house was made of, an out-of-town guest (one who had imbibed the same substance as I did, that is) might momentarily uncross his eyes and respond, "Uh...candy?"

Indeed, if the sum of the parts used in the construction of my candy house were all different sorts of candy, despite the constituent elements consisting of different members of the candy family, the overall structure might also rightly be categorized under the broad heading of (insert trumpet flourish)..."Candy."

In much the same way, couldn't a pencil-and-paper role-playing game book, whose elements are derived from universally recognized and agreed-upon art forms and generated by people generally referred to as artists, also be categorized as...Art?

Even if there are other supporting elements present in the makeup of a traditional RPG book (such as binding, paper, glue, a page of publishing information, layout specifics, etc.), don't many paintings, for example, also typically have a backing, frame, string, layer of glass and a nail to aid in their presentation?

A Jazzy Analogy

One of the most brilliant comments I've ever seen about RPGs was made on this site in response to one of my previous articles, where a particularly brilliant respondent stated that:

"I think of RPGs as an artform not the art itself (sic). The art is what the gamers who play the RPG do with it."

This really got me thinking. It's a wonderful sentiment, defining the ephemeral, imaginative experience of playing a traditional pencil-and-paper RPG as a type of art - one that I, being naturally liberal on the subject, would be inclined to embrace. But how could I ever substantiate that viewpoint, and convince somebody else that it could be true?

If, by virtue of the nature of their constituent components, physical pencil-and-paper role-playing game books themselves could be categorized as a type of art (contradicting the first half of Gary Gygax's statement about RPGs themselves), then categorizing the way the games are played as "art" would go smack in the face of the other half.

Not quite sure what to do with the idea, I held it in the back of my head for weeks. Then, while watching Ken Burns's 10-part documentary Jazz for the third or fourth time through, it suddenly dawned on me.

At the beginning of the first episode in the series, Wynton Marsalis states:

"The real power of Jazz, and the innovation of Jazz, is that a group of people can come together and create art - improvised art - and can negotiate their agendas with each other, and that negotiation is the art."

I propose the same is true of traditional RPGs.

Like Jazz musicians who bring their different instruments, talents and personalities to a jam session to interact with each other in the context of a particular song, or improvise within a common framework such as the 12 bar blues, don't gamers also bring their individual personalities, knowledge, and imaginations to the gaming table, to interact and work with each other to create an imaginary adventure, within the context of a particular set of game rules?

In Jazz music, which is universally regarded as a true American art form, the product of the musicians' collaboration is auditory, emotional and intellectual, arises from a creative process wherein the participants create something out of nothing, is achieved through a combination of their inner qualities, imaginations and external instruments, is imbued with the intent to express something, and is experienced by all present. I would argue that the product of gamers' efforts during a traditional role-playing game session is exactly the same, with the singular exception that, instead of wielding trumpets, drums, and saxophones, gamers use characters as their instruments of self-expression!

Now, it may be a stretch (and perhaps a bit pretentious) to call players who gather together to participate in a traditional role-playing game "artists," although we frequently use the term to describe musicians who come together to play. I have no real way of knowing, but I'm pretty sure Gary Gygax wasn't interested in being categorized as, or simply didn't see himself as an artist. I think he was a rare genius, a kind of visionary. I also think he was extraordinary humble. I myself have gotten quite good at cooking, for example, over the years, and am capable of preparing some very delicious homemade dishes from scratch. Still, I would not categorize myself as a chef, or the products of my kitchen as "cuisine."

But in the enactment of a traditional role-playing game, if you add to the inherent similarities it bears to the art form that is Jazz music the fact that the GM is storytelling and that everyone is playacting to a certain degree (activities also accepted as art forms in their own right), you begin to build a very compelling case that blurs the line between what is art, and what is not.

Conclusion:

Ready your pin and prepare pop my head, if you must. I simply don't think there is anything wrong, damaging or inaccurate in categorizing traditional RPGs as an art form, in either their physical manifestation or in the way that they are played. In fact, I think it does a great justice to the gaming hobby, and lends prestige to the creative work that many talented people around the world perform, enjoy and love.

If you can't tell, I find the deliberation as to whether or not RPGs constitute art to be exceedingly interesting and thought provoking. Whether the masses agree that RPGs are art, or whether they take an opposing viewpoint, doesn't especially matter. What's important is that it's a discussion that wouldn't take place if people didn't care deeply about the subject. In the end, I have come to the conclusion that if you yourself appreciate pencil-and-paper RPGs as art, then for you, that's exactly what they are.

So, to reiterate, do I think traditional RPGs are art? Yes, absolutely. Do I think the people who create them are artists? Without a doubt. I might even go so far as to categorize someone who puts together an entire pencil-and-paper RPG book by themselves (meaning all the elements from the writing to the illustration to the cover design to the editing and publishing, etc.) as a Renaissance Man (or Woman).

What do you think?

Afterword:

The previous installment of That 80's Gamer (#4: What's Your RPG Type) squeaked through the site in the midst of the holidays, so if you happen to be following this column and didn't catch it, I wanted to mention that it is there - a small, leftover present still wrapped and buried in the fake snow beneath the lingering Christmas tree (so please open it...and take that darn tree down already, will ya?)

Till next time, have fun, and thanks for reading!