Author: Graham Wills (---.covad.net)
Date: 06-20-2004 12:49
Thinking abour roleplaying as art, I notice an essential difference between roleplaying and other activities that are commonly seen as art. It seems to me that roleplaying is far more introverted than other arts. In general, the product of an artistic process is designed/intended/ends up being appreciated more by those who did not produce it than those who do. Dance, music, poetry, sculpture ... all the traditional arts need an audience. Roleplaying does not require appreciation by outsiders. Frequently it defies appreciation by outsiders.
Is it art if I paint something and no-one else ever sees it? Is it art if I perfect my rendition of all of Shakespeare's kings, but allow no-one to see them? Is it art if I am perfect at Iaido, but no-one knows?
My contention is that art requires an audience. Its goal is communication of beauty, whether intentionally created or accidental, and that without that communication -- or at the very least without the attempt at communication -- it is not art. It is simply a way of pleasing ourselves, and the value of it is not the value in artistic terms, it is the utilitarian value which is simply the pleasure achieved.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No beholder equals no beauty equals no art.
When we rolepaly, we are successful when and only when *we* say we are successful. We never ask a critic to appreciate our art; we never say "well, we all hated it, but I guess it was a good session". It is almost always self-evaluated.
This is a not a bad thing. When I read a book (an artistic product) the act of reading is not in and of itself artistic. It is a simple utilitarian pusuit. I enjoyed it, therefore it was good. I did not enjoy the reading, therefore it was a waste of time. I can have an unsuccessful reading of an artistically successful book, and I can have a successful reading of an artistically bad book -- the value of the reading is self-generated.
Roleplaying is the same. It is not the same as improvised theater; it is fundamentally different from building a narrative; it is to be judged not by criteria of beauty, but by criteria of utility.
If you played a session in which you played cannibals slowly eating each other as you starve to death in an icy wasteland. If you invested so much energy into it that it affected your life, disturbed your dreams and you regard it now as a tremendous act of creation, of self-realization and group interaction, you have not created any more art than the person who ran through tombs of horror in only three characters, in a session where out-of-character quotes from Princess Bride and Star Wars were les mots du jour. If you both enjoyed it the same amount, and if no-one else can appreciate it, then your utility was high and the artistic value was both the same: Zero.
When I see regular sessions at Gen Con where we have featured roleplayers playing character, and people watch and appreciate theses sessions, then I will see art. But when 99.9% of all roleplaying is best described by "you had to be there", I see no art, just fun.
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