Quote from: Ravenswing;850965It's nothing new.  I moderated a panel at Worldcon once about writing games for licensed properties, and someone tried to tell me that I was an "author" for my Conan solo.  I said no, I'd written a solo adventure, but I wasn't inclined to put on airs over it, and certainly wasn't going to consider myself in the same category as the published SF&F authors of the world.  Steve Jackson interjected that he'd thought I'd done a good job on it (herewith the irony, because he was the chap who paid me to write it ), but my take was that it didn't matter: I thought myself I'd done a good job in mimicking RAH's voice, but that still didn't make me an "author" -- a good craftsman, maybe, but that was as much as I claimed for myself.

And that panel was over 25 years ago now.

It's auteur, by the way. :rolleyes:

And besides, if RPGs are wrong folk art — in an age when crocheted vaginas and maxipad slippers are welcomed — I don't wanna be right.
:cool:
(Unless you have a pair of size 12 maxipad platform slippers... that shit is cooshy soft. I could totally trade up for that.)

Yep. Comedy Sitcom.

Quote from: Opaopajr;851067...crocheted vaginas...

I don't even want to know which craft store or catalog sells vaginas so you can crotchet them. And I am trying like crazy to not imagine how crocheting 'em would even work.

P.S. Opaopajr, you really need to spend less time watching the Human Centipede series. Maybe take up a hobby or something...

You know, about ten years ago there was a flurry of letters in Model Railroader magazine about whether or not model railroading is art, or folk art, or whatever.

After about six months to a year it died out utterly, because over 90% of the respondents said "Who cares?"

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;851092After about six months to a year it died out utterly, because over 90% of the respondents said "Who cares?"

From what I've seen, even in the 'art world' there are folks who will happily sit around and blather about 'what is art?' and 'Is Soandso an artist?'... but they're generally people who aren't making anything whereas the folks who are busy doing it don't much worry about it.

Quote from: Bren;851080I don't even want to know which craft store or catalog sells vaginas so you can crotchet them. And I am trying like crazy to not imagine how crocheting 'em would even work.

P.S. Opaopajr, you really need to spend less time watching the Human Centipede series. Maybe take up a hobby or something...

Don't you know about the knitting projects that were all the rage a few years ago? People got really good at representing reproductive parts through fabric arts. Some made uteri with proper fallopian tubes and detailed vulva. It was really a marvel.

Almost as amazing as anatomically correct "Birth Cakes," cakes in the shape of a pregnant woman giving birth.

Quote from: Opaopajr;851118Don't you know about the knitting projects that were all the rage a few years ago? People got really good at representing reproductive parts through fabric arts. Some made uteri with proper fallopian tubes and detailed vulva. It was really a marvel.

Knitting with fabric. That's a relief. Somehow I appeared to miss that particular movement.

I consider what I do home grown DIY maker entertainment. Art? I'll leave that up to the people who show up at my table. Do I try to make a narrative point when I run or play? Always. Do I get upset if people don't get it? Not in the least. It's entertainment, man, relax. People dancing in the streets during a party is art too, but that doesn't mean it has to be serious. It's just people having fucking fun.

It's also punk and DIY as fuck because you make it with your hands. No DLCs here. You make it!

That's why I love gaming.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;851092You know, about ten years ago there was a flurry of letters in Model Railroader magazine about whether or not model railroading is art, or folk art, or whatever.

After about six months to a year it died out utterly, because over 90% of the respondents said "Who cares?"

I've always heard the rumors that some of the fights in the model railroading hobby make the fights in the RPG hobby seem like a teddy bears' picnic by comparison.

Argh. More arguments about mindsets and definitions, with angst creeping in from our nasty economic model.

To me, art is doing or appreciating anything for more than it literally is. A cat can artfully chose how to spawl in a certain spot, and a cat-spawl-appreciater can experience it as art. Someone stacking rocks can be thought of as an artist, or not, in any number of ways.

Writing that some activity can be seen as folk art, is just a suggestion for a way to look at something. It doesn't need to be accepted, rejected, nor taken as invalidating other ways of looking at the same thing. If someone appreciates the artfulness of your game illustrations, maps, or game design, it doesn't mean you have to care or stop just using them to have fun.

Arguing about what's art or not, is just annoying to me. Further invoking the "if you get paid for it" or "if you're doing it for a living" conditions in the argument, makes me welcome the well-deserved inevitable collapse of our economic system, and its replacement by something less poisoned with resentment and suffering.

Quote from: RPGPundit;853772I've always heard the rumors that some of the fights in the model railroading hobby make the fights in the RPG hobby seem like a teddy bears' picnic by comparison.

They aren't rumors. Been there, done that, joined a different model club. And this was simply a dispute about subject, not about scale - those fights are something else!:rolleyes:

Crazy!

There are about 500,000 adult model railroaders in the US.  This is a large enough number to be an accurate demographic cross section.  Since there are a lot of assholes in the US, it makes sense that there would be a lot of assholes in model railroad clubs.

Instead of "role playing vs rollplaying," it's "model railroading vs toy trains."  Your trains are toy trains because a) they are a different size (usually smaller), b) they are diesel instead of steam, c) they are plastic instead of cast metal, or best of all d) they are mass produced $200 models instead of hand crafted Japanese brass hand painted models for $1500.

What amazes me though is how people aren't just assholes face to face, but actually take time to be assholes at a distance.  When I was 15 I wrote a letter to Model Railroader.  Some son of a bitch wrote me a very nasty letter back, personally, to my home address.

Really?  You really did that?  No wonder MR no longer publishes people's addresses.

And with the internet, it's easier than ever before.  Here some poor bastard is happy that a company has come out with a certain steam engine he likes, and several people chime in just to tell him how he's wrong for being happy.

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/249836/2787989.aspx
Res ipsa loquitur.

(My handle on that forum is "Bayfield Transfer Railway."  I'm the one who tells the poor guy that the chief entertainment on the Internet is pissing on other people's fun.)