This was just pointed out to me.
er... wha?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CVrP7NgSjc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CVrP7NgSjc)
QuoteJason Corley, Ara Kooser and Meguey Baker will discuss the idea of RPGs as Folk Art. Jason offered these thoughts on the subject:
"...much RPG play has significant similarities with folk art:
* fulfills a utilitarian or enjoyment-focused function instead of an aesthetic one (i.e. RPG players don't generally take acting classes, improv classes or writing classes to try to be better players and value performances not based on the quality of their work but on their enjoyment of doing it).
* primarily passed on through mentorship in small face to face communities instead of training within established artistic institutions
* characterized by a naive style, rather than following even the most basic traditional rules of performance, creation or even competitive gameplay
* intended almost exclusively for the consumption of a small audience
The folk art I particularly am thinking of having the biggest connection to RPGs is the parlor performance (and parlor game playing!) culture of the 19th century middle class, but there are many other strands that I think contribute. And I am eager to learn more!"
I get what they are getting at. But it sounds like they are painting RPGs in really broad strokes. At over a half hour...
In the past I've thought about similarities with the 'paper theaters' that were very popular for a while, back before TV and radio... also with folks who play musical instruments together at home... but never made the folk art connection.
Well I guess then we can classify Geezer/whateverhescallednow's sessions of OD&D as comedy sitcom? ;)
Quote from: Omega;850608I get what they are getting at. But it sounds like they are painting RPGs in really broad strokes. At over a half hour...
This reads like the confused struggling of a person who neither plays RPGs nor actually does folk art.
I agree there are similarities. Other than a pedantic desire to formally pigeon hole all human activity or the need to find a topic so someone can write a thesis, or any thesis so they can graduate, I just don't get why we should care whether or not RPGs are folk art. If it makes your little heart glow to call what you are doing folk art or if it makes it easier for you to explain what you do every Saturday night to Great Aunt Maudie by calling it folk art, by all means go right ahead. Just don't expect most of us to give a rat's ass for the definition.
Personally I call it a hobby.
It seems similar to hobbies like model railroading or miniatures wargaming to me. And when the hobby started out you could often go to a store that sold all three. Sometimes called, a hobby store. If I was looking, I'd look for folk art supplies at Michael's or in a Quilter's catalog or something.
Quote from: Bren;850631This reads like the confused struggling of a person who neither plays RPGs nor actually does folk art.
I agree there are similarities. Other than a pedantic desire to formally pigeon hole all human activity or the need to find a topic so someone can write a thesis, or any thesis so they can graduate, I just don't get why we should care whether or not RPGs are folk art. If it makes your little heart glow to call what you are doing folk art or if it makes it easier for you to explain what you do every Saturday night to Great Aunt Maudie by calling it folk art, by all means go right ahead. Just don't expect most of us to give a rat's ass for the definition.
Personally I call it a hobby.
It seems similar to hobbies like model railroading or miniatures wargaming to me. And when the hobby started out you could often go to a store that sold all three. Sometimes called, a hobby store. If I was looking, I'd look for folk art supplies at Michael's or in a Quilter's catalog or something.
I am no art expert, but my instinct is RPGs are more in the hobby/game end of the spectrum. I suppose there is an arts and crafts element to a lot of what goes into it (who hasn't made a castle from a milk carton and some toothpicks). I also tend to think of game design as a craft. But Hobby captures it best I think. Maybe a hobby where you kind of dabble in things that can veer into art.
I will say this though, every once in a while a book comes along that is so striking and transformative in the hobby that I might almost describe it as being art in the sense that has this huge impact and is a kind of landmark. I also think every once in a while when you design games, you invest so much time, emotion and vision that it feels an awful lot like an artistic pursuit (judging by my own experience with art from writing music and performing). So I can see it there. I would still use the term craft myself, but that is somewhat of a pedantic distinction.
Largely I think this comes down to how people understand what they are doing. If someone sees their gaming as art, that isn't going to take any time away from my day. I just have trouble seeing it as such myself. I can understand how people might feel that way though.
I think my artist muscles get more work with wargames... building terrain and painting miniatures and whatnot. Lots of crafting supplies at work there. Not so much with RPGs.
Quote from: Simlasa;850645I think my artist muscles get more work with wargames... building terrain and painting miniatures and whatnot. Lots of crafting supplies at work there. Not so much with RPGs.
There is certainly more of that in war-games, but plenty of people build terrain, paint miniatures, etc for RPGs. There is also mapping, which can get pretty involved for those who get into it.
I'm the wrong person. I don't even think illustrations are art.
:D
-clash
Let's start with a definition of Folk Art...
WIKIPEDIA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_art
"Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic."
DICTIONARY.COM
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/folk+art
"artistic works, as paintings, sculpture, basketry, and utensils, produced typically in cultural isolation by untrained often anonymous artists or by artisans of varying degrees of skill and marked by such attributes as highly decorative design, bright bold colors, flattened perspective, strong forms in simple arrangements, and immediacy of meaning."
GOOD DISCUSSION OF FOLK ART (now and then)
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/definitions/folk-art.htm
I live in a rural area with a small college city surrounded by very small towns. I've played (And had great times) with a lot of isolated groups who have been playing D&D 2nd ed, Rifts, White Wolf 1st ed, or even SPI DragonQuest since those games first came out without ever switching to a more modern system, groups who have never heard of RPG.net, never heard of G/N/S theory, and don't give a flying fuck if their fun is fashionable or "Correct". A lot of these groups tend to have "Auteur" gamemasters who have very distinctive styles, trademark houserules, and their own obsessions that travel from game to game regardless of genre. Often this auteur is the guy who was the first person to bring role-playing to the town, like a nerd Johnny Appleseed.
So I gotta admit this actually makes quite a bit of sense to me.
Quote from: Bren;850631Other than a pedantic desire to formally pigeon hole all human activity or the need to find a topic so someone can write a thesis, or any thesis so they can graduate, I just don't get why we should care whether or not RPGs are folk art.
Right. Effing. Here.
Quote from: flyingmice;850676I'm the wrong person. I don't even think illustrations are art.
:D
-clash
Orf with 'iz 'ead!:mad:
I don't see 'art' as some exalted/rarefied thing that's only done by 'artists'... so I guess I'm a lot looser on calling things 'art' if the folks doing them are exercising creativity while doing them.
Quote from: Simlasa;850817I don't see 'art' as some exalted/rarefied thing that's only done by 'artists'... so I guess I'm a lot looser on calling things 'art' if the folks doing them are exercising creativity while doing them.
Ive had a couple of game designers and artists pull the following.
"If you arent being payed then you are not a real designer/artist. You are just a hobbyist/amateur." some taking it further and claiming "If you arent being payed by a publisher. then you are not a real designer/artist. You are just a hobbyist/amateur."
Quote from: Omega;850901Ive had a couple of game designers and artists pull the following.
"If you arent being payed then you are not a real designer/artist. You are just a hobbyist/amateur." some taking it further and claiming "If you arent being payed by a publisher. then you are not a real designer/artist. You are just a hobbyist/amateur."
I've heard plenty of artists say the opposite... if it's work for hire it isn't true art. Both sound like bullshit to me... having had gallery shows, unpaid projects AND art jobs with a paycheck.
Creating art for a living makes you a professional artist. That tells us that your art is popular (mass popularity, a niche population willing to spend more, or a deep pocketed patron are just different types of popularity). Pet rocks were also really popular. Everyone over the age of [pick some number in the low 2 digits] should know that popular and great art are not the same (for any non tautological definition of great art).
And artists are as prone (if not more) as the general population to saying something stupid and asinine to reinforce their own self-worth.
I can see the "folk art" tag applying to individual products within the rpg realm. Something like The Crossroads Region Gazeteer for The Mutant Epoch for example sure seems like a piece of folk art to me - pretty much a one man creation and full of his individual style. I don't really think rpg gaming sessions in general are "art" of any sort really.
Why do games need to be art at all? Can't they just be what they are? Games. People play them, they have fun.
Quote from: Omega;850616Well I guess then we can classify Geezer/whateverhescallednow's sessions of OD&D as comedy sitcom? ;)
Well, duh!
Quote from: Intergalactic Threat;850950Why do games need to be art at all? Can't they just be what they are? Games. People play them, they have fun.
Sure. I agree ftmp. However, I think things get a little problematic because so often when someone designates something as "not art" they are really saying that thing is trivial, not meaningful, not worth the paper it's written on, etc. It's more often than not a way for someone to dis a thing they don't appreciate or understand - sort of like when Roger Ebert said videogames aren't art but movies are. In the grand scheme of things, who cares? But still there's a weird defensiveness that can arise...
But yeah, I don't feel like there's any real need for rpgs to be called "art" of any sort. Its ok to just be a hobby...
Quote from: Intergalactic Threat;850950Why do games need to be art at all? Can't they just be what they are? Games. People play them, they have fun.
Agreed. :D
Quote from: Omega;850901Ive had a couple of game designers and artists pull the following.
"If you arent being payed then you are not a real designer/artist. You are just a hobbyist/amateur." some taking it further and claiming "If you arent being payed by a publisher. then you are not a real designer/artist. You are just a hobbyist/amateur."
It'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.
Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;850962Sure. I agree ftmp. However, I think things get a little problematic because so often when someone designates something as "not art" they are really saying that thing is trivial, not meaningful, not worth the paper it's written on, etc. It's more often than not a way for someone to dis a thing they don't appreciate or understand - sort of like when Roger Ebert said videogames aren't art but movies are. In the grand scheme of things, who cares? But still there's a weird defensiveness that can arise...
But yeah, I don't feel like there's any real need for rpgs to be called "art" of any sort. Its ok to just be a hobby...
I just find the notions that a) games should be art and b) if they aren't art they are inferior to be completely ridiculous.
Art would seem to imply the game most offer a particular experience, something that makes people think XY or Z. I find that contradictory to the premise of an rpg. That's not to say that games can't or shouldn't have themes or offer commentary, but i don't need or seek those things from games. I like the WoD/nWoD series, but I never once played them from the perspective of getting any kind of message. I treated Vampire almost as a superhero game: the pc's were dark protagonists almost in the Marvel comics vein. They didn't comment on the nature of morality and I didn't need them to.
Quote from: Intergalactic Threat;850950Why do games need to be art at all? Can't they just be what they are? Games. People play them, they have fun.
On this, we can agree completely.
Playing a role-playing game is pretty damn different from playing basketball or playing poker in that it involves creative expression - often a ton of creative expression - drawing maps, writing up background, creating characters, improvising in-character dialogue, etc.
I've certainly seen people badmouth those who play in detailed worlds like Tekumel or Harn by saying "Why should I read hundreds of pages of background? It's just a *GAME*!!!" - as if using the word "game" somehow defines what should or shouldn't be done.
The point is, some people find working with involved detail rewarding.
Quote from: Intergalactic Threat;850968I just find the notions that a) games should be art and b) if they aren't art they are inferior to be completely ridiculous.
Art would seem to imply the game most offer a particular experience, something that makes people think XY or Z. I find that contradictory to the premise of an rpg. That's not to say that games can't or shouldn't have themes or offer commentary, but i don't need or seek those things from games.
That seems like a strange definition of art to me. I don't see how a painting or a jazz set necessarily makes people think XY or Z - even if its the Mona Lisa or a John Coltrane riff.
Quote from: jhkim;851000The point is, some people find working with involved detail rewarding.
Yes...and?
I totally agree that some people like detail. I certainly do. But I'm not following what point you think that fact supports nor if nor how it relates to whether or not RPGs are folk art. Please can you unpack that?
Quote from: Bren;850631This reads like the confused struggling of a person who neither plays RPGs nor actually does folk art.
Ding, winnah!
RPGs aren't Folk Art, nor are they a literary art form, despite what Lawsians would have you believe. The fact that creativity is involved does not an art form make.
Quote from: Bren;851008Yes...and?
I totally agree that some people like detail. I certainly do. But I'm not following what point you think that fact supports nor if nor how it relates to whether or not RPGs are folk art. Please can you unpack that?
The point is that some people use "RPGs are games" to make stupid arguments about what RPGs
should be like - just as some people use "RPGs are art" to make stupid arguments about what RPGs
should be like.
1) "It's just a game" is used sometimes to say that people shouldn't fill binder after binder with their notes and details. "It's a game" is also used sometimes to say that people shouldn't play with serious themes in the RPGs.
2) "It's art" is used sometimes to say that people shouldn't just have fun killing orcs, or shouldn't have fun just interacting with a simulated world with no deliberate theme.
Both of these are stupid arguments. RPGs are what they are. Applying the label of "game", "folk art", or other doesn't define what they should be.
Quote from: jhkim;851049The point is
Okay. That makes sense. Thanks.
QuoteApplying the label of "game", "folk art", or other doesn't define what they should be.
I don't see how "should" enters into it at all. A description is, well descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes what RPGs are. What they should be, should be up to the participants (obedience to local laws and minimal standards of safety not excepted).
Yay, I'm a folk artist! :) I have arrived.
May I soon coat my face in honey and cocaine and be a walking interactive installation at my gallery exhibit? Basquiat did it, and Andy thought it was simply mahvelous! (Or was that Billy Crystal?)
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.)