 Welcome to MapCrow, the RPG art show. My name is Kyle, and today we are answering the big question! Are RPGs art? Well, yes. Of course they are. But I'm going to explain how I reached that conclusion. Every now and again, I see this argument pop up. Are RPGs art? Is it just the stories that result from them? I adore these questions. I find these questions fascinating and meaningful. What I am not as impressed by is how people go about this without defining what they mean by art, games, role-playing games, and all that. So what ends up happening in this conversation is art becomes whatever I like, and if I don't like it, then it can't be art. So let's lay out the basic terms in front of us and see if we can't make sense of their basic components. And again, the point of doing this is not to use these definitions as a cudgel, to beat people into submitting to my definitions, but definitions are like any other tool that we use as artists. We swap them out for whatever is helping us to do what we need to do in front of us. And if something works better, let's try it out, let's experiment, let's swap these things out, but let's also be transparent so that we know what we're doing and we can bring other people along and explain our actions. If we break down our question into its component parts and arrange it as a sort of math problem, we can more easily diagram out what argument we are trying to make. An RPG is a game that is modified by a compound term called role-playing. Now, of course, if you're watching this video or any of these others, you probably have a pretty good understanding of what this is experientially, but we will see how all of these words interact with each other in a fascinating and complex way. A role, of course, is a function or action that is expected of something. There probably doesn't need too much explanation, but it really provides a fruitful space to reflect on later on in our definition. Our second word in our equation is where things get really interesting. Let's start with our dry, unsatisfying definition from the dictionary and then move into some fun quotations. So first off, we have play defined as a free activity within a bounded space. The neurologist Stuart Brown, who spent his career studying play, correctly points out that to define play is to rob it of its pre-linguistic qualities. That is because, of course, we all are born to play. We start playing well before we learn to start speaking or reading. So our understanding of play is before we have any kind of need for definitions as they linguistically present themselves. And so Stuart Brown says that play is more of an altered state, almost like an emotional state, more than it is an activity. It is the joy of seeking activity. It is the joy of moving or thinking or turning things around, of experimenting and experiencing. That is play, that state, not necessarily the activity of play itself. And another scholar on play, Mark Bekov says that play is the capacity to explore the possible, which isn't a thousand miles from free activity within bounded space, but golly, it sounds just a tad more interesting, doesn't it? So if play is the joyful exploration of possibilities, then role-playing is the joyful exploration of the possibilities of taking on different roles. Pretending to be a rock or a dwarf or a dwarf that's turning into a rock, that is the possibility that you are exploring for the sheer joy of it when you are role-playing. Moving on to game, I've quoted him before and I'll quote him again. Bernard Soots defines game as the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. So here was my problem. Free action within a bounded space is almost identical to the voluntary attempt to overcome an unnecessary obstacle. My question became, what is the difference between play and game? And it took me like two days of research to come close to figuring out what the differences were. There was a wonderful article that was shared on the definitions of Spiel in German. It was a German studies article, but it really laid out my exact problems. And this was by Felix Lebed. And what Felix proposes in this diagram at the end of his article is that play is this kind of umbrella term for this overall altered state that Stuart Brown is talking about. And within that, once you start adding negotiation and rules, you get to sophisticated play and then games that have like rule books to them and then like pro sports or e-sports at the middle of that, which is the most complicated and rigorous version of play. And this explains really well why I was finding the definitions of play and game so circular. They were seeming to be identical and referencing one another. And it's because they are, at least in the conceptualization of Felix Lebed, concentric circles. And as useful as I found this, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. My assumption was that games and play were going to be completely separate and independent concepts. And of course, they turned out not to be. This wonderful metaphor emerged from our conversation. That is that play is the rug that ties the room together, like in the Big Lebowski. It is a component, it is separate from the room, but without that rug, the room isn't defined. It isn't itself. It isn't tied together with anything. It's a box, but it's not the room that you love. So when we talk about games, we're talking about the book. We're talking about the experience. We're talking about the art. We are talking about the social contracts and memes. We're talking about all of that, but it is all tied together through play. Play is the rug that ties the game together. So a role-playing game is a set of obstacles for you to overcome in a role of someone or something else. And we do this for the sheer joy of it. And that is the scenic route to the shortest definition of role-playing game I can think of. Now we have completely solved the left part of our equation. So let's see how that lines up and describes the right part of our equation. What does art mean and could it be described by a role-playing game? I'm going to skip a lot of the drier definitions of art out there and simply state that art is something that conveys subjectivity. Subjectivity is not just a point of view. It is also that emotional state around that point of view. I would also like to quote from Joan Ritalik's poem, How to Tell the Truth That is a Strange Experimental Fiction. Now I don't believe this is supposed to be the definition of art by Joan, but I'm deploying it here as such. This poem also describes my attitude towards definitions. It is an experimental friction. It is something that we try to use to slow down and really observe something and see what truths we can experiment with and what we might learn about ourselves through that. And then there's the quotation from Pierre Ewe, the relational aesthetics artist, who says the purpose of art is to increase the presence of what is. Sometimes art is increasing the presence of something that is beautiful. Sometimes art is increasing the presence of something that is ugly. Sometimes it's pointing out a problem. Sometimes it's pointing out a mystery. Sometimes it's pointing out something that you might forget if somebody didn't draw a picture of it or write a symphony about it. So are role-playing games art? I mean, like I said already, yes. But the reason I'm saying that is because role-playing games increase the presence of the joy of playing at something else. Maybe that something else is something we need or lack, like power or rest or beauty or impact or relaxation or friends. RPGs don't need a lot, just a couple of rules to outline what the unnecessary obstacles are. And those unnecessary obstacles oftentimes convey a subjectivity about what is exciting or what might be forgotten without them. So are RPGs art? What else could they be? Given my specific parameters and definition, I can win any argument as long as I'm the one who gets to set the definitions. So you crack open that equation from earlier and you swap out some different definitions and you could end up with a completely different conclusion and by all means do so in the comments below. And also, let me know what you think of what we did today. I was afraid it was going to be a bit dry, but I was getting really into it and I hope you were too. But if you would like me to get back to some map tutorials or something like that, just let me know what we're doing. I'm kind of making this up as I go along and having a heck of a lot of fun doing it. So until next time, get out there and find some experimental frictions.