Art, Film, and the RPG

I'm going to stray a little bit from the novel and look at something I mentioned in a different page--that some take issue with the video game as being a form of art. Walter Benjamin wrote an essay about the in the world of art, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, and much of it is applicable to the RPG. One analogy that I find to be relevant is his one concerning types of artists, the painter and the cameraman. To paraphrase, both are looked at in the context of healing someone. The painter is compared to a magician, as a magician is distant and uses his hands. The cameraman is compared to a surgeon, being right there with the patient, using tools to cut into and heal. He relates this to film, and it also works with the RPG. In Benjamin's words:

The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment.

The film gives a work of art free of equipment, unless TVs, projectors, sound systems and the like are factored in. Video games likewise have this similar equipment, but are a little more surgical as they require the use of one's hands in order to experience the art. The video game is not the film; one major difference is the level of participation in the audience.

"[Walter Besant] demands not only that [the work of the novelist] shall be reputed artistic,
but that it shall be reputed very artistic indeed." -Henry James, "The Art of Fiction"

However, when compared to the novel, this analogy could be similarly used if tweaked a little--the author of a novel is a magician and the creator of an RPG is more like a surgeon-magician (which compound role fits perfectly with types of characters in RPGs). Game creators use hands-on 'surgical tools' to create and show their story, a story made of multiple fragments of code. Yet, the overall picture they present is a total one, one that still casts a spell over the reader in a way not too different from a piece of classic-style art.

Darkroot Garden in Dark Souls 

Benjamin mentions a few things about the public reception of film that is also relevant. He talks about Dadaism and its foremost requirement being to outrage the public. Video games aren't necessarily Dadaistic in nature, but similar to Dadaistic art, the idea of its being art has been looked down upon. Some say that the video game is a thing for the masses, or low-brow entertainment, and that it cannot be in the same category as something so culturally refined as Art. Quality is lost in the name of quantity.

Guild Wars 2

With the fairly recent surge of upstart indie game creators, in the subject of video games and art among themselves, this is partly true. However on a larger scale, what has been seen as less than reputable shouldn't be thrown away so quickly. Benjamin says "The fact that the new mode of participation first appeared in a disreputable form must not confuse the spectator." We should give it time. The video game, and especially the RPG have used time on its side to progress and become better, showing its capability to be in any genre that traditional art has covered.

Gothic, anyone? How about sublime? New Anor Londo in Dark Souls

I said I strayed from my thoughts of the RPG as being a modern novel to talk about the RPG (and other video game genres) as a form of art. But when one looks at art as "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination" (thanks Google), traditional art is art, the novel is art, and the RPG is also most definitely art. Just like the novel and its author, while not the same method of sharing, the role-playing game is an expression of the creator, which they have chosen to share with humanity.