An embarrassment of riches #2: Hidden depths unplumbed?

After Tuesday's whistle-stop tour of my festive fun, it's time to go into a bit more detail about some of highlights. First off, the boardgaming.

Pandemic: just another buggy solitaire?
Regular readers should remember how the BSG boardgame wavered in my affections last year because I feared its initial appeal was going to be gainsaid by another solitaire engine at the heart of the gameplay. During Martin's xmas visit 3 plays of Z-Man Games' 2008 cooperative boardgame Pandemic (which I first saw just after its release, being played at DiceConWest 2008) complete with the On the Brink expansion served to remind me that the secret of BSG's success is as much down to the card-driven system as it is to the Cylon-human antagonism I enjoyed so much.

Excellence exemplified
Before I comment further on why I suspect the card-driven solitaire engine might be Pandemic's saving grace to this gamer, I have to say a word or two about its graphic design and production. In a word, these are brilliant; so much so in fact that mere words can't do them justice.

Worldbuilding & HERO #1: Brass tacks

Vast open expanses?
Worldbuilding- AKA. subcreation, is an essential feature of roleplaying; a creative endeavour in which many players- GM or otherwise, love to indulge. As readers will be well aware, this places roleplaying games squarely in a cultural trend the 20th century great grandaddy of which is J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. (Map via: geektyrant.)

The history of subcreation in our own culture of the fantastic is not my subject here, but I cannot pass by without mentioning Greg Stafford's Glorantha. Best known as the setting of the RPGs Runequest and HeroQuest, Glorantha is unusual among RPG settings in that it wasn't a gaming setting at all when it was first created; unusual, but not unique- M. A. R. Barker's Tékumel was the same. The only adventure gaming settings I can think of which might rival these extraordinary creations in their subcreationist breadth and depth are GW's Warhammer Old World and 40K Dark Millenium.

Curse you you varlet!

The recent gaming drought ended with a visit from Badger on Friday. I remained under the cloud of those recent vicissitudes, so we ended up playing a few rounds of Knizia's everfresh cardplay gem Ivanhoe. Everfresh? Clunky neologism? Quite possibly. A touch hyperbolic? Not at all.

I've recorded 68 games of Ivanhoe since I started reguarly recording my games played @BGG back in 2007. This filler from 2005 reminds me that I've owned the game for some 7 years now, so that even just 1 game/month in the forgotten years would add about 50 more games to the total. Ivanhoe thus merits its place in the 2nd division of my most played games ever: games which I've played some 100 or more times (that's games #6 to #10 below BTW).

Combat Commander quickies

Fun in Stalingrad!

Badger was round on Friday. We played Combat Commander, naturally enough, choosing to embark on the campaign scenario from BP#2: Stalingrad. Representing a single September day's fighting atop the Mamayev Kurgan (Badger was pleased to discover that, Stalingrad campaign scenario notwithstanding, there are no city maps), the multigame campaign scenario uses the RSG with a few variants:

• A limited mapset across which to fight; this represents the ebbs and flows of the tactical situation as the battlelines move back and forth across the mountain.
• Predesignated force pools, with named leaders and their platoons replacing the OB's from the RSG.
• Extra rules for fortification resources; for units which survive one scenario becoming reinforcements in the next; and for spreading devestation - a personal favourite this, it adds an increasing amount of rubble to the map each scenario.

Badger got the Germans (curses!).

Promises, promises!

The perfect Space Marine army?

Facebook-friends and twitter-fellows will already know about the Liquid Gloat prompted by yesterday's geek grab:

"the 'old' one (and better than ever too!)."

No-prizes (with apologies to Stan 'the man' Lee and the old Marvel Bullpen) to readers who thought... 40K?

Yes I'm hankering after more than just some roleplaying, so yesterday I hit town; there to visit my local GW; where I availed myself of the filthy lucre and finally grabbed myself a copy of the new(ish) 5th edition Codex: Space Marines. I've only skimmed the book so far but I can report that, alongside the astonishing and ever-growing range of plastic Space Marine kits, this codex - fat as an old 2nd edition volume, means that there truly never has been a better time to be a Space Marine fan (and at GW's prices, it's just as well, don't you think?).

A definite hankering...

It's been a long time since I did any roleplaying, and longer still since I've GM'ed. There are various reasons for this, but they all boil down to two in the end: dissatisfaction and weariness.

My WFRP campaign ran for about 30 sessions over a period of some 16 months, ie. roughly every other week on average. I wasn't a seasoned GM, and I'm not really the seat of the pants type either, which meant that I put a lot of work into those games, not including the write ups here at RD/KA! (Keynote was a godsend!). In the end it was all too much for me. I was worn out.

What was more, I wasn't getting the satisfaction I wanted from the game. As I explained to the lads one night while we were eating dinner before a game with Bill: playing boardgames with Badger is a simple matter of opening the box and off we go; a 100% successful recipie for enjoyment, which couldn't be said of the roleplaying, even when it was going well; which wasn't all the time, naturally enough. This was my motivation to turn the Sunday sessions into a regular boardgaming bash.

Even when Bill became the GM, the group dynamic changed because the midweek date ultimately reduced us to just 2 PCs: Tony and me. I think this just wasn't enough to give the games real momentum. Quite why the 3 of us failed to reach critical mass escapes me, although I do know of some contributory factors. I now believe that primary among them was Katana.

Readers who've known me since bygone days might be shocked by that admission, since they'll be all too aware that Katana is one of my all-time favourite PC's, so close to my heart that I coined the phrase 'primary projection' to express what he meant to me. That is to say: he was a creative expression of some of the deepest wellsprings of my subconscious strivings. Well known primary projections include Conan and Philip Marlowe.

At first sight you'd think that I'd've been delighted to return to a PC like that; in the hands of the GM who presided over his creation and the first phase of his adventures; and with the player - Tony, natch - who, as GM, gave Katana the second phase of his adventures, when we first roleplayed together back in the late 1990's. And I was. It's a nice experience to pick up an old PC and 'put him on' like you would a well worn coat. And that blog I wrote upon his return weighed heavily in the balance which eventually tipped in favour of my acceptance that rpg's are art.

Even so, with the benefit of hindsight after the roleplaying had unravelled, Bill mused that going back to Katana might've been a futile attempt to relive old glories. He was right, of course. Precisely because Katana is that primary projection, he is too deeply embedded in pasts that can't be revisited. Sure Bill and I could do Katana easily and well, but it was, as Bill said about Frank Miller's Sin City, a five-finger exercise.

Worse still, with the benefit of lengthy reflection on Bill's offhand remark, I have come to the conclusion that not only was Katana too easy to play for the pair of us; he was also an unfair obstacle we unwittingly threw in Tony's path. I mean to say, teaming up Tony's Witchblade with Katana effectively reduced her to a guest star in Katana's continuity, instead of being a co-star in her own. This is OK for one-offs or short mini-campaigns based on player transience, but not if you want a proper ongoing series. Each and every player should enjoy equal billing after all.

All of this is by way of looking back at some of the mistakes made in past roleplaying in the hopes of avoiding them in the future because, yes, we're talking about doing some roleplaying. In the end Donald's wish to roleplay again was just too keen to ignore.

I'd already suggested to Donald that he try the HERO system, and was pleased he was agreeable. On that basis, Donald is talking about a couple of ideas. It's likely that we'll begin with his first: an outlaw mini-campaign using Iron Crown Enterprise's highly esteemed 1987 Robin Hood: The Role Playing Campaign. I am already looking forward to this. I'm thinking of a character who is a master of the quarterstaff. Whatever complaints people might have about HERO, it cannot be gainsaid that its skills list and combat system renders weapon mastery in rich detail, and with mechanics that reward real tactics and actual practice as opposed to just dishing out stat upgrades.

For my part, I have two ideas for mini-campaigns of my own. One is HERO too: a return to my take on TSR's 1993 Bughunters. One of two books I've got from the late, unlamented Amazing Engine system, I liked Bughunters' concept: clone troopers in space fighting the bugs? What's not to like? I immediately realised though that I would run this game with HERO instead of the dumbass TSR AE.

I ran this with Tony and other friends back in the late 1990's. I've still got all the material I worked up for the game and the setting (a piece of background work was posted to the Trollslayer forums a few years ago). It just needs to be updated, and I'd be ready to run it again. This is something I'd like to do, because I liked the kinds of stories I was aiming at in the setting; and I had a few surprises in store for my shell-shocked players. Unfortunately we moved on to other games, and never went back to my Bughunter.

My other idea is to go back to WFRP, naturally enough. I'd like to run a more hi-octane game in a classic D&D style, albeit with a bit more than just dungeon bashing; a game in which I'd unleash without let or hindrance the full power of the game's hideous antagonists and its deadly combat system. Of course, I plan on making the potential rewards commensurate with the risk.

We still don't know quite how, when and with whom our return to roleplaying is going to pan out, but we'll be getting something going for sure. Expect to hear more. ;)

Blogging through the slog

"Incoming!"
The slog? Yep. Not just the mood swing - which had already slowed down the lickety-spit with which RD/KA! began 2009; but also a flash of déjà vu when three out of four of the easter extravaganza reports (count them: #1, #3, #4) were marathon sessions at the GIMP, working on yet more "ever thinner Combat Commander battle reports... become uninspiring drudgery to this blogger", to remind readers what I wrote last September. This time, the drudgery was at least productive (all hail the GIMP!); not just nineteen new maps, but a new avenue in fleshing out battle reports with real history and geography.

Even so, that game of Rogue Trooper came along in the nick of time. All the more so since there's shedloads more Combat Commander on the way.

A parcel of rogues...

Rogue Trooper
Donald, Gav, Tony and I made 4 for boardgames on Sunday. Casting around for the main event as you do I spied, tucked away almost out of reach on a high shelf, my as yet unplayed second hand copy of GW's Rogue Trooper boardgame from 1987.

I confess I was never a big fan of the Rogue Trooper story, which made its debut in the galaxy's greatest comic - 2000 AD, in 1981. To paraphrase a friend at the time, there are only so many ways to ring the changes with "Eat chemcloud Norter scum!" The story was very popular though, so it was hardly surprising that a Rogue Trooper game was added to the series of licenced 2000 AD products which came out of the young design studio's halycon days.

Epic adventure!

Last week, an inbox update from Matt at Forbeck.com opened:

"My pal Keith Baker (the man who created Eberron among many other great games) is planning the adventure of a lifetime later this year. His aim? To travel around the world, running roleplaying games in exchange for hospitality. He calls it Have Dice, Will Travel."

Intrigued, I clicked through to find out more. The designer of Eberron, which I'd played back in 2006-07 with Bill, Tony et al? Looking for grub and games in exchange for GM'ing? Hooked, I signed up.

This is incredibly cool. Regular readers might remember when, mounting my final counter attack against the idea that roleplaying is art, I wrote, back in September 2006:

"Perhaps just a bit more novel is the idea that the advance that this movement represents is simultaneously a return, albeit one which recreates its point of departure in a more complex and sophisticated form.

"What I'm talking about here is the feeling that roleplaying often gives me of having 'returned' to the venerable tradition of fireside storytelling. Or, in even more grandiose terms, I sometimes find myself wondering if those legendary PC's whose adventures live on in the 'fish-stories' you and your gaming buddies share down the years don't represent the revival- in an appropriate modern form- of the epic narratives of the ancient cultures of man."

Keith is here setting out to avail himself of a feature of the contemporary gaming scene the full potential of which I first became fully aware back in the days when my Space Marines habit made me a regular at The Bolter and Chainsword. What I realised then was that, love them or hate them, you had to credit GW with the creation of a genuinely international gaming scene. With WFB and 40K and the help of the burgeoning internet gaming community, it was a case of 'have army will travel', in hundreds of cities across the western world. In this vein, I can only think of Keith Baker's journey as the adventures of a troubador of the world village. Like I said, really cool.

More than that though. As I had occasion to note only last week, way back when RD/KA! was brand new, I wrote:

"I have a theory that it is this very ICT which actually makes rpgs capable of being what they really are. Let me put that another way: I believe that rpgs are one of the great popular cultural advances since rock and roll, a true sign of our times; and that it is the same ICT technology that makes this blog possible that will allow this still youthful cultural phenomenon to fully mature. That might seem an odd thing to say about 'pencil and paper' rpgs, but it is a theory of mine all the same."

If Keith's world tour isn't a moment in the maturation of roleplaying then I don't know what could be. More even than that. This maturation can reach its full potential through the use of ICT, via the internet.

Keith's going to travel the world GM'ing a lot of Eberron. Roll that up into a campaign in which the players spend the year of Keith's journey using the web for online roleplaying as a backdrop to the crucial course of events that follows Keith on his travels, naturally enough. Like I said, "it is the same ICT technology that makes this blog possible that will allow this still youthful cultural phenomenon [of rpgs] to fully mature."

Good luck to Keith on his travels. Even if he's not coming north to try my cooking, I'm sure I'll catch up with him in Birmingham in June, because it turns out that he's to be a guest GM at UK Games Expo'09. Regular readers will remember I'm to run a Combat Commander tournament at this year's Expo. I can, BTW, confirm that the tournament already has 6 promises and 12 possibles; enough to go ahead in other words. More ASAP. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- There came a wanderer #1: Well, that was unexpected!
- There came a wanderer #2: Return to Eberron
- There came a wanderer #3: Dining out and gaming on!
- There came a wanderer #4: the wind-down and the send-off

Andy? Nah, he's as human as you or m... URK!

Crimson Skies

We had our regular complement of 4 yesterday after last week's 2-player session. Andy brought his Crimson Skies models so we started our little campaign as we'd been planning. As is the fate of character sheets everywhere, some had gone mysteriously missing, so we had to waste time getting our pilots ready again. Soon enough though our heroes and their wingmen took to the skies.

We were using a mixture of metal and plastic miniatures from Andy's collection. I still don't have any decent portrait shots of Andy's own models, so in the meantime here are some images of the cardboard pieces, for purposes of identifying the factions' colours:

• Red Skull Legion (Andy).
• Confederate Air Corps (Me).
• Broadway Bombers (Donald).
• Redmond's Gang (Tony).

Our seating arrangment set Tony and I facing each other across a short map edge. I promptly offered him a truce, in the face of which he tried to hedge his bets. This was a foolish move, because I immediately directed both my planes to attack his piratical lowlives.

Here's one I prepared earlier...

A quick introduction
Regular readers might remember my article 'Roleplaying as art? Not for me' from back in September 2006. Sometime thereafter, I realised that I was changing my mind. So, sometime last year, I wrote an article, recanting my previous opinion. I then lost interest in the subject, and the article wasn't published.

And just why have I finally decided to publish now? Because, as alert readers who've visited the site might've notice, I've started using facebook, the inspiration for which was my use of the widget which links your BGG account to your facebook account (BGG users can find this on their profile page). Looking for British gamers to network with, I met BGG's Angry Jedi, who turned out to be a fellow blogger. His I'm not Doctor Who has a title almost as snappy as my own! When you read the first post of Angry's that I read - Art/Fart, you'll see why I was prompted finally to post this piece from the rack where's it's been sat for at least a year.

I present the article exactly as it was written, so there's at least one reference to time which is out of joint. ;)

**********

It's art Jim, but not as we know it!
Remember, remember, what I wrote last September
Last year I wrote a post called 'Roleplaying as art? Not for me', in which I developed my basic criticisms of the idea that roleplaying games are a form of art. This was an issue which had been of interest to me one way or another for many years, but my taking it up at the time was motivated by Elliot Wilen's and John H. Kim's replies to an earlier post of mine on the same subject.

Those 2 articles, especially the 2nd, attracted more widespread attention and comment at the time than anything I've posted here at RD/KA! before or since. The reactions at the time were interesting.

Quite a few comments- eg. Eliot Wilen commenting on the Sept. 2006 piece, and others commenting on John Kim's notes on his replies to my posts- revolved around issues of semantic wrangling and of elitism. Eliot at least noted that the point at issue had to be about more than mere semantics, while both he and John shared the anti-elitism which underlay my arguments at the time. All the same I was left with the feeling way back then that neither of them had effectively come to grips with my core argument, which was a capsule sociohistorical account of how roleplaying games can't be art because they are part of the very 20th century cultural developments which have most decisively undermined the old 'high art' versus 'low culture' distinction which, I claimed, remains at the centre of artistic/cultural discussion these days. (This was a point more-or-less recognised by Thomas Robertson, in his own comment last September.)

If all of these comments were interesting, perhaps the most entertaining were those posted by Victor Gijsbers to his blog The Gaming Philosopher a few weeks later. Victor pronounced he found my article "infuriating", to which my immediate response was simple amusement.

I mean to say: I wrote what I thought was a fairly simple account of something I thought might be a bit controversial, but which would be ultimately hard to deny: namely that the artistic products of the high bourgeois period, and the theoretical reflections thereupon, were as much as an expression of the self-image of the bourgeoisie as they were of any genuine human or natural universality. Further, I asserted, from these flowed the distinction between 'high art' and 'low culture', which was the cultural world as seen from the viewpoint of that bourgeoise elite, and whose essential assumptions retain a strong influence to this very day.

Against this I tried to suggest that the past century or more of cultural development has rendered this dualistic conception increasingly bankrupt. This is partly because of its inherent elitism, which should offend the most basic egalitarian sensibility. It is also because the new cultural forms, eg. roleplaying games, simply cannot be understood through these outdated aesthetics. Metaphorically then: I was trying to argue that calling roleplaying games art amounts to trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Now OK, I knew at the time that I wasn't being at all original in the core sociohistorical part of my argument. If I thought I was being at all original (and I wasn't that bothered about originality really- I was just trying to get something off my chest, as bloggers do), it was in using this argument to say that roleplaying couldn't be art because roleplaying games are a quintessential product of cultural developments which I had argued were completely incompatible with the idea of art as defined above. Like I said: not terribly original really.

So you can imagine my surprise when I read Victor accusing me of all sorts of things I wasn't aware I'd written about: the death of beauty, consumerist dumbing-down, children not doing their homework, anarchy- oh lord- anarchy! I was bemused by how my short article had inspired such a tizz in Victor, but I'll admit it was satisfying enough to be a pebble in his little pond.

But something wasn't right
I didn't pursue the discussions prompted by my article very far last year. There were various reasons for this.

One was that I wasn't sure what the topic was worth. I mean to say: I was still running my WFRP campaign back then, and I was facing various issues about which I could've used some fruitful discussion. And that was one thing that I couldn't see coming out of any discussion about roleplaying and art: practical ideas which would help me actually improve my game.

Another problem I had with the discussion at the time was that it was tainted by the so-called 'war on the Swine' launched by that infamous internet self-publicist the RPGpundit. It was the Pundit's anti-Swine rants which had revived my interest in the whole debate about roleplaying games and art in the first place, and I thought that the RPGpundit has had one or two good points to make. But the longer the Pundit went on, stating and restating his same old points, posting and reposting his tired old diatribes, the more deranged I felt he was becoming as he sank ever deeper into his own private sump of vitriol.

So, when I posted my article last September, I was a bit disenchanted with the very notion of the debate I was joining because I was thoroughly fed up after too many months of pointless internet trolling. I wanted less heat and more light but wasn't sanguine that internet discourse could provide this to an effective degree which would make all the time spent at the monitor and keyboard at all worthwhile.

My doubts about the practical value of the debate about roleplaying and art, and my frustrations at the online culture in general were circumstantial though. There was a far more serious reason why I didn't follow through on the discussion last year: I was beginning to wonder if I really believed what I had written.

The seeds of this doubt had been in my mind all the time I was writing on the topic of roleplaying games and art. They go back to an article I first read online several years ago, 'I Have No Words & I Must Design', by noted games designer Greg Costikyan. A man who still commands my respect because of his RPG design work from the early 80's, Costikyan's opinion that games are- or can aspire to become- art was one that I could never quite put behind me.

It was Costikyan again who was responsible for the germination of the very seeds of doubt he'd been responsible for planting. This time it was his January 2007 article 'Super Columbine Massacre: Artwork or Menace?', written in defence of a controversial computer game. Costikyan's account of why a game like this one should be recognised as a work of art hit me right between the eyes: I simply didn't want to argue the toss with him on that one. I could see where I was heading already.

The inevitable flowering of my change of mind came in April, when Shamus posted 'Games Are Art' over on Twenty Sided, the home of the his wonderful DM of the Rings webtoon. After reading that article I not only knew that I'd changed my mind on the matter of roleplaying games and art, I also knew that sooner or later I'd be posting my recantation here at RD/KA!.

And the final countdown to this post started a couple of months ago, when I posted about the return of Katana in the supers game Bill ran. Writing about the genesis of the character, I talked of his creation being an act of "pure self expression". If you'd followed the original discussion you could easily've missed this remark made in passing, but the cat was out of the bag I felt, and I wanted to set the record straight as soon as possible.

And yet, strangely enough
So, I've accepted the proposition that roleplaying games are art. So what? Seriously: precisely what is this proposition worth? Exactly what does it contribute to our capacity to organise, play and enjoy our roleplaying? I have no idea myself. Commenting on my Sept. 2006 post, Jonathan Walton suggested 4 benefits:

1. Raises its social status in certain circles.
2. Enables the government funding occasionally enjoyed by our Nordic friends.
3. Sticks it to elitist art snobs.
4. Reclaims art for the geeks.

Without commenting on any one of these in particular, notice that they all have one thing in common: having nothing to do with actually doing roleplaying. So again: what's the point of roleplaying being art?

And as if accepting a proposition which appears to have no practical consequence for an eminently practical activity isn't enough, there is a final irony, although one I admit I find strangely satisfactory. If you actually go back and read my Sept. 2006 article (go on, give it a go if you haven't already- this next bit'll make more sense if you do), what I hope you'll find is that most of it still stands up even though I've changed my mind on the matter of where roleplaying sits in relation to art. Just to make myself clear here: most of what I wrote can be used to argue that roleplaying is art even though my arguments were marshalled in support of the view that roleplaying isn't art.

What I mean is that I was arguing that roleplaying games aren't art because it was wrong to aspire to be brought under the wing of a bankrupt elitist aesthetic whose decline is caused by a long historical development to which RPG's are a recent addition. In other words: by being part of a trend slowly but surely overturning the old 'high art' versus 'low culture' duality, roleplaying games are part of a movement towards the unity of what was held in an artificially forced polarisation under the reign of the classic high bourgeois aesthetic. Oddly enough it makes just as much sense (or should I say more, now, I hope?!) to argue that roleplaying games are art on the basis that they are part of that recent period of cultural innovation which has pushed that long historical development forward into entirely new territory, namely the art of games.

So it seems I might've arguing a bit at cross purposes eh? Maybe that's why Victor Gijsbers' response was so amusingly overwrought? I mean to say: I have to grant him that he picked out some contradictions in my argument, even if I'm not sure he gave a very good account of them. Funny thing, eh?

Related@RD/KA!
The emperor's new clothes? The state of roleplaying theory
- #1: General gamism
- #2: A funny thing happened on my way to this article
- Roleplaying as art? Not for me

You heard it here first!

In which- Shock! Horror! Probe!- I criticise Combat Commander

Regular readers will be only too aware of my love of Chad Jensen and GMT's Combat Commander series (at 107 registered plays to date, it's closing fast with SL/ASL as my most played company-level tacsim ever). Some of you might even remember my waxing lyrical (here, or even here) about CC's excellent Random Scenario Generator (RSG). But what I haven't aired yet is my major complaint about the RSG, which is the way that artillery support is called in. (NB. I'm here talking about the rules for adding off-board artillery (OBA) to a scenario, not the rules for using OBA during play.)

Adding my tuppenceworth earlier today to a BGG thread about the CC RSG, I included an aside about this complaint, which in turn gave me a flash of inspiration about what has been bugging me since that August session of 5 CC RSG games with Badger. What then, is this complaint? Naturally enough, to explain that, I'll have to give some background first.

In a nutshell, the CC RSG works like this:

• One player chooses the map.
• The other player sets its orientation.
• Nationalities, the year, and the troop qualities are determined.
• Each player then chooses a force.
• The player with the cheaper force is the defender, and goes on to: roll for support, buy fortifications, and set up.
• The attacking player may roll for artillery support, then sets up.

There are a few extra details, but that's the gist of it.

As I was saying only yesterday...

Descent & anti-climax: intrinsic to the system, or just poor scenario design?
The sense of anti-climax observed by Andy after our final encounter with the Big Boss in Sunday's long-awaited heroes' triumph in Descent was recognisable to me from my own recent victories as the Overlord. I referred to this last month as being "taken a bit by surprise". And it has to be said, in 'narrative' terms, it is true that a 1-turn kill of the Big Boss by our pocket- nuke wizard Dave wasn't the epic toe-to-toe showdown that'd've capped with dramatic appropriateness our long slog to eventual victory.

I mean to say, looking at my BoardGameGeek games-played stats for Descent says that our heroes' road to victory was a 9-game marathon running from the end of September, through October, and up to last week. These statistics aren't 100% reliable, but the fact remains that the buildup to Sunday's triumph was 2 solid months of defeats, broken only for Andy and I, the Overlords. So yes, if these adventures had been part of a narrative- whether in print or in roleplaying- the sense of anti-climax would've been more than passing, it'd've been cause for serious complaint by players or readers.

I said yesterday that there is "something in this which strikes to the heart of Descent". This idea was sparked when I read an interesting thread discussing an insightful review over at the BGG. Among the various thoughts and perceptions of the game what was immediately most striking to me was Zimeon's comment that it "feels as if the designers have taken all the joy of new shinies from World of Warcraft the online game level 1-60, and packed it into 4 hours of play." Echoed by kingbobb ("I think the game does, within each quest, attempt to capture the WoW 0-60 progression"), this made me realise that the overwhelming power of Dave's lone hero against the Big Boss might well have been a matter of chance, but it wasn't entirely accidental all the same. That this wasn't accidental, and is therefore a conscious design feature of the game, is proved by Robb's explanation, from his Descent Decrees for an Aspiring Overlord, that

"veterans... understand that the treasure dynamic is backwards from normal games of this type. In order for heroes to defeat monsters in Descent, they must get treasure. This goes against the thinking that heroes are slaying monsters to receive treasure."

All of this is confirmed by our experience of play. Heroes have no chance without good treasures. Moreover, the really good treasures- sliver/gold, or relics; or fortuitous treasure/skills combos, eg. Dave's Spiritwalker wizardry skill and Dragon's Breath rune treasure (a mere silver too!)- can indeed be utterly overpowering, as we've seen more than once before. This just goes to highlight the absolute importance, to the Overlord, of protecting the treasure chests- silver and gold at least- from the heroes, or making them pay a heavy price for each chest they open in any case.

The heroes' extreme power curve and the spread of its variations give Descent a peculiar razor-sharp balance. I say 'peculiar' because halfway successful heroes will effectively turn the game inside out, as their superior treasures will enable them to turn the tables on the Overlord, subjecting him to the grind they'll already've had to endure. The taxing mid-to-end-game slugathon as the heroes start to overwhelm the Overlord's monsters is something I held against Descent at first, and that BGG thread plus another over at F:AT show that some people never got over it.

I wouldn't want to be too dogmatic about these conclusions, especially since other players- eg. quesodog at the FFG Descent forum- think that the expansion scenarios are radically different from the basic ones. All the same- and finally coming back to that sense of anti-climax- barring haplessly choosing all the wrong doors to open and corners to turn so that you stumble upon the Big Boss before you've properly powered up, I suspect that surviving long enough to meet the Big Boss in the first place will typically require hero parties to have got their hands on something powerful enough to make shorter work of that Big Boss than the Overlord (who 'is' that Big Boss, after all) would wish. Otherwise, I would expect the Overlord to win before the party is ready to face the Big Boss in any case. Built-in anti-climax almost by defnition it seems to me.

If true this perhaps isn't the best of adverts for Descent, but to be honest I don't really care. The game gives me exactly what I want, and I find myself looking forward to playing it as much as almost any other game in my collection. I'd call that a palpable hit! Definitely not the last word. ;)

Related@RD/KA!
- As I was saying only yesterday...

Got game!

Stalled before Moscow...
Last night was another Commands and Colours session with Badger. He decided that it was time to test the Russian Expanded Nationality rules for our favourite Memoir'44, so we promptly headed for Scenario 39: Operation Typhoon- At the Gates of Moscow.

Random selection of sides gave me the Germans in our first play. With all the available infantry and tank units in my force, I was well pleased.

The first thing that struck me on looking at the board from my side was that I'd need to get my forces moving as quickly as possible, because they're bunched up tight on their own board edge. The Russians had units who could bring my own units under fire immediately, so I could lose units to flags as well as hits. The next thing to strike me was how the terrain constrained the flank advances.

With these observations in mind, my opening moves involved throwing my armour forward to bring quick attacks onto the Russians. I got into the woods around Bryansk, and attacked those Russians entrenched on the western end of the hill-line, right in the centre of the map. The battle in the centre was furious, and I was soon suffering serious casualties. So I had a brainwave, and finally took my chance to form an armoured Kampfgruppe, of which more later.

The battle was being waged to and fro around Bryansk and those hills. I'd brought infantry up on my right, only to lose them when I blocked their retreat with armour units (d'oh!). Badger had brought units forward from around Kaluga and Mozhaisk to reinforce his forward hill defences.

I played Behind Enemy Lines to little avail unless memory fails me (forgetting to add my bonus battle dice didn't help). Then I threw that reformed armoured unit forward. It got across the hills and overran into the low ground to the south. Badger threw everything he had at it, but it managed to survive 9 dice while on a single model! This gave it another turn of carnage before the Russians finally took it out. And so we entered the endgame with the battle poised on a knife-edge (6-5 Badger IIRC).

I threw another armour unit forward to attack the hills, where Badger had 2 weak units. All I need was some average dice and I'd've won. The dice failed me. Badger's didn't on his next turn and I lost, 7-5.

We swapped sides for the next game. I began with Firepower. My units on the hills laid down serious attacks on Badger's armour units in the centre and on his left. I killed 1 armour unit in the centre with those 7 dice in that first turn. Badger then used his Saddle Orders to advance his armour in the centre and on his right. He reduced my westernmost hilltop infantry unit to a single model. I wasn't phased at all, because I'd cued-up Close Assault, and he'd given me more targets.

The game continued with Badger committed to clearing those units of mine off of those hills in the centre. Meanwhile I was just laying down as much fire as I could muster against his armour, especially against any units who'd suffer hits on flags. My units on the hills dealt out dreadful carnage. That artillery unit was especially heroic. Reduced to a single model it survived absolutely everything that Badger threw at it, and just kept firing and firing, to great effect.

We knew the game was mine when I'd killed 6 German armour units with only 2 losses of my own. By this time Badger had launched an attack with his left-flank infantry. That was where I mopped-up a unit to gain my eventual victory with a score of 7-3.

Having suffered this rout, Badger was determined to have another go. He applied the lessons he'd learned from the previous 2 games, and focussed his main efforts on clearing my advance guard off of those hills. My artillery was doing its stuff as usual, and I was getting ready to pick off Badger's own depleted artillery unit. Then he played Firepower to rain down 3 dice from his own artillery: 2 grenades turned up. Boom! My artillery was gone!

This had a decisive impact on the game. Badger was soon at 5 VP when I had perhaps as many as 3. I regrouped to punish the Germans when they made their final push. So Badger withdrew, forcing me to attack from a position of weakness. Knowing that I had no choice, I used the new Russian 'Urrah rule to pull together a credible attack. Unfortunately the Germans' interference spoiled it a bit- a key unit had been forced to retreat so its attack was launched from a poorer position, which proved decisive when Badger Ambushed it, killing it before it could attack. And then Badger sent an armour forward to seize the bridge by Kaluga, winning the game 7-4.

Score
1-2
Gurns.

The Germans withdraw in good order
Time was short after we'd played these 3 games, so we decided to stick with M44 instead of turning to Battlelore. We moved on to the next scenario in the Eastern Front expansion set:- Scenario 40: Breakout at Klin. Regular readers might remember that I've played this before with Gav last year. Random selection giving me the Germans again, I was looking forward to another strong victory after my experience against Gav.

I wasn't to be disappointed. Badger and I played 2 games of this scenario (he gamely wanted a 2nd try with the Russians after the trouncing he suffered in our 1st game).

Minor variations aside, each game followed a similiar pattern. I would begin on my right by advancing to surround then destroy the forward Russian infantry unit. I would then follow up to destroy the 2nd Russian infantry unit on that flank before gaining further VP by occupying 1 or both hexes of Golyadi. Next I'd start laying down artillery prep. fire on the central entrenched Russian infantry units, weakening the trenchline before I sent in the Combat Engineers. If possible I'd also bring some armour out so that they could support the Engineers' advance.

In the 1st game the decisive blow was delivered with a Saddle Orders play of Infantry Assault and Their Finest Hour, which proved to be a delicious combo. In the 2nd game it was an Armoured Assault which sent 3 armoured units forward to crush the hapless Russkies. Both times I won 6-2.

Badger and I were left feeling that this scenario has balance issues. The 83-17% breakdown in favour of the Germans after 92 games which shows up on the DoW battle reports for this scenario suggests that this feeling is justified. We discussed this at some length. I won't say much about this here because I intend to start a thread on the topic over at DoW:M44. I'll let you know once that thread is up.

Score
3-2
Grins. :)

The Expanded Nationality rules
So, how did these fare last night? I have to report that Badger and I are both happy with the rules as they work so far.

The plan card mechanic in general is working well. The ability to play 2 command cards in a single turn is a powerful one to be sure, which of course makes it fun to use. But in every case the use of the plan card requires a loss of tempo, which means that the plan card rules require nerve and timing to use.

The Germans' Saddle Orders gives them the ability to play a plan card and hold it ready for as long as they want. The Russian 'Urrah rule allows them to get their plan card played as quickly as the Germans (and more quickly than the British), but forces them to commit to the move. Badger especially made a lot of use of this when he was playing the Russians. The additional reduced hand capacity after an 'Urrah turn makes the Russian plan card rules feel right to us.

The Kampfgruppe rule finally saw use in our first game. I combined a 1-model and a 2-model armour unit into a full strength armour unit. I was later able to throw this unit into the fray. So the rule fulfilled its purpose nicely (although I can't actually remember if I got any VP back to repay the VP I had to give to Badger). Paying a VP for forming a Kampfgruppe seemed a much more sensible option than the original idea of losing a card.

So all-in-all then, we were happy with how the rules worked in play.

If the rules in play seem fine, it looks as if I can't say the same for how they are written in the current draft. Brummbär made a passing remark on the Expanded Nationality rules thread over at DoW:M44 which made me wonder how clearly the rules were written in the past. And Gav (after our recent games) and Badger last night, have both told me that they find the current draft difficult to understand, even if the rules themselves are simple enough in play. I guess I'll have to canvas for more feedback on the threads over at DoW:M44 and BGG:M44. There have been 140 downloads so far, so I'd hope to get some helpful responses. Fingers crossed I guess.

And that's it for now.

Stop Press!- M44 Expanded Nationality rules available to download

The latest version of the M44 Expanded Nationality rules which Badger and I have been testing recently, and which I've been discussing on M44:DoW and M44:BGG are now available as a PDF download via the BGG. The rules have undergone some serious development since the last version I posted here at RD/KA! back in April.

The new v4 includes a codification of the Plan card rules as general rules applicable to more than one set of nationality rules; a complete revision of the form of the British Marksmanship rule; German and Russian rules making use of the Plan card mechanic (ie. we finally found a satisfactory form for the Saddle Orders rule); and U.S. Army rules which start to look right in our eyes.

Of all these, Badger and I are most happy with the British rules because they have stood the test of most playtest games (although my revised form of those rules might change that- fingers crossed I guess!). The German rules look pretty good to us too- although less tested than the British rules in their current form, they are the product of the development arising from all that testing. The U.S. Army and the Russian rules look good to us, but only testing will tell whether we actually like them in the end.

Finally: in my haste to upload the PDF to the BGG, I neglected to include acknowledgements to the general M:44 communities at DoW and BGG. So I'd here like to extend my thanks to all those who've supported my work on the Expanded Nationality project. I am grateful to you all. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : M44 playtest update

So, I've posted the results of Badger's and my recent M44 games to the Expanded Nationality rules threads I started on the M44:DoW and M44:BGG forums. Interested readers could do worse than head across and join in the discussion.

So, having commented on the games themselves, it's time to reflect upon the new rules.

The British rules
As things stand at the moment, these rules are looking pretty good to me.

The Marksmanship rule is having exactly the effect it should: ie. in a straight infantry-v-infantry exchange, the British can stand-off in cover at a 3-hex range and plink away at the enemy with 1 dice. Hardly overpowering, this is profoundly irritating nonetheless, and it could prove decisive in some situations, eg. picking off weakened units. Moreover, this minor advantage forces opponents of the British to close to bring the exchange under the parameters of a normal exchange of infantry firepower. In other words, this rule would seem to be working to change the dynamics of fire and movement in an interesting and appropriate way.

Meanwhile, I would have to say, however pleased I am with the Marksmanship rule (and that is quite pleased indeed really), that it is the Big Push rules which have been the real star so far. In fact, I don't think it is at all hyperbolic to say that these have exceeded our most optimistic expectations. So, before commenting further, I really must restate my thanks to neil1967 over at M44:DoW for bringing forward the basic idea back in March. Thanks Neil, your ideas would seem to have become the key to getting the Expanded Nationality rules project ship-shape.

So, the net effect of the Big Push rule is that the British can play 2 Command Cards in the same turn, and that it will take them a minimum of 3 turns so to do:

• plan 1
• plan 2
• execute

Badger and I are finding that the ability to play 2 cards simultaneously is a treasured resource, to be exploited at every opportunity (this stands in stark contrast to both the Kampfgruppe and the Saddle Orders rules, neither of which have been seeing much use at all so far). The effect of the planning prerequisite is that the British tend to use Big Push as much as possible early in the game, when their opponents' reaction to their own inaction poses less risk. Later in the game, when units are engaged across the battlefield, the pause to plan- not to mention the commitment of resources to plan, which are therefore not available for immediate reactions to events; these features of putting Big Push into practice make using the rule a much riskier affair. In other words: the Big Push rule works to make the British in M44 behave exactly as they should; and that this is so in both historical terms; and- perhaps more importantly- in terms of making this work in a way which enriches rather than encumbers the uniquely satisfying gameplay of M44.

The German rules
The first point to note is that, following on from comments posted to the M44:DoW and M44:BGG threads, Badger and I concurred that the hand-reduction rule in the Kampfgruppe rule is wrong. What had persuaded me in the end was that this clause- designed to restrict the formation of Kampfgruppe to a reasonable and balanced degree- ended up being just silly really. Why? Because it penalised the Germans in exactly the area whose strengths the Kampfgruppe rule is intended to represent- namely their superior operational doctrines. Becoming aware of this stupid self-contradiction, I soon realised that paying the price of losing a VP for the unit removed in the formation of a Kampfgruppe was the correct way to go.

With that fixed, I'm satisfied that the Kampfgruppe rule is satisfactory as it stands... well, perhaps the Kampfgruppe so formed should be allowed to battle as normal? I don't see why not really. It'd be more fun, and the Germans really were that good. Hmm. I like that myself. Anyhoo, the Kampfgruppe rule has yet to be tested in practice, although we did get close in one of our games. But Badger had Medics and Mechanics, so he didn't need to form a Kampfgruppe after all!

Meanwhile, I have to say that the Saddle Orders rule is looking a bit ropey. The rule is looking in the right place for a specifically German national rule, but the effect- a free Recon-type draw on a discard- has proved to be of little use. More often than not, actual play is proving that playing a Command card is a better choice than doing nothing to get this chance of marginal improvement in your hand. But the Big Push rule is coming to the rescue: Badger and I are thinking of how to adapt this rule so that Saddle Orders allows the Germans also to play 2 cards in 1 turn, albeit with more flexibility than the British.

Badger and I had a long discussion about the implications of a wider development of the plan-card concept introduced by neil1967. We still have many details to pin down before we have a testable version of a new Saddle Orders rule according to these ideas. But I was able to satisfy myself that this method is in keeping with the spirit of the C&C system. Why? Because playing 2 cards in a single turn is one of the key features which makes Epic BL more than just basic BL on a bigger board. So using plan cards to enable this in M44 seems apt.

And that's it for now. Badger and I will be returning to this project just as soon as we can. I'll keep you all posted. ;)

Start the week @ RD/KA! : Got game!

So it's been another bumper long weekend of games for yours truly.

Memoir'44
The fun began on Thursday with a visit from Badger.

We ended up playing 5 games of M44 to test the expanded nationality rules. We played #2: Sainte Mère-Eglise and #3: Sword Beach twice each, and #5: Omaha Beach once. The results (recorded here, here, and here) left me 4-1 up on the night.

More important even than that taste of victory were the playtest results: the new rules are standing up fairly well, and tweaks have been introduced where necessary. (More details can be found on my DoW:M44 thread on this subject.) More important perhaps even than that is the fact that trying out these new rules has revived mine and Badger's interest in playing this game which originally cemented us as gaming buddies.

Score
4-1

Settlers of Catan
My dear friend Ros and I paid a visit to my old pal Bill and his family on Saturday night. Episode 2 of the new series of Doctor Who and a curry supper out of the way, we got down to a game of this modern classic.

As ever with games of Settlers amongst players who've previously encountered each other across the isle of Catan, there were scores to settle and reputations to be made, maintained, or enhanced. For my part I had (again!) to deal with Bill's launching of a personal vendatta- in which he did anything and everything he could to confound my plans. All this fiendishness notwithstanding, I still almost won through, being pipped at the post by Bill's wife, Radka, when she beat me 10-9. Much good fun was had by all, as ever with this game.

Score
4-2

Doom: the Boardgame
Andy and Tony came round yesterday and we had another go at this new favourite. Tony and I played the marines against Andy's Invaders. We decided that it was time to start a campaign game- in which the marines count kills for experience points, but it didn't really matter in the end: the marines lose the campaign (and all accumulated experience benefits) as soon as they loose a single mission; and yes- Tony and I extended the marines' perfect losing record by yet another mission.

Still- as we discussed later- this is not a game where you lose and think, "Rubbish game." Rather, just like a video game, it's a game in which defeat as the marine player only encourages you to have another go. As I noted many moons ago, this 'arcade game effect' is something that we first noticed (even more moons ago) when playing Up Front. I find it delightful therefore to find this same effect generated by a game which puts a computer-game into a boardgame; especially one whose basic mechanics recreate so excellently the PoV of the 1st-person shooter, as I have noted elsewhere.

We'll be back!

Score
4-3

Attack Sub
Tony left after the game of Doom (imagine: choosing to go to a party instead of staying to play boardgames...!). I worked through the 2-player options of my games collection. Andy decided that he liked the sound of Attack Sub.

I confess that I was a little leery of his choice: I haven't played Attack Sub in years, and was concerned at how easy this game would be to pick up for quick play. I needn't have worried: it turned out that this card-driven game of submarine warfare (designed by Courtney Allen, the designer of the epochal Up Front) was even easier than I remembered.

In the event Andy's only real mistake in our game was his choice of the Soviets (a choice driven, perhaps, by his hope of enjoying the 'Sean Connery effect'?), whose subs were markedly inferior to my US boats, despite my crews' best efforts to screw up their sensors through repeated malfunctions. Other than that, Andy suffered from some serious bad luck as his subs proved unable both to detect- and then to hit- my own; while my own boats' fish were better served by the whims of fortune on the day.

For my part I was pleased to be reminded of how accessible is this fine game of the cat-and-mouse of submarine warfare. And I'd like to think that Andy enjoyed it enough to give it another go.

(Note to self: give new players the US subs in scenario #1.)

Final score
5-3

Grins!

Start the week @ RD/KA!

Expanded nationality rules for Memoir'44
This is something which I've been thinking about for some time. I think the command and fire-and-movement mechanics of M44 are exactly as good as the similar rules in C&C:A or BL- very good indeed in other words. And the multiplicity of terrain types is part of what makes M44 the game it is. But the richer diversity of unit interactions in Ancients left me thinking that core M44- with its essentially identical Americans, British and Germans, was feeling a bit flat. So I decided to expand the nationality rules to make each army have its unique flavour.

Before the rules, thanks are called for to neil1967 and Randwulf at DoW: M44. The British 'big push' rule was Neil's idea first, and Randwulf helped fix the Kampfgruppe rule.

Germans
'Saddle Orders'
Instead of playing a command card and ordering units, a German player may choose to discard 1 command card and order no units. The player may then draw 2 cards, choose 1 to keep, and discard the other.

'Kampgruppe'
A German player may form a Kampgruppe- ie. combine 2 depleted units into 1 unit. The 2 depleted units must be of the same type: infantry, armour, or artillery. If a unit with a special ability combines with a unit without that special ability, that special ability is not retained by the Kampgruppe; ie. units must each have the same special ability for that ability to be retained by the Kampfgruppe.

Order both units. Move either or both units so that they are in the same hex as each other. Remove any models in excess of the unit's full strength. The opposing player does not gain a victory medal for the removal of the depleted German unit. Neither of the 2 depleted units forming the new Kampfgruppe, nor the newly formed Kampgruppe, may move any further or battle at all in the turn in which the Kampgruppe is formed.

The German player's hand capacity is reduced by 1 card for the rest of the game each and every time a Kampgruppe is formed; NB. the German player's hand capacity may not be reduced below 3 cards through the formation of Kampgruppe.

British
'Marksmanship'
A British infantry unit may always fire at an opposing infantry unit with a minimum of 1 battle dice after battle dice reductions are applied for the defending infantry unit's terrain. Battle dice reductions due to the attacking unit's terrain may reduce this as normal; eg. British infantry in wire firing at an infantry unit in woods at 3-hex range would have 1-1=0 battle dice and would therefore be unable to fire. Bonus battle dice gained via Tactics cards are always applied on top of this; eg. the aforementioned unit would fire with 1-1+1=1 battle dice if using the 'Their Finest Hour' card.

'The 'big' push'
Instead of playing a command card and ordering units as normal, a British player may choose to play a command card as a plan. The command card is played face-down in front of the British player. The British player does not draw a new card when he plays a card as a plan. In subsequent turns, the British player may either play command cards from his hand as normal; or he may develop his plan, by playing another card face down in front of himself as above.

When the British player starts a turn with 2 planning command cards face down in front of him, he must go ahead with the plan. Both command cards are revealed, and are executed in the same turn. The British player replenishes his hand to its full value after playing his planning cards.

US Army
'Logistical superiority'

• The printed 'Medics and Mechanics' card orders 2 units instead of 1
• 'Recon 1' to be used as a 'Medics and Mechanics' card.

'Go, go, go!'
At the start of the game, and immediately after (ie. before the card's orders are issued) the play of the 'Their Finest Hour' card, the US Army may 'mulligan'

• the US Army player may discard as many cards as he chooses
• the US Army player then draws 1 card fewer than the number of cards he chose to discard
• the US Army player then draws 1 extra card on the conclusion of his next turn, to refill his hand to its normal size.

Russians
'Russian command rule'
In late-war scenarios, in which the Russian command rule is taken as not applying:

• the rule still applies
• but the command cards which the Russian player may play from their hand now include all Tactics cards as well as those already specified.

I've started threads on this subject on the DoW and BGG M44 forums. The DoW thread is full of ideas all ready. And there're brief comments on Badger's and my first playtest. More soon I hope. ;)

General gamism

Roleplaying as art? Not for me

John Kim recently posted a reply to an old post in which I wrote about my first encounters with the idea that roleplaying is art. Answering John's comments I said he'd spurred me to return to the subject. Before pursuing that though, I'll comment in more detail on some of John's remarks.

Replying to my thoughts, John asked me if I could "suggest... any other case of an imaginative, creative endeavor which is categorically never art?" Yes: science. Although a lot of scientific spadework is technical and repetitive, developing new scientific theories is pretty much as creative and imaginative an activity as writing a novel or painting a picture. This is pretty much a truism of scientific literature these days AFAIK.

That question aside, John also noted that "by saying that RPGs can never be art, you are judging them by inappropriate standards. Playing RPGs... is an imaginative, creative endeavor, and I think it should be looked at the same way that other imaginative, creative endeavors are." To which my reply is: my point exactly!

The concept of 'art'
My fundamental objection to the idea that roleplaying is art is that I believe roleplaying games to be part of a cultural development that has undermined the very concept of 'art'.

What I mean here is this: it is pretty difficult to avoid the conclusion that the concept of 'art' has always existed in contrast to its other- ie. 'high' culture versus 'low' culture, and that this contrast has always served a priori to elevate the so-called 'art' above whatever it was being contrasted against. That is to say: the very idea of 'art' is that there is a realm of creative expression which- by its very nature- is more sublime and somehow more insightful than anything from outside that realm. The inherent elitism of this is something that I feel I need not belabour here.

A historical example of this is the difference between what we now call 'classical music' and 'folk music'. The cultural wall between these 2 kinds of music was so strong that, unless my memory utterly fails me, a composer like Smetana created controversy by including native folk tunes in his orchestral compositions. Readers with greater knowledge of cultural history could enumerate further examples I am sure.

Now my aim here is not to write up a capsule social history of culture. Rather it is to highlight how the very term 'art' contradicts the nature of roleplaying so that the term is worse than meaningless when applied to rpg's. To this end I want to bring the issue of 'art' bang up to date, to modern art. I have to confess that I'm one of those people who really doesn't 'get' most of modern art. All the same, I would like to suggest that, if there is one thing that has been proved by the trajectory of modern art, then it is that the concept of 'art' to which I have pointed is completely and utterly bankrupt, because the world has quite simply passed it by.

I mean to say: whatever you might think about Damien Hirst's pickled animal carcasses (or a personal favourite of mine from the early 70's: a 1 mile-long brass rod buried in a hole in an American desert somewhere... really!), the very terms in which works of this kind are explained strip the term 'art' of any real meaning. What else can we say when artists eschew content, preferring instead to let the viewer project their own meanings onto whatever passes before their eyes?

My point here is more than just a rant against flatulent subjectivism. What I believe this development represents is the exhaustion of the classic- high bourgeois- concept of 'art' in the face of a culture predicated on industrial mass production whose immeasurable richness simply cannot be embraced via the cultural concepts of an fundamentally elitist intellectual apparatus of essentially pre-industrial origins. This point about the richness of contemporary culture cannot be over-emphasised IMO, because it is the basis of what I believe to be one thing that the postmodernists got right and that everyone else barely noticed- namely that 'art' is dead because it's all largely a matter of personal taste now.

Stripping away the old conceptions of high culture enjoying a special pre-eminence over low culture we find ourselves in the situation of living in a mass culture consisting of a range of more-or-less widespread particular popular cultures. Roleplaying, it seems to me, expresses the dynamics of this rather nicely, with its distillation of themes enjoying a mass audience (eg. movies) into what is, let's face it, a minority interest- a particularly particular culture, if you will.

Wordplay aside, what I'm getting at then is the idea that roleplaying is a quintessential product of the developments of late 20th century consumerist capitalism which have rendered the concept of 'art' obsolete. Hence my opinion that the artistic conception of roleplaying is an attempt to judge rpg's by inappropriate standards.

What is it about roleplaying that is really novel?
Discussions about the nature of roleplaying abound, and theories about how they work are ten-a-penny. Speaking for myself, one thing which is pretty damn inescapably important is the shift from audience to participant as you enter into a world of adventure or drama. Regardless of which faction(s) of roleplaying you might situate yourself in, no matter which kind of game you are playing, it seems to me that at the end of the day you are motivated by the desire to stop 'watching' the action that thrills you, and to get stuck in.

The flip side of this- and something which I believe to be profoundly tied-in to the games in roleplaying games- is that roleplaying is about mutual entertainment pure and simple. This is not just the obvious point that rpg's typically don't have winners and losers as do competitive games. More than just that, I would say that at its best roleplaying is not just about having fun for yourself, it is also about being fun for your fellow players.

This is no longer a particularly novel point I'll happily admit, even in terms of the way that the shift from audience to participant parallels, highlights and carries forward the democratisation of culture implicit in my perspective on the decline of the concept of 'art'. Perhaps just a bit more novel is the idea that the advance that this movement represents is simultaneously a return, albeit one which recreates its point of departure in a more complex and sophisticated form.

What I'm talking about here is the feeling that roleplaying often gives me of having 'returned' to the venerable tradition of fireside storytelling. Or, in even more grandiose terms, I sometimes find myself wondering if those legendary PC's whose adventures live on in the 'fish-stories' you and your gaming buddies share down the years don't represent the revival- in an appropriate modern form- of the epic narratives of the ancient cultures of man.

Over the top completely? I'd like to think not. But if there is even a nugget of rationality in these speculations, then they pose another serious problem for the idea that roleplaying is art. Why? Because unless my basic understanding of history is profoundly mistaken, the narrative traditions to which I refer predate the very existence of 'art' as a distinct feature of culture which existed in reference to some external, inferior mere culture. Whatever the precise details of this history, people would have been sitting around fires telling each other stories for a very long time before storytelling could have become a speciality which could take on airs and graces.

Conclusion
John Kim's remarks quoted above were in response to my own comment that "[f]ar from highlighting roleplaying's distinct virtues, the artistic conception submerges those virtues by choosing to evaluate rpg's according to standards that are quite simply inappropriate to what rpg's are."

In taking up John's challenge I put forward a sketch of a concept of art arguing that the term is intrinsically elitist and a historical relic of no real value in understanding the modern culture without which rpg's simply wouldn't even exist. I continued by putting forward some thoughts about the nature of roleplaying suggesting that it enjoys novel features profoundly at odds with structure and history of 'art' as an aspect of human society.

I expect that many readers cleaving to the artistic concept of roleplaying won't be convinced by the barely fleshed-out bones of the case I have put forward. In particular, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some were to protest that they have no truck with artistic elitism, that they were instead concerned more deeply to understand how their experience of roleplaying meshes with their enjoyment of reading, movies, and so on- with "other imaginative, creative endeavors" in other words. Some might even agree with my opinion of what 'art' has meant in the past, but argue that the very development to which I refer means that the term has a new, more inclusive meaning.

Presumptious enough to answer imagined counter-arguments in advance, to the former I would say: fair enough, but the viewpoint I have put forward suggests that it is quixotic at best to attempt to achieve these perfectly reasonable goals by accomodating to aesthetic conceptions which bear no proven relationship to the specific features of rpg's. I mean to say: what are you trying to achieve by asserting the artistic conception of roleplaying? Are you trying to improve your gaming experience? To achieve for your gaming some dignity you feel it lacks? Or to explore purposes other than simple entertainment that rpg's might be adapted to? What exactly? And how exactly does the artistic conception of roleplaying assist you?

And to the latter I would suggest that such a line of argument would inevitably end up as mere semantic wranglings. If my basic historical case for the elitism of 'art' as a concept holds water, then attempting to argue that 'everything is art now' is hardly a step forward. Instead of grasping the novel features of the present situation in their own terms it is an effort which can only spread intellectual confusion by maintaining the old cultural jargon in a persistent vegetative state.

Related@RD/KA!
The emperor's new clothes? The state of roleplaying theory
- #1: General gamism
- #2: A funny thing happened on my way to this article
- It's art Jim, but not as we know it!