Can Pen&Paper RPG be considered as an artform such as improvisation theater ?

Theater has been around for a long time, going from a way to tell stories to a complete art form of literacy. Improvisation theater, as a derivative of theater, is also considered as an art form, but requiring different skills : less memory, but more impulse. RPG have been created in the second half of the twentieth century with “Chain mail”. This genre of games have evolved since then, but the base idea : playing a character in a more or less realistic world, still remained.

What are the things that RPGs and improvisation theater have in common ? First of all, both activities require to play a character. Secondly, you cannot prepare what you want to do. Okay, in some games you can prepare some stuff, but generally, you don't prepare your character to do this or that, and just improvise with the unfolding of the scenario. Thirdly, there are more than one actors. Again, talking about things in general. Finally, the goal of both activities is to entertain each other.

Things sure seem similar. However there are many things that differentiate improvisation theater from RPGs : First of all, there are rules. Secondly, there are spectators in improvisation theater. Thirdly, there is a game master in RPGs there to control and make sure that everyone. Lastly, there can be an emotional link from the player towards his character since a player can play a character numerous times.

From this simple list, there is one major aspect that is CRITICAL to every art and which is absent from RPGs : the notion of spectators. Even in LARPing, gamers play for themselves, and the notion of spectators is an alien concept. When around a table, it is best if the players are oblivious to the surrounding world, to avoid being disturbed while playing. Spectators can still watch players, but the interest is quite limited. Unlike in improvisation theater, a spectator will rarely find much fun in watching RPG players. However, anyone can join a game, but one has to know the rules before playing, making the process quite unuser-friendly.

This is why I believe that pen&paper RPGs cannot be classified as an art form even though there are a lot of similitude with improvisation theater. Every art such as paintings, sculptures, music, books, theater... take the spectator into account, and that concept of spectator is crucial to be considered as an art.

Wow, this was quicker than I thought it would be. I am sure that many will disagree with what I wrote, and I probably forgot a lot of things, but I don't pretend to be a literary guy, quite the contrary ! But I like these types of “philosophical” debate-like themes, so I enjoy writing them. I hope that you took as much enjoyment in reading my articles !

the Game Master of Failure

Today, we will see how Alexander (see previous article) is at Mastering a game. The result is of course a predictable major failure, bringing boredom and yawning around the table as well as a feeling of a wasted day. Why that ? what makes Alexander such a bad Game Master (GM) ?

• Explicit player preference : no-one is unbiased. However, giving one player around 200 points of creation and giving the other one 1500 is over the top. Doing explicit player preference is a good way to bring players against a GM, since players are usually united, except when it's Alexander as a player who has less points than the rest because he will inevitably DIE (and less points means faster character re-creation). Unequal Playing Characters (PCs) will make the players less willing to feel serious about this, and just try to act against the GM's plans.

• Using unexplained things to refrain players from doing unwanted stuff : "the players, after a critical failure to heal an important NPC (non-playing characters) decide to euthanize him by decapitation. At one inch of his neck, the blade is stopped by a strange force..." okay, enough. This is ridiculous ! When players want to do stuff, let them do it, even though it is stupid. Giving stupid excuses to limit the players is extremely bad. Let players do what they want to do, even though it's a very stupid idea.

• Being unoriginal : after a long walk in the forest, we see the big bad guy : the final boss of < insert popular video game name here> with the music related to him. Am I playing DnD or that video game ?

• Being anti-climatic : everyone wants a good final battle after fighting through miles of corridors, let their rage flow onto him, have him suffer 100 fold what they suffered. For example, a "Big bad guy" I created was just a child with powerful necromantic magic but unable to defend himself. The fact that the players had to fight plenty of undeads and a huge undead... THING (which almost killed them), they were more than happy to be able to hit and kill that little bugger, and the overall experience was great because the players were satisfied of getting revenge. But Alexander is a bad GM. basically, the script was like his : find the i bad guy. we walk across a forest and find him. His (unoriginal) final boss looks powerful,but dies in one hit, without doing anything to us. Great going ! why did you need 5 persons search for a guy for 3 hours to kill him in one hit ? Oh and there was no damage roll. It was basically "you touch him, he's dead". Why am I here again ?

• Giving anything to players : "hey Alexander, my character has a lot in 'allies', could he call someone to gather information about the theft we're supposed to investigate ?" "sure, well since you have xxx in 'allies', well your contact knows where the stolen object is, and gives you the address". WTF ?

• Having NPCs act like pussies : the players are in front o the king. One starts asking the princess out, another kills a guard while the others start looting the room. Reaction of the king ? "please, could I have your attention ?". if you want to role-play a kin, at least know how to be authoritarian ! if you can only play pussies, make all NPCs unimportant and insignificant, and therefore, you shouldn't master !

And the list goes on. Finding what makes such a person a bad game master is hard do do because it is such a pain to be a player at one of his tables. Please, Alexander, if you read me, do not master a game, EVER ! (reminder : Alexander is a generic name chosen at random).