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Do RPGs have value outside of fun?

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Torment is a story about a man that did the possible and impossible to avoid his fate and by doing that, he spread suffering to everything he touched, the good ending is him accepting his fate, of stop fleeing and enduring the suffering but now with dignity as now he knows himself. We are mysteries to ourselves and blind men cannot lead other blind men, the purpose of art is to discuss things which regular words are not enough as even such toughts many times are only awaked on our mind when we are exposed to art.

RPGs can have value as they can awake insights and thoughts we didnt expect on our mind, you dont need even such a narrative based game to prove RPGs value. Mechanics focused RPGs many times work as complex clockwork puzzles with a series of moving parts that are fun to solve. There is a beauty on something that is cleverly crafted where you see all the parts moving and you finaly understand it. What is the meaning of this? Of enjoying the clever design a human mind created.

The major problem of most AAA games, and some smaller RPGs too, is that they fail completely at the narrative level, they arent art as they werent made to make you think but for you to blindly consume. They just craft a series of meaningless bombastic moments so you are sedated enough to reach the end, they count you wont think much and hope you are sedated enough, that is it. In terms of mechanics, again, clever and beauty designs require understanding and tolerance to challenge but that is to ask way too much from people that just wish to be sedated.
 

Metronome

Learned
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
277
Yes but half of the time the value is in the negative numbers and the Zero has also a value. Art is derived from the latin word artem which means skill, craft or power. Artem is accusative singular of ars which means Skill or Sciences or something that is skillfull made. Exercitatio artem parat. ( Practice makes the Art (master).) Therefore the word art should be only used in connection to something that requires quite the skill to make.
Success in art is largely luck based. Skill hedges your bets to some extent but loses it's novelty much more quickly than it is acquired. Intuition could be just as important if you look at art as a source of income. Time wasted is not necessarily so in this line of work, or in many creative pursuits. If you have two experts of identical quality their skills do not stack like laborers, they just compete against each other for people's attention. So artists seem to have acquired over time an aversion towards competition and effort. It seems better to work smart than hard, and even that will only get you so far.

I've seen a lot of skilled artists get the shaft because they thought people would appreciate their skill. They really put their nose to the grindstone and churned out some impressive stuff. Their audience wasn't so sentimental though. I've found great stuff nobody has even heard of years after it was created. It pains me to think of the effort that went into it to be met with silence. Sometimes absolute silence. You could spend your whole life working on some Magnum Opus and the artistic equivalent of a shitpost will win the day.

If people don't like the trend towards low effort art, then they should contemplate over how to provide skilled artists more security. Otherwise the disdain artists seem to hold for skillful labor and hard work will only grow.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
I do not consider modern "art" art. :M

Well, it's mostly true because most contemporary artists are just crooks but it's not a universal truth, i met contemporary artists from multiple disciplines with more or less talent believing in what they were doing and that's what matters.

If you dont play videogames, you will spend more time with your wife and that means wasting more time hearing how such a horrible human being you are, if you play video games, people will annoy you saying how such a horrible human being you are for wasting time with them. If it is to be a horrible humam being anyway, it is better to waste time playing videogames, at least they are fun.

You should get a divorce and find yourself a younger one ... Or a mistress ...
 

Black Angel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
Messages
2,910
Location
Wonderland
I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but RPGs in general so far has taught me about ways of the world. Obviously I prioritize fun (and the game being playable on my old ass ancient laptop), but going past that, and if the devs are good enough to make me interested, I start paying attention at themes and lessons I could learn from it.

Oh, and English. It started since my childhood playing RTS like Age of Empires 2, but I'm still learning a lot from playing RPGs.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. My assertion remains true.
This is the first time I hear this. Prior to this I saw people saying that sarcasm is just your self-defense against stupidity.
 

wahrk

Learned
Joined
Aug 13, 2019
Messages
216
I've seen a lot of skilled artists get the shaft because they thought people would appreciate their skill. They really put their nose to the grindstone and churned out some impressive stuff. Their audience wasn't so sentimental though. I've found great stuff nobody has even heard of years after it was created. It pains me to think of the effort that went into it to be met with silence. Sometimes absolute silence. You could spend your whole life working on some Magnum Opus and the artistic equivalent of a shitpost will win the day.

If people don't like the trend towards low effort art, then they should contemplate over how to provide skilled artists more security. Otherwise the disdain artists seem to hold for skillful labor and hard work will only grow.

Hasn’t it always been this way? All throughout history are examples of artists who died forgotten and in poverty until their work was discovered and appreciated years later. But this trend of “low effort art” seems to be a more modern problem.

I think there’s two main issues: one, the politics of “all art is valid and meaningful” has mostly stripped art of any meaning. If everything is valid then shoving paintballs up your asshole and shitting them out onto canvas is just as valid of an expression as actually learning to paint. Hundreds of years ago, you might devote your life to learning to paint and still not find success, but the guy shitting paint out on canvas wouldn’t even be considered art. Now both are “art” but only one requires hard work.

Two, people equate “artist” with performers and celebrities whose financial and popular success has very little to do with their actual skill. “Art” has become just another industry where soulless corporations are the arbiters of taste and the only art that gets publicity is whatever lowest common denominator garbage they’ve decided to mass market to all the peasants.

So, you end up with a deluge of talentless “artists” who see art as a pathway to wealth and fame, in an environment where shock value and politics get you noticed, not skill and craftsmanship.
 

Metronome

Learned
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
277
Hasn’t it always been this way? All throughout history are examples of artists who died forgotten and in poverty until their work was discovered and appreciated years later. But this trend of “low effort art” seems to be a more modern problem.

I think there’s two main issues: one, the politics of “all art is valid and meaningful” has mostly stripped art of any meaning. If everything is valid then shoving paintballs up your asshole and shitting them out onto canvas is just as valid of an expression as actually learning to paint. Hundreds of years ago, you might devote your life to learning to paint and still not find success, but the guy shitting paint out on canvas wouldn’t even be considered art. Now both are “art” but only one requires hard work.

Two, people equate “artist” with performers and celebrities whose financial and popular success has very little to do with their actual skill. “Art” has become just another industry where soulless corporations are the arbiters of taste and the only art that gets publicity is whatever lowest common denominator garbage they’ve decided to mass market to all the peasants.

So, you end up with a deluge of talentless “artists” who see art as a pathway to wealth and fame, in an environment where shock value and politics get you noticed, not skill and craftsmanship.
I don't think that's the case. Take a look at a list of the most expensive paintings for example. People now recognize that value is not placed on a display of skill but on something else. Modern art is a search for what that is, and attempting to replicate it.

When people discover that you can't replicate what is in reality random chance, they express their angst at the injustice of it. That “all art is valid and meaningful” is just a recognition that artists can not reliably predict what people will find meaningful. It is not a celebration, but a revolt. Reality does not validate beauty. Beauty is someone's dopamine squirt. If only furrys will commision your art, then you better get used to their definition of it.

At least that's the meme, but there is some truth to it. Artists are still human beings with needs. They should not be, but they are. You can starve them, but you can't make them indifferent to it. And not a lot of people can ignore the risk of dying unknown and in poverty, accomplishing nothing with their lives. If skill were certain to gain you noteriety, as it is with many other professions, then artists would embrace it. However that is not the case. The nihilism that is present in today's art is a product of the profession itself. That this nihilism spreads from art to the rest of society is a consequence of the charismatic nature of the profession.
 

NJClaw

OoOoOoOoOoh
Patron
Joined
Aug 30, 2016
Messages
7,513
Location
Pronouns: rusts/rusty
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I don't think that's the case. Take a look at a list of the most expensive paintings for example. People now recognize that value is not placed on a display of skill but on something else.

A Jackson Pollock painting isn't worth 5 bucks, the only reason it fetches millions is money laundering schemes.
 

Ninjerk

Arcane
Joined
Jul 10, 2013
Messages
14,323
I don't think that's the case. Take a look at a list of the most expensive paintings for example. People now recognize that value is not placed on a display of skill but on something else.

A Jackson Pollock painting isn't worth 5 bucks, the only reason it fetches millions is money laundering schemes.
I thought it was funny to read that Pollock himself owned some sketches by Bridgman.
 

wahrk

Learned
Joined
Aug 13, 2019
Messages
216
Hasn’t it always been this way? All throughout history are examples of artists who died forgotten and in poverty until their work was discovered and appreciated years later. But this trend of “low effort art” seems to be a more modern problem.

I think there’s two main issues: one, the politics of “all art is valid and meaningful” has mostly stripped art of any meaning. If everything is valid then shoving paintballs up your asshole and shitting them out onto canvas is just as valid of an expression as actually learning to paint. Hundreds of years ago, you might devote your life to learning to paint and still not find success, but the guy shitting paint out on canvas wouldn’t even be considered art. Now both are “art” but only one requires hard work.

Two, people equate “artist” with performers and celebrities whose financial and popular success has very little to do with their actual skill. “Art” has become just another industry where soulless corporations are the arbiters of taste and the only art that gets publicity is whatever lowest common denominator garbage they’ve decided to mass market to all the peasants.

So, you end up with a deluge of talentless “artists” who see art as a pathway to wealth and fame, in an environment where shock value and politics get you noticed, not skill and craftsmanship.
I don't think that's the case. Take a look at a list of the most expensive paintings for example. People now recognize that value is not placed on a display of skill but on something else. Modern art is a search for what that is, and attempting to replicate it.

When people discover that you can't replicate what is in reality random chance, they express their angst at the injustice of it. That “all art is valid and meaningful” is just a recognition that artists can not reliably predict what people will find meaningful. It is not a celebration, but a revolt. Reality does not validate beauty. Beauty is someone's dopamine squirt. If only furrys will commision your art, then you better get used to their definition of it.

At least that's the meme, but there is some truth to it. Artists are still human beings with needs. They should not be, but they are. You can starve them, but you can't make them indifferent to it. And not a lot of people can ignore the risk of dying unknown and in poverty, accomplishing nothing with their lives. If skill were certain to gain you noteriety, as it is with many other professions, then artists would embrace it. However that is not the case. The nihilism that is present in today's art is a product of the profession itself. That this nihilism spreads from art to the rest of society is a consequence of the charismatic nature of the profession.

I actually had to google the ten most expensive paintings currently (interesting read) but I’m not sure what it proves. It certainly doesn’t negate the importance of skill because many of those paintings are works of great technical skill, even some of the more unconventional ones. Regardless, I don’t know that I would equate the value of art purely to the price tag it fetches in art galleries. Most of the value seems to be based on things like rarity, or details about the painting itself rather then the content (ie this painting was lost for 30 years before being found).

Artistic success is unpredictable =/= all art is valid. Reality doesn’t invalidate beauty. If anything reality does not support the idea that everything is equally valuable. Rarity is value and beauty is rare.

I‘m not sure that nihilism is a product of the profession itself. Was impressionism, or romanticism? Don’t you think those were products partly of the surrounding political and social environment? An environment that reduces art to just a “dopamine squirt” is responsible for that nihilism, not the other way around.

I’m not trying to argue that skill is the only determinant of value for art; just that today’s politics have diminished the value of skill and will continue to result in “low effort art” unless they are changed.
 

Darkzone

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2013
Messages
2,323
Yes but half of the time the value is in the negative numbers and the Zero has also a value. Art is derived from the latin word artem which means skill, craft or power. Artem is accusative singular of ars which means Skill or Sciences or something that is skillfull made. Exercitatio artem parat. ( Practice makes the Art (master).) Therefore the word art should be only used in connection to something that requires quite the skill to make.
Success in art is largely luck based. Skill hedges your bets to some extent but loses it's novelty much more quickly than it is acquired. Intuition could be just as important if you look at art as a source of income. Time wasted is not necessarily so in this line of work, or in many creative pursuits. If you have two experts of identical quality their skills do not stack like laborers, they just compete against each other for people's attention. So artists seem to have acquired over time an aversion towards competition and effort. It seems better to work smart than hard, and even that will only get you so far.

I've seen a lot of skilled artists get the shaft because they thought people would appreciate their skill. They really put their nose to the grindstone and churned out some impressive stuff. Their audience wasn't so sentimental though. I've found great stuff nobody has even heard of years after it was created. It pains me to think of the effort that went into it to be met with silence. Sometimes absolute silence. You could spend your whole life working on some Magnum Opus and the artistic equivalent of a shitpost will win the day.

If people don't like the trend towards low effort art, then they should contemplate over how to provide skilled artists more security. Otherwise the disdain artists seem to hold for skillful labor and hard work will only grow.
I agree on what you say and also it does not negate my statements. Also if you have read my statment about communism as the reward system then you why this statement is true.
I will say it here that the audience is the guilty one in this case, because to appreciate skill in certain department you gotta have some skill and experience in this too. Novelties and Names are more important than skills, to the buffoons.
To be poor as an artist is nothing new and it was always so that there were artists who were rich or who were poor. The "starving artist" is for a reason a trope.
Here is a list of famous artist who lived and died poor (known to me on the spot):
Painters: Leonardo da Vinci, El Greco, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet, Gauguin and van Gogh.
Writers: Dickinson, Poe, Melville and Kafka.
Therefore artists are always in need of sponsors or patrons. In german the patron is called "Mäzen", this is derived from the Gaius Clinius Maecenas who sponsered Vergil and Horaz. The most famous patrons of medival times are naturally the Medici familiy.
The artist is poor, because his skill does not produce something that is fundamentally required that can be always sold, therefore he needs to sell his art to an audience that does not even know what all went into creating this artwork.
 
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Max Damage

Savant
Joined
Mar 1, 2017
Messages
657
RPGs by themselves don't have much besides fun, but because no two people can agree what's best in RPGs, this leads to homebrewing and modding. So, in that way RPGs inspire creativity and (sometimes) critical thinking. And edition/game wars between autists, of course.
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2018
Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Fun? :littlemissfun:

From a wee nipper my family would gather every Sunday and we'd play cards. It was great - all the extended family - even the posh English that married into it brought their card games, and it was great fun for all generations. My grandfather would win all of the easier games because he would memorise the deck. So for that generation it was to keep mentally sharp.

The point being that if you take a simple mediterranean card game like scoba and compare it to a more complicated game like belote...I started scoba when I was 5 and played belote as I got older and smarter. Now the RPG genre is getting simlpler as I get older, and the complicated games are almost non-existant.

There's some kind of cultural lesson in there somewhere: I know it's a form of entertainment, but if you compare games to industry, professions, culture, religion - (whatever) there's meant to be an arc right? You have the simple stuff, and then it becomes more complicated for the smarter people. So as there are so few complicated products, RPG and fans must be getting older and dumber.

That was a rant by the way. Fucking isolating from the virus and started lent (no sex of any kind) 3 weeks ago and it's giving me cabin fever. :argh:
 

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