What's the point of TTRPGs? A spiral in the form of a playscript

 October this year, I found myself suddenly a lot more intellectually occupied than I have been for a year or so. You'll have noticed, if for some reason you're internet-stalking me, that I haven't posted anything in a couple of months. 

I was very clear when I started the blog that it wasn't going to be another chore for me, so I don't mind letting it sit for a time. Posts will come when the moment strikes. Letting the book-blogs go by the wayside was a shame but also, to be honest, a relief; the exercise of regular writing on a pre-chosen topic is anathema to the state of creative flow I normally try to enter when working, and it's been nice to be able to put aside the painful push to finish in favour of letting things just be.

Of course, such an approach has its limits, the main one being that I tend not to make anything. Instead, I spark off little bits of art, plus pushing on doggedly with whatever game I'm running at the moment (a mage game currently, the writeups for which will hopefully appear on here at some point next year).

Being stressed and overworked has its benefits; I track my and what I can glean of my players' enjoyment of all the games that I run, and have noted that whilst having 100% free time and no stressors is the ideal state in which to run a game, the second best is actually at maximum stress and time pressure. But it does mean I can't do much else - can't plan future games, set up other groups for other friends, or theorize much about games. Furthermore, I struggle to partake in other artistic or political activities.

Inevitably, I end up feeling drained and unproductive in that very particular way that incites one to plan for the future. And right now, what the future holds is a question: is the TTRPG artform something worth devoting a life to? (I know that's going to sound silly to some; all I can say is that it should be read in the same way an author devotes their life to their writing or a political activist to their actions, not as literally advocating total dedication.) It's a question I, a person whose primary talent is probably running TTRPGs, would really like to be able to answer 'yes' to, and in the present moment I'm not sure I can.

The other night, whilst musing on this, I composed a 3500-word socratic dialogue on the matter. As you do. It's extremely pretentious, but I'm owning it; it's not in any sense a complete explication of my thoughts on the matter, but I'm sharing it anyway. Perhaps it will give somebody food for thought, or a good laugh, or the impulse to point out something obvious I've been missing. Enjoy?

The thing itself

Thunder & lightning.

Enter Oberon, Elowen, Fitzroy, and Jago, all soaked to the skin. They seat themselves around a table. Elowen lights a fire. Fitzroy pours them all drinks.

Jago: [mournful] why do I waste my time?

Fitzroy: don't then. You're not so special that you need to waste ours as well.

Elowen: let it speak. There might be more important things, but we shouldn't ignore somebody in need of assistance.

Jago: Thanks. [Clears its throat] thus far in life, I've spent a lot of time telling stories with games. I'd like to think I'm quite good at it; certainly a lot of people tell me I am. But I'm reaching an age where I have to consider: do I want to do this forever? What's the point? What do I want out of life?

Oberon: ‘What’s the point?’ Pretty silly question to ask about art. As Wilde pointed out, ‘all art is quite pointless’. And I assume none of you are going to dispute that this counts as art?

Fitzroy: Quite. All pointless, anyway. Everything in life. You give up, lie down, and rot, or you do the things you’ll enjoy. [Sips their drink]

Elowen: I think you’re being intentionally obtuse to seem clever, there, lads. It’s not asking for a counterpoint to existential nihilism; it wants to know how to pursue its primary values.

Jago: Knowing how to locate my primary values would be a good start. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to find a key that unites all of my beliefs. Not rigorously, anyway.
Fitzroy: Welcome to 99.99% of the population.

Elowen: Fine. Start where you are.

Oberon: You’re a human. You’re limited. What are the deepest principles you can see in yourself?

Jago: Well… I’m skipping over a lot, but I think we need to maximize the extent to which every entity can fulfil itself without suffering harms, and I think that only an entity can define what counts as a harm or a good to itself, and I think we should be pretty open-minded about what might be an entity. Straight downstream of that, I’m some kind of panpsychish [sic] utilitarian, for a very weird definition of utilitarianism, and some kind of anarchist. Further downstream, I’m a communist, I’m an environmentalist, I’m an agnostic who’s too interested in religion for its own good…

Oberon: If you’re going to be wishy-washy about the transcendent, you aren’t going to get far with art. You know that, so you’re not, really. You’re a pantheist, and that’s why you’re a good artist.

Fitzroy: I’m not sure it’s a good artist, queen.

Jago: [defensive] You want to elaborate on that statement?

Fitzroy: A good artist might prepare more. Might practice more. Might actually spend time studying the theory.

Elowen: You’re describing a good theorist. Maybe a good game designer, or blogger. It certainly isn’t that, but all the art needs to do is make people happy. That’s basically all any art does.

Fitzroy: Wrong, and Oberon will happily tell you why, and what’s up with yon wretch. At length, so I’ll cut him off at some point.

Oberon: Charming. Art is transcendent, like I said. It’s a sort of parasite on the brain, a set of thought-patterns that make something that’s thinking for itself inside you, trying to get you to birth it. Tolkien called it sub-creation, and because he loved God it never bothered him; Jung called it an autonomous complex; the Chaos Magicians would call it an egregore, or maybe a god-form, though I doubt anything coming out of a tabletop roleplaying game would qualify as a god-form. Except maybe Critical Role characters or some shit, and honestly…

Jago and Fitzroy, in unison: Are they even playing a TTRPG?

Jago: It’s something else, right? As different from what we do as wall art is from an ancient cave painting.

Fitzroy: Exactly. And what’s the cave painting?

Elowen: Nobody knows. Come on.

Fitzroy: It’s a ritual. It’s invoking something. You’re worshipping some kind of thing you made of thoughts. That’s why all this shit is so cult-y, why a really serious game goes through lives like a hurricane. Even if you all stay friends, you become part of something bigger for a bit, and when it pulls out you’ve lost a part of you – maybe even a part that was there before you joined up.

Elowen: This is extremely stupid. What are we getting at? Are we helping, or are we just theorizing? [Fitzroy grins massively at her, says nothing; Elowen goes on] We’ve got some values. And we’ve got a question: what do you do with your life? Can you use those to get to an answer? Here’s my proposition: 
You want to do good in the world, by your convoluted definition of good. Good to all life, defined by that life. Fine. Call that good. You don’t know if games can do that. I don’t think any of us hates art, obviously it’s pleasant and useful and beautiful, it inspires us and so forth, it recharges us when we don’t have energy -

Oberon: It’s not a battery.

Elowen: I’m listing things. It does a lot of good, is my point. But it’s also fairly limited. You can kind of target it, but not precisely. If you want an overturning of the current global order, want a more just world, you can’t rely on art to do that. See that Vonnegut quote about artists in opposition to the vietnam war… every respectable artist in this country was against it and they had all the power of a custard pie dropped from a six-foot stepladder. sometimes it’ll spark a movement, usually it won’t do shit. And you want to do shit. And a game takes a lot of time to make, even if you are half-assing your prep for it. And the game reaches about seven people, tops.

Oberon: You could write a game, or a module… but I know that’s not the same thing.
Elowen: Exactly. It’s not. Frankly, the best-designed game in the world isn’t going to do much, but it might be read by a couple of thousand people, played by a couple of hundred. It’s a different order of magnitude. The game leaves you with less time that you could be doing other things, and you know that.

Jago: Exactly. Exactly. People are being arrested on the streets. I know I’ve avoided doing things that I’m objectively safer than other people to do because I’ve got a game tomorrow. Sometimes I’ve not turned up at all, because this matters to me more. That’s just the art serving as a distraction, and the thing is it’s inherent to the medium. You can pick up a painting, and put it down. You can go do a direct action and work on your novel later. Not much hobbles you like a five hour slot every week or two where you can’t do shit.

Oberon: I mean… you’re making life better for a few people. But it’s interesting what you say. There’s a kind of anti-affordance to the medium of running games.

Fitzroy: Not sure it’s making life better. Bleed’s a thing. Maybe you’re just trauma-bonding everyone into a weird little codependent blob that actually makes them miserable, but because they’re doing it with people they like they don’t want to leave. Anti-affordances all the way down. Eats your life, eats theirs. Like I say, there’s a reason these things get so culty, and it’s not just that there’s something living in there that exceeds the characters you thought you brought along.

Oberon: Hold on, there are a few affordances. I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but even if it’s true, there are things this artform can do that not many others can. The element of chance, of emergence, telling stories that no one person could have come up with, that is more alien even than most art, but it’s the alienness of a conversation. Literally any conversation! You’re entering into a bond with others, and merging bits of yourselves, and yes that can be scary it can also be beautiful! Several heads are better than one at this kind of thing, or at least really interestingly different, and of course the game itself is a participant too. Everything’s mediated by the rules, and the rules are usually at least partly random.

Elowen: I think you’re getting off the topic.

Oberon: And besides, all we’re ever really going to get out of life is creation, is moments of beauty. That’s the ultimate value, right? That’s what we want. If you have to sacrifice yourself to this thing, well, that’s what most artists do.

Elowen: There are… I feel like you’re using ‘beauty’ quite broadly here.

Oberon: I mean, I suppose there are higher callings. You could become a magician and work your will upon the world directly.

Jago: No. I don’t believe in it enough. I can’t even really mediate. Anyway, listen to Elowen, she’s making a point.

Elowen: Ta. Yeah, this is unbelievably off topic. It does not matter if the TTRPG is valid art. The question is whether it’s the best use of your life to dedicate yourself to it.
Oberon: Surely it matters if it’s art on a par with other art? For example, it might be capable of more profound transformations of its subject, being engaged with more directly for a longer time.

Elowen: Even then, no art is reliable. A spark for millions is going to be worth more than changing a few… hm. Or maybe not. Maybe… [Trails off]

Oberon: I think you’re the one missing the point, but I concede that our host is determined to be a materialist.

[Jago looks mildly annoyed, but Elowen responds directly to Oberon.]

Elowen: Thank you. Maybe there’s some value to be had in a profound transformation applied to a small number of influential people. [She sips her drink]. If there is, and if you’re creating games for people who are interesting, who pursue other art, and if those games do anything to make them better people, then maybe it’s worthwhile morally.

Fitzroy: For which the evidence is all of jack and shit. Let’s be real, art might change the world a bit but it’s not up to the task of the Present Moment. Or the stuff that is is going to need to reach a lot of people, and it’s going to need to achieve a lot.

Jago: Youtube video essays. Podcasts. Books.

Fitzroy: Not sure about books, to be honest. The academic left doesn’t seem like a great bastion of revolutionary inspiration at the moment. Some music, probably. Idea-dense, emotionally influential, widely accessible.

Jago: Not sure I could hack that. Except maybe the books.

Fitzroy: I’m not even sure you could hack the books, to be quite honest. You can’t really read them any more. And that’s because of the games, isn’t it? There’s always a quicker hit of narrative, tailored to your precise tastes, and it’s urgent that you get ready for it. So you don’t read, and you don’t write, not really. Not except for games, and even then you don’t finish things.

Elowen: That’s a point. If you did decide this was worth doing seriously, you’d need to do it seriously.Learn how to do it really really well. Study up, make deadlines and stick to them, don’t just rock up to sessions for a laugh and rely on being funny to carry you through. If it’s going to be an art, rather than just a hobby -

Oberon: As it should be.

Elowen: Then you need to do it with an eye to making yourself the best you can be. Art might not have much chance of changing the world, but middling art doesn’t have any, and no amount of talent is going to make up for a lack of skill. Of course, the other option is that you agree to consign it to being a hobby. Put less effort in, do it for fun, to recharge, don’t throw yourself after it. Most people would do this.

Oberon: But players want more. They don’t always realize, but when they see a game with the force of a life behind it, they love it.

Fitzroy: Yeah, people love watching people spaff their life away on all sorts of things. ‘Wow, I’m so impressed that this man has spent forty years learning to carve beautiful wooden beams that I can buy at extortionate rates.’ Content. Content or a cult, and you the charismatic leader, and them the self-policing followers giving up all their time and energy to the story you’re selling.

Jago: Those seem quite contradictory.

Fitzroy: Erotics, mate. It’s all about sex, when you get down to it. Purchase and worship really don’t look so very different.

Elowen: Anyway. If you do it as a hobby, you put other things first. Activism. Academia. Stuff that most people will take seriously, that might actually change something.
Fitzroy: Most people think those things are dumb as shit. Again, when did the academic left last change anything in this country? In the entire imperial core? Nobody cares if you invent a new form of accelerationism or write about the topological concordance between fire and capital. Nobody cares if you cut all the power to a bank. Anything we might change is going to get swept up in what the climate and its consequences might change, and we can do shit all about that except wait for people dumber than us to adapt to the new material circumstances.

Elowen: Man doesn’t make himself unconditioned, but he does make himself. Scapegoating and superstition are responses that grow out of the present moment, but so are revolutionary ones. We need people pushing on the latter side. People with a lot of energy and time on their hands, people who are flexible and hopefully a bit charismatic and a bit clever. Most RPG players fit that mould. Hey, why don’t you say ‘games will resume after the revolution?’ Give them some incentive. [She laughs, then looks pensive]

Oberon: Are we really such dogmatists that we’d rather have a world of struggle than a world of art? Art exists for itself, and it’s all the struggle would ever be for anyhow. Free to make, to experience, what we want. ‘If I can’t dance then it’s not my revolution.’

Elowen: We grew up in a world of jack all struggle and a hell of a lot of art, and it’s fuelled by the blood of people outside the imperial core. Every day we aren’t working to bring it down is essentially a failure. Dance, sure, fine, great! But get up the day after dancing and fight. Art that’s made in a moment doesn’t carry the same cost as a Great Work.

Jago: And anyway, there’s something pretty hubristic about a Great Work.

Elowen: I mean, I think anyone’s basically capable of it. They just need to find what works for them, what their, er, affordances are, and push that way relentlessly. The question is whether it’s worthwhile. How many more artists might there be in the future if we free humanity now?

Oberon: I hope you’re willing to carry that argument to all of its logical conclusions.

[Pause]

Elowen: I’m not. But… maybe plenty of other people are. There are potential artists in sweatshops right now. Any of them could make something great. Not all of them are going to strive to improve the human condition.

Fitzroy: Not beating the TESCREAL allegations, lady.

Elowen: Oh fuck off. We’re adopting a sort of utilitarianism, of course I’m going to sound a bit like the most famous utilitarians working right now. Doesn’t mean I share all their politics. Vague comparisons do not a winning argument make.

Fitzroy: If there’s any chance we exist in a revolutionary situation, our individual actions won’t make much difference.

Elowen: I said before, that’s stupid, but just to be clear, what’s your brilliant idea? Do nothing?

Fitzroy: Enjoy yourself, and do what you have the energy to do. We’re all on the way out or up, and it’s not going to be you who makes the choice.

Oberon: Whilst I’m not loving the level of Marxism-dogmatism going into her assumptions, I think you’re wrong here too. There’s a point in a lot of Crowley about ‘one-pointedness’. Imagine a nail with twenty points, and you’ve imagined a bad nail. You need a drive to focus yourself on. Being the best revolutionary you can be would be better than dissipating yourself on a hundred different momentary passions. But it’d be better yet, more fulfilling yet, to give yourself to what you’re already best at and become better at it.

Fitzroy: [Shrugs] enjoy dying alone. Not a lot of time to spend on love or friends or a decent job if the game is life.

Oberon: Maybe I’d rather be Lovecraft than some mid-ranking businessman or petty mafia goon of the same age.

Jago: I mean, to be clear, games are a pretty great way to make and keep friends. I don’t think that’s a risk. Games as hobbies, maybe…

Fitzroy: Games as all-consuming cultic egregore sure as fuck aren’t. Just burn through everyone you know until nobody will play and you’re left alone with an artform you can’t use. And Oberon’s making a pretty fucking solid case that that’s the only kind of game worth pursuing.

Elowen: I do think that kind of devotion maybe just… isn’t worth it? Not for something like this. We come back to what your values are: if you want to help others self-realize, and so you want to free them, giving them a bit of imaginary space…

Oberon: Giving them a bit of imaginal space gives them space to work out what self-actualizations they even want. You can set them free from themselves. It knows that.

Jago: I’ve done a bit of gender experimentation via games over the years, for sure. I know others have done more. That seems like a valuable part, but not one that requires giving my whole self to it.

Oberon: You could be great.

Elowen: Anyone could be great. What do you want to be great at? What’s worth doing?

Jago: I don’t think I love the idea of living as food for a psychic parasite, but I do agree that artistic creation is probably what most self-actualization ultimately comes down to, or just another word for it. And I want to be part of a change in the world, but I think I might do better by playing a part I’m good at than trying to force myself to be somebody I’m not. But then, maybe a footsoldier in the cause of liberation is more necessary than a creative, even if not as skilled? I can certainly think of moments in history when, looking back, I’d say that’s been true. And even if I want to make art, why not write books? I’ve wanted to, and you’re right, the games eat them all. They’re too easy, they force me to focus… oh, I don’t know. We’re no closer than when we started!

[Rain outside the window stops. It gets bright. Brighter.]

Fitzroy: Oh look, the sun’s coming to say hello! Let’s ask what it thinks.

[He goes to the door. Enter Sun, radiant. Fitzroy, Oberon, Elowen, Jago, the set, stage, fourth wall, audience and theatre are all burned to ashes in a brilliant flash of light. Exeunt Sun.]

FINIS