Modern capitalist lingo relegates artists and creative’s to the role of ‘content providers.’ Such artists only real value is their ability to produce tangible content which can then be consumed for the purposes of increasing capital for a corporation or other such entity. Within such a system a creative piece of work is judged on its ability to create ‘engagement’ with its audience, usually with the goal to draw traffic and clicks to a website which create advertising revenue. The audience in this case are passive consumers of products. The works of the artist just another commodity to be consumed.
There is a deeply entrenched value judgement at work here and vast swathes of art as well as artists simply don’t fit into such a model as their work is difficult to frame in the context of what is marketable. Beyond making it difficult for such an artist to make their daily bread it creates a difficulty for the artist, as well as the purveyor of the art, to see any inherent value in a work that doesn’t fit this model of marketable content to be consumed as entertainment.
Modern RPG’s, especially the more commercial kind like 5E D&D, put the GM in a similar role. They exist to provide content to their audience, the players, for consumption. This puts the GM in a position where they are expected to design what amounts to a narrative experience for the players to go through. The inciting incident, the call to action, the journey into the unknown, the climax, the denouement.
Continue reading Capitalism and the ideology of the Games Master as the content provider
