What is Artpunk?

(Basically fancy slightly pretentious hipster-esque D&D stuff.)

In answer to a question by Mastered by Marquis asked below, one I can answer relatively easily and quickly as there isn't much to say about it;

"I'm super interested in this concept of "Artpunk OSR" that you've mentioned a few times."

I did not invent this word, nor was I the first person to use it, though I don't really recall who did or was.

Like most descriptive words its edges are permeable. I think of it as describing people broadly around the aesthetic which I tend to like and most often work within. So me and Scrap. Previously I would have said Zak. Throw in Emmy Allen, possibly Ben L, maybe Zedeck. David McGrogan possibly.

Dirks work on Silent Titans I would consider to be 'artpunk' (see sidebar).

Any of these people may or may not agree with their inclusion.

In most cases the rules system is something roughly analogous to LotFP or uses other very ruleslight emulators like Black Hack, ItO or Knave. But its primarily an aesthetic movement which tends to use a particular playstyle rather than a rules-investigation movement.

Obsessions include original art with a unique aesthetic which isn't necessarily trying to remind you of anything, decent-to-excellent layout and info design, a common use of the aesthetics of ruin and of alienation and lots of trans people making it. Most of the trans people in my circles who were or are making stuff for RPG's would fit into it.

Another obsession would be actually producing things rather than talking about producing things, or arguing about what other people are or should be producing, or arguing about what other people are or should be thinking about what other people are producing.

Politics would be unstated but effectively centre-to-left (based on the people who are in it), with a relatively high sense of personal separation, or division of feeling from person, in comparison to more 'community' oriented communities in which feelings are more prioritised and the division between person and feeling is lesser. The furthest right you would probably get is David McGrogan (though of course, he has left, and without, I note, any soulful comment threads on what we could have done to keep him).

As to what it isn't; it isn't Dragonsfoot-esque. So not deeply concerned with rules or rules emulation and while it has nothing against Gygax or gygaxian thinking, exactly where the rules come from and their exact development isn't of primary interest.

It isn't 'traditional' primarily, nor is it calling out to tradition, either a Tenkar-ish aesthetic or even a modern corporate-happy aesthetic. (Gabor Lux and others might disagree with this.)

Neither is is quite storygamy. It would preserve the object-orientation, high player freedom level, problem-solvy bits, slightly harder edge and 'game' parts of OSR D&D. And it probably won't throw up a lot of hyper-specific social-issue stuff. There might be social issue stuff in it, but probably sublimated into invented worlds and situations. It would make things that largely have no direct political point to make, but which you could maybe say something political or cultural about.

If you want a 'ten commandments' then this breakdown from the famous Scrap thread works as well as any;

1. This is a game about interacting with this world as if it were a place that exists.

2. Killing things is not the goal.

3. There is nothing that is "supposed" to happen.

4. Unknowability and consequence make everything interesting.

5. You play as your character, not as the screenwriter writing your character.

6. It's your job to make your character interesting and to make the game interesting for you.

7. If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

8. The answer is not on your character sheet.

9 .Things are swingy.

10. You will die

By Gregory Blair, Brian Harbron, FM Geist, Zedeck Siew, Brian Murphy, Dirk Detweiler Leichty and Daniel Davis;

There's not deep theory here, I'm just trying to describe a 'scene' or social/creative web that I intuit more than see around me.

If you are someone looking for an OSR-descriptor world that will keep out the bad people you hate and fear, then this probably isn't it. It seems unlikely to me that Pundit, Satanis (or Tenkar) would want to be included, based purely on the aesthetics etc, but since there is no official definition you could hardly keep them out, and Satanis in particular will probably brand himself as 'Artpunk' just to i̶r̶r̶i̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶c̶k̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶y̶o̶n̶e̶ bravely defend free speech.

But there you go, a word that means something close to what some of you were looking for, and which you can use with some utility until the culture war eats it and you need to come up with another one.