I’ve been thinking about the pleasure of skill, which is a topic that comes up a lot in analysis in my (former?) field, early modern drama. There is a fantastic body of writing about the ways that plays were written to showcase the skills of certain performers, and how the pleasure of watching skill—in clowning, in swordsmanship, in emoting, in the performance of gender, in whatever else—was part of what people might have come to the playhouse to see.
I have been thinking about this question of skill in relation to actual play, for a couple of reasons that I have compiled into a list to keep myself from going wildly off into the weeds. I expect I’ll elaborate on each of these in the future.
A new medium demands a new skillset
Maybe it’s a debatable point that Actual Play is a new artistic/performance medium, but I’ll debate that later if so (and I assume others already have), so let’s just accept it as the premise for now. An essential part of a new medium is defining what skills are valued within it, and how those differ from other, similar forms that came before. These can and will change, of course. But consider the highly theatrical style of early television, and the gradual process of learning what types of skill were required to make the most of the medium. Heck, consider Singing in the Rain, and the shifting demands of performer skill as the medium transformed into something new.
The most famous Actual Play series, the ones that are selling out Madison Square Garden and Wembley, are performed by actors and comedians. There are all kind of intersections of gaming, voice acting, comedy, and improv where performers find success in the medium, but none of these skillsets translate directly 1:1 to what Actual Play demands. Which pieces of other disciplines apply, and which have we borrowed for now but will come to realise don’t actually serve the medium?
Art can be (should be?) analysed
If Actual Play is an artform rather than a product or a hobby, then it deserves to be analysed as rigorously and seriously as any other artform. This means a lot of things, but in this case, it includes a recognition that it is, as it were, skilled labour, and analysis of what that skill is, how it is acquired (and who gets the chance to acquire it), and what both artists and audiences expect it to be is a fruitful and important piece of that analysis.
Naming a skill lets you learn it
Related to the above, you have to know what a skillset is before you can work rigorously to acquire it. Once people are making a full-time living playing Dungeons and Dragons on a podcast, or selling out some of the biggest venues in the world (no, I’m not over that one still, or ever), it’s inevitable that people will want to learn how to do that thing. So how can you learn? How can we make sure the industry is not a closed loop where you need experience (or connections) to get experience?
Insisting that success in Actual Play is based purely on ineffable vibes and talent is a guarantee that it will remain the purview of white, cis men (and, let’s be real, conventionally attractive white women). Understanding the medium’s expectations of skill—and what’s actually necessary to be a skilled performer vs what’s just implicit bias against or for certain types of performer—will enable creators and audiences alike to conscious expanding opportunities and avoid bias.
Skill separates the “hobbyist” from the “professional”
Please note the scare-quotes because I hate this phrasing, but I couldn’t think of a better one. One of the things I actually hate about Actual Play is when it accidentally promotes an idea that there’s a ‘correct’ way to play games, or that someone might be ‘not good enough’ to play or GM because they’re not as talented as the people they see and hear on their favourite shows. The real and truest and best version of this hobby is the version that happens with your friends at the table.
What I’m getting at here is that when you have entertainment based on a hobby anyone can (and should!) play and have fun playing, something has to separate the performer from everyone else. I think that the best comparison here is esports. Anyone can buy and play the games they’re playing in an esports tournament, but viewers recognise that the professional players have a higher level of skill than the average person, and that is why they are fun to watch (I assume there are the usual dramas about players everyone thinks sucks, they’d be better, etc, but you know).
Or consider a Twitch streamer. Often, they’re very good at the game they’re playing. However, some of them are just fine, in which case the audience is tuning in to appreciate a different kind of skill: skill in the performance of intimacy, perhaps, as sitting with them feels like you’re sitting with a friend who’s talking to you. Skill at humour, either by making jokes or by engineering funny or interesting things in the game itself. Skill at manipulating or abusing game mechanics to make strange things happen. Skill in simply grabbing people’s attention and not letting go—skill in clickbait or virality.
A professional in a hobby space has to offer something that the average player doesn’t have. Defining what specifically those varied somethings are for Actual Play, and their relative importance (which I’d imagine shifts based on a lot of factors), is exactly what I’m curious about.