Eventually we’ll see Gary and Rob’s original maps for Castle Greyhawk. Then someone should collect them with other 1970’s dungeon maps and make a case for them as Outsider Art. The unbridled creativity bound within this unique logic they created of rooms and corridors amazes me.
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 29, 2021
I'm talking about stuff like this. I argue that this is, and should be viewed as, a work of art. But art done by someone operating totally outside the normal sociology of art in our culture. Look at this map! Look at how many unstated things it takes for granted! https://t.co/PlG2uVOid1 pic.twitter.com/iYQ0dvwSUE
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 29, 2021
Like, imagine a teacher trying to explain this drawing to a class of students, without ever referencing the rules of D&D.
They would talk about the use of lines, the fact that the medium is Graph Paper, how many works of art are drawn on graph paper?? They would ask the students to consider how the medium affects the art. MANY lines are drawn on the grid…but not all! Why? What motivated the decision to stick to the lines, as opposed to veer widely from them?
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 29, 2021
What IS this illustration? It’s a drawing of rooms and corridors. What is the relationship between room and corridor?
Notice that there are “orthodox” rooms and corridors, and heterodox rooms and corridors. Why? What does the orthodoxy represent? Why deviate from it? WHEN we deviate from the orthodoxy…what kinds of rooms and corridors do we draw?
What about the use of color? There is SOME color here. Why?
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 29, 2021
A teacher might say “This is a diagram of a play space in a game. BUT! It is a diagram THE PLAYERS WILL NEVER SEE! That being the case, what is the PURPOSE of making some bits colored?” Also, this map is by no means unique! There were THOUSANDS of outsider artists in the 70's making maps that would be largely indistinguishable from this one. Thousands of people, making art, that all looked basically the same…but by and large these people did not communicate.
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 29, 2021
They didn’t communicate, and they hadn’t seen each other’s maps!
This is a phenomenon deserving of documenting. How awesome would it be to compile a whole coffee-table book of Homebrew Dungeon Maps from 1974 to 1979 and then get commentary throughout from art historians.
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 29, 2021
Folks are saying MCDM should do this, and we maybe could? But sourcing authentic 70s Dungeon Maps would be an enormous undertaking and securing rights for printing and reprinting would be a nightmare.
— Matt Colville? (@mattcolville) March 30, 2021