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here's a question: among the following games, taken from Bundle of Holding's "Alternatives to D&D" and "Non-OGL Fantasy" bundles, which would you consider to be "indie" titles? Five Torches Deep Tiny Dungeon Chivalry & Sorcery Basic Fantasy RPG Lightmaster Dungeon Crawl Classics Shadow of the Demon Lord HackMaster (5th Edition) Fragged Empire/Kingdom Mythras The Dark Eye Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2E Heroes Against Darkness Worlds Without Number Fantasy Age Against the Darkmaster
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Jan 22, 2023 14:49
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| # ? May 25, 2024 03:50 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:here's a question: among the following games, taken from Bundle of Holding's "Alternatives to D&D" and "Non-OGL Fantasy" bundles, which would you consider to be "indie" titles? You're going to have to define "indie" in the context of your question unless you want to spawn 3 pages of the eternal "is indie about financial/legal independence or is it about smaller/lower-means design studios or is it about people making non-mainstream games" debate. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jan 22, 2023 |
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Jan 22, 2023 15:48
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Yeah the answer is It Depends
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Jan 22, 2023 15:49
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This is simple. Games I have to explain to my friends what they are count as indie. Games they already know without playing with our group aren't.
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Jan 22, 2023 15:56
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FWIW all of those are indie in the first sense because none of them are published by WotC/Paizo/OPP+WW/Modiphius/Evil Hat, and most if not all of those are indie in the second sense (a good chunk are solo designer efforts). Most of them are not indie in the third sense because they're just rolling a d20 to kill some orcs (with Fragged being the one exception, arguably?).
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Jan 22, 2023 15:56
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ZearothK posted:This is simple. Games I have to explain to my friends what they are count as indie. Games they already know without playing with our group aren't. Yeah
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Jan 22, 2023 16:05
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sebmojo posted:i t ' s Okay, but somebody subtweet, “Just now hearing that there are sex moves besides the missionary position?!?” thanks.
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Jan 22, 2023 16:45
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DalaranJ posted:Okay, but somebody subtweet, “Just now hearing that there are sex moves besides the missionary position?!?” thanks. On top, doggy, and normal.
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Jan 22, 2023 16:49
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Freudian posted:I play games like that and I thought it was funny. Take a second to open your heart to laughter. yeah, he very specifically got our asses (mine too; a few posts down someone's like "what about 4E retroclones" "shut up, nerd")
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Jan 22, 2023 17:59
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https://twitter.com/andrewfinney79/status/1616587513761783808
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Jan 22, 2023 18:06
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That's a particularly lazy Lasers and Feelings hack that doesn't even tell you what you're supposed to do
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Jan 22, 2023 18:10
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It's also not diceless 
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Jan 22, 2023 18:12
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Megazver posted:There are some "suggest a PbtA game no matter what recommendation a person is asking for" people on /r/rpg, like there are for many systems, but I admit it, some of them are kinda... weird about it. There is a weird undercurrent of "playing PbtA games is a part of my self-image as a good person (tradgames are ~*icky and problematic*~)" I get from their posts sometimes. I think there are certain "pet" game types that people will jump on, or flavor-of-the-month things people cool down on eventually. It happens here, too. I think it's just part of TTRPG discussion tbh. I wouldn't say PbtA games are in any way "collaborative poetry simulators" or "dour exploration of grief where you don't roll to hit" anyway. People aren't playing Apocalypse World because they're into high concept Nordic LARPs about what it means to live every moment of your life as Gritty the Hockey Mascot. They play Apocalypse World because they want to play a game of Mad Max: Fury Road.
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Jan 22, 2023 18:19
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I'm pretty sure that in the days of the Forge the corresponding joke was "a supers game with only one stat."
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Jan 22, 2023 18:22
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it's an indie game if it's normally $9.99 on Itch.io but currently 15% off, so I grab it without realizing i already own it because i gave $20 for blm in 2020 and got that bundle with 200 things in it
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Jan 22, 2023 18:27
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Pretty much any game that isn't D&D is "indie" because people dramatically underestimate how small the TTRPG market is
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Jan 22, 2023 18:30
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Youremother posted:Pretty much any game that isn't D&D is "indie" because people dramatically underestimate how small the TTRPG market is I'd almost accept the argument that D&D is indie tbh. This space is small.
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Jan 22, 2023 18:40
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your game is indie if i can't buy an rpg based off it on steam
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Jan 22, 2023 18:46
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Tulip posted:I'd almost accept the argument that D&D is indie tbh. This space is small. It's made by a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation and is what the general public thinks all of RPGs amount to. There is absolutely no definition of "indie" under which D&D is that.
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Jan 22, 2023 20:31
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Lemon-Lime posted:It's made by a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation and is what the general public thinks all of RPGs amount to. There is absolutely no definition of "indie" under which D&D is that. The fans are smug and pretentious about how long they've liked it, that makes it indie. Also, comic book movies.
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Jan 22, 2023 20:45
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Indie vs trad obscures the distinction I care about, which is whether a game is actually advancing the state of the art, or just iterating.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:07
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iterating is fine, i'm just sick of the "one step forward, two steps back" shuffle that every non-indie TTRPG seems to go through between editions
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Jan 22, 2023 21:11
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:iterating is fine, i'm just sick of the "one step forward, two steps back" shuffle that every non-indie TTRPG seems to go through between editions I can't globally slam iteration, because it often fixes the little problems with an original idea. On the other hand, people often iterate without understanding the thing they're iterating on works. To pick on the example that besets our gaming group, very few of the PbtA games work as well as AW does.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:15
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I can't globally slam iteration, because it often fixes the little problems with an original idea. On the other hand, people often iterate without understanding the thing they're iterating on works. To pick on the example that besets our gaming group, very few of the PbtA games work as well as AW does. Honestly, I've always been curious if there are any good breakdowns of the does and don'ts of making a PbtA hack. I'd love to see what games iterate positively, what games iterate negatively, what elements don't work when carried unchanged between genres, stuff like that. I know Dungeon World in particular went from the PbtA I heard the most about after (or even more than?) AW to a game often lobbied as an unfitting hack, often with something like Fellowship suggested in its place.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:23
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Vince Baker did a series of blog posts not exactly about how to write a PbtA game, but about how Apocalypse World's design can be a frame work for making your own game. It's definitely a good starting point for understanding what PbtA is meant to do and what it doesn't do.
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Jan 22, 2023 21:31
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Megazver posted:There are some "suggest a PbtA game no matter what recommendation a person is asking for" people on /r/rpg, like there are for many systems, but I admit it, some of them are kinda... weird about it. There is a weird undercurrent of "playing PbtA games is a part of my self-image as a good person (tradgames are ~*icky and problematic*~)" I get from their posts sometimes. I don't know about the latter half but this forum was full of people who did the same "suggest PBTA all the time no matter what" until only recently it feels like. Either those folks have chilled out or moved over to other places.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:08
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Since the Bakers are working on an AW SRD, and the best SRDs include guidance and insight, I have high hopes for the AW SRD.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:08
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Epi Lepi posted:I don't know about the latter half but this forum was full of people who did the same "suggest PBTA all the time no matter what" until only recently it feels like. Either those folks have chilled out or moved over to other places. I will say, when people are constantly snipping mechanics out of DnD and trying to capture more narrative experiences, it doesn't seem too off base to try suggesting something that facilitates that game style. There are probably people being way too overzealous about it, though.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:17
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Zorak of Michigan posted:Indie vs trad obscures the distinction I care about, which is whether a game is actually advancing the state of the art, or just iterating. There are two kinds of game design progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn, nonetheless, for the latter.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:28
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Epi Lepi posted:I don't know about the latter half but this forum was full of people who did the same "suggest PBTA all the time no matter what" until only recently it feels like. Either those folks have chilled out or moved over to other places. If you asked for a game genre suggestion (and didn't specify how crunchy you wanted a game to be) you'd probably still get a lot of people suggesting PbtA hacks among an assortment of other lighter systems like Forged in the Dark, Heart, FATE, Cortex+, LUMEN, etc. because the people who sit in this chat thread have certain preferences in games they play and can give input on. That still doesn't address the point that all of those game rules are still designed around facilitating pulpy genre games, and are not abstract touchy-feely emotion sims that the two tweets are mocking.
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Jan 22, 2023 22:51
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there was definitely a time when the most discussed games here were 4e and Monsterhearts, so if someone's frame of reference for indies is 4-5 years i'll give it to them
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Jan 23, 2023 01:10
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Kwyndig posted:That's a particularly lazy Lasers and Feelings hack that doesn't even tell you what you're supposed to do
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Jan 23, 2023 02:17
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I'm sure there are a few people who wrote a solo journaling RPG about the ennui of high school senior year who have said something like "if you're thinking about ditching D&D you don't have to just have to play another game like it, take a look at mine or others" and I wouldn't be totally surprised if there's one guy who said "now that D&D is dying finally Hasbro will license my Mud-wrestling Ladies But It's Respectful and Feminist PbtA" somewhere on the great wide Internet. I don't doubt it, but I haven't actually seen all that much of the former, which is reasonable but leads to easy Internet dunks if you just look at it sideways (or are deliberately an rear end in a top hat), and I just haven't seen the latter and I very much doubt most other people have either. It's a weak joke that plays into tired old tropes, and even if it comes from good-faith ribbing eventually you get tired of hearing about "underwater basket weaving" because more often than not that sort of thing has got its roots in shithead conservatism.
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Jan 23, 2023 02:43
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Drone posted:Just did a bit of cursory googling for some anecdotal evidence and lol it seems like the physical Pathfinder 2e core book is nigh un-gettable in Europe (unless you happen to find a copy in a store that doesn't have a webshop or something). Granted, RPG supply chains to Europe are usually really bad... is it mostly sold out in the US too? It has been out of stock in the US through my distributors for a couple weeks now, yes.
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Jan 23, 2023 02:50
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That Old Tree posted:I don't doubt it, but I haven't actually seen all that much of the former, which is reasonable but leads to easy Internet dunks if you just look at it sideways (or are deliberately an rear end in a top hat), and I just haven't seen the latter and I very much doubt most other people have either.
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Jan 23, 2023 03:36
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mellonbread posted:People did it here after the laughably bad 5e Dark Souls dropped. I think it was in this thread, even. Everyone suggested their favorite indie sadness simulator where you mechanically simulate the grief your characters feel at the fallen state of the dying world. That sure is one way to remember that conversation. Cause I remember exactly one person suggesting that there exists a theme of grief and loss in the Souls games (pretty uncontroversial statement) and it turning into a giant argument about how that was ruining high-crunch combat for everyone. You want me to go back and check which one of us is right?
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Jan 23, 2023 04:22
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I feel like D&D style combat isn't even really how I'd want to do a crunchier Dark Souls RPG. I feel like the dance-like nature of combat would be better reflected by some sort of push and pull instead of d20 swinginess, and the brutality would be better suited by a way more abridged level of hit points than the bloat every edition of D&D is known for. Though at that point we're getting into a way different conversation.
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Jan 23, 2023 04:34
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Xiahou Dun posted:You want me to go back and check which one of us is right? The Bee posted:I feel like D&D style combat isn't even really how I'd want to do a crunchier Dark Souls RPG. I feel like the dance-like nature of combat would be better reflected by some sort of push and pull instead of d20 swinginess, and the brutality would be better suited by a way more abridged level of hit points than the bloat every edition of D&D is known for. Though at that point we're getting into a way different conversation.
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Jan 23, 2023 04:48
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mellonbread posted:Sure, link it. I definitely think the level of rationing you see in lower level DnD would be a solid starting point. Hell, bring back healing surges and you've got a ready made estus flask equivalent.
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Jan 23, 2023 04:55
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Here’s where someone suggested playing A Quiet Year with Dark Souls theming. A couple of people say that sounds fun (because they’re a very natural tonal pair) and then it turns into a giant argument. The beginning of the conversation is a page or so before that but interleaved with other discussion if you want extra context.
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Jan 23, 2023 05:12
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