Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Part of the problem there is just how many CCGs ended up broadly copying MtG mechanics. It blurs the boundaries; the same is true for all of the not-D&D games that were just "D&D with a few house rules". Technically, original RuneQuest, Palladium Fantasy, and so on -- all just D&D with a few other mechanics. Heck, even Iron Crown Enterprises, the creators of RoleMaster, their original game supplement was meant to be used with D&D.

For the most part, though, those games stopped coming out around the time of Vampire: The Masquerade. So folks who "played other games" but nothing after 1989 have really only seen a very narrow slice of what's out there. Which again, if they're having fun, that's great -- but it really hinders their ability to have informed opinions about RPGs more broadly.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Indie" as a description of what something is, as opposed to how it was made and by whom, has always bugged me -- in music, in games, in film, in fiction, etc...

Indie is when people manage to create it without the benefit of a big corporation. It has nothing to do with genre.

Yes, but freed from the concerns about quarterly profits or especially stock prices, indie games (and music, etc.) is often more experimental, smaller, etc.

The stuff you see on itch.io is hard to imagine being put out by any publisher that has to worry about paying the salaries of dozens of people or more.

"Experimental" is probably closer, but even then, when you've got an entire line built out of an "experimental" game, that adjective seems inaccurate as well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know anything about indie video games.

Smaller studios, smaller scale games, often taking a single element of other games and building that system out into the basis of a whole new game on its own, art that relies more on style than being able to leverage a big team of dozens of artists.

Some good examples:

Stardew Valley

www.stardewvalley.net

UNDERTALE for Nintendo Switch, PC / Mac, PlayStation, and Xbox

UNDERTALE! The RPG game where you don't have to destroy anyone.

undertale.com

poncle | Vampire Survivors

poncle.games

 

[Reynard]

Yes, but freed from the concerns about quarterly profits or especially stock prices, indie games (and music, etc.) is often more experimental, smaller, etc.

The stuff you see on itch.io is hard to imagine being put out by any publisher that has to worry about paying the salaries of dozens of people or more.

"Experimental" is probably closer, but even then, when you've got an entire line built out of an "experimental" game, that adjective seems inaccurate as well.

Sure, and nothing stops indie developers from doing something very traditional, or traditional developers from doing something experimental.

In TTRPGs there is also the question of what constitutes an indie developer. Is Kobold indie?

 

[Mannahnin]

Oh, I went to the in-store appearance at Sound Future, got a CD autographed, and had Geoff Tate compliment my suspenders (white skull & crossbones on black background).

…and in concert, Tate tried to get audience participation going during “Revolution Calling”. But when he held the mic out for “REVOLUTION!”, he instead got “YAY!” (It was visibly deflating.)

As if invoked, I just started getting FB ads for Geoff Tate (he's operating separately from the act currently using the name Queensrÿche) touring this year doing Operation: Mindcrime in its entirety, "for the final time!:

 

[Mannahnin]

Part of the problem there is just how many CCGs ended up broadly copying MtG mechanics. It blurs the boundaries; the same is true for all of the not-D&D games that were just "D&D with a few house rules". Technically, original RuneQuest, Palladium Fantasy, and so on -- all just D&D with a few other mechanics. Heck, even Iron Crown Enterprises, the creators of RoleMaster, their original game supplement was meant to be used with D&D.

RuneQuest, really? Palladium FRP definitely, but the RuneQuest I'm familiar with is the progenitor of Basic Roleplay System (same core as Call of Cthulhu). It DOES have ability scores mostly on a 3-18 scale (with 5 of the 7 overlapping with D&D), but it's a % skill-based system rather than class & level, HP don't increase over time, spells use mana points IIRC... Was original RQ closer?

 

[trappedslider]

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Sure, and nothing stops indie developers from doing something very traditional, or traditional developers from doing something experimental.

I know a bunch of people who work in AAA videogames, and they definitely don't think they have the freedom to experiment once they get too big. It's pretty routine for them to take their golden parachutes and start a little indie studio to do so, once they no longer have to worry about things like paying for their mortgage any more.

In TTRPGs there is also the question of what constitutes an indie developer. Is Kobold indie?

No. The big publishers that have HR people and accountants, like Mongoose or Paizo or Kobold or Black Hat and the like aren't indie outfits any more. They have established game lines, customers with expectations of the publishers and their output, etc.

Indie publishers, IMO, are the ones that pop up, do a few weird things and may vanish without a trace. They're likely "based" out of a garage or more realistically a kitchen table and their accounting department is their mad scramble to set up QuickBooks before tax day.

In the traditional D&D-like RPG space, I'd say Cairn or Knave or the stuff put out by Flatland Games are indie and Paizo, Kobold, etc. are not. It takes more than just being "smaller than WotC," which is everyone, to be a small scrappy independent.

 

[soviet]

Traditionally (sic) an indie rpg was one where the writer/designer(s) were also the publishers and so had full creative control.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Traditionally (sic) an indie rpg was one where the writer/designer(s) were also the publishers and so had full creative control.

I think that's an artifact of the studio size, rather than a requirement.

If Elon Musk created a game studio (please, no), he would absolutely insist on creative control. But the richest man in the world (depending on the stock market that day) can't be considered an indie publisher by any reasonable standard, given the resources he can and will throw at everything.