D&D 5E (2024) DnD 5e designer [Mike Mearls] explains how INDIE RPGs are taking over

[Maxperson]

Different Mike but I did a whole review of it! I love Dragonbane.

Short summary:

• Roll under is super fast with no math.
• Initiative is fast.
• Monster design is super simple
• Most monsters are solo monsters with cool options
• The art is awesome
• Character building is fast and intuitive
• Character progression is a lot of fun

I really enjoyed your review and Dragonbane seems like it's really fun. Thanks!

With regard to evade and the vampire ability, I don't know how good or bad this might be since I don't know the game that well, but what if instead of adding banes to the evade roll, you doubled or tripled the will cost to even evade in the first place? That would give it to the player to decide if the big will cost to evade this really fast creature is worth the roll at 18(or whatever) or lower, or if he should just opt not to evade and accept what will come.

 

[Maxperson]

Convention play is an interesting thing to look at, but I would not expect it to represent much of anything. Lots of people (such as myself) have ever played at a Convention, and I would imagine one would be inclined to play something different at a Convention than one does regularly at home, or a given game community might be primarily at spaces like Conventions in disproportionate numbers, etc.

I don't know if this has been said yet, but I use conventions to try out new games, not because that's the game I and my group are playing. I would think that a good chunk of people do the same thing, which would skew the table data from a place like Gencon if you're looking at it to see market share.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know if this has been said yet, but I use conventions to try out new games, not because that's the game I and my group are playing. I would think that a good chunk of people do the same thing, which would skew the table data from a place like Gencon if you're looking at it to see market share.

Yeah, exactly. I'm not in the Convention scene, but I wouldn't use the opportunity to play what I do regularly with friends and family, or even thst I would be interested in long term playing. Test some stuff out, do an odd one shot.

 

[Reynard]

I don't know if this has been said yet, but I use conventions to try out new games, not because that's the game I and my group are playing. I would think that a good chunk of people do the same thing, which would skew the table data from a place like Gencon if you're looking at it to see market share.

It would be interesting to know. I wonder if any of the big cons have done the sort of attendee surveys that might give us some insight (and made them public, of course).

 

[Stormonu]

I have certainly seen many "come learn", "beginners only" games at cons, and just recently participated in one concerning Nimble 5E.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Since we're on the subject of indie TTRPGs, here's one to look at!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crum/realis

 

[bedir than]

Renton, hometown of Wizards caveat, is celebrating its dragon in ten days.

One of the businesses here in town is hosting micro D&D, not another game.
Until normies walk into festivals and libraries and regularly see indie games they aren't "Taking over." They're existing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Renton, hometown of Wizards caveat, is celebrating its dragon in ten days.

One of the businesses here in town is hosting micro D&D, not another game.
Until normies walk into festivals and libraries and regularly see indie games they aren't "Taking over." They're existing.

That's a data set of one, though. We can also find examples of people doing the same with indie games. I'm on the mailing list for the author of Thousand Year Old Vampire and apparently PNW book festivals have indie games for sale and you can find people running open games at local farmers markets. (Honestly, everything I hear from PNW gamers make the region sound like a gaming utopia.)

But also, Questing Beast's "taking over" headline is wild YouTube hyperbole. @mearls never suggests in the actual interview that everyone's going to be playing Lasers & Feelings two years from now and no one will remember this thing called Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[bedir than]

That's a data set of one, though. We can also find examples of people doing the same with indie games. I'm on the mailing list for the author of Thousand Year Old Vampire and apparently PNW book festivals have indie games for sale and you can find people running open games at local farmers markets. (Honestly, everything I hear from PNW gamers make the region sound like a gaming utopia.)

But also, Questing Beast's "taking over" headline is wild YouTube hyperbole. @mearls never suggests in the actual interview that everyone's going to be playing Lasers & Feelings two years from now and no one will remember this thing called Dungeons & Dragons.

Indie gaming expo OrcaCon still had vendors selling D&D stuff

 

[Saracenus]

That's a data set of one, though. We can also find examples of people doing the same with indie games. I'm on the mailing list for the author of Thousand Year Old Vampire and apparently PNW book festivals have indie games for sale and you can find people running open games at local farmers markets. (Honestly, everything I hear from PNW gamers make the region sound like a gaming utopia.)

It's the rain man, it's the rain. If you can survive a Portland, Oregon winter with all the grey skies and precipitation this is the place for you. There is a reason we have so many coffee shops and book stores.

More seriously, there is a great mix of players and designers as well as great game stores here in the PNW. If you are up in Seattle you are even closer to the action.

But also, Questing Beast's "taking over" headline is wild YouTube hyperbole. @mearls never suggests in the actual interview that everyone's going to be playing Lasers & Feelings two years from now and no one will remember this thing called Dungeons & Dragons.

Click-baity title aside, once I saw who he was interviewing and a couple minutes in I was ready to listen. But, my finger was on the eject button for that first few minutes. The auto "Don't Recommend This Content" is for the "D&D is DEAD!" vids that no longer populate my YouTube feed.

Back to the subject at hand, I don't play a ton of indie games but I do mine them for ideas all the time for my D&D game. I do think that indie and 3rd party D&D games are brining some of the best design ideas right now. WotC stuff is usually solid and they do eventually adopt some of the indie/3rd party design ideas into the core D&D game.

I also think that without bog standard D&D there would be less to react to in the TTRPG space and we would see less innovation. Now that D&D is in the creative commons designers have a safehabor to experiment with the it in perpetuity.

Which brings us back to the zero-sum thinking that is out there. Love, hate, or be indifferent to D&D but there is a massive world of TTRPGs out there because it exists and is successful. There is a whole ecosystem out there that gives breathing space to so many games and even when the Kiaju that is Hasbro C-Suite tried to swallow it all up, they ultimately failed.

D&D continues to evolve slowly because of the ecosystem it has created and there is a place for the indies/3rd party to exist in that ecosystem spurring even more radical innovation and evolution.