Introduction to Independent RPG’s

A panel of independent game designers are here to help! Hear about the major schools of rpg design. Learn some GM techniques from indie designers. Discover new games that match your interests!

This seminar is here to help you learn about the philosophical underpinnings of traditional games, Story Games and the Old School Renaissance. Our goal is to provide context about different types of games so that people can explore a variety of different games.

We will share some handy techniques and tricks, either invented or discovered by independent designers, that you can use in your games. Indie games tend to be a hotbed of innovation and we want to help you take advantage.

We will be happy to play matchmaker, finding just the game that would meet your particular interests. What sorts of things do you want to see in play? We can help you expand that to include things you didn’t even think of, and then try to hook you up with games that do that.

Let’s explore Indie Games.

Brainstorming:  I am currently undecided between using the technical solution (Freemind) or simply resorting to pen and paper for this function. I haven’t quite internalized a separate “brainstorming” step in my game designs, so I tend to use this in an ad-hoc fashion.

Writing the Draft: I started using the very nice open-source program Celtx which is a remarkably versatile media pre-production program. That one is particularly good for screenplays and movies, but I managed to get it working for my game writing. Easy to learn and freely available, it was a good choice.

That was when I found that Literature and Latte had released Scrivner for windows.  I picked up the program and fell absolutely in love. It’s a logical system for organizing and shuffling content without the fiddly bits involved in word processing software. Excellent as an organizational tool alone, it also supports the writing of content.  It comes with a a two-hour long tutorial and costs about $40 USD, but well worth the price. It’s telling that this is one of the few pieces of commercial software I currently use.

Editing: My go-to word processor is the open-source program Libreoffice at the moment. While I have access to MS Word and WordPerfect, I like to support the free program. Despite a few aesthetic disagreements, I have found the program to be robust and it fulfills my needs at the moment.  Some of the technical decisions, such as the use of frames, work quite well.  As a supporter of the open-source movement, I appreciate the use of open standards.

That said, I do fall back to MS Word on occasion.  Turns out that word 2007 has some extremely handy automated tools to point out passive phrasing and a host of similar stylistic problems. It’s also the default file format for writing, so sometimes it must be used.

Art: The open-source domain has continued to treat me well when it comes to art. I use the excellent and intuitive program Inkscape for all of my vector art.  I have replaced the proprietary Adobe Photoshop with the excellent and free program The GIMP.  Both of these are of professional quality and free

That said, I fully realize that some closed-source software can be worthwhile.  One program in particular, Corel Painter, has earned my praises.  I know that it would take me months of continuous practice to learn how to use the program effectively, but the incredible versitility has impressed me.

Layout and Publication:  I have the hardest time in choosing the best programs for layout and pdf production.  Picking an excellent closed-source PDF Editor was easy (PDF-XChange by Tracker Software). The challenge was in picking the ideal layout program for my purposes. I am torn between sticking with the open-source Scribus or invest in the proprietary Adobe InDesign.

Adobe InDesign is aboslutely the industry standard and is objectively the best program of it’s type on the market.  Everyone uses the program, printers expect it and tutorials abound.  It’s also a closed-source program with a price-tag of $699 USD.  That is certainly not a casual purchase, especially for a new publisher.

The open source competition is Scribus, a program with its own challenges.  The consensus within the Forge and Story Games appears to be, avoid the program. There is a significant learning curve and the help files/tutorials are quite poor. Adding to that, several professional graphic designers have mentioned some key deficiencies in the program. I put in days of effort learning the bloody program and the effort paid off; I am now able to do my own rudimentary layout. I used Scribus for “A Sojourn In Alexandria” in Gamechef 2010 and it worked well enough.

I hope that someone finds this information worthwhile.  I would love some discussion on the layout programs in the comments, if you kind reader(s) would like to help. Thank you.

This realization came to me after leveling up in a D&D 4E game that I am playing in. Each time I got to tinker with my character, I was presented with a puzzle of which new feat or power I was going to choose. I knew that I was stuck with whatever decision I made until I earned my level, always feeling like my choices were meaningful.  Looking back, it was the same thrill that I had gotten each time I started altering one of my decks of Magic cards.  The very act of altering and customizing something for a game was enormous fun.

If you look back at the changes to D&D, you can see that the fun of preparation was taken into account.  In classical D&D, the sum total of your creative input consisted of a few trivial decisions at character creation.  2nd edition introduced Kits, giving you more choice for differentiation at character creation. 3rd edition gave us Feats and Prestige Classes which allowed the players to alter their characters in significant ways whenever they earned certain levels.  When 4E came around, the advancement system was altered so that the players would be able to make small but important decisions every time they leveled up by changing feats, power selection and/or attributes.

Changing my character helps me feel as if I gain a little more agency.  In turn, I find myself more and more engaged with the game.  I know that many great story games include preparation, but I think that it’s still an aspect of design that is far too often overlooked.   I’m not saying that we should start including detailed encumbrance rules in every new game, but I think that _some_ level of preparation can improve a game and keep the players wanting more.

What do you think?

I have learned a great deal over the last year.   I tore out 50% of the system and abandoned the text which I _had_ been writing.  I changed my approach and decided that I really needed to get the core system solidified before I tried anything else.   This led to me creating and heavily revising of a 2-page rules summary, just so that I had something to work from.

This is almost all I had ready by the time the convention season began.  Each playtest taught me a different lesson.  CanGames taught me that the game itself had the potential to be fun and compelling.  The Grand Roludothon taught me to simplify the mechanics and adopt a more improvisational style.  GenCon gave me 2-3 pages worth of astounding feedback which I am only now starting to digest.

Now I am organizing all of the rules for the Spark RPG.   I have Google Docs open and I am populating it with a series of one-line statements.  Each statement corresponds to an individual rule, concept, explanation or piece of advice for the game.  When I finish that up, I will be able to organize the content and turn that into a solid outline for my next attempt at writing the rule.  My hope is that through outlining, I ought to be able to write the game in the most concise manner possible without losing clarity.

Are there any readers in the audience who outline this way?  If not, how do you organize your RPG content?

http://www.roludo.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1300

http://www.roludo.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1317

Here are highlights of some of the most significant changes.  I have also attached the new and improved version of that summary sheet which I will be using when I run “Seeking Suki” at GenCon.  Yes, this is the first time I am actually publicly posting the outline of my system.   I would love to hear your thoughts!

1) Trainings have been renamed as Talents
2) Pillars have been renamed as Beliefs
3) The old way of framing scenes has been replaced.  Now one person picks the basic situation, one person states what drives people act and one person decides the fundamental question that people want to answer.  I stole this partially from 3:16 and partially from Microscope/Primetime Adventures.
4) I cleaned up spending Fate.  Now you can only spend it in one specific way during a scene depending on the phase, or as a result of a resolution.
5) Fortune is gone.
6) A difference of 1-3 between sides in a conflict now gives each side a Resolution.  It is impossible to get a “wiff” result since every conflict has _something_ happen.
7) I simplified the list of Resolutions and added “Question” since it seemed to come up constantly.
Paradigms still exist, but only as an option and not one that I will bring out during the con demo scenarios.
9) Ritual Phrases will define when a conflict is started or when a scene ends.

Please let me know what you think about the changes and thank you all for participating!

Jason Pitre

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The gameplay is built from a series of scenes, each of which has 5 different phases.

Phase 1: Open the Scene and define what the scene is about.

Phase 2: Collaboration between participants in freeform roleplaying.

Phase 3: Conflict between participants, when the collaboration stops and participants disagree.

Phase 4: Resolution of the conflicts and dealing with the outcomes of the conflicts.  Go to Collaboration.

Phase 5: Closing the Scene and determine what the scene meant.

1 – Open the Scene

1)    Three different participants cooperate to create the scene.

2)    Roll your Spark dice or Support and compare what you rolled.

3)    The highest roll gets to pick the Platform, Tilt or Question.  The second highest gets the next pick one of the two remaining options.  The third highest gets the last option.

• The Platform:  Define where the scene takes place and who is present.
• The Tilt: Define what event or action forces players to interact with the Scene.
• The Question: What is the essential question that you are trying to answer with the scene?

You can spend Fate to Decide;

Spend 1 Fate to immediately pick the Platform, Tilt or Question before the dice are rolled.

2 – Collaboration

1)    Roleplay freely, speaking in character and declaring actions.

2)    All participants can declare what their character tries to accomplish.

3)    If no one opposes what you declare, it occurs.

4)    If you want to add extra details about someone else’s declaration, say “yes, and” then elaborate.

5)    You can declare things outside of your character such as objects, events or non-player characters so long as they have already been introduced in the past.

6)    If you want to prevent someone else’s Declaration, say “We are in conflict” and move to the Conflict phase.

You can spend Fate to Flashback;

Spend 1 Fate to narrate a short flashback which introduces something new to the story.

Immediately after that flashback, reintroduce that new element to the current scene.

3 – Conflict

1)    Each participant picks sides in the conflict.

2)    Determine what dice you roll, based on your Attribute modified by any Conditions.

3)    Determine the highest Talent bonus on their side, used in step 5.

4)    Roll your dice

5)    Each side has a score made of the highest number rolled, plus their Talent Bonus as determined in step 3.

6)    Compare the scores of each side, with the greater score winning the conflict.

7)    The number of successes is equal to the difference between scores.

You can spend Fate to Confirm;

Spend 1 Fate to switch dice between two participants, if one of your Beliefs is confronted.

4 – Resolution

Every die which shows a value of 1 gives the opposing side 1 Resolution

If you have 0-3 successes, each side gets to choose 1 Resolution

If you have 4-5 successes, the winner may choose 1 Resolution

If you have 6-7 successes, the winner may choose 2 Resolutions

If you have 8-9 successes, the winner may choose 3 Resolutions

If you have 10-11 successes, the winner may choose 4 Resolutions

If you have 12-19 successes, the winner may choose 5 Resolutions

If you have 20+ successes, the winner may choose 6 Resolutions

Below are the 8 different types of resolutions.  You may pick them multiple times.

• Heal:  Remove a Damage marker from an Attribute
• Harm:  Add a Damage marker to an Attribute
• Question: Force a character to answer a question
• Compel: Force a participant to perform an action.
• Boon: Add or remove a Boon condition from a character, potentially with a cost in Fate.
• Bane: Add or remove a Bane condition from a character, potentially with a cost in Fate.
• Inspire: Offer another participant Fate so they adopt a new Belief of your choice.
• Summon:  Summon supporting reinforcements to help you in a conflict.

You can spend Fate to Push;

Spend 1 Fate to gain one additional Resolution for every level of Spark Attribute that you have.

5 – Close the Scene

Once the Question has been answered, any participant may close the scene by stating “And we move on.”  Proceed to open the next Scene.

You can spend Fate to Preview;

Spend Fate to narrate a conflict in the near future where you will need an Attribute or Talent. You will gain that Attribute or Talent just in time when that conflict occurs in the next Scene.

My master plan is to make all of my corrections over the next 3 weeks and come prepared to run some sessions at GenCon.   Not that I know for certain that I would actually have players, but that is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.

Would any of you be willing victims participants of a GenCon playtest session?  Let me know!

A tout les Montréalais qui ont été dirigées ici par la Grande Roludothon, bienvenus!   La plupart de mes commentaires ici sont en Anglais, mais je serais content de discutez en commentaires dans ce que vous vouliez la langue officielle de votre choix.  En addition, chaque page de mon site web présente l’option de le traduire par le service de Google.  C’est loin de parfait, mais il me semble comme une option que pourrais être meilleur que des toutes lires en Anglais.

Merci pour me rejoindre et si tu la aucun question, je t’invite de le partager ici.

What do you think?

Spark RPG Ad

By the way, I am pondering a quick little mini-review series of some of the indie RPG’s which I have picked up from the various DriveThruRPG disaster relief bundles but I am uncertain if there would be much of an audience. Anyone have opinions one way or the other on this? Highlighting the novel technologies and interesting implementations within the design community seems helpful but I am honestly uncertain if anyone would read the things. Can you let me know?

Spark RPG Cover

Sorry for the slow update cycle of late; over the holidays I have been out and about which has slowed my development somewhat. That said I will have another fruitful playtest next Tuesday which should test some new design innovations. If things work out as well as I hope, I will finally have a solid base mechanical system to encourage the kinds of gameplay I am seeking.  I shall speak more if the playtest does go well.

The real reason for this post is to link to the cover art for Spark! Gabriel has done an excellent job in my opinion and I hope you agree.

I will hold off on doing the lettering and, well, the rest of the graphic design until I am dramatically further along in the design work.

Yeah, it’s premature to commission art but it also gave me a chance to solidify a standard artist contract template. Not to mention that Gabriel is remarkably good value for money. Check him out people!