Kickstarting the Indy RPGs

First off, it feels strange classifying some tabletop  roleplaying games as “Indy”. By the definition of indy in any other industry, all but one or two, and maybe all roleplaying games are “indy.” There aren’t any huge RPG publishing houses acting as gatekeepers and reserving all the sales channels for the “real” RPGS.

            But there are indy RPGs. What makes them indy isn’t their lack of corporate backers or off-channel distribution, but the nature of the games themselves. They buck the mainstream trends and push the edges of what an RPG is. If we use the music industry as a model, maybe we should call them alternative or experimental RPGs instead.

            Indy RPGs have been around for a long time. Systems like Steffen O’Sullivan’s Fudge grew up on usenet in the early 90’s. The internet and pdf delivery kept indy RPGs alive and created fertile ground for new games and the communities around them, but they were only traded and talked about in the back alleys of RPGdom. They were just digital phantoms compared to the mainstream games like Dungeons and Dragons and Vampire. They had no budgets for high-end production or artwork, let alone print runs.

            Kickstarter changed all that. The players who love the Indy games now have an organized way to show their support and be part of pumping these fringe gaming experience up to the production values of the big boys. A game like Evil Hat’s Fate is a fun experiment when you download the PDF for your gaming group to try out, but it becomes a real game like any other when you hold the gorgeous (and surprisingly hefty!) Fate Core book in your hands. The professional layout makes it easier to understand the rules, and the artwork fills your head with inspiration. The experience is so good and the value so high, that when the next indy RPG kickstarter comes along, you immediately jump in at the “Take my Money, Please!” level.

            This Kickstarter RPG mania is not limited to Indy games, of course. Both of Reaper Miniatures’ "Bones" kickstarters are now in the top 10 kickstarters of all time– the only company to show up twice on that list. Monte Cook was wildly successful with his Numenera project, which might appear mainstream to the casual observer but does contain many aspects of the indy storytelling games. And it looks like Monte and his buddy Bruce Cordell will be pulling in another winner with The Strange RPG.

            This kickstarter fever does two things that I love. It validates and rewards the Indy game developers who have spent years working on systems they probably had little hope of monetizing, and it legitimizes the games themselves to the point where they can hit the gaming table without players being turned off by the “weird rules somebody downloaded.” A game like Robin D Laws’ Hillfolk might have escaped my notice and been categorized as some strange improv tool, but now I hold in my hands one of the most beautiful RPG books I’ve ever seen, with enough diagrams, sidebars and full page artwork to make me painfully eager to play.

            It’s hard to say when and if this will run its course, but for now, if you’re an indy RPG developer, kickstarter seems to be you’re path to getting funding to produce something truly remarkable. Personally, I only see my kickstarter expenses increasing. Just this week, I bought into another project – the English translation of the Japanese travel adventure game, Ryuutama. Can’t wait to see it.

Why is Numenera Different

So Numenera, Monte Cook’s new mind-blowingly illustrated, kickass kickstarted RPG is here. Monte is one of the designers who brought us the D20 renaissance that sustained the RPG world through the last decade or so, and you might be wondering if this is just more of the same – D20 Gamma World if you will.

            I got my digital hands on the PDF of the Numenera corebook at the beginning of August and had time to read it and prepare an adventure for Gen Con. Based on that experience, I can tell you that the only things this game has in common with the D20 system is that it does actually use a d20 to resolve tasks, higher rolls are better, and there are character classes (sort of). That’s where the similarities end. Here is why this game is different.

Creativity Trumps Rules

If you’ve followed Numenera’s development at all, you know that the big draw is the unique, far future setting. So why develop a whole new rules system for it? Why not use D20 and the OGL? My impression is that Monte set out to create a game where there are just enough rules to provide structure and differentiation between characters, but not so many rules that players make decisions based on them. We’re all trying to get back to AD&D here, back when you decided what your characters wanted to do, and then figured out how that got modeled in the rules. From my brief experience so far, I think Numenera succeeds. None of my players ever asked about rules before they decided what their characters would do next. This is about players being in charge of their story, not constrained in their actions because “there’s no rule for that.”

Players Are In Charge Of Their Own Fate

At its core, Numenera gameplay still comes down to players rolling a d20 to see if they succeed at a task, but the dynamics of those rolls are, in many ways, flipped 180 degrees from what you’d expect. The gamemaster sets a difficulty for each task, and the player uses the character’s skills, assets (tools, etc.) and situational advantages to reduce the difficulty before rolling. It’s all very smooth and very easy for both the players and the gamemaster. In addition, characters have attribute pools reflecting how smart, strong or speedy they are. These pools can be spent as “effort” to decrease the difficulty of a task further, but they also act as the player’s hit points, creating wonderful tension and giving the players more choices about how and when they use their resources. Again, this worked very well and the players got the idea very quickly.

            Another twist is that the gamemaster never makes any of these rolls, only the players. If a player is attacking, she rolls against a fixed difficulty and decreases it based on attack skills and effort. If an enemy is attacking her, she makes a defensive roll against a fixed difficulty, reducing it with defensive skills, assets and effort. This brings up a key question that illustrates very well how this game is different: What happens when a non-player character (NPC) is fighting another NPC? The answer is that the gamemaster just decides what happens. Why roll at all? Once you step over this line as a gamemaster, you’ll wonder why that wasn’t always the answer. Brilliant.

The Gamemaster Intrudes

As a Numenera gamemaster, I lose the ability to make die rolls, which means I can’t hide behind a screen and cheat rolls to railroad the players into situations. To compensate for this, Monte includes “GM Intrusion,” which amounts to the gamemaster declaring the outcome of a task or the appearance of a new, perhaps highly coincidental complication. This is simply being open and honest about what used to happen behind the screen, and now the players get to be in on the decision. If they accept, they also get experience points!

            This is a very different way of controlling the narrative and may be one of the most difficult parts of Numenera. When is something GM Intrusion and when is it just declaring what’s happening in the world? How will you make sure you don’t favor some players over others? I found I had to write down possible GM Intrusion hints for each encounter in an adventure – usually coincidental complications like “The Emmissary recognizes one of the PCs from childhood and singles him out as an example” or “The PC happens to walk up to the tower just as the rings activate.”

NPCs are not PCs

In most games, I spend more time making up the stats for a powerful NPC than the players actually spent talking to her or killing her. Numenera rejects the assumption that NPCs and creatures should follow the same rules used for player characters (PCs). PCs are in this for the long haul and require a rich set of abilities to differentiate themselves from their companions and let them shine in a variety of situations. Most NPCs and creatures need only the most basic stats, and maybe one or two special abilities to keep the PCs on their toes. In Numenera, a basic NPC can consist of only a short description (the most important part) and a level. This level determines the difficulty for all PC rolls vs. that NPC, unless the GM changes it under special circumstances (like the level 3 merchant who is level 5 when haggling or appraising). As a GM, this is so refreshing. All my time creating my campaign revolved around story, or special NPC and creature abilities tied to story. Not once did I have to determine an NPC’s strength, or initiative, or calculate a total attack bonus. And you know what? The PCs never knew or cared that my NPCs didn’t have a half sheet of numbers to back up the difficulty of their rolls.

Character Creation, Not Character Calculation

Monte wrote a very interesting Blog entry a few weeks ago about roleplaying games that center around success in character creation rather than actual play. He managed to put into words something that’s been bugging me for a while. It explains much of the attraction of myself and many of my players to story-based RPG systems, like Fate, over more min-maxable games. In Numenara, Monte picks a  middle ground where players make three choices from a fixed, but rich menu of characteristics. This is the distinctive Numenera character pattern of “I am an [adjective][noun] who [verbs]." The adjectives are things like Graceful, Tough, or Charming. The noun is one of the three basic character classes, and the verbs are colorful descriptions of special abilities called foci, like “Masters Weaponry” or “Exists Partially out of Phase.” After choosing your character’s three part description, there are still a few basic decisions to make about your stat pools and special abilities, but it’s very quick. After a fairly short process of very interesting decision-making, you’ll have a surprisingly rich and unique character that’s nothing like anyone else at the table. This system also lends itself very well to future source books stuffed with new adjectives and foci.

A World of Discovery and Cyphers

Numenera is set on Earth, but a billion years in the future. Eight advanced civilizations, some not even human, have risen and fallen, and the planet itself has been molded to fit their needs and is barely recognizable. By some strange twist of fate, the Earth is once again inhabited by humans much like us, with medieval technology except where they have discovered and adapted the unfathomable tools of previous civilizations  - the numenera. Whatever lofty purpose that smooth, self-heating platform once served, it’s now used to dry tobacco (or a Ninth World equivalent). And if you turn the dial on the small yellow canisters found in certain ancient ruins and throw them in the lake before the blinking light glows solid red, you can stun a lot of fish.

            This creates a world of pseudo-magic and great mysteries, many of them unsolvable. It gives the GM free reign to create anything at all, and to surprise the players. This is a game about discovering new things, and it is discovery, not combat, that gives the players experience points to develop their characters. This world also allowed Monte to create the concept of cyphers. One goal of the game seems to be to allow players to feel good about themselves because they come up with just the right creative solution for a problem. A Cypher is a relatively common piece of technology that can only be used once to gain some weird effect – sort of like scrolls in a traditional fantasy game, but available to everyone. A Cypher might turn a character invisible, or fly off and scan an area for life signs, or create a protective force field around the party. The possibilities are wide open, and the gamemaster doesn’t have to worry about creating a game-breaking cypher, because once it’s used it’s gone. I should note that coming up with interesting cyphers was one of the more challenging parts of gamemastering Numenera, but the table in the rulebook and the Cypher Deck are very helpful.

Overall Impressions

      Players adapted quickly to the difficulty system and the use of stat pools, but it took a little while for us to get the hang of GM Intrusion. Combat rounds, though more abstract than most players were used to, went well, though one of the more complicated combats would have benefited from the use of miniatures. Also, players became obsessed with finding beneficial uses for every weird piece of numenera they found, which was a lot of fun.

      Throughout the process of learning the Numenera rules, creating an adventure, and running it, three things really stood out as unique. First, the system is wonderful for gamemasters. I could concentrate on the setting and story and only add detail when it mattered, not because I had to complete a numerical model. In all situations, except when the PCs were involved, I could just decide outcomes without being subject to the tyranny of my own dice. It was liberating, both in planning and while running the adventure. Second, I could see that the players were immediately interested in their characters and knew what made them special. They played to their strengths, accepted the complications of GM Intrusion, and had a great time. Third, I fell in love with the weirdness and malleability of the Ninth World. At first I was worried that the players would hate that there were things in the world they couldn’t fully understand, but they took it in stride and rejoiced in what they did discover. When you think about it, the Ninth World isn't that different from our own. I don’t even really understand how my cell phone works – it’s essentially numenera.

12 Things to do at Gen Con

I just got back from my 33^rd Gen Con, where 49,000 of my gamer friends gathered at the impressive Indiana Convention Center. It’s the city’s largest annual convention, in terms of economic impact – only surpassed by the 2012 Super Bowl.

            I think the easiest way to describe Gen Con is to list the things people do there. I’ll start with the obvious, in case you have no idea what Gen Con is about, and move into some things even veterans might not have experienced yet. If you go to Gen Con, you can use this list as a sort of scavenger hunt. Check off everything and we’ll say you won Gen Con.

1. Play a Board Game or Card Game.

These are the backbone, the heart and soul of Gen Con. Yes, there are plenty of miniature gamers, role players and cosplayers around, but it’s the board and card games that light up the exhibit hall and drive the economic engine that keeps this convention going. These are the games responsible for the crazy lines that wind around the exhibit hall on the first day. These are the games that sell out and draw gawkers at the playing tables the rest of the week. It’s easy to find a board game to play – check one out in the game library room and play it with your friends. If you didn’t bring friends with you, you can get into a demo game at a vendor’s booth in the exhibit hall, or sign up for one of thousands of official board game events. If you play Magic, you’ll have no problem settling into the huge card game hall.

2. Play a Roleplaying Game

Gary Gygax, the guy who started Gen Con,is the same guy who created Dungeons and Dragons. Throughout the early years, especially in the 80s, it was D&D that drew people to the convention. The big event of my first Gen Con in 1979 was the release of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide. If you’ve never played a roleplaying game (RPG) before, Gen Con may be a good place to try. The organized events are friendly to beginners, and most roleplaying games are cooperative, so you’ll get plenty of help from other players. Dungeons and Dragons is still around, though it’s going through a rough patch. Maybe you could try Pathfinder, its apparent successor, or something brand new like Numenera, a fantastic, far-future game by Monte Cook, one of the designers that led the renaissance of D&D and other roleplaying games back in the 90s. He’s the closest thing roleplaying has to a living rock star.

3. Check out some Miniature Games

Gen Con started with miniatures. Fifty years ago, Gary Gygax and his friends in Lake Geneva Wisconsin (Geneva Convention = Gen Con. Get it?) held a small convention for some friends that played games, especially the miniature combat games that eventually led to D&D. They moved beautifully painted miniatures around impressively detailed maps with sculpted  terrain, and they rolled dice to see who killed whom. Today there are still hundred of miniature gamers at Gen Con, in the miniature gaming hall. They move beautifully painted miniatures around impressively detailed maps with sculpted terrain, and they roll dice to see who kills whom. This can be an expensive and time-consuming hobby to get into. The unspoken secret is that it’s mainly about painting the miniatures and then just playing the game so you have an excuse to show them off. At Gen Con you can wander around and look at these impressive displays without opening your wallet or lifting a brush.

4. True Dungeon

This event has been the gem of Gen Con for the past decade. Basically, they take a large ballroom at one of the convention center hotels and build a legitimately scary, well thought out dungeon. The rules of the game are fairly simple, but the decorations, costumes, makeup and actors are professional. Think of it as a high quality haunted house, but you go in with torches and weapons and potions and everything you need to slay the monsters that pop out and solve the ingenious puzzles that get you to the next room. If you want to do this event, make sure you know when online event registration opens (usually in January). All of the True Dungeon slots fill up within about twenty minutes.

5. Buy Things

This is the most obvious one. The Exhibit hall is filled with colorful booths of hundreds of vendors, and is just a bit short of the size of three football fields. Wander it like a miner in Dwarf Fortress, or hit each isle systematically. On Thursday morning, the first day the exhibit hall is open, thousands of people jam into the hallway outside and wait for the doors to open so they can get the big new games before they sell out. Things calm down a little by Thursday afternoon, but the crowds are still amazing. There are all the new games, of course, but what about out of print games? Check. How about innovative stuff from the independent press? Check. Armor and weapons? Check. Special tables made just for gamers? Check. Weird dice of all colors and shapes? Double check. As noted earlier, the exhibit hall is also a great place to try out new games and get to know other gamers.

6. Seminars

Gen Con is not just about playing games. One of my favorite things to do is take a short break from gaming to sit back and listen to someone tell me something interesting. There are seminars on hundreds of topics - writing (both fiction and for games), upcoming game releases, game design, and tips on how to keep your RPG players happy. Don’t dismiss these as a waste of gaming time – they’re a great way to keep you excited beyond the con and let you meet the minor celebrities of the industry. The writing seminars may be led by your favorite series authors, or bestsellers like Pat Rothfuss,
who’s a long-time attendee.

7. Meet the Designers

Whether you find them at their booth in the exhibit hall, at a seminar, or while you’re helping them playtest their new game, make sure you find the designers of your favorite games or RPG adventures and tell them how you feel. Don’t be a stalker about it, but I’ve never met a designer who didn’t appreciate me telling them, in a couple short sentences, that I love their game and why. A special note here when talking to roleplaying game designers – don’t tell them how amazing your character is.

8. Check Out some Celebrities

Granted, this isn’t ComicCon. Your not going to get the entire cast of Game of Thrones or the next superhero movie, but you’re also not going to have to wait in long lines. Just wander to the signing area in the back of the exhibit hall while you’re hitting the booths and sneak a peak at people like Peter Davidson, the fifth Doctor, or Neil Grayston, the guy who plays Fargo in Eureka. You can look for free, but if you want to get an autograph and take a picture, it’ll cost you $25. The atmosphere is low-key, the celebrities are very friendly, and you’ll get some time to talk with them.

9. Become a Patron of an Author or Artist

Toward the back of the exhibit hall there are two areas called Artists’ Alley and Authors’ Alley. These are rows of small display tables made affordable for artists and authors to sell their own work directly to you. Some of the work is good, and some is amazing. Find someone you like. Buy their stuff when you’re at the con and talk them up to your friends when you get home. If you stop and talk to them about their work, they’ll probably remember you when you stop by again next year. If they get big and famous and end up as the feature artist on the next RPG or Magic release or Fantasy Flight game, you can say you knew them when.

10. LARP

This a stretch for many, and the mark of a serious roleplayer. LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing. Think of it as one of those old “Host a Murder Mystery” parties on steroids. Twenty to fifty people participate, each with an assigned role in a story and probably dressed for the part. The rules are usually simple, but the interactions are complicated and very social. You might be the president of Iran trying to negotiate weapons deals with a Russian ambassador, or a medieval Japanese warlord dealing with an incursion of Lovecraftian monsters into your lands. If your not comfortable joining in the fun, at least wander through the elevated walkways to the nearby hotels in the evenings and see what’s going on. My guess is you’ll know a LARP when you see it.

11. People Watch

For some, this is THE activity of the Con. Whether you’re collecting photos of all the amazing costumes for your blog, checking out all the geek attire on display (how many variations of “Keep Calm and …” T-shirts are there?), or just challenging yourself to figure out which people are in Indy for Gen Con and which are there for the Moto Grand Prix, this can be very entertaining. If the costumes make you smile, check out the costume parade through the convention center on Saturday.

12. Breathe

Take a breath, feel the atmosphere of the place. Just wander and realize that you are in the midst of nearly fifty thousand gamers who share your passions and absolutely LOVE being there. I know, experienced Gen Con goers are laughing uncomfortably as they imagine the strong whiff of Gen Con body odor that sometimes assails you. But honestly, this problem has dramatically decreased in the last few years, and the ventilation in the convention center is amazing. For me, Gen Con is the closest thing to reproducing the feel of Christmas morning when I was a kid. Just look at those faces around you. They’re all smiling, and if they’re not it’s because they’re running late getting from one event they looked forward to all year to another event they looked forward to all year. Feel the love, man. These are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. I’ve been to all the Gen Cons in Indy and I’ve never seen a police car at the convention center or a security guard challenging anyone. Nearly fifty thousand people in a crowded space and the city budgets nothing extra for police, and the vendors in the crowded exhibit hall aren’t concerned about theft.

Waiting for the Exhibit Hall to open on Thursday morning