Previous Topics
In Indie Game Design

11/26/2002 Wormwood: Drift: Spending XP during play
Resources are fun, and advancement resources tend to be put to many different uses. In Drift however, advancement resources seem to need a little modification. While the idea of spending…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Ron Edwards.

11/26/2002 Wormwood: Clandestine: Sore wa himitsu desu
I'm trying to work out a mechanic to generate secrets, or at least guide their generations. By secrets, I mean in particular specific actions that produce specific effects, based on…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Wormwood, Mike Holmes.

11/26/2002 Gwen: Long Goodbye
This is another idea for a game I've had. I just recently came up with the idea, so there's much fleshing out necessary, but I figured I would explain my…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Gwen, Le Joueur, Paul Czege, Brian Leybourne, Mike Holmes, M. J. Young, thoth, Price Check, Ziriel, Psycho42, damion, Jonathan Walton.

11/25/2002 Daredevil: Samurai Surfin'
No, that's not the actual title of what I'm working on, but it sure sounds catchy. I've currently been working on this game design and I'm fairly stuck between a…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Daredevil, Mark D. Eddy, Bob McNamee, talysman.

11/25/2002 Sidhain: Back to the...ahem..Heart..of the matter.
I've been working on my Hearts and Souls superhero game on and off, last night one of my players said they didn't feel like playing because it was too hard.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Sidhain, M. J. Young, Jared A. Sorensen.

11/25/2002 Clinton R. Nixon: Riptide: anatomy of a design, part 1 (long)
The current round of threads here has been really inspiring to me. I'm talking specifically about threads like Chris Kubasik's Accessible? To whom?, Jon's What would make a non-roleplayer buy…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Clinton R. Nixon, Mike Holmes, thoth, Valamir, Jack Spencer Jr, szilard, Tim Denee, Matt Wilson, Mark D. Eddy, Jared A. Sorensen, talysman, scobie, Ron Edwards.

11/25/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Torchbearer: Mythology or Setting?
Reading over Ron's essay and reflecting on my own experience, I realized that Torchbearer threatens to suffer from the conflict between detailed Character and Setting that creates difficulties for Narrativist…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Mike Holmes, GreatWolf, Jonathan Walton.

11/25/2002 talysman: Court of 9 Chambers: new description mechanics
I've been working on the next version of "The Court of 9 Chambers", something a little more robust while still maintaining that flexible minimalist feel of the first version. the…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: talysman, Emily Care, Valamir.

11/25/2002 Demonspahn: Need help with Aware "narrative" mechanic.
Hi everyone. Just thought I'd post this, looking for some fresh new ideas. I'm talking about my game Aware, where you play intelligent animals. I'm looking for what I can…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Demonspahn, M. J. Young, Mike Holmes, Christoffer Lernö, Nathan.

11/24/2002 The Gentleman: Erm, Hi. And what I'm working on.
Hi, I'm the Gentleman. Say no more. At the mo, I'm working on a fantasy game With Consequences, in the manner of Unknown Armies, though a wee bit less occulty.…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: The Gentleman, Shreyas Sampat, Mike Holmes, Andrew Martin, Jamie.

11/20/2002 paulmjessup: sleepless : a one nighter insomniac horror game concept
Hey all. New to this board and all that natch. I've recently gotten back into doing table top RPG's (I've done tons of video game RPG's, and even created a…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: paulmjessup, Jonathan Walton.

11/20/2002 Matt Snyder: Nine Worlds & Five threads
Let's talk Nine Worlds. See, at this point it's floundering a bit, as I "wait" for artists to reply, a.k.a. procrastinating. Maybe that's a good thing, because Ron has brought…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Snyder, Ron Edwards.

11/20/2002 Zak Arntson: Thord of Relings
Okay, so that's a lousy name for my game, but it's still in development. I'll come up with a good name later. It's a fantasy game inspired by a certain…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Zak Arntson, Valamir, Blake Hutchins, szilard, Tony Irwin.

11/20/2002 Christoffer Lernö: Myth-flow - a basic mechanic for Yggdrasil
I'm working on something. Unfortunately it's going pretty slowly, so I'm presenting it here and hope that maybe someone has a suggestion. Introduction (Skip this part if you want) It's…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, RobMuadib, Emily Care, Demonspahn, Shreyas Sampat.

11/20/2002 RobMuadib: TMW:COTEC - "Butchering the GM..."
Hi All I have been plugging away at the Game Concepts: Shared Play chapter for TMW, and have layed out the basic idea of the Game, and what you do…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: RobMuadib, Mike Holmes, Gwen.

11/19/2002 Stuart DJ Purdie: An unusual (?) approach to stats
This is a little sketchy at present, an unnamed, but I hope you find it interesting. There has been a few games recently looking at the power of belief, and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Stuart DJ Purdie, Le Joueur, Wormwood, szilard, Aelios, Ron Edwards, damion, Don Lag, M. J. Young.

11/19/2002 Sidhain: Gunknight: Chivalry Extant
Playing around with my ITR system, I was thinking "what will I use this system for" a system without something to support is a skeleton without skin. And rather ugly…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Sidhain, Andrew Martin, J. Backman, Gwen, Mike Holmes, ethan_greer, scobie, Ron Edwards.

11/18/2002 Gwen: TV Land
This is an old idea of mine, which is a combination of "Stay Tuned" and "Quantum Leap." Stay Tuned was a movie from the early 90's where Satan sells people…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Gwen, Mike Holmes, Emily Care, Eric J., Walt Freitag, szilard, Ron Edwards, Bob McNamee, Jonathan Walton, Jason E. Roberts, Jared A. Sorensen.

11/17/2002 J. Backman: I finished my game
I finally finished Theatrum, my small, narrative role-playing system. You can download it here (~155k pdf). And here's a character sheet (~25k pdf). Comments are welcome.
In Indie Game Design
Participants: J. Backman, Jonathan Walton, Mike Holmes.

11/17/2002 Christoffer Lernö: Yggdrasil: Playtest reference preview
I have written a playtest reference for Yggdrasil. Some things are still missing but those are comparatively minor things. Possible points of interest: Disadvantage/Advantage mechanic Although the basic resolution is…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Christoffer Lernö, Tony Irwin, Gwen, C. Edwards, RobMuadib.

<< more previous topics

Subsequent Topics
In Indie Game Design

11/27/2002 Brian Leybourne: Die Mechanics
I've been mulling around some ideas in my head about die systems recently. (Not that I have an actual game in mind to use them for at the moment, and…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Brian Leybourne, Mike Holmes, szilard, Henry Fitch.

11/27/2002 Mageant: Persistent RPG World
Hi Everyone, I would value your opinions on the following idea: I am complemplating creating a copy of the Mysticora game world (www.mysticora.com) database for a persistent pen & paper…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Mageant, Mike Holmes, RobMuadib, Emily Care, contracycle, damion, Balbinus.

11/27/2002 Emily Care: Rise Up: narrative allocation mechanics
Hello, I'm working on a game that takes place in a slave holding society on the brink of revolution. The mechanics will guide the players to create a framework of…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Emily Care, Mike Holmes, Ron Edwards, bluegargantua, Jonathan Walton.

11/27/2002 scobie: Casefile ZODIAC - Soundtracks (Long)
Hi all Given some of the discussion on the forum, I'm thinking of chucking out the 'xp' model of character development based on learning new skills, instead going for thematic…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: scobie, JSDiamond.

11/27/2002 Steve Dustin: CREATURE FEATURE: Powers of play in a shared-GM game
Creature Feature is a shared-GM monster movie RPG I talked about in this thread: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4138 Some conversations got me thinking about "defining" the metagame capabilities of players in terms of…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Steve Dustin, RobMuadib, Mike Holmes.

11/30/2002 James V. West: Black Wing: idea in the rough (long)
[i][b]Black Wing[/i][/b] is the rpg companion to my series of comic stories set in the land of Hof. These stories begin with issue #1 of [url=http://www.randomordercreations.com/rocg.html]Random Order Comics and Games[/url]…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: James V. West, Ron Edwards.

12/1/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Shared Control of Characters?
In a game I'm working on, players are dissociated from the characters. The players are to represent temptations that pull the characters away from their goals, and ultimately hinder them…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Paul Czege, Ron Edwards.

12/2/2002 Gwen: Long Goodbye (with cards)
I think the idea of using cards is an excellent idea and would help greatly with the organization and execution of the game. Traditionally, I am opposed to card/dice games…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Gwen, Ron Edwards, M. J. Young.

12/3/2002 Matt Wilson: Peregrine: Can I sell you this game?
Here's a game I've been working on for a bit now. The setting and rules are fairly well along, but I want to be able to "sell it" without you…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Matt Wilson, Paul Czege, James V. West.

12/4/2002 JSDiamond: Orbit cover art
The book cover art is finished. There will eventually be a starry background and shiny chrome text, but I'll do those in Adobe paint and illustrator. I set a black…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: JSDiamond, Valamir, Paul Czege, James V. West.

12/4/2002 Jonathan Walton: PC Worship of the Metagame
Yes, this is me playing with IC-OOC distictions again. I'll get sick of this eventually, don't worry. In comparison with the metagame powers of…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jonathan Walton, szilard, lumpley, Alcar.

12/5/2002 Gwen: A Political Space Roleplaying Game
This is an idea I had earlier this year. (I know I have a lot of ideas, but I have RPG ADD.) I really liked the idea, but I got…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Gwen, Emily Care, Mike Holmes, bluegargantua, damion, Bogie_71, Kuma.

12/5/2002 xiombarg: Unsung: Pick Me Apart! Fnord! And, oh, a bit about cops.
Okay, I'm waiting on some research materials so I can do some serious playtesting of Unsung with the idea of adding a couple of settings to it and turning it…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: xiombarg, Mike Holmes, Tony Irwin.

12/6/2002 Eddy Fate: Mechanic: Craps
I've been bouncing around a modern day mobster RPG for a few weeks now. I was trying for some sort of resolution mechanic that is quick, relatively balanced, and evokes…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Eddy Fate, Walt Freitag.

12/8/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Refreshing Rain: Wuxia Pathos and Astrology
[i]The water barely shimmered as Li Mu Bai ran across its surface. Jen followed, marring the lake with expanding rings.[/i] Wuxia is not about the kung fu. It's about the…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Tim Denee, Jonathan Walton, Emily Care, Thor Olavsrud.

12/9/2002 Jonathan Walton: Pre-Game Fortune = Fortuneless Gaming?
I think I just stumbled across something really cool. I was working on a set of diceless rules for Continuum, while still trying to reflect the original mechanics and allowing…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Jonathan Walton, xiombarg, Le Joueur, damion, Mike Holmes, talysman, Paul Czege, Wormwood.

12/10/2002 Shreyas Sampat: Refreshing Rain: The Relationship Sky
[url=http://www.geocities.com/torchbearer_rpg/rain.html]Refreshing Rain[/url] uses a board as a representation of the relationships of various characters in-game. Very simply, a single piece in the board represents one entity. That entity is antagonistic…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Shreyas Sampat, Jonathan Walton, Kuma.

12/10/2002 Clinton R. Nixon: Riptide and odd questions
I'm designing the 'curriculum' system for my new game, Riptide, right now. To answer these questions, all you need to know is that it's set in high school. Ok. Question…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Clinton R. Nixon, Matt Wilson, Wormwood, Jared A. Sorensen, quozl, damion, Walt Freitag, cruciel, kamikaze, Ziriel, Shreyas Sampat, Jack Spencer Jr, Mark Johnson, contracycle.

12/12/2002 Green: been a long time...here it is, the drama system
Not too long ago, I posted here about an RPG setting that was centered around fairy tales. After much thought and tweaking, I decided to expand the game to more…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Green.

12/12/2002 Skadedyr: Do part-OGC games count as indie?
I'm currently designing a game based on the d20 SRD, wich will be 100% Open Game Content. However, all the parts I don't write myself will be copyright WotC. Does…
In Indie Game Design
Participants: Skadedyr, Andrew Martin, Clinton R. Nixon, Valamir.

more subsequent topics >>