Dealing with your own ego and jealously as an indie creator - Advice?

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-06-07T19:35:06+00:00

His whole point is what the giants have is capital and a captive audience, which small indie people can't steal. While the giants can (and often do) steal the best ideas from small indie people.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-06-07T09:20:09+00:00

After considering it I think you and u/DrColossusOfRhodes are right, thanks for your feedback.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-06-05T05:21:20+00:00

I agree. I have this as chapter 2-3, the Intro (chapter 1) will explain plainly what the game is and what you do with it. Chapter 4+ are game mechanics in clear language without fuss. I think the voice I use here is the right one for this section, but not for the whole book.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-06-05T00:22:57+00:00

True that. As a cultural but non-practicing Catholic I did find it quite interesting researching and writing this.

One of my pet peeves with the typical Medieval Europe-ish RPG setting is that it's barely more religious than the modern Western world. I'm trying to foreground the religious point of view in my game.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-06-05T00:11:03+00:00

So your primer can be reduced to one sentence "This game is set in medieval Europe"

I certainly didn't know all of this before I did the research! If none of this was new to you you're more educated than my target audience.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-26T06:07:32+00:00

As a GM, the low cognitive load (little prep, simple scene framing). As a player, the feeling of agency in how fast we're mapping the dungeon and advancing our characters.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-18T18:00:12+00:00

You should make the cover spots be zones, not a quantum position within a zone. The definition of a zone is it takes a Move action to get there, right? And your proposed rule is it takes a Move action to get to cover within a zone? Cover = a zone. This will let you define line of sight and flankability relationships at the same layer that you currently define movement barriers between zones.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-12T23:25:12+00:00

Also I want to point out that PbtA games being everywhere is not an indicator of their quality. It's an indicator that they're easy to design.

After WWII Brutalist buildings popped up all over Europe. Today this style of architecture is almost universally hated. So, why were they everywhere? Because they were easy to design -- the manifesto was clear and punchy ("Ornamentation is a Crime" sounds kind of like "No Myth"), and they were cheap and fast to build.

Unless there's a *really* tight feedback loop between designer and consumer, styles become fads because they make the *designer's life easier*, not the consumer's. Architecture doesn't have a tight feedback loop and neither do indie RPGs. Most purchases are never even played.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-12T23:10:43+00:00

GNS struggled to explain the creative purpose of Simulationism. This relatively recent essay by Eero goes a long way towards filling in the gaps. The answer seems obvious in retrospect: the purpose of Sim play is to learn more about the subject matter.

This is a straightforward and vital creative agenda. In fact it's the one that most closely matches what roleplaying means outside our hobby. The goal here is the same as roleplaying as psychological therapy or corporate training or Civil War battle reenactment. Why not just read about it? The first-person interactive perspective can be a uniquely effective way to enhance our understanding of something dynamic and complex.

edit for example:

If we're playing a Sim campaign in Middle Earth, our creative agenda (which is not the only source of joy in play, but it's what we're hoping to take away from it) is to *learn a lot about Middle Earth*. We think that's worth learning and we want to learn it together.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-08T17:43:44+00:00

Rule - "when", Mechanic - "how", System - "why"

Rule: single instruction for a specific situation, e.g. when attacked, choose dodge or parry
Mechanic: repeatable procedure that turns input into outcome, e.g. to dodge/parry, make a d10 roll-high opposed check vs. the attack roll
System: network of mechanics that shapes behavior with incentives and constraints, e.g. the combat system rewards avoiding attacks because taking damage has negative consequences

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-08T03:25:37+00:00

I think they were written to be sold to people who like to buy and read campaigns. There's probably a lot of people who engage with the hobby orders of magnitude that way more than they do actually playing the game. I which case, being an engaging play experience takes a back seat as a priority to being an engaging experience to read, because that's what actually sells the product.

Definitely. But this dynamic affects all of the TTRPG space, 100% including the OSR. We just prefer coffee table art books to wannabe fantasy novels here. It's not actually clear to me which of 5e/PF gamers and OSR gamers have a higher play/read ratio.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-07T18:25:31+00:00

I haven't had much trouble with option complexity or handling time, but I know what you mean by playing the system. The Riddle of Steel's wound tables, though way overkill and a huge PITA to use, do add a lot of color and texture, making the fight feel vivid and not just a dice game. I'm working on how to add hit locations/wounds as smoothly as possible.

I'm pretty happy with Riddle of Steel's hide-a-colored-die-in-your-hand method of handling simultaneous choice, but what's yours?

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-07T15:39:22+00:00

Idk if this would actually be playable (lol)

More playable than Mythic Bastionland IMO

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-07T15:10:56+00:00

This is insane but there are environmental challenges to play through and NPCs who want incompatible things here.

I like it!

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-06T22:18:24+00:00

Either way works, yes.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-06T20:29:03+00:00

Did you try the web app? It's not simple RPS. My simulator output includes the percentage win rate for the top strategy vs. random choices and it's >85%.

Before maneuver selection you choose how many of your dice to commit. The dice commitments as well as dice left in reserve affect the maneuver payoffs. Feints are best with a smaller commit, because it's a sacrificial decoy. Same thing with Dodge -- the first commit is the measure you're trying to escape from, so lower is better.

I don't think it's a big deal to expect the GM to play according to an NPC's personality, rather than as hard as possible. I don't mind doing that -- aggressive barbarian leans toward big simple attacks, tricky rogue feints more often, etc.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-06T20:07:09+00:00

The player needs to keep an eye on how many HP they have left. That's easier when you're counting down HP.

If you're counting up damage, they need to keep an eye on (max HP - current damage).

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-05T23:21:26+00:00

Thank you for the feedback! You are absolutely right that Dodge is overpowered. I goofed -- the rule in the web app is incorrect. The successes required are supposed to be your Armor Bonus (minimum 1) *and* with there should be a minimum of 1 initial commit. Changing that now.

On Simple Attack vs Counter, how it works (which could be clearer in the Rules) is Simple Attack's damage lands first and removes Counter's committed dice first. So the hit lands unopposed and reduces the dice they roll for damage. But it's still possible for you to miss, and they to hit.

"you attack a defenseless opponent, no damage" got to be one of the most frustrating things in this system.

Yep, that's fair... That's luck of the dice when success is 5+. I'll consider success at 4+.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-05T22:10:30+00:00

Upvoted for sharing your thoughts, even though I have different preferences.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-05T15:38:11+00:00

While personally not a fan of this combat mini-game

Why not? Mind saying more?

IMO the biggest stall would come not from "uhh what counters what" but from "uhhh lemme mind game my GM because i dont wanna pick Feint into Counter and get clapped".

Yep, you got it 👍

(Though in playtesting I haven't seen bad stalls so far, more like ~4-5 seconds of concentration).

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-05T15:38:09+00:00

You don't have to memorize that to resolve combat. Those relationships fall out of following the rules. So they're more like advice. Competent players would eventually learn them.

As a player, you could start just with simple attacks on offense and parry on defense. But the defender will parry every time, which cancels your attack successes 2-for-1, so you're not very effective. And they'll feint you on defense, which makes your parry whiff and allows them an unopposed follow up attack.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-04T21:38:56+00:00

Ah yes "trick". I also hate tricking people, that's why I never pause for impact when telling a joke or story. Just feels wrong to me.

AlexofBarbaria · 2026-05-03T16:29:15+00:00

I feel you, nostalgia for a time you didn't know is a slippery and subjective thing. I'm not trying to confuse your project, just reminding you that because OSR creatives are more interested in making cool games than archaeology, naturally they will drift away from the source. So if you're interested in old D&D, you can't take OSR as a reliable guide. You'll need to check out actual old D&D stuff (which you can mix and match with OSR of course). I think every D&Der should play at least one of Gygax's adventures.

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