Quote from: Abyssal MawI think by Settimbrini's definition, Burning Wheel would count as an Adventure game, perfectly suited for campaigns, rather than a thematic one, where you just ponder your morality or whatever.

Yeah, and so would Riddle of Steel.  The name "Adventure" just sucks though, because "adventure" or not isn't really the dividing line.

In the end the even bigger bugaboo is making a one-to-one association of that one type of setting/senario scope with The Forge, seeing as how it has existed long in RPGs.  Paranoia anyone?

Quote from: Abyssal MawI think by Settimbrini's definition, Burning Wheel would count as an Adventure game, perfectly suited for campaigns, rather than a thematic one, where you just ponder your morality or whatever.

That ought to alert you to the fact that it's not so cut-and-dried. Dogs in the Vineyard certainly has its share of thrills and adventure. BW, Sorcerer, The Shadow of Yesterday and Trollbabe, among others, are suitable for quite long-term play. Other Forge games are worth replaying for dozens of sessions, eg Dust Devils or DitV.

Quote from: blakkieYeah, and so would Riddle of Steel.  I think it is a huge bugaboo to associate that one type of setting scope with The Forge, seeing as how it has existed long in RPGs.

Paranoia anyone?

I certainly wouldn't assign a narrow-focus thematic label to everything that's come out of the Forge--not when you have Burning Wheel, The Riddle of Steel, and games of that sort coming out of there.  The narrow-focus thematic games are only one part of what's produced.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstInability to sustain long-term play would be a limitation to some.  Obviously, it's in the "pro" column for others.

A pro for finding customers that would normally fall outside the [traditional] RPG market?  I think that would be the point, no?

Because if you take everyone that can read and would get together with friends and family for playful social interaction, and then subtract from that existing RPG customers you'd have I'm guessing (and of course this is just a guess) a big number.

It was a digression, but I think it is an important consensus to describe indie gaming more in terms of its business practices than the types of games that are made, because they pretty clearly run the gamut.

Quote from: blakkieA pro for finding customers that would normally fall outside the [traditional] RPG market?  I think that would be the point, no?

Because if you take everyone that can read and would get together with friends and family for playful social interaction, and then subtract that from RPG customers you have I'm guessing (and of course this is just a guess) you'd get a big number.

I'd don't see how having a (hypothetical) game geared solely around short-term play would be any revolutionary selling point.  There's already plenty of RPGs suitable for one-shots, beer n' pretzels games, and the like.  

But, yes, I think we both agree that a game being more suitable for short-term gaming would be a pro for some and a con for others, correct?

Quote from: JamesVIt was a digression, but I think it is an important consensus to describe indie gaming more in terms of its business practices than the types of games that are made, because they pretty clearly run the gamut.

Agreed.  Apolgies for the digression.

Quote from: blakkieA pro for finding customers that would normally fall outside the [traditional] RPG market?  I think that would be the point, no?

Because if you take everyone that can read and would get together with friends and family for playful social interaction, and then subtract that from RPG customers you have I'm guessing (and of course this is just a guess) you'd get a big number.

Hm, do we really know for sure that even a majority of customers outside of the RPG market are not interested in long term play? If you ask me, long term play is a part of any game's replay value. Milage may vary, but it's still just an assumption that high replay, short term gaming is what non-gamers would be looking for. Maybe once they get into it they realize that long term play is more of what they are really looking for when it comes to RPGs.

Quote from: JamesVHm, do we really know for sure that even a majority of customers outside of the RPG market are not interested in long term play? If you ask me, long term play is a part of any game's replay value. Milage may vary, but it's still just an assumption that high replay, short term gaming is what non-gamers would be looking for. Maybe once they get into it they realize that long term play is more of what they are really looking for when it comes to RPGs.

Elitist! Telling the people that if they knew what was good for them they'd like it? :pundit:

Yes it would be a working theory.  But it isn't without support. Besides doing the same thing over again I would suggest is even less likely to lead to a breakthrough.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstI'd don't see how having a (hypothetical) game geared solely around short-term play would be any revolutionary selling point.  There's already plenty of RPGs suitable for one-shots, beer n' pretzels games, and the like.

So if it is all the same then why the hate for The Forge?  Because some of the people there dare to question some other assumptions about RPGs. Like the parental role taken by the DM/GM (or in some cases, I understand, the very existance of the DM/GM role)?  Because of the overly complex prose used by some there?  The assumption that it isn't an RPG if it doesn't have people poking each other with pointy sticks at every turn?

While I can't comment on all of them, I do get the impression that they do break some barriers. For example Paranoia was more a parody of gaming, a joke game.  Could it be that some of the games are ment to base their enterntainment on something other than a over the top, self-referencing RPG in-jokes.  Perhaps this seriousness is precived by others as pretentiousness?

I don't mean these as answers, as I don't have a lot of direct involvement with the hate other than occationally being baffled by things people say that flow from their incorrect assumptions. *shrug*

Quote from: blakkieSo if it is all the same then why the hate for The Forge?

You'd have to ask someone who hates the Forge.  I hate pretension, and I hate some of the attitudes that come out of people who believe throwing around a few invented terms gives them some sort of intellectual superiorty in their gaming or use them to deride others' work or way of having fun, but that's hardly limited to the Forge.  A lot of the games coming out of there aren't my style (though I love FATE and PTA), but to each their own.

Quote from: T-WillardVanity? What the fuck? How about "Love of the game" or how about "Here's some cool rules I developed, if you like them, buy them!"

You do realize that "vanity press" is a term for self-publishing books that predates Indie games, and can be found in dictionaries, right?  I do find some irony in complaining about the term "vanity" because of it's literal meaning and then also talking about being sick of not being noticed by the "big boys", though.

Quote from: T-WillardIndie Publishing is fucking work.

Never said it wasn't.  In fact, if you haven't noticed, a big part of my argument is that the work involved in doing it is what can overwhelm an independent author-owner as the work involved maintaining their business exceeds their ability to find time to do it.  I'm not the one saying that it's a piece of cake here.

Quote from: T-WillardNow... Stealing customers.
[...]
Indie publishers aren't stealing anyone's customers. They're fucking earning them.

You can slap whatever label you want on it.  I don't really care.  What matters is that one publisher can experience a loss of customers while another publisher experiences a gain of customers if the customers shift their time and spending from one game to another.

Quote from: T-WillardThe goddamn elitism and egotism I've seen is fucking mind boggling.

"How will this batch of Indie Publishers ever rise to the top?"

Oh, I don't know...

THE SAME FUCKING WAY THE OTHERS DID!

Hard fucking work, and stick and jab. That's how.

Correct.  

Quote from: T-WillardPeople sneer "Don't quit your day job...." like INDEPENDANT Publishers (Which means we aren't one of the big boys, we're doing this ourselves, not "sticking to the man", give us some goddamn credit) are the only ones that are forced to work at a job while starting a small business. "Don't quit your day job" is with any small business when it starts out, so that you don't rely on the businesses capital to do anything but drive the business, and have a secondary income to survive on.

Correct.  But if you don't ever transition to a sustainable business, you wind up never quitting your day job.  I'm not saying that Indie games can never grow to be big.  I'm saying that they can't do it if their business model doesn't scale.  My argument is that Indie publishers need to think about scalability, not that they can't scale.  Lots of small businesses fail because they don't scale and because they don't practice good business practices.  If I had to sum up my argument, it's "Learn how to grow and don't assume that doing what you do now selling a few hundred books a year is going to work if you start selling thousands."

Quote from: T-Willard"Vanity Publishing" is a term that needs to be shoved back up people's asses from where they farted it out.

Well, you can start with American Heritage and Merriam-Webster, both of whom have definitions for the terms in their dictionaries.

Quote from: T-WillardAnd "Stealing Customer base" sense of self-entitlement is just plain stupid and makes the whiner look like a jackass.

Well, there is no shortage of that mindset in this world.  While I fully agree with you about customers, the loss of customers to another company is often perceived as "stealing", even if it's just not keeping up with the competition.

Quote from: jhkimUm, the term "heartbreaker" comes from Ron Edward's 2002 essay, Fantasy Heartbreakers -- in which he describes them as indie role-playing games, and urges support of them.  As he writes in his conclusion:

Yes, I know where the term came from, but I also know how it's used in practice.  When Ron talks about "Fantasy Heartbreakers", he's really talking about a very specific type of Fantasy -- D&D.  When I'm talking about "Indie Heartbreakers", I'm talking about a specific type of Indie.

Quote from: jhkimSo, yes, we are seeing indie heartbreakers.  We've seen them all along, and the term "heartbreaker" was coined for indie games.

When this threat talks about "Why Indie gaming grows", I doubt most people are thinking about "Fantasy Heartbreakers" as "Indie" or do you think they are growing, too?  I'm using it in the same sense that I think this thread is using it.  If you have a problem with me using "Indie" to mean a very specific type of Indie game, then you should also take issue with the way it is used earlier in this thread.  

Yes, some consistency of terms would be nice.  If you can give me the proper term for the games being discussed in this thread, I'll happily use it instead of "Indie".

Quote from: JamesVHm, do we really know for sure that even a majority of customers outside of the RPG market are not interested in long term play? If you ask me, long term play is a part of any game's replay value. Milage may vary, but it's still just an assumption that high replay, short term gaming is what non-gamers would be looking for. Maybe once they get into it they realize that long term play is more of what they are really looking for when it comes to RPGs.

You'd be really surprised how true this can be.
As a DM, I was actually sought out by my last party. They came, they saw, and they roleplayed. Granted, in some cases I made them (not by *making* them, but by scaring the shit out of them) but even in the dungeon crawl, they quickly took to slitting the throats of sleeping foes, burning the minotaur alive while they stood safely on inaccessible ground, etc. etc. etc. It was marvellous.
Then they got out of the dungeon. Based on the history of ultraviolence, I kept throwing encounters at them... but they quickly got bored.
Why? The absence of continuity. They simply had no reason to return. Game dwindles, peters out, and fizzles.
Rather than say that a "single session game" is a selling point or that a game with a "continuing plot" is preferrable, I'd say you'd do better with a game that could go either way.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenThere comes a point in sales per year where it is more cost-efficient to use more traditional print runs, and larger ones.

Yes.  And that's part of "growth", isn't it?

Quote from: Levi KornelsenThat is, when scaling up, an indie press can make more money per book if they pay close attention to, and accordingly alter, their print methods.

Correct.  That's also a part of "growth", isn't it?  I'm arguing for people to adopt a sensible and profitable business model as they grow so they can get properly compensated for their work.  I'm honestly confused why that's so controversial.  It's the same sort of advice you'll see offered to any small business.

Quote from: Levi KornelsenMany full-scale companies (including SLG) have employed "Print Buyers" specifically because this is a really damn complicated pile of numbers.

Perhaps you missed where I pointed out that I once did book production (trade paperback) work at Random House.  In fact, I suspect that even most big game companies don't get as complicated as what I saw (e.g., buying paper by the train car load direct from a producer instead of buying it from the printer).

Quote from: Levi KornelsenRefusal to change methods won't lose them money, though.

So long as people can't quit their day jobs to do it full time, then they are subsidizing their game publishing with other work because their publishing isn't paying for itself with enough profit left over for the author to live on.  It's only playing for itself in terms of returning the costs needed to print and sell books.  That's not the real cost of doing business, even for a casual author any more than a company that produces widgets and sells them near the manufacturing cost is covering their real cost of doing business.  If a company can't pay the rent, their electric bills, and so on with the profits they are making from selling their widgets, they are losing money.  If an Indie publisher is selling their books near the manufacturing cost and isn't making enough profit to pay for the electricity they use, the food they eat, the rent they pay, and so on, while they are writing their books, it's not really profitable, either.

Yes, people can subsidize their game writing and publishing indefinitely if they are driven to do so.  Is that a recipe for a healty industry and growth?  It isn't in any other type of business.

Quote from: TonyLBDude, quit quoting that Robin Laws article like I don't know about it.  That article is my mantra.  The problems he posits are soluble.  I've solved them in the case of my product.  Moving on.

OK.  Great.  How much do you sell?  How big is your volunteer force?

Quote from: TonyLBI honestly don't know.  It will be interesting to see how it works out.  I suspect that they'll scale well as volume increases.  Certainly they seem to be doing pretty well so far, and they've gone through at least one order-of-magnitude increase in the past year or so.

"I don't know" is a dicey thing to bet your business on.  I'll be as happy as you are if they can.  I'm not trying to damn you to failure.  I'm trying to get you and other Indie publishers to think about what growth means rather than just assuming the sky is the limit and that they can just keep doing whatever they are doing on autopilot forever.  And I want you to get compensated for your labor and to be able to quit your day job if you want.  If you don't, that's fine, but it should be an option for those who work hard and want to.

Quote from: TonyLBThe standard advice absolutely should be "Don't quit your day job until your business is already generating enough money to support you."  The idea that you'll just borrow a whole bunch of capital, print a whole bunch of books and gamble your security and that of other people on an untested business plan is ... well ... silly.

That's not what I'm talking about.  What I'm talking about is never being able to quit your day job because the self-publishing just isn't paying for itself.  If Indie publishers don't learn how to really be profitable, they will never hit that day when they can quit their day job.

Quote from: TonyLBIt made sense back when borrowing that bunch of capital and making those print runs gave you access to resources without which you couldn't do business.  But we don't live in that world any more.  Today, such action is just not necessary, and smacks of either ignorance or egotism.

I'm not suggesting that you go out and print 10,000 copies of a new Indie game and hope they sell.  Print-on-demand is a wonderful way to test the waters and build a business.  Definitely the best way to start.

What I'm asking is, "OK, so you are now selling thousands of copies of your Indie game.  What's next?  How can you make enough money doing this to not only quit your day job but live comfortably enough so you don't have to think about getting another day job or don't leave the industry for greener pastures like so many game authors have.

Quote from: TonyLBIn modern times, the "vanity press" or "hobby" creator (your terms) has direct access to most resources that the big boys have, and analogues to everything else.  If they don't have the money to make 10,000 book print-runs, they have small-run printing.  If they don't have distribution channels they have fulfillment houses and internet word of mouth.  Those things do the job for a starting scale.  You don't have to be a "real company" in order to make real product and conduct yourself in a sound and professional manner.  You can keep drawing the distinction between "vanity press" and "real publisher" if it makes you feel better, but I don't think it has anything to do with modern realities of who can achieve what.

I never said that these things don't don't do the job for starting scale.  Of course they do, and that's a wonderful thing.  Since the topic of this thread growth I'm asking how Indie games go beyond starting scale.  A lot of people are saying that they can just keep doing the same thing they did at starting scale forever.  That's what I'm questioning.

And until you can get your Indie games into a Barnes and Noble or Borders, there is a difference between a "vanity press" and a "real publisher" in terms of volume and the market they reach.  And until people can quit their day jobs and live comfortably, yes there are important differences.  

Quote from: TonyLBOnce upon a time, people gambled their finances and futures in order to vault over the barriers between them and their dreams.  I honor their valiant gambles.  But those barriers are gone.  Why on earth would you sink everything into an all-or-nothing gamble when you can make and market your book just as well with negligible investment?

Are you really marketing your book just as well with negligible investment?  Do you sell as many copies as D&D or, heck, a game like Mutants and Masterminds or GURPS?  Do you think they time and money they spend on advertisements and the three-tier distirbution model to get their games sold at Barnes and Noble and Borders are wasted and make no difference?  Do you really think you can replace that with good word of mouth on the Internet and come loyal volunteers?