Indie RPGs and other lesser known games

DarkDragoon

Last weekend, I managed to attend a panel hosted by representatives from Pinnacle, Bully Pulpit, Third Eye Games, and others about the state of indie RPGs and the wide range of ideas that players can find in them. I'm already a gigantic fan of Pinnacle's Savage Worlds system and we've been trying to drum up players for Bully Pulpit's Fiasco! system (because Coen Bros the RPG is something that everybody needs to experience just once), but hearing about the rest of these guys games (especially 3EG's Part-Time Gods, which was essentially promoted as an American Gods homage) and those of all of indie games they've encountered over the years. It was particularly neat hearing about some of the creative ways they tried to branch out of the standard mechanics that we see in so many games? One guy apparently even built an entire game around a d13 mechanic, and, by all reports of the panel, it works! Another system that they were going to be demoing later on in the day, but I never got a chance to go see, was presented as a battle between Lovecraftian Elder Gods where you randomly create different horrifying beasts and set them loose against each other.

So, CF, what have you all to say in regards to some of the games that you may not find at your local gaming store? Any particularly fun systems that you've played? Any good stories involving a random system that you've stumbled upon? What lesser known games have struck you as being particularly creative?

Wolf of Dresden

Don't Rest Your Head has a cool theme (insomniacs who become more and more powerful the closer they come to exhaustion/madness) and mechanics which do an excellent job of reinforcing the ideas behind the setting. Because of the way characters are created (character creation has the players define what's going on at the moment when the game starts) and the fast pace of the mechanics, it can almost serve as a pick up game with a smaller group. Worth taking a look at.

Dark080matter

TechNoir is an indie system released about two months ago. The default tone draws very much from Bladerunner and other 'gritty' cyberpunk, but it's very simple to adjust to your tastes. The system is a real piece of work, character creation is a breeze and the conflict mechanics have a nicely elegance. Every roll draws from three pools: your character's basic Ability score in the activity, Hurt dice based on what negative conditions you currently have, and Push dice which can be accessed through favorable circumstances or having the right equipment. There is a closed economy of "Push dice" that go back and forth between the players and the GM whenever a character has negative conditions forced on them (be they physical, mental, or social in origin). So every time your character gets roughed up in a bar brawl or is out-thought and mentally bested by the villain, they are also gaining plot tickets that let them get better rolls and inflict their own lasting pain on the opposite party later on.

If you liked Fiasco! for it's Build-a-Plot elements then you'll probably also find things to like in the way Technoir handles random story generation. Basically every major location the party visits is it's own 'Transmission' composed of a self-contained package of friendly/neutral NPCs, Factions, Locations, etc. and the GM can (if they choose) run a session completely ad hoc by playing connect-the-plot-points on a blank piece of paper as they go along.

So if you prefer your bionic eyes and headjacks with a touch of the Noir to them, you should give it a shot. Check out their web site at http://technoirrpg.com/. The Player's Guide and some other miscellany are free to download but a PDF copy of the full rules (really only needed for the GM) will set you back about 10 dollars.

Razorwired

Nobilis has its new version available as an e-book and is an excellent game. Every player takes on the role of a demigod or Noble of one aspect of reality. The concepts Nobles watch and the forms they take can be literally anything. An old man that's the physical representative of Time, an animated statue with control over Lust, intelligent programs that govern Linux as a concept. You name it.

The Lore has the advantage of being both really flexible and having a ton of real world references. Every religion in the world is at the same time right and wrong. Lucifer exists, he's in Hell, and is the only Fallen that kept his pure appearance after the descent into Hell. The entire world(the earth we know and the several pieces of reality gods have hidden away) is on Yggdrasil, Heaven sits in the top boughs, Hell festers and consumes whatever gets near the roots, and everything else is in between. Angels, Demons, etc. exist and are known as Imperators, each one the "god" of a handful of concepts seemingly claimed at random. One Angel may be the embodiment of Blood, Ballerinas, and Molecular Physics. One Wild God may be the Imperator of Parkour, the Light Bulb, Sugar and Russia.

Nobles are created when an Imperator joins the Valde Bellum. Aliens known as Excrusians are trying to destroy/invade the world tree for whatever reason and Imperators go to fight them beyond the defenses of that tree. To do this they need to hide their physical body somewhere they take from the world. This creates a place called a Chancel and the player characters play a person/dog/cartoon character that happened to be on screen within that chancel and are given one of that God's bits of reality to watch over. Players are then charged with furthering their concept within the world. A bunch of powerful Nobles keep demigods from trying to use their new awesome powers out in the open on mundane Earth, but whispering in the right ears, divinely inspiring ideas, and publishing a really convincing argument are perfectly fine and the standard tools for making your concept more powerful.

Power gamer and dungeon runners should look elsewhere. With a little effort at creation you can make a character that can only be physically harmed by silver, or someone that is literally immortal. Teleporting across the world, becoming intangible, or encasing a person in titanium with a thought are things that are hum drum for player characters. Direct combat is what mortals do when they have a disagreement. When you've got an Angel backing you up, you have a standing invitation to the land of Chemical Weapons, Hunger, and Bewilderment, and an army of devout worshipers behind you, pulling out your +1 sword and charging someone you're mad at just becomes vulgar(not to mention ineffective)

Instead players who are really angry at another Noble do things in a more subtle way. Find out what he holds dear and corrupt it, take it away, and then show him what you did. Spraying the god of Fire just makes you look like an immature jerk and he'll be okay tomorrow. If you really want to get under his skin you invent Smokey Bear, get his daughter addicted to meth, and play ball in the house while he's away. Doing something really elaborate and devastating to another Noble lets you drain some of their divine essence, gaining temporary MP, maybe a stat point, things of that nature.

Nuts and bolts wise the game is actually diceless. Resolution of what people want to happen is completely point based. You're the Noble of Jazz? You don't have to roll anything to beat any mortal in a piano duel or other contest pertaining to Jazz. If you have the points in the stat it works. If the Noble of Saxophones challenges you to a similar contest it comes down to whoever has the most points in the stat governing how well your concept listens to you.