Treasure
An Indie RPG can be thought of simply as a small press publication. D&D started out Indie and there’s a long list of Indie games which have gone large, alongside a longer list of Indie games which have fallen by the wayside.
Indie RPGs can also be thought of as independent, experimental games, which look to bring something new to tabletop RPGs. New genres, new mechanics and new forms of roleplaying come to mind. Mouse Guard stands out as a recent example of an exceptionally good Indie game that’s ‘gone mainstream’.
There are plenty of Indie games to choose from, so our choice of fantasy RPG Treasure is openly influenced by our involvement in the game. However, aside from being very experimental, Treasure is relevant to our series of articles, because it attempts to ‘build on’ the type of gameplay offered by Traveller.
Treasure appears to be a ‘by the numbers’, free fantasy RPG with skills, spells, monsters and loot. The game’s availability as a web page or PDF file under a Creative Commons licence is unusual for a complete RPG system but not unique. The choice between playing with a tabletop RPG style of play or a boardgame style of play can also be made in other ways, e.g. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 3.
So what makes Treasure an Indie game? Treasure is unique in allowing everything from skills through to actions and items to be shown using images and/ or text. The result is that players have the option of playing a partially, or completely, Graphic RPG.
Other tabletop RPGs, such as Everway, use graphics to ‘run’ parts of their gameplay but Treasure’s graphics have all the characteristics of a language, including a simple grammar. This allows players to easily decorate their character sheets, to play with sets of coloured cards and to run the game at speed using images.
The graphics are also experimental in so far as the unlocked, open licensed vector images that come with the game can be edited, ‘remixed’ and republished along with the rules. Players can, therefore, completely customise the content of the rules and the presentation of the game and the rules.
More importantly for most players, Treasure tries to build on Traveller in a number of ways. For example, both games are ‘rules light’ systems that use 2D6 checks and optional modifiers to control outcomes. Both games also have basic systems for ‘sketching out’ or frameworking settings/ scenarios very quickly. In addition, the two games make a lot of rules optional either by choice or default.
The streamlined mechanics, frameworking for GMs and optional rules found in Traveller and Treasure ask players to take more control of their games and gameplay. Treasure goes a stage further than Traveller in this respect by using zonal movement, alarms and bonuses to promote frequent collaboration, shared problem solving and rapid decision making during play.
Treasure’s chess or Catan-like gameplay, graphic roleplaying and the assumption that players should have the right, and means, to control and remix their own games confirm Treasure as an Indie RPG. New features, images, optional rules, open licencing and active, open-ended gameplay all swim against the ‘RPG tide’, which is swayed by the ‘battle game’ market. Consequently, the more novelty a title offers, the greater the ‘ask’ for new players, as they have to put more effort into playing in unfamiliar ways. For Treasure that means making the rules and, therefore, the gameplay more accessible to new players.
Taken together, currently available ‘battle game’ RPGs, storytelling RPGs, ‘rules light’ RPGs and Indie RPGs offer plenty of choice. Twenty years ago players who liked a particular style of play often had to work their preference into one of the limited selection of games. There is now a credible RPG system for most genres and most styles of play. The skills players use while enjoying tabletop RPGs don’t have to differ from game to game but they often do, because each type of game encourages a particular style of play.
