Indie Game Designer
A Troika Background by Kirt A. Dankmyer
You are an independent game designer; you design video games, tabletop
roleplaying games, and/or board games. Your staff consists of you, yourself, and
your own person. Sometimes you hire a collaborator or work together with a friend.
You're in it for the love of the hobby, or so you tell yourself. You know a lot of other
indie game designers, some personally, and many more by reputation. You also
have (or recently had, you may have quit) a "day job" besides your game design
gig that brought in enough money to live. Perhaps adventuring will be better? You
may decide for yourself what your other job was, or roll 1d6 on the following table:
1: Retail, sales staff at Troika Toecovers (avant-garde shoe store)
2: Food service, short order cook at Night Pig's Repast (diner)
3: Office work, technical writer for Pretty Parchment LLC (print-on-demand company that serves the Parchment
Witch community)
4: Illustrator at an advertising agency, Hradgimblot and Greck
5: First-year student at the Academy of Doors (don't know any spells yet)
6: Gig economy flying carriage driver, you rent your carriage and pegasi from Hoyst, a company that also provides
you customers in return for a large cut of the profits
POSSESSIONS:
- 1d6 Pocket Gods
- Copy of Your Game (slot: 1 - Either a book, a handheld video game, or a box containing a board game)
- Copy of Someone Else's Game (slot: 1 - A game by another designer that you admire, have worked with, or have a
crush on)
- Heavy-Duty Adding Machine (damage as mace)
- Bag of polyhedral dice and tokens (slot: 1 - For prototyping / brainstorming / playing games)
- Decorative blade (damage as sword, but -1 to damage roll)
ADVANCED SKILLS:
3 Mathmology
2 Secret Signs -- Memes
2 Job Skill (Work out a skill with your GM related to your chosen non-designer "day job")
1 Weapon Skill -- Swords
1 Weapon Skill -- Adding Machines
SPECIAL
Both of these abilities only work in an urban area that has access to other spheres (and their culture):
1. There's a joke that indie game designers pass around the same pence to each other to buy games. Every week,
you may TEST YOUR LUCK. If you succeed, you earn 1 silver pence, profit from selling your games. If you failed,
you spent that pence on a copy of someone else's game; add that to your inventory.
2. Depending on your "day job," the GM might allow you to work for a day at that job. Every day you work, earn one
silver pence. Each day, you may TEST YOUR LUCK. If you succeed, you earn an additional pence. If you fail, you
earn nothing that day, but gain a copy of someone else's game; add that to your inventory. It's a deluxe edition!
Indie Game Designer is an independent production by Kirt A. Dankmyer / Ivanhoe Unbound and is not affiliated with the Melsonian Arts Council. The image is
from the public domain.
