Difference between revisions of "Independence Games"

Revision as of 15:46, 4 May 2021

Independence Games is a small press publisher founded by John Watts in February 2011. Until November 2019 it was known as Gypsy Knights Games.

It formerly published supplements under the Mongoose Publishing Traveller Logo License.
It now publishes using the Cepheus Engine model.

Publications

Independence Games (and its predecessor, Gypsy Knights Games) have published the below products for Traveller and Cepheus Engine. Not all remain in print.

Books

Core Setting and Subsector Sourcebooks

Adventure Series

21 Series

Clement & Earth Sectors

Miscellaneous

Career Track 1 Medic

Quick Worlds

All by Gypsy Knights Games and now out of print. Re-published by Independence Games in Subsector Sourcebook 1: Cascadia, Subsector Sourcebook 2: Franklin, Subsector Sourcebook 3: Hub or The Slide

Independence Games Publications

81 publications for Independence Games

Name Change

In November 2019, the company changed its name to "Independence Games".

John Watts stated^[1]

Gypsy Knights had been the name of my gaming group since the early 90s and, in 2011, when I decided to begin publishing, it seemed to be the natural name to use for the company. In doing so, I fully expected that the members of the gaming group would also make contributions. As it turned, out that really wasn't the case, so that was one reason that I decided there should be a name change.

The name of the gaming group stems from a campaign that I ran at a game shop in East Ridge, TN. The guy who was playing the captain was a guy named Tim Lee who thought it would be clever both as a nod to his last to name the ship "Gypsy Rose" as in the famous stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee. Gypsy Rose was the ship used by the characters until the end of that campaign when they became rulers of their own world. At that point, the captain, now king, determined that they would be "Gypsy Knights". Hence, the name of the gaming group and, later, the name of the company.

I embraced the name not only because of the gaming group but also because, at the time, I worked in construction. Those who were "independent" and were not part of the local union or part of a large corporation were called "gypsies" which carried the implication that they were independent and that was something I wanted to convey with the company name.

All of which is odd because my grandmother on my father's side (with whom I had no relationship really) was Roma. She had referred to herself as a "Gypsy" for all the time that I knew her. My Dad, up until I explained the above, thought I had named the company that as a nod to my grandmother and as some sort of reconciliation ... which, really, wasn't the case at all.

So I'd never really heard the term used as a pejorative nor did I think it could ever be offensive to anyone. I'd never heard it used as any sort of negative term, so it somewhat took me by surprise when folks began telling me that it was around 2015 or so. As I looked into it, I determined that it seemed to be a pejorative in Europe and the UK, so I started taking time to kind of look at changing the name... something I had considered since the first paragraph of this story became true. The troubles with Mongoose and all of the resulting problems of changing 30+ books at the time, resulted in me shelving the name change idea for a while as I had to retool everything for Cepheus.

By 2019, it became obvious that a name change was not only something I wanted to do, but something that was needed as we continued to be more popular in places that might find the name somewhat offensive. So I started looking for replacement names and was shocked that the name I wanted all along "Independence Games" was not taken. So I acted rather quickly and changed the name of the company within a day or two of this realization.

I'm in the business to sell games. I want people to have fun. I've no intent or desire to offend anyone, so that coupled with my earlier desire to change the name anyway made the name change a no-brainer.

However, I still cannot afford to change all of the books again. I already went through those losses thanks to Mongoose in 2016. So, slowly, over time, replacement products will come along that will have the new name on it. You'll never see a new product with the name "Gypsy Knights Games" on it again.

Which, BTW, brings me to the other reason I wanted to change the name. "Gypsy Knights Games" has an error built right into the name. As I intended to have the company be a group effort of my gaming group, it was originally intended to be "Gypsy Knights' Games". As it became unclear if this would be the case, I left out the apostrophe. Over time, folks thought I was the "Gypsy Knight" and it was "Gypsy Knight's Games".

The error in the name of the company irritated me greatly and that was also a major contributing factor to the change.

Gypsy Knights Publications

95 publications for Gypsy Knights Games

Sources

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

External Link: Independence Games

↑ John Watts, 25 April 2021, Independence Games on Discord.com, #general thread

[1] John Watts, 25 April 2021, Independence Games on Discord.com, #general thread

[1]

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 * [[Ships of Clement Sector 7-9: Defence Craft and Light Warships]] - Republishes: -
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