Love me some troika, it is my go to game for showing what you can do with table top game stories. Anything can happen, and everyone is making it happen!
Troika! is such a an amazing/weird/fantastical game and I'm glad it's finally getting the attention and recognition it deserves. There is definitely a gonzo British fantasy sci-fi feel but it is also very inspired the the science fiction of Gene Wolfe, particularly The Book of the New Sun series. The art is outstanding. Period. Also, your Ryuutama live play was a very useful tool for me before I ran my campaign. Thanks!
Yes RPGs are like a script for devised storytelling. Aswell as apart of more academic work, I think these games should have a place in primary education!
I'd love to see a series of weird rpg oneshots. All these games look really interesting, but they're so different from the kinds of things I've played I have a hard time picturing what they'd look like in action.
The setting and world of this game is interesting but that initiative system is super engaging and dynamic without the time consuming in game complexity of most games with dynamic initiatives.
The art style of the book reminds me a lot of Philémon, a very colorful, surreal, poetic and absurd franco-belgian comic from the 60s and 70s. One of my favorites. Its about a young man who has wild adventures in a series of letter-shaped islands in the Atlantic Ocean (see, the islands spell out the word "Atlantic Ocean" and are visible on all of our maps) The illustration next to the introduction especially reminds me of it. The wild colors and especially the mustached, grinning green demon looks just like something from that old comic.
Fellow of the Sublime Society of Beefstakes gives me some vibes of that scene where Major Armstrong and Izumi Curtis have a flex-off and beat up a homunculus together
5:00 What caught my attention on this page was 'Random Spell' number 13 "Affix", and "64 "Undo". ALSO: The choice of example rolls on the right, might indicate that Jolt, Fire Bolt, and Dragon-Fire are common in this game.
the guys who made mork borg have made an awesome sounding, cyberpunk themed spin off of mork borg called Cy_borg. You guys should totally do a first look video on it once it comes out
I’ve been on the fence with Troika for a while. Now I have ordered it and wished I would have Kickstarted the Paleozoic Pals Troika Setting a month ago. Thanks for looking at this Adam!
No where in the book does it call itself osr. I've never seen Daniel Sell call it osr either. It is it's own thing without having to be labeled with such a stupid moniker.
@@chadwickerman "While we're handing out free advertising go tell some hairy old OSR group that Troika is more OSR than them" -Daniel Sell See also the other times he calles Troika an OSR (even if he don't think the term is very useful). It's self-tagged as OSR on itch.io. The Kickstarter used the Questing Beast video that called it an OSR right in the title. The introduction to the text-only version compares it to the OSR (if not by name). And the only reason I made that post was that Adam was confused as to why people are calling it an OSR, which is that by any remotely useful definition of the term it fits, save that its based on AFF rather than DnD.
This! This evokes in me so dearly the feeling of reading Warhammer's Lost and the Damned/Slave to Darkness books and I love every drop of ink that makes up this thing
Cool. I'm into it. There seems to be a fair bit of influence from the stories of Gene Wolfe, author of "The Book of the New Sun," re: Autarch, Alzabo, etc
Oh now I see the video too, I see "notule" as one of the monsters. Definitely Wolfe. :) I must have it... It's way better than the GURPS attempt at recreating the New Sun setting. (edit: Dying Sun is Jack Vance... New Sun is Gene Wolfe, lol)
I'd play the sword-person as an escaped magician's assistant who had several swords already impaling her body- which if they didn't cause her physical harm must protect her somehow??
OSR is Old School Revival. Troika like Into the Odd and Mausritter are an NSR, a New School Revolution type. I heard it described this way and it makes sense. Dolmanwood is an OSR. It takes the orignal progress made in an old system and takes it from there in a new direction. An NSR starts from square Zero and creates from scratch and early on it avoided the Tolkein Fantasy trope on purpose. Into the Void is good example of trying to get away from that trope.
As a Brit with an interest in old RPGs who is young enough to have started playing with D&D 3.5- what are some good examples of weird early British RPGs? I'm curious about the idea of a distinct 'British tradition' of games (or any national tradition).
For folx that are hyped for Troika! but need more content, there is a massive amount of 3pp Troika! compatible content, which is handy because there is only currnetly one official module out and another in the pipe. There is by design a lot of empty space in the rules and setting for everyone to fill in. So I made a big list of that stuff. axesnorcs.blogspot.com/p/troika-and-advanced-fighting-fantasy.html And because I should plug myself I guess: www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/14495/Ian-Woolley/subcategory/32194_33338/Troika-supplements itch.io/c/743890/troika-by-me
Hey Adam. Have you ever played with the Fantasy Flight 40k rulebooks (Only War, Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, Black Crusade) How did you feel about them if you did? If you haven't, they are unfortunately out of production but you can still find some floating around.
@@AdamKoebel ah man. I figured the Black Crusade books would have some really good character creation and progression for you to enjoy. The lore dumps in those books are cool but I can totally see you getting turned off at how ergonomically horribad the chapters are at introducing you to the game.
Some more links! The MAC discord: discord.gg/YH4hhT9 The limited-edition cover preorder: www.melsonia.com/troika-limited-edition-preorder-177-p.asp MAC Itch page (for pdfs!): melsonian-arts-council.itch.io/troika-numinous-edition
Mathmologists are probably inspired by Pythagorians, a really weird religion in ancient Rome and Greece who to vastly oversimplify believed in the occult powers of geometry.
Subtle thing with aim: if you hold onto your initiative token on the round end, you still only have one chit in the draw cup which makes it harder to actually get that shot off while you're being careful. Probably not mathematically worth the risk unless missing has some serious consequences attached.
This game has plenty of well-designed mechanisms. It’s a decent-looking game and a cool setting. Same with EBL. UVG was an obviously unfinished, slapdash mess with a cool setting.
It's so awkward to hear all the confusion at 55:00 mark about what is a simple chit-pull mechanic from a lot of wargames. However, a sudden end of the turn is a bit odd considering that the game may cycle through in-game effects from one round to another without much action. And players can't even draft several tokens from the Initiative Stack to allocate them during a narrative beat. In my view this is more frustration than "fun" since time is no longer reliable despite the character's perception of it.
Just FYI: Willy Wonka is the bad guy in the classic ENGLISH way that means he doesn't have to take any responsibility and gets to act the charming cad the entire time even while he's abusing everyone in the most awful ways, because, y'know, *poetry is the same as justice*. Not that I have opinions on this or anything.
Think you have it backwards as the now is bland, homogenous, Disney friendly corporate, written by committee WotC wanna be D&D are the norm now games. They weren't back in the day. What the hell fun is there in a game where there is no risk and you can't die?
