Troika! Tuesday: Rucksack Rules

So you've created your first character.

You are very confused.

Your background lists possessions like "Whimsy", "A beautiful head of hair" or "a singular purpose".

Where do you even store a purpose?

The standard list of possessions of any quester also lists a "rucksack" - yet you start with 12 slots?!

Here you are faced with the first flourish this ruleset brings, a deliberate ambiguity which forces the group to make a choice.

Uno: The rucksack mentioned is merely an abstract formality to remind the player that one still requires a large holding space - and that the 12 slots are implied to be the space the rucksack gives. Do not put it in your inventory - if the rucksack is lost there goes all your stuff.

Dos: Tishtosh - the rucksack is something extra. Something which can be used to store other things which your player cannot get right now. Place things in there. But if you want to get something out of it during combat you need to roll under that particular slot. Still leaves other slots below it open. Note, Armour comes above all. It and anything it holds is one slot.

Tres: Both. Your 12 slots aren't all your rucksack (weird to even think so). No, your rucksack still gets placed in your inventory, and expands it to encompass anything below it (note your number of slots which represents the inherent capacity of the character remains the same). To get anything during combat you merely need to roll over the rucksack and not the particular item. It is one slot, but it includes all slots below it. Test Luck, on a failure you pull a random item out. I'd like to think on a fumble you pull out a beastie who had grown quite used to this being its new home.

Quatro: Your rucksack expands your carrying capacity by anything below the STANDARD LIST. So, the rules say A flask, a knife, a lantern, a rucksack and 6 provisions (controversial, but I still put a deliberate place for the provisions in the slots). Here comes a rub, how much does a provision take? I choose 1 slot = 3 provisions. Therefore, a rucksack is 6 slots. Any new rucksack is also 6 slots. Your base is 6 slots. Yes you can carry 6 rucksacks (30 slots) but good luck finding stuff.

Chinque: Just forget it. You have a rucksack. Big, carries stuff well sometimes. Depends on context.

Player: "I want to put all my stuff in it!" 

GM: "No you can't you still have slots." 

Player: "What about that idol, too big to carry but I can lug it with a bag." 

Player: "Yeah sure that makes sense." 

Cunning use is rewarding play. 

You still have all other slots.

Pentox: Let's be clear here. Troika! does not assume a blind fool on creation. It assumes an individual (debatable) with a unique background. Why would they carry an empty rucksack?? Assume it carries any basic tools a quester might need - rope, twine, nails, a small hammer, a pick, one man tent, tarpaulin, small water jug.

Hexan: Do you know how big a provision is? Well 6 fills a rucksack so there.

Octo: The rucksack is an extra-dimensional hammerspace most spherologists have.

Nona: a Rucksack is a small, feisty, dependent animal which needs feeding. Your silver pence are just about enough for another 3 days of meals.

Deca: A rucksack is a sleeping bag.

Elevena: (christ why did I even think I could make 12 rules. I need to stick to fractions of 12 or 6.)

Duodeca: A rucksack is a fancy name for a particular type of dodecahecron (pronounced nothing like it looks). Everybody has one and they tend to get passed around like Christmas Cakes. Nobody knows what their original purpose was. Something to do with luck? Anyway, to refuse one as a gift is considered incredibly rude.

Troika! Tuesday: Thoughts in Troika

The Troika! RPG is explicitly anti-canon, and although I have played a bit of it, again and again I am blindsided by where the city actually is. Sell does an incredible job of hinting at locations throughout his books (the main Rulebook as well as Get it at Sutlers) without fleshing them out. 

One of the ways in which I nest myself in a game or setting (think of a hamster tearing apart newspaper or a weaver-bird spinning their nest) is by very explicitly putting myself in place. By imagining the space and its locations, individuals and their characteristics I am effortlessly able to improvise due to literal and metaphorical cause-and-effect. In a sense this is parellal to the Blorb principles - although that is more about playing a simulationist game. 

 So the question arises: Troika?

Troika is located in a local draining point of the spheres. There are others (Brass City, Bastion), but the Phoenix Throne lays claim to this particular plug/whirlpool. 

(Ah, to elucidate on the nature of the spheres. From the multi-paved streets, canals and monorails of Troika above arcs the Humpbacked sky with the millionmillion spheres. They spin and dance in sometimes predictable ways. To travel to a sphere is different and similar every time. From every sphere one can jump via barge to other spheres. If left to drift under power you would, however, eventually end up in Troika (All roads lead to Rome.)

It is "nowhere" but also "somewhere". It clearly has certain bounds like Wall, the Sea, The Shifting Deserts, the Under City and of course the Hump-backed sky. Some scholars posit that these places are merely large portals to other spheres without an iota of firm evidence.

It has existed forever. Having existed forever it is the accretion of endless civilizations, building styles, periods, vogues and technologies. Perfectly anachronistic. Cobbles give way to tar pavements, to plasteel walkways covering venetian canals to moving sidewalks. One might travel by carriage, by silver gondola, or by vacuum tube. There is no sense of a progression to an idealized future because all futures have already existed - there is merely what is currently practical or in vogue. This fits in neatly with the tides and orchestras of the spheres. 

The past epochs fad of spherical travel via portal is slowly becoming impractical as the inherent issues continue to build up, keys are lost, and attitudes change. The once magnificent Golden Barges which (in lilting and mesmeric odes sung by fossilized thinking engines) used to adorn the skies are being reclaimed and put to work once again, and their bizarre traditions along with it. Nearly all Barges suffer from poor maintenance, and those that do still fly are either museum pieces, kludged family homes, time-lost, nearly fossilized port ornaments, or family heirlooms 

Campaign26

I feel the inexorable pull of Campaign26. 

There is no stopping it now. 

 

I am being spaghettified in its event horizon.

 

 

My relationship with the hobby is, as many, mostly theoretical. We dream worlds while collecting books and pdfs in dusty and unfragged piles. Some of us play, but usually our jobs get in the way. 

My job is somewhat busy, so this will be difficult, but I will try. For now I will put my hat in for two certain Campaigns. One solo, the other with a group. The others are idle fantasies for now.

Solo

A solo playthrough of B2 The Keep on the Borderlands using the Scarlet Heroes Ruleset by Kevin Crawford.

I'll indulge myself in the deliberate 'Eastern Pastiche' aspect of the ruleset. Partly as a way to encourage myself to do some deep research about...well a lot of things really. Trying to make my way through The Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the other Classics.

Already did some prep!

In Person

I want to run a Troika! game but getting players is tough. Mostly you get those who want to "play D&D". 

I love Troika! and its choice to dwell in grounded psychedelics. My mind constantly returns to Bas-Lag, Zothique, DCO, Viriconium and Zamonia's Atlantis when cast my eye towards it. I want to explore those worlds and that particular mind-space. I have opinions on the particular American-style gonzo/zanyness that it seems to have attracted. To my delight the Melsonian Arts Council is somewhat successfully filtering this overwhelming particular cultural expression of Troika! and is sticking to an almost personal vibe - admittedly I struggle to replicate it without resting on those american cultural exports.

So screw it. Hell yeah I am running OSE. Or maybe my hack of Knave (the original edition) which includes Giant Folk and GLoG spells. 

I dunno what with adventurewise but yeah.

Idle Fantasies

• A proper Troika! Sphere hopping campaign
• A game of Any Planet is Earth or Nighttripper or Offworlders
• An Into the Odd game using the OG Hexcrawl
• A Electric Bastionland game set in a semi-subtropical borough of Bastion.
• Mythic Bastionland. Need I say more?

Troika! Tuesday: d6+1 Spells

I absolutely loved Unturned Hovels small set of spells for Troika. See the First and the Second. 

So, in my first Troika Tuesday post I will throw my spells into the ring - these were thought up several years ago and posted on the Melsonian Arts Council Discord channel, except for one.  

 Next week I hope to post about either my Lensmen (emanations from a plane of all-plastic) or the various ways a golden barge may enter the spheres.