Spider Bankers of the Bureau of Universal Exchange

 I'll put in a picture when I have one. We're working on these a bit at a time. The Spider Bankers have been in Troika since the beginning and I've always meant to get around to using them more. They appeared in Wengle Instrumentality, and they're in the upcoming Streets Of Troika book, but they deserve a proper entry I think.

When picturing them I always imagine the presence of the triceratops foreman in that old puppet sitcom "Dinosaurs" or the baboon from Ren & Stimpy. Just with a little bowler hat and pin strip vest.

This is a cross post from the Troika Patreon, where you can see more or these

Spider Bankers of the Bureau of Universal Exchange

Skill 9
Stamina 18
Initiative 3
Armour 2 (thick chitin)
Damage as Large Beast
 
Mien:  
1. Polishing their eyes with a huge silk handkerchief
2. Adjusting their hat
3. Drumming their many tiny hands on the counter
4. Staring inscrutably
5. One par of hands absently calculating on an abacus
6. Twitching without obvious cause
 
Scattered throughout Troika are the silo-like Bureaus of Universal Exchange. Windowless and towering one enters the ground floor through your choice of many small doors into cramped corridors which twist and turn until eventually ending in a barred and shuttered window. There are no signs indicating what is expected or provided, and the spiders are behind the bars filling the space with its chitinous bulk, tapping the fingers of their tiny hands impatiently against the counter. They have an uncanny head for the value of things, they will never confer, and you will never get a bargain. After a bare moment in the scrutiny of one eye, then another and another, the spider banker will know and offer only exactly what it's worth and not a penny more, minus a small handling fee of course.
 

 ## Violence

If attacked inside their bank the spiders will first try to slam the security shutter down on their assailant and flee. One would need to test their luck to stop this happening. If caught or cornered they will fight viciously, attempting to incapacitate attackers with their venom and spinnerets so as to take them away later as compensation for the inconvenience.
 
 

 ## Ecology

The bureau is assumed to be connected to, or at least tacitly endorsed by, the Universal Council of Troika. Such a vast and wealthy institution as the spider bank could, if it wished, shift its weight and topple whole boroughs or counties, ruin the barge houses, bankrupt nations. Indeed, sometimes they do, yet they City does nothing and so the people assume it is all according to plan.
 

 ## Lair

The bureaus are the only place one is likely to find a spider banker, and then only from behind their steel bars. The buildings only allow entrance through tunnels to the cashier windows, and no one, not even the spiders, come or go in the course of the day. The banks are connected through a hidden network throughout the city, and if one were to somehow get past the spiders and into it, they would find vaults upon vaults strung under the city like crystals on a chandelier, the labyrinthine mirror city of the spiders. The only non-spiders to be found in their tunnels are decerebrized debtors shuffling carts of labelled goods from vault to vault.
 

 ## Special

When bringing them alien currency for exchange into Troikan pennies randomly determine how valuable it is at the exact moment of exchange. Roll 2d6, in order. The first is the penny, the second is foreign currency, thus determining the ratio. Always add one in the bureau's favour. They're running a business after all.
 
Spider Banker bites are dangerous. When injured by the bite of a banker the recipient may test their luck or else fall limp in their arms, to be passed back along it's belly through its many arms to be spun into a silk parcel for later. Unless an anti-venom (sold at great expense by mercenary hearted spider bankers) is applied the envenomed subject will start coughing up pennies, 1d6 every hour. Each penny coughed up reduces their stamina by 1, until they finally expire. Sleep and eating is impossible, triggering instead another coughing fit of 1d6 pennies.

Monsters Are Fine

 Hello party people.

It's been a while, I don't know how long, I don't read dates, ain't got time for that. 

I have spent a lot of time trying to do good, publish books and fight the struggle against the absolute treacle of life. It is hard. I'm starting, slowly, a little RPG Publishing Apprenticeship program (where people learn about my inability to answer emails in any reasonable timeframe) in an effort to convince me and the universe that everything is not fated for doom and dissolution. What I'm saying is, it's fine. I watched a talk by a designer I really like, Jeff Vogel and he said something like "if something pains you now it's gonna kill you in ten years". Post, and crowdfunding, kinda pain me. You have to switch off your creative brain and submit yourself. It's like having to do Marina Abramović's Rhythm 0 every four months.

What I'm saying is it's fine, right?

Anyway, I'm making a monster book. I'll talk about it here and post it on Itch as a work in progress. It's gonna be the stuff I think about that I don't have time to write a book for, in pieces, and it'll be good and eventually long. That's the plan. It'll be a gift to my younger self, the kind of book I would have lost my mind over seeing, and totally enflamed my head with thoughts of the unseen world these things live in. There's a well of power behind that which I need to get back to. There ain't no power in post.

EDIT: Oh, and go back Fever Swamp! If it does well I'll avoid having a heart attack for a few more months.

AN ADDENDUM TO MIENS BY WAY OF PROCLIVITIES

These should be universally applied to all possible encounters regardless of attitude or anatomy

PROCLIVITIES

1. Keeps a bit of dried alzabo brain in their cheek. Voice changes slightly as they talk
2. Chews fragrent bark 
3. Licka the back of their hands while thinking
4. Keeps all their change in their mouth
5. Visits their mother regularly
6. Politically divergent and argumentative
7. Collects religious tracts
8. False beard made of colourful wool
9. Prone to fits of ennui
10. Owl wine connoisseur

AND SO ON

More things should be considered. Anything to break the monotony of people only wanting to get in the way or fulfil their function. Every person has multitudes and we're all very busy. Roll a thing, live the thing through the NPC even if it never gets mentioned. Don't insist on bringing up owl wine just because they like it, just have that in the back of your head; the manticore that liked owl wine, the democratic orc and so on.

Permian Nations

Hey, check it:


This is the first post-troika troika kickstarter. First of many most likely. Like I've said before, the quieter it is the busier I am making stuff. Not that this is mine, it's Evey's. We all know Evey, fellow G+ diaspora person, writes good.

I've got two books for troika fully under way and about 4 more that are being tested for holding my patience. It's a slow process but as soon as something takes it'll snag and unwind a book in no time. Much like Troika did.

Itchy Troika money

If you have a troika related thing on Itch, I propose a deal: I'll give you troika to bundle with your thing. The price of troika as part of your bundle will undercut my price and hopefully drive people to invest in your cool stuff.

1. Top Right hand corner > Sales & Bundles > Co-op bundles > Create new co-op bundle
2. Pick a snappy title
3. Write a witty description
4. Add the URL of one or more of your Troika! projects via the "Game URL" box
5. Then add Troika!: https://melsonian-arts-council.itch.io/troika-numinous-edition
6. We'll come back to "Minimum Price"
7. Set a Goal if you like. Up to you
8. Set the Start Date at 22nd of October 2019 and the End Date somewhere further in the future
9. Now's the hard part. The split. All I want is $6. Set the minimum price and the cut so that $6 happens (or close enough, don't sweat it)
10. Click Create Co-Op Bundle
11. Then, VERY IMPORTANT, you have to send me a link to the bundle. Itch doesn't notify me that you did it, so if you don't tell me I'll never see it.
12. Make sweet troikabucks

HEY DAN WHAT DO YOU GET OUT OF THIS?

$6 and you guys make money and therefore can pay more rent and justify making more things. 

PRO TIP: You know that extra $6 people aren't spending on Troika with your thing? I encourage you to dig into it. So say you cool book is $10 on its own. It could be $16 with troika (with a 33%ish share to me in that case), or it could be $20 (like... a quarter and a bit? to me? Maths). See, you're still undercutting me and also making more money. Do as you please!

Also feel free to use this:

Best Social Combat

Social combat like physical combat is merely an impasse.

I want your things, you don't want to give them, impasse. Fight.
I sneak up on a guy, stab him in the kidney, dead. No impasse no fight.

I want them to tell me where the shops are, they don't want to. Impasse, pry.
I ask them to follow me, they don't mind, no impasse no talky.

We all know how combat in Troika works. Social impasses are like that, there is parity. Parity is important to reduce any sense of superiority in any one. Unless you want that.

Social combat, like physical combat, will be idiosyncratic. Troika does fighting in a very specific way so it stands to reason it should also do social combat in a very specific way.

Fighting in troika is about fickle fate and a loss of control.
Social conflict in troika is about manners and cultural bindings.

Social combat in troika is to trap people in the rules of social convention
If either party is not interested in engaging in the game of convention then they cannot "win", only appeal to raw intellect. Which is madness!

The Etiquette advanced skill can be seen as a coppiced system. A "fight" skill if you will.

Etiquette can be expanded to each distinct section of society. Per people, per court, per club. Miss Kinsey's Diner's Table Talk, for instance.

HOW DO I TALK?
Everyone involved draws initiative (call it a soiree if you like)
On their turn they can do whatever they would normally do, including engage in social manoeuvring
Roll vs the appropriate rhetoric they are utilising
The winner rolls on the appropriate table
Exhaustion by rhetoric enables the winner to gain an answer or extract a promise. An answer is always truthful, the gm will transfer the knowledge to avoid any chicanery. A promise, if broken and as determined by the gm, will cause the player to lose 2d6 Luck. An NPC will always perform the promise in a way befitting their nature. A promise forced out like this cannot last or cause a change more far reaching than a handful of days. Or d6 worth. Real, binding promises must be negotiated cleanly.
Yes you can use these during fisticuffs and vice versa

Knidotic Conundrums

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
3	4	5	6	8	10	0

Miss Kinsey's Table Talk

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
1	2	3	4	8	16	32

Bythotic Placation

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
3	4	4	6	6	7	9

Vennish Formal Fatalism

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
2	2	2	4	7	10	100

Troikan Meiosis

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
3	3	6	6	6	12	12

Manticoric Bdelygmiasm

1	2	3	4	5	6	7+
4	6	8	8	12	16	24

Originally posted here but tables don't bloody work

Some unstructured thoughts on structure

I've covered some things before here: https://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2018/05/troikan-bumble-logic.html

I'll re-cover those points at random in all likeliness.

We should be critically examining our presumptions regarding story. They are all artificial and in no way an essential part of storytelling. Therefore we can remove them, ignore them, or otherwise do as we please without worry.

Heroes & villains are false. This does not means we should move to "grey", that's just pulping them together in feigned maturity. It's very easy to find examples of cultures that have wildly different ideas of what is good or bad. Remove all assumptions about morality except that people will have it. The absence of a moral code is impossible, it's just a rejection of a specific code and a resulting tangled interaction with it.

All people you meet in Troika believe in something being right and something being wrong. This might not be good or evil. They all have their priorities and they are not judeo-christian. Their life is wild and dangerous, they do not have the privilege of being non-committal with their world view

Conflict is not essential. It can be replaced as a central mover. Filling the gaps isn't easy but it's possible and should be attempted. Consider a world where there are desires that do not cross others. To accomplish something doesn't require anything external. Puzzles exploded outwards. The desire to go places and a need to figure out how. Conflict can be viewed as moments where the breaks slam down and we have two wills meet where only one can continue on. Instead consider compromises. In Troika conflict is dangerous and arbitrary. Occasionally one sided and always unfair. Compromise will keep you alive.

Core loops are for products, not art. Heroes journeys are for propaganda and bedtime stories. The philosophy of hylics.

Arcs are only to be applied by historians to past events and are always abusing our need for patterns. Philosophy of psychics.

The world was created by the demiurge, there is no meaning no arc no hero no journey, just an up and a down. Stories can just start and more importantly just end. A search for meaning in media is childish. Meaning isn't a universal thing, a treasure to be found. Meaning can exist in only one person, the one who made it, or, like Holloywood films, only exist in the audience.

The only universal is that there is a way towards gnosis and we all believe we are moving in that direction and that others have chosen a divergent path. The demiurge created the pattern and the pattern is bleeding to death. Walking the pattern will take you in circles where you'll be held up above the most base. If you break the pattern you'll be considered a savior and clung to in desperation. Ignore the pattern, leave them to follow their feet, and build something buoyant.

Alternative Troika Skill

1d3+3 creates a feeling of unfairness in some players. Which they don't like. Each to their own.

Here are some other ideas:

Everyone starts with 6 Skill. Done.
Skill doesn't exist. Roll 4d6+12 for Stamina. When you want to Test Your Skill you spend 1 Stamina to behave like you have 6 skill. If you don't want to spend stamina you just use your Advanced Skill rank.
Skill doesn't exist. Add 2 to all existing Advanced Skills in backgrounds and just use them. Reduce all enemies by like 10% skill. If you don't have an appropriate skill you must Test Your Luck to succeed.
Everyone starts with 6 skill. When they are reduced to 0 Stamina they are removed from danger somehow and reduce their Skill by 1. They probably can't get that back. It's an injury. Possibly have some kind of magical healing thing if you're a wuss.

Done!

Not Dead, Fungus, and Printing

Firstly the blog ain't dead I'm just busy. Busy with game things, none of this "oh I had a child and real life is taking up my nerd time". Nope, all nerd all the time.

Obviously TROIKA! Numinous Edition is out and doing its thing. If you're reading this you would have done very well to miss that fact. What might not be clear is that all my creative time is getting spent on it, ahead of the Patreon schedule. The Patreon is also quiet, also because we're in serious crunch time. We've got four chapbooks coming soon, all in the illustration stage, and then there are 4 or 5 more I'm writing. These are coming and I'm not doing anything new until that happens.

Troika is gonna get supported with such relentless weird quality until it becomes embarrassing for people to not know what Troika is. Plan.

After the chapbooks I'm gonna finish two long standing Troika projects the Patreons might be familiar with that have been in a state of near completion for far too long. Cursed with having to keep the lights on.

----------------------------------------------------

Fungus! Fungi of the Far Realms is on Kickstarter and it's doing... okey? It probably suffers from being too normal for the usual crowd and too weird for everyone else. People ask but what IS it? and I reply it's a fictionaly fully illustrated encyclopedia of fantasy mushrooms. Really, that's it. Mushrooms. Illustrations. On the surface it doesn't look weird but think about it this way:

How many full blown rule books have very little art? Full blown stupidly successful books that we hear about constantly. Little art, or bad art, or both. We've made a list of mushrooms and we've had them all, all 216 of them, full-page traditional watercolour illustrated. And we're going to Smyth-sewn bind them in a hardback book, with buckram covers, and a round spine, and it's going to be excessively pretty. And affordable. All because can. Your wildly successful book can't be nicely bound and illustrated? Our mushrooms can.

See? It is weird. Tell your friends, tell your botany class, tell everyone so we can keep doing these recklessly wonderful things. It's trite to say it, but we literally can't do these things without your support.

----------------------------------------------------

Lastly, I'm starting an INITIATIVE. It's very simple and starts here in Kingscairn. If you're an aspiring publisher/designer and you've made a Troika zine with a nice PDF and are selling it or not or whatever, I will help you get to the next step. Too often I see people stall at the printing stage in fear and confusion. I have the infrastructure already in place, I've done this a million times. I can afford to take a (little bit of) risk.

 If you finish a Troika thing I will print and sell 100 hard copies for you. You'll get 50% of the gross money made, I'll eat all the costs. I will not put any trade dress on. The book is yours, you published it, I'm just selling it.

It almost goes without saying that I am more than willing to help in regards to general advice and indeed don't care if it's me or you who ends up printing your work. Just print it!

 Email me or find me on discord

Troika: Numinous Edition 24 hour warning

IT'S ALMOST OVER!

This is the obligatory 24 hour reminder, and then we can all take a breather.

The Troika! Numinous Edition Kickstarter is 24 hours from ending. We've unlocked the Plastic Sea and maxillae slurping vampires, along with an expanded bestiary.

Here's a list of things we currently aren't getting

• An adventure on The Wall by ENnie award winning Andrew Walter
• A book of Kafkaesque nightmares by critical darling Jeremy Duncan.
• The Troikan Guide to Chromatic, Metallic & Pseudo Pigs.
• And more art!

Who knows? We pray for pigs. Deus ex social media!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/846377662/troika-rpg-numinous-edition

Troika! Numinous Edition Kickstarter is live

Details in the Kickstarter. Give me money, me and my friends will make a book. It'll be a good book.

You guys know Troika! though, you're reading this after all. However I'm cashing in all the karma I've accumulated from not being that guy hanging about forums and suggesting Troika! whenever someone so much as mentions something slightly appropriate to it. If this game or anything we've made has been significant to you in any way then I kindly ask that you shove this campaign in peoples' faces, tell them what you think about the game, saturate the nerd world. Tell all your podcast friends that I'm an interview hoot. I dunno, improvise.

Redjade Embassy

Ambassador Reapget 5/7/2
Spell: Slide Skyward

Reapget is a thick necked and affable man, dressed in a sackcloth decorated with red stones. His hat of office, begrudgingly donned when with company, is a huge bored out red rock. Only one staff member, an old secretary that mostly keeps the fire warm and gets the shopping in. A fine office, now very homely. Clothes hang across the room on improvised washing lines, extra mismatched comfortable chairs have been added to the original furniture around the fire. Desks are used as shelves for potted plants. 47 red tone Redjade coins distributed evenly among the sides of comfortable chairs. A tin of coffee. Three fine chiming stones.

RUMOUR: One of the animals in the Vaulted Animarium is actually a cokcroached deputy alcalde

Main directory

Precious Gem Tree

Full map

Precious Gem Tree
Plump Remains 7/10/5
Spell: Earthquake

Plump Remains is excitable, prone to oaths, and boneless. The grocery is open to the street, colourful, and fragrant. He imports seasonal fruits from all over the spheres, but has a particular love of artichokes and will expound upon their virtues. 5p/lb of fruit. Minor glamour on the display stands, visitors must test their luck or buy one provision's worth of fruit. Always busy, all variety of customer, high and low, though popular with tourists.

RUMOUR: The Tsar of River Stately is about to arrive in town, his legions of fans will undoubtedly erupt.

RUMOUR: A shipment of poorly made dwarves has gone missing on the way to the incinerators. The dwarves do not care.

Hastorus Demagoguery

Full map

Haitif Hastorus 9/16/1 (1)
Spell: Babble

Bloated almost spherical man. Dressed in a rubber suit covering everything but his bald and lumpen head. Shop is full of books recording speeches throughout history. 4 in 6 chance any given speech is present. Many mirrors, some full length and covered in thick cloth. You can see all of the shop in any one mirror. Drawer full of needles and cotton balls. Bottle of bonal behind a book on alternative history speeches, along with three glasses of unique design. Charges 100p for consultation, 5p per word written, 658p per hour of live demagoguery. 1 in 6 chance he is drunk, 1 in 6 chance his mouth is blistered and unable to speak only write.

RUMOUR: A gang of fish-people plan to kidnap the Bishop of Barley at his sermon in the Plaza of Time this afternoon.

Bit O' Troika

A neighbourhood of Troika, notable for its traditionally constructed goblin labyrinth and the presence of a mustering ground for the clockwork army.

Click to see a big version

Entries:
Alcalde Station Juniper - F5
Cuboidal Roses - D4
Court of the Summer King - B6
Group of Seventeen - E6
Hastorus Demagoguery - E6
Hugefish - E7
Jasper's Fine Mare - F4
Owl Street - H7
Pittsworth Teethery - G5
Precious Gem Tree - C6
Redjade Embassy - C5
Royal Copyists Charter - F2
Temple of All-Gods - E8
Vaulted Animarium - G3

-

Court of the Summer King - B6
Redjade Embassy - C5
Precious Gem Tree - C6
Cuboidal Roses - D4
Group of Seventeen - E6
Hastorus Demagoguery - E6
Hugefish - E7
Temple of All-Gods - E8
Royal Copyists Charter - F2
Jasper's Fine Mare - F4
Alcalde Station Juniper - F5
Vaulted Animarium - G3
Pittsworth Teethery - G5
Owl Street - H7

Troikan Bumble-Logic

When running interplanar games reduce time and space to an abstract narrative tool. While the party stays in close spatial and temporal proximity to something, such as a town or an NPC, they will not change. However if the party hasn't seen a memorable NPC (etc.) for suitably long time then change them slightly, add something or take it away, alter their memory of the party (this has the side effect of aiding the forgetful GM by allowing them to claim their misremembering is canon).

Consider: Recurring NPC Shoutpurple, a prominent homeless person keyed in to the local goings on through his close ties with other homeless people. Has endeering delusions of grandeur and always invites the players in for formal tea in his upturned barrel he lives in.

Time has passed, players have either travelled a long way and or forgot about him. When they get back Shoutpurple is in charge of the secret police and heading a furious witch hunt. He still has delusions of grandeur and is incredibly polite to the players. One thing has changed and recontextualizes the others. This is not a transition in his or anyone else's eyes, he always was this.

We're putting on a fake mustache.

When re-shuffling people it's most satisfying to keep it small. Change their name slightly (Shoutpurple is Shoutyellow), or give them a job, have them forget the players, or re-use their image as someone completely different.

With places, push them forwards or back through the timeline, change the name, replace the inhabitants with flump-people.

Keep enough sense to move the game along and not confuse everyone terribly. Build up a catalogue of unique symbolic devices that will help place the players.

Consider: You use pigs as a device on Shoutpurple's secret police badges, they are nicknamed pigs. Pigs can recur as objects of oppression and violence. A person owning a pig could turn out to be the killer all along. Pig-in-boots is a notorious sapient-consumer and diabolist. Undermine the pattern occasionally like we do with the Christian symbolism we use so reflexively.

Have events play themselves out again and again. Consider all the Christian patterns used: death and rebirth, brother killing brother, and other things a more competent writer could tell you. Figure these events out by picking up on something the players respond well to. Maybe they throw Shoutyellow off a roof to end his reign of terror. Have that become a standard way to dispose of tyrants, have them go to a town where that is the standard method of executing shoplifters and so on.

We don't need a plan in mind when placing these narrative devices, just use them. They will either snowball and gather up meaning and weight or they will wither naturally. Using them too deliberately will make the game predictable and possibly eye-rolling. Imagine you put a Jesus analogue in every campaign you run. Yea, like that, don't do it.

This should be easy. Easier than tracking time and places and names would be. When the players decide to return to some interesting place they visited a year ago you don't need to know the exact details of what happened and what happened in the interim, you just need to reacquaint yourself with the feel of it and build something new. If they look up old friends maybe they are exactly as they left them, maybe they are gone, maybe they have changed beyond recognition. And change isn't permanent, they can go back.

Your world is plastic.

Finally, consider the meta-textual possibilities of building your own bank of devices. You end one campaign completely, you and your players start another. You introduce pigs, the players all laugh about that time with the pig where you threw it off the roof. You then either reinforce that or you undermine it and have them reassess it. If you've done well you have a pocket full of these things you can throw out that will communicate in a secret language you and your players have built up. The sense and logic of the world is a step removed from the surface; we are not looking for mundane links between places and things but symbolic. You and your players are magicians.

D6 places you got in the middle of

1. Troika green rooms. Arrive in the green rooms of troika, brightly painted streets designated for use by visitors not in possession of the correct and ever changing passes and permits. The area is small and rife with controversy. The spider bank offers papers of passage for an extraordinarily high price, allowing honest visitors to earn their way in. They are however forbidden to work without a permit. The easiest way to get a work permit is to work for the state. The Congress of Animals sets jobs which typically include repainting streets a different colour or demolishing a building. Typically multiple groups have been set to the same task with differing colours, or are set to repair or rebuild that which you are breaking. The constables insist the Congress did not make a mistake and all work orders are as intended.
   
2. War Sphere. The north and south hemisphere hate each other and have stripped the planet bare with their war. The origin of the war is something mundane like a border or trade dispute that escalated due to a few extreme actors. War crimes pile up on both sides, everyone is justifiably (and irrevocably) hateful towards one another and eager to enlist help. Hex crawl. Terrain is minefields, open ground/sniper alleys, quiet killing fields, shattered towns (25% chance occupied by a field command), active battlegrounds. These guys are using huge cthonic barges, flyers, heat weapons, psionic nukes, null bombs.
   
3. Palace of tigers. Hex crawl. Palatial rooms, solariums, halls, grand dinning rooms, water features, scent gardens, kitchens, towers (where up can lead to another ground floor). And endless palace that shifts through styles and one travels and makes little sense. The place is always clean and the cupboards are always stocked in the "wilderness". Non-wilderness is occupied by carnivalesque courts, each grander and more ridiculous than the last. People farm the fruit gardens and scavenge the dining halls.
   
4. The inner world. An inverted sphere, where life is on the inside. Inner sun, dinosaurs probably, large wilderness with isolated groups of marooned sailor civilisations. The only way to get off this sphere is to get outside, and to get outside you have to go through the crust. The crust is occupied by an advanced civilisation of rubber-clad anti-personality conformists who know nothing about the inner world and rightfully think their sphere is a lifeless rock.
   
5. The Living Room. A sphere that consists of a single room, about the size of a typical lounge. Every time it is visited there is a different monologue or kitchen sink drama occurring (50/50). The inhabitants can enter and leave the room but no-one can follow them; anyone leaving will end up where they came from. The inhabitants will monologue and not acknowledge anything outside of the context of their drama, doing mental acrobatics to fix or ignore it. The place is harmless, and harm rarely finds its way inside. Few people know about it and it's hard to get in to. The atmosphere is comforting and slightly smothering. Put on an Allan Bennett play if you can't muster the angst or twee to do it. The dramas often communicate useful truths.
   
6. Sun Chaser. Sunny desert hex crawl. Assemble your typical fantasy hexcrawl except there are no ancient well used towns. The towns that exist are indeed ancient, but the people there are effectively squatting in well kept ruins. All civilisation is nomadic, constantly outpacing the night, in which you all shall surely die. Every week in-game time the night covers the easternmost hex column. The night is cold, totally dark (the only light is what you bring), and full of monstrosities. Each nomadic group has different ideas about what's going on, though they all agree it wasn't always like this. Once a year (so somewhere near a century our time) the day reveals the source of the sinister night, or the origin point, or at the very least something that offers hope to crazy adventurers. Consider: the land is barren and desert-like near the dawn and becomes lush and pleasant as evening closes (plants and animals have time to re-grow in time for the night).

D6 Things You Saw in the Window While Passing

1. They are boarded up, but not in an unsightly manner. The wood is fine grained and varnished.
2. The resident, a yellow and blue fellow of an amorphous nature, leans out of the window and talks to its more recognisably hominid neighbours. You feel that you have seen an inappropriate amount of flesh, but you can't be sure by how much.
3. An alchemist, chemist, or possibly just a collector of caustic fluids is angrily clearing out their apartments by hurling their possessions in to the street. Some chitinous children are playing in the rainbow puddles, while other softer people are nursing colourful welts.
4. An elderly person in a dusty gown speaks meaningfully at the people who walk by. The window remains shut and no one hears. Anyone approaching will be met with angrily closed curtains.
5. The curtains move like kelp, the light enters the room thickly and shimmers. There is vivid moss under the sill, and you swear there are nicknacks floating about inside.
6. Seven fellows in large padded coats innapropriate to the weather dance around in circles, stomping and running until they bump together and roll around laughing. They repeat this over and over, but invite anyone who interrupts them in for a quiet interlude of tea and backgammon.

D&D more Troika

Following on from my previous post on making initiative enjoyable (and arguably more realistic*) I've got the comprehensive and very complicated way you can make D&D fit better.

1. Use that initiative system
2. Attack rolls are contested, with the winner dealing damage
3. AC is replaced by damage reduction

Some armour DR:

Full plate - 8

Half-Plate/Chain/splint/whatever flexible metal bullshit you have going on - 4

Padded/leather/cloth/etc etc - 2

Shields might add 1DR or +1 in combat rolls. Or both? Shields are pretty great.

Feel free to add DR ignoring rules for bludgeoning weapons, and also make it so grappled enemies do not receive the protection of their armour (pin them down and stab them in the eye holes)

Anything that might otherwise increase your AC instead increases DR

* Realism doesn't matter, but have you been in a real brawl? Or some sort of emergency situation? People choke, step up, fall over, and otherwise don't take turns.

Troika! Initiative Rules

(UPDATE: The cards exist and can be owned now)

This initiative system can replace most I-go-you-go style initiative arrangements in role-playing games without much fuss. You need the following:

• Two identical cards for each player character
• One card that signifies the end of the turn
• An abundance of one card to signify henchmen
• An abundance of one more card to signify enemies 

When a fight breaks out you gather up the player cards, the end of round token, henchman tokens equal to the number of henchmen present, and a number of enemy tokens equal to the total initiative value of all enemies. Shuffle these.

Draw a card, the owner of the drawn card acts. If the end of round card is drawn you gather up all the tokens and start again.

Player tokens

Each player gets two. You could play with this for spells that speed up or slow down, but generally don’t fiddle with it too much. (delayed actions, aiming)

Enemy tokens

When you draw an enemy token any enemy may act. This means that a single enemy can perform multiple actions in a given round, even above the number of initiative tokens they contribute. Assume this represents the bolstering effect of having leader-sorts around, or lots of their friends. In practise the GM is encouraged to not use this to purely mechanical advantage, but in a way that makes sense and is enjoyable for everyone.

Henchmen

Each henchman contributes one token. When a henchman token is drawn the GM must take an action for any one henchman present. They can take instructions from the players but are not obliged to follow them, henchmen are people too.

End of round card

If the end of round card is drawn then all cards, including the end of round card, are put back in the stack. Resolve any per round or end of round activities such as magic effects, fire, poison or bleeding out, remove any cards belonging to dead or absent participants, then draw another card and carry on.

Aim

On your turn you may decide to take aim with your ranged weapon. To do so, declare you are aiming and hold onto your initiative card. When your next initiative card is drawn you shoot, rolling twice and picking the best roll. If the end of round token comes up and you haven’t used your aim action you may decide to hold on to your aim token or abandon your action and put it back in the stack.

Delay an action

You may choose not to act when you hold initiative, in which case you put the token back in the stack. This increases your chances of acting later, but does not guarantee it.

Converting initiative from other games

Enemies contribute to a communal pool of enemy initiative equal to their initiative value, representing the broad press of opposition. Initiative doesn't just represent physical speed, but also confidence of action, bravery and general quick wits. Place your monster on a spectrum, with 1 being a cowardly goblin or a brain dead zombie, 3 being a charismatic captain, 5 being an ancient manticore, and 8 being a dragon who can literally see the future. Place your bad guys in there, trying to stick to 1-3 for the most part, and don’t be afraid to tamper with them if you feel you’ve made a mistake. The system is spongy and forgiving, feel it out until you can confidently throw numbers about.

Converting initiative tampering effects from other games

In general you do not want to tamper with the number of cards anyone uses too much, however sometimes you need to show how fast or slow someone has become. In the caste of a sped up participant, let them use a third (or fourth etc.) card as an additional initiative card for the round (or as many rounds as are required). To slow them, do the opposite. Be strict with round counting, since this might cause them to not see much benefit/hindrance from their alterations before it resolves itself. Violence is capricious.

Alternatively, if you are insistent on being very very fast, allow them to “recycle” their initiative cards for a turn. By which I mean let them put any initiative they draw back in the stack after using it. This could be a finite number of times or only limited by the passing of rounds. For slowness in this case you could force a player to possess two whole initiative cards to act once. Have them hold onto the first one drawn and let them pray another shows.

Head over to the ongoing Kickstarter if you'd like to see these cards made. Just a slice of money left until we can afford them.