I made some injuries

Following on from this post. They cost about £2 and took 30 minutes. The rules are right there in the discs, the stickers mean you can house rule and mess with them whenever you get bored.

Discs from www.boardgameextras.co.uk, who are lovely. Stickers are some random 25mm laser printer sticker sheet off amazon. Got hundreds of them for practically nothing.

I also did the initiative tokens, but there's nothing exciting about looking at discs with numbers on.

Troika is...

... a city on a plate on a mountaintop. The city's governors must maintain balance in all things lest it tip and slide down the mountainside. Sensitive to all forms of unbalance, their building laws are a tangled mess, each brick must be examined and weighed, it's manufacture and origin listed. Ethnic diversity is mandatory, a ghetto could doom the entire city. The government takes it upon itself to form and sponsor metaphysically opposing religious groups. For every fire god there will be a sea lord.

... a city of chains, hanging from a distant source. The buildings are chains, the roads are chains, the doors and windows are chains. Everyone feels the draft, privacy is bought with thick hedges of chains. The dispossessed live up the foundational chains, in the huge arches of their links. The further from the goodly citizens of the base the better.

... diffused. A great forest, scattered buildings, unmapped and reliant on local knowledge and word of mouth to traverse. Directions are sought from old men in doorways who instruct you on changing bird song and leaf shape, to follow the sound of water. Sections come and go, swallowed by nature.

... a dungeon. Gigantic, sprawling and dangerous. The city occupies a certain area, but that certain area shifts like a great slug in response to changing environment. As the east becomes dangerous it organically sprawls west, chambers are vacated and occupied, land is ceded to random encounters.

... in the world giant's eye. From their perspective the city covers the walls of an enormous bowl, able to look out past the rim at the activities of the world giant, progenitor of fire and life and many other important things. This vantage point has made Troika a seat of farseers who spend their days watching the unfathomable sights of the world giant trying to divine the past and future from what they see.

... at the end of time. Its edges crumble into stark nothing. A slice of an ancient city populated by the people of the past who use this unique position to double back on themselves through its many doors.

... the eternal city. It changes with the age but is always a city of doors and crossroads, philosophers, doomed to fail.

... the philosopher city. A mecca for thinkers, who flock to it in hope of the chance to demonstrate their ideas. Every corner has a creature on a box shouting its theories, every back room is occupied by a master and his pupils, the government are the most lauded masters competing for a term of philosophic hegemony.

... the city of the universal congress. The mysterious governors pass down obscure edicts, to collect one of every book, to kill all starlings, to not look East for three days, to not step on the cracks. To live in Troika is to live every day like an eccentric parlour game or ritual. Despite their apparent lunacy, the city is prosperous and safe, its edicts effecting beneficial change in the most sideways manner.

What have wargames been up to?

Common knowledge: RPGs are an offshoot of wargames.

Chit: A wargame specific term for a counter or token.

We should steal all the knowledge they have hoarded and fold it back in to their bastard child. So to that end, have Chit-Pull for Lamentations of the Flame Princess:

Chit-pull Initiative

Each participant in a battle has a specific chit assigned to them. Players might have long standing, unique ones, while enemies will be numbered arbitrarily. Alternatively, just number everyone in a list.

Example:

1. Bob the paladin
2. Frank the wizard
3. Suzy the thief
4. orc A
5. orc B
6. orc C
7. orc D

To determine whos turn it is, draw a chit. Whichever character is associated with the chit pulled gets to have their turn.

Example:

The GM pulls out a 5, so orc B takes a turn. He then pulls a 3, indicating that it is Suzy's turn.

This process continues until the chits are exhausted, at which point you pile them all in again, minus anyone who died.

Chit-pull Injuries

Remove hitpoints. Instead, when your AC is beaten you pull a chit from a bag of 20 possible results, as follows:

Stunned (x2) vs. paralyse 

Character can't take any further actions until he recovers. 

Killed (x1)

Character is dead. Make another.

Pressed (x5) vs. breath

The character is pressed and on the defensive. May not move or escape, though he may fight. 

Shaken (x2) vs. magic

-1 AC until recovered.

Unnerved (x2) vs. best save

No effect. 

Panicked (x2) vs. poison

+1 AC and cannot attack until recovered. 

Overwhelmed (x5) vs. breath

Character is overwhelmed by the assault. -2 to attack rolls.

Berserk (x1) vs. best save

The character is incensed, gripped by the thrum of battle. +2 AC, +2 attack.

A character may hold 2+conMOD chits without dying. Once this number is surpassed that character is dead.

Chit-pull injuries - Recovery

The player may spend a turn taking an appropriate action related to an injury chit upon him, be that stopping bleeding or shaking himself out of it. To do so he rolls the related save. If this is passed they may remove that chit. At the end of a battle they may remove all chits as long as they rest for 10 minutes. If a fresh fight starts before that time they may attempt one recovery roll for free.

How Weapons Are Still Different

• One handed swords give +1 to all attack rolls
• Axes ignore shield bonuses
• Polearms never need to roll higher than 16 to hit
• Two handed swords are either polearms or swords, as desired.
• Maces always hit on an 18+
• Bows get +-dexMOD +-strMOD
• Crossbows only get +-dexMOD

Ways to make a chit pull pile

Card are pretty easy to use, though not ideal. Shuffling is tedious. Numbered tiles can be bought easily, throw them in a bag and you're good for initiative.

The injuries require either writing on some cards or custom tiles. The rules could be written directly on them, which is handy.

Why the chit-pull system is excellent and we should steal it from those cunning wargames

It's not readily replicatable in any other way. Tables are close, but they don't have the self eliminating aspect of the chit pull; once a result, say an injury, is drawn it is out of circulation until it is dealt with or the owner dies. As a fight continues, longer and longer, there is an escalating risk of the instant death chit coming out, creating tension without any manual tampering. End your fights quickly or someone will lose an eye. 

Between 6 and 8 things

I used to spend late nights sat in a comfortable silence with a good friend on the other end of a headset. I'd do my thing, they'd do theirs. Few people are comfortable being bored together.

8 things you might find in the dead guy's pocket

1. A piece of string with two knots in it, a reminder of something
2. A locket with a picture of somebody else's family in it
3. A ticket for a ferry
4. Dog treats
5. Sand
6. Bunches and bunches of hair, different colours, shreds of scalp attached
7. A Russian dwarf hamster chewing on something else from this list
8. A flattened Russian dwarf hamster, crushed in the fall

Usually it's a performance. Nothing controversial about that, not going to put it in my manifesto. You meet up with someone, you do a little dance for each other. It's exhausting though, isn't it?

8 things that happened while you were away

1. Squatters moved into you home, they're very nice but won't leave
2. The mayor was outed as a lizard man. Emergency elections have been declared. He is running again, this time as a lizard man.
3. Your serving maid was turned into a settee by a travelling goblin leatherworker
4. Gremlins have infested your thatch
5. A cult who worship a prophetic goat have followed it into town and protect its rambling way. They make money by selling audiences.
6. All of your furniture has been moved. Nothing has been taken, you think.
7. The ancient prophecy that the dark one would return while you were gone didn't come true. His followers liquidated their secret cult and went legit as a loans company with the assets.
8. I dunno, your house burnt down or something.

But being bored together was easy. Just two guys struggling to stay alive, doing cool little things, making games, creative subsistence living. And then one day one of them fails to keep on living. What a gyp.

6 ways you could be a better player

1. No more fights. Don't fight ever again. Passively resist, appeal to their humanity, be the change you want to see.
2. Decide your character has fallen in love with the villain.
3. Invest all your adventuring money in real estate
4. Invest all your adventuring money in charitable works, become the most beloved person in the country
5. Settle for less
6. When things get rough just kill yourself

Then you find out things about yourself. About how important that comfortable silence was, and of having someone around who wants nothing from you. I wrote this stuff mainly to get a rise out of him. Offence or a giggle, either way. I lost my audience and I don't really want another.

8 wedding gifts from old friends

1. Shelac the Circumspect made a familiar that looks just like you, but small, naked and in a cage
2. The pixie collective gathered up all the pixie dust they can and made a wish that the pair of you'll always be covered in at least a bit of glitter
3. Go'Ol'o'Ololo the slaad presented you with a box full of hands. One of them was his.
4. King Ngarund sends you his regards
5. The mayor presented a box of mysterious eggs
6. The ghost of your departed party members send their direst warnings
7. The son of a family you once saved offers his services. He's all grown up
8. The goblins have made you a settee of one of their grandmas

And what's worse is life goes on. People eventually get weary of sympathy but not enough to just go away. It's all so sad-sad-so-sad until something I'm led to believe is just normal and the done thing is required. Come do this, go do there, wake up, don't starve, justify why we should keep paying you. No?

The 6 layers of hell

1. The Hall of Records. A series of small to very large rooms full of chairs. Somewhere there will be a window at which you can get the correct rites to pass through to the next. Cities and wildernesses are found in these, but to travel anywhere requires paperwork.
2. The Tiger's Banquet. A continent sized party. Very formal, the rules change rapidly and spread like a ripple. Anyone failing to maintain small talk is devoured by the other guests, who are forbidden to eat from the tables until the host arrives. He never will.
3. Jangling Solitude. Iron boxes on chains, hung in darkness. The insides are lit to better reveal the hopelessness of it. Anyone escaping their box will discover an expanse of them hanging from some unseen ceiling. Falling will drop you, quite literally, in to some new hell.
4. The Sorting House. All of the unworthy dead are sorted according to height, each to a separate layer. They are then packed into rooms of exactly their height, nose to nose, heads scraping ceiling, unmoving for eternity.
5. The Garden of Imminence. Appears to be a leisure garden where demon mingle with the damned. All the people look haunted, in contrast to their pleasant environment. Each of them awaits a fate they know is coming. An indistinct dread haunts them. The demons sample it like a rose.
6. The Field of Want. A great snowy expanse where the demons keep their regal homes. The damned wander the snow naked, freezing but never dying. The demons wander about in many layers of furs, demanding foul acts and entertainments for the chance to sit by their fires.

It's nothing new. Old hat. We all die alone. I could take a lesson from this whole thing. Selfishly, ghoulishly, turn it into a lesson. But it's meaningless. It doesn't get better, it just changes. Don't let them lie to you.

Backgrounds and books

I am not a fan of knowledge or social skills in RPGs. They give strange results and are usually either junk or used to hand wave some juicy jibber-jabber (whoever came up with the 3.5 concept of the diplomancer should feel bad). However expecting players to come to the table with game-world knowledge, or even the awareness of what knowledge their characters should have, is unfair.

To fix this I'm using backgrounds. Talked about them before, simple things. Everyone gets a random one that determines what they were before they came to the game, what they should know. If the player is from the College of Friends then they might recognise a wizard at the party, a gremlin catcher would have all kinds of useful knowledge about sewers, necromancers can tell how long that guy's been dead, and so on. It's vague and implied.

It's not important that we know exactly how exhaustive a necromancer's CSI skills are until we start questioning it. The questions a player thinks to ask will shape the accepted remit, the GM will feel out what's too far as things proceed. A happy level will be settled upon.

There are no grades of smartness. If the necromancer is an obvious buffoon it goes one way, if he's a committed corpse fiddler it goes another.

Further knowledge is up to the players to stumble upon either organically through play or by study. Books come with a comprehension level, roll equal or higher to get an answer out of it. Go grab the book, take a 20 minute break, try to find that page you know was in here. If you find it the GM may answer your question, if the book covers that kind of thing. Or maybe a wandering monster will interrupt your study time. A good sized book will probably do D2 damage.

It's very common to find adventurers with well worn bestiaries and geological surveys strapped to their backs.

The City in the Middle of the Road

The City is not inevitably a city, not in the metaphysical way the inner planes are all fiery or wet. That is to say, it isn't an elemental representation of essential City-ness any more than London is. Rather it is a useful place at a convenient confluence, and you can't be much more convenient than a spot that is between everything.

In the shadow of its walls it's all packed buildings on top of buildings from incongruous worlds and ages. Men, demons and wayward gods walk its streets Nothing overly surprises those that live there for long.

The gates stand open, rusted on their hinges. The sand blows in along with the people, touts stand ready to greet them. Water and answers in exchange for whatever secret riches the lost brought with them. "This isn't heaven nor is it hell. This is Troika at the Middle of All Things. Now sate your thirst and tell me, from where do you come and what do you want?" They can be confident in their bargaining since anyone who knows the road knows the path and enter like any civilised fellow: through the closed doors.

Planar Time Dilation

So Planescape loved its taxonomies and endless demystifying, but they never mentioned time dilation. When it is 9am in Sigil, what time is it in Dis? Two twins left home, one twin moved to Arborea and another to Mechanus, when they meet again many years later will they be of equivalent age?

 To help think about it, we need to decide on a measuring stick. Using the old rubber sheet analogy is difficult, since the planes don't have our universe of space and stars rolling around on it. No good thinking like that then. What about vortex theory? Spacetime enters from the centre of all solid matter, diffusing from an area of higher concentration to an area of lower concentration. The point of highest concentration also coincides with a zone of lowest entropy, the past. All energy then proceeds to a zone of high entropy, the future. The flow is time.

 More suitably mysterious and mystical I think. Entropy manifests as the ragged edge of nothing, nibbling at existence, watched over by the horizon knights in their roaming fortresses. To the knights time moves quickly while they watch the nothing, circling the planar sink. In the city at the heart of creation time hardly moves at all, giving its citizen a unique vantage and the leisure of philosophising and discussing the minutiae of life, the universe and everything. When the discussions come to talking about the outside world one can pass through a portal, spend years investigating first hand, and be back in time for next week's meeting of minds.

 You couldn't create robust rulings for time without explaining the universe to death, but knowing that The City is almost static and the outer edges are roiling rapids allows an amount of sense. In practise consider the time of another plane to be completely disconnected to the one you stand on and with only the centre holding. While the party's activity is in one place they can rely on their sense of time and space, if they leave time moves at the speed of drama.

Character Backgrounds in Troika

Been quiet 'cos I've been busy. Let's talk about a part of that.

Troika is an RPG I'm writing. A revision of first edition Advanced Fighting Fantasy mixed with the Planescape I imagined existed when I only owned a couple of books for it.

It turned out my imaginary Planescape was more exciting than the generally stodgy fare we ended up getting. The early books hinted at vast worlds of weirdness, but then every writer who came after tried their hardest to stomp it into boxes, to categorise and order everything. Labels everywhere, nothing felt far away or mysterious. If you wanted an answer you just needed to buy their next book for it to be explained in painfully uninspired detail. Harumph!

So, ambient story telling. No essays on the definitive categories of demons, just rules and gaps to be filled. Every character made in Troika gets a random background like the two below:





Temple Knight of Telak the Swordbringer
You were once a fanatical monk, set to maintain constant martial readiness in preparation for the end times when all doorways crumble inwards.

Possessions
The blessing of Telak
6 weapons of choice, kept in pristine condition and carried at all times
(Telak will withdraw his blessings otherwise)
Suit of scale armour
Traditional skull plate, affording you excellent vision for watching out for the end of days

Skills
3 in three fighting skills of your choice
3 Awareness

Miss Kinsey’s Diner’s Club

The Eaters know that there are only two worlds: the without and the within. They intend to insert as much of the prior into the later as they can,experiencing the finest culinary delights possible.

All dining experience is open to them, nothing is forbidden at Miss Kinsey’s. Try the other, other, other white meat.

Possessions
Sharp metal dentures (damage as sword) OR forked metal dentures (as knife, but on a critical you may cleanly strip all the flesh from one small appendage) OR blunt metal dentures, for crushing (as knife)
Embroidered napkin

Skills
1 Strength
2 Tracking
2 Trap Knowledge

They're packages, taking away the un-fun hassle of buying skills or making important decisions in a setting that is terribly vague until contact is made. Empirical campaign knowledge only, mechanical knowledge taken out of your hands. Each background gives the player a point to work from, immediately encourages fun (rather than un-fun) decision making on how they interact with the world. They can decide how Miss Kinsey's Diner's Club functions just by rubbing their character against the world. If the GM comes at it with no great vantage point they end up building in the gaps as much as the player. Which is exciting.

What's more, my Diner's Club and others' will differ greatly. It's not pinned down by essays and rules. We know they are stronger than average, they're good at tracking and trapping, and they all have weird mechanical teeth. Why they have these and how they use them is implied broadly enough for the player to come at it however they fancy.

Prompts are powerful and useful. Once there are a couple of hundred of these you'll have a broad spectrum of what the game world is about. We can use sections of it and form our knowledge from just those pieces, triangulate a bit of game world for ourselves without labouring under a weight of words. More is there for you if you want it, and every point you add multiplies the possible interactions between them, until eventually you finally have something that is very much your own. A wider planescape.