one thing wargames do much better than rpgs is they share ideas without crying about it. Side effect of rpgs getting virtually monopolised by one big fat american corp. Wargames have no monolith, no single financial truncheon, no group of bestest friends advertising them. This is a good thing.
We will use the basic wargame. Chits, Attack/Defence/Movement, possibly with Steps and Supply, definitely with Ratio, maybe with Chit Pull. These are all basic concepts.
Wargamers are literally dying out. They are old. They like ww2 and other conflicts involving america.
Make a wargame with indie sensibilities. Cave Evil are doing it.
The problem with fantasy and sci fi wargames is lots of stuff. Things i can think of right now:
1- They dont have any emotional connection (see old men and ww2/america invades the world) so must make their own.
2- There is a temptation to make then a symmetrical conflict AKA chess
Every wargame i have enjoyed has been lopsided and told a story. I know more about 40k than ww2, plus space naizis arent real.
A fantasy (i'm gonna use fantasy to mean both 'cos that's fine) wargame has to tell me a story quickly. It has to have a warp and weft, ask questions the players have to answer, have lots of answers. it must be pretty, it must be replayable, it must be chunky, it must be fun. It must not be a generic frame to hang more things off, it must not be a minitures wargame clone.
Wargames can do so much and don't.
It should probably be 2 player. No one knows multiple people who will play with a carboard token on a map. dont lie.
It should have a shape that suggests the ability to make more things and build upon it. It should be open and welcoming, it should have fewer than 4 a4 pages.
it needs a hook. it needs and punchline. it needs to be something you can sell someone on in a sentence. Dark Emperor is about Sauron-like invading a post apocalyptic fantasy land. Obviously great idea. into it. it has a shape and you can picture it playing out.
It's such an easy thing to do. The rules are already made all you need to do it hang them in a suitably tasty way
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.
- Top Right hand corner > Sales & Bundles > Co-op bundles > Create new co-op bundle
- Pick a snappy title
- Write a witty description
- Add the URL of one or more of your Troika! projects via the "Game URL" box
- Then add Troika!: https://melsonian-arts-council.itch.io/troika-numinous-edition
- We'll come back to "Minimum Price"
- Set a Goal if you like. Up to you
- Set the Start Date at 22nd of October 2019 and the End Date somewhere further in the future
- 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)
- Click Create Co-Op Bundle
- 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.
- 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:
On Advice on Advice
ive been thinking about writing advice a lot lately, remembering old articles from university, books i liked, things i carry with me. It's a difficult genre to do. Good writers are bad at explaining it, and people who are good at explaining it rarely have anything to say.
I don't like procedure. Procedure is a trap. Every writer has a different system so you can safely ignore any suggestion of a method. No one cares what pen you use, what desk you sit at, what font you pick, what program you use. Write it on napkins, buy a ridiculous leather book and a £300 fountain pen, just get on.
The only method is sit down, do the work. Or don't.
Recharging your imagination can be work. Reading, mostly. Films and TV are a little useful but the time:value is not great. One good book can nourish you for months, most films are barely a snack.
Social media is not work. Communities is not work. Writing is work, preparing to write is work until it isn't.
Don't be your own critic. Others will do that for you for free.
Always always look at the back catalogue of anyone telling you what to do. Feel free to ignore me.
Be brave. Write the game you want to make and ignore everything else. Experiment with structure and form. If you want to have a 10,000 word read-aloud box of a diegetic novel in you adventure then do it. Have the entire adventure in one room. Tell me where that cup came from in such a way as being entirely impossible for anyone to find out through normal means. Don't eliminate yourself from the work in pursuit of an audience. This isn't penicillin, we can experiment with the formula. If you aren't then you're committing the cardinal sin of inflicting boredom
Be ugly. Never be afraid to look cheap and nasty. Similarly don't be scared of being too beautiful, too expensive, too much. But don't feel you have to be one or another for someone else's benefit
Finish it. Just finish it. Then make people pay for it. People who think you're making toys will pay it, they're used to it. People who know you're making art will pay it, they know what you're dealing with. You need to eat, you need to escape the cycle and breathe.
Even if it is bad charge us for it we will buy it.
Do not try to please anyone. Do not be dungeons and dragon. Be small, be specific, be interesting.
Nothing you do before writing matters. Sit down and write. Whatever got you to that position is what you need to do to keep on doing it.
Ignore assumptions, reevaluate accepted systems for how books are laid out or approached. And for the love of god look at things outside RPGs. All it takes is for someone to play boardgames, read history, read something not in appendix n, and they look like a genius innovator. We're not. None of us are. We're looters who travelled further from the village.
Steal harder. Write an adventure that is a criminally close copy of a novel you've read. Transform it. You'll learn things.
Be inconsistent. Change everything, ignore everyone, write. Be only consistent in that you sit down and write. Even if you are bad at it, write. Write more, finish more, ignore audience ignore clicks and fame, people will recognise something special if you just keep doing it.
Think: Eventually a body of work can't be ignored. The size might vary, but it speaks for itself. You don't want a mad success, steer clear of it. They are poison, full of switch-backs and madness. Slog in the dirt, write, finish. There isn't anything else, no way out.
I have more but it is 5:50am and I'm bad at it
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
Miss Kinsey's Table Talk
Bythotic Placation
Vennish Formal Fatalism
Troikan Meiosis
Manticoric Bdelygmiasm
Originally posted here but tables don't bloody work
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
2
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3
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4
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4
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5
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Miss Kinsey's Table Talk
2
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3
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4
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Bythotic Placation
2
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3
|
4
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Vennish Formal Fatalism
2
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3
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4
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2
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Troikan Meiosis
2
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3
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4
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Manticoric Bdelygmiasm
2
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3
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4
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Originally posted here but tables don't bloody work
Immanent Gods
Consider the source of the numinous. Your basic RPG thinks very little of it or places it in a watered interpretation of the greek pantheon. In this case the numinous is transcendent, coming from without and inwards. It is probably more common in reality for the numinous to be seen as immanent, coming from the inside out.
Consider the burning bush which Moses happens upon. God talks to him and makes it very clear he is temporarily inhabiting, or maintaining a situational relationship with, the bush to make a point. A culture which held to the immanence of the numinous would be speaking to the god within the bush, of and probably named Bush. Remind players laughing at the idea of experiencing the numinous in a bush that they seemed cool with the idea of their RPG gods being the cast of Super Friends, maybe a bush isn't quite so stupid.
The immanent god is named for what it is, or what is named is for the god. Since neither is distinct it becomes a moot point. This raises questions for language: if god=thing then your names for things become strong choices. Is CORN the seed, the plant and the food? Is the transformation significant? If humans can transform gods what does that mean? Are these gifts or are these powers? The religious hierarchy would have feelings about this.
This should not necessarily be taken to be too dogmatic. Religious thought is a product of the people who have it and can be flexible. Importantly, trying to show the full complexity of the numinous in a game is a road to trite simplification. Instead show facets, tenets, never the whole. Religions are complicated and any attempt to explain them fully will reveal a lack of convincing texture.
The god of thunder could logically become also the lion via the roar. The lion might leave behind the thunder over the centuries, or maintain it in an emblematic or prodigal state.
A god of a thing may come to resemble its worshippers over time while retaining an emblematic relationship with their portfolio.
A god of a great thing may be separated into sub-things. The tree god might have its roots split of into serpents and its fruit co-habit and methodologically entwine with harvest gods.
Add literary greebles
EDIT:
Immanent gods do not have interests outside of their links. A god of the reeds cares about the reeds, about houses, about music maybe. A god of a specific city cares about that city. Gods are huge and unimaginative cogs. They are not people.
Even as immanent gods become more human over time they will still be represented by their original emblems. The relationship becomes les literal and more familiar to us in our metaphorical Judeo/Christian world
Consider the burning bush which Moses happens upon. God talks to him and makes it very clear he is temporarily inhabiting, or maintaining a situational relationship with, the bush to make a point. A culture which held to the immanence of the numinous would be speaking to the god within the bush, of and probably named Bush. Remind players laughing at the idea of experiencing the numinous in a bush that they seemed cool with the idea of their RPG gods being the cast of Super Friends, maybe a bush isn't quite so stupid.
The immanent god is named for what it is, or what is named is for the god. Since neither is distinct it becomes a moot point. This raises questions for language: if god=thing then your names for things become strong choices. Is CORN the seed, the plant and the food? Is the transformation significant? If humans can transform gods what does that mean? Are these gifts or are these powers? The religious hierarchy would have feelings about this.
This should not necessarily be taken to be too dogmatic. Religious thought is a product of the people who have it and can be flexible. Importantly, trying to show the full complexity of the numinous in a game is a road to trite simplification. Instead show facets, tenets, never the whole. Religions are complicated and any attempt to explain them fully will reveal a lack of convincing texture.
The god of thunder could logically become also the lion via the roar. The lion might leave behind the thunder over the centuries, or maintain it in an emblematic or prodigal state.
A god of a thing may come to resemble its worshippers over time while retaining an emblematic relationship with their portfolio.
A god of a great thing may be separated into sub-things. The tree god might have its roots split of into serpents and its fruit co-habit and methodologically entwine with harvest gods.
Add literary greebles
EDIT:
Immanent gods do not have interests outside of their links. A god of the reeds cares about the reeds, about houses, about music maybe. A god of a specific city cares about that city. Gods are huge and unimaginative cogs. They are not people.
Even as immanent gods become more human over time they will still be represented by their original emblems. The relationship becomes les literal and more familiar to us in our metaphorical Judeo/Christian world
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.
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.
Armour in D&D
I have definitely talked about this before. I'd link it if I was smart.
Anyway, we're talking old D&D 'cos 5th is fussy and I don't know it. I'll assume it's identical.
Things that guys in plate are scared of: Poleaxes, cannon balls, being hit with a club A LOT, loads and loads of arrows, getting pinned down and jabbed in the eye or armpits with a dagger.
Other armours do different things. We could make them all do a unique thing, but this requires knowledge and controversial assumptions (more so than usual). So what kind of common thread does, say, chain have with plate?
Assuming full and unrealistic coverage of the body, they're relatively similar. Swords are bad at both. Both are hoping pointy things don't get lucky. Both don't like getting whacked with large blunt objects very much.
Verisimilitude is a better word than realism. Realism can go do one, I wanna feel it. Feel and real are far apart.
Armour either works or it doesn't.
What if it has a defence profile? Melee weapons are only doing 1-12 damage, baring super strong people.
When you take damage you look at the table. / means no damage. It stops at 12 'cos that's the human peak. When the dragon bites you in half it ignores your tin hat.
Plate
Chain
Breastplate
And so on
Anyway, we're talking old D&D 'cos 5th is fussy and I don't know it. I'll assume it's identical.
Things that guys in plate are scared of: Poleaxes, cannon balls, being hit with a club A LOT, loads and loads of arrows, getting pinned down and jabbed in the eye or armpits with a dagger.
Other armours do different things. We could make them all do a unique thing, but this requires knowledge and controversial assumptions (more so than usual). So what kind of common thread does, say, chain have with plate?
Assuming full and unrealistic coverage of the body, they're relatively similar. Swords are bad at both. Both are hoping pointy things don't get lucky. Both don't like getting whacked with large blunt objects very much.
Verisimilitude is a better word than realism. Realism can go do one, I wanna feel it. Feel and real are far apart.
Armour either works or it doesn't.
What if it has a defence profile? Melee weapons are only doing 1-12 damage, baring super strong people.
When you take damage you look at the table. / means no damage. It stops at 12 'cos that's the human peak. When the dragon bites you in half it ignores your tin hat.
Plate
Chain
Breastplate
And so on
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!
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!
Theory July 2nd: Spiders
I want a game to tell me my parameters. I don't want to push against them, I don't wanna make D&D into something it isn't 'cos that's just sticking a plaster on it and saying it's all good. If what a game is is "gross" "stupid" or worst of all "boring" then that's what it is and I don't want people to get better at hiding how dull they are or else we might arrive at a time where Hasbro tricks me into thinking they're good people and trying to make good art.
Don't fix things, break them and abandon them for better things. Make better things. Let boring and awful things and people be boring and awful. The only thing worse than a massive spider on your wall is a spider that was on your wall until just a minute ago.
The centre from which things are made will be only that which needs to take shape at that point.
Don't fix things, break them and abandon them for better things. Make better things. Let boring and awful things and people be boring and awful. The only thing worse than a massive spider on your wall is a spider that was on your wall until just a minute ago.
The centre from which things are made will be only that which needs to take shape at that point.
Theory July 1st: It's Ok It's Ok
I'm not good at following instructions so I'm just going to write in the state that I am on learning what I should be writing about today. So there.
I design with absolute insincerity. It is not me speaking from my soul or anything like that, it is me creating a space that will force the viewer to enter it in the shape I want without them knowing. This is possible because RPG writing and reading is naive and trusting and I exploit that.
Mindreading is fake but it works. If I tell you mindreading is fake and then do it anyway it creates a different feeling.
When I read a book on psuedoscientific theory or weird anthropology I always take it in good faith and believe them utterly while I'm there. Then I take that belief with me after and hold on to it like a keyring from the giftshop on the way out. I will believe what is most pleasant or interesting to believe.
Gene Wolfe lies to his readers all the time. Good books can lie.
Writing anything is magic. It's a spell. Literally a spell. You write magic words to create an effect. The greater the effect the more powerful the spell you need. If I want to topple the western world I'd have to be a pretty potent magus.
Voice is not natural. If every book sounds the same then what's the point.
If an RPG is just rules on how to play a game then it's only a fraction of a complete game. If an RPG book doesn't make me feel the game with every bit of my body then it's weak magic. I should be able to read a book and then be so overwhelmed with power that I must expel it immediately by making something.
Good writing always makes you over filled with magic that needs emptying.
If you want someone to do something you don't say "do this thing" you make them want to do it themselves without asking. You've created a play cycle, or a mindset.
"It's ok. It's ok." Sometimes you have to break a spell. Say "you do not need this" over and varied. Say "you may do this" and some people will be released from a decades old curse. Often they need stronger magic. It's whacking the radio.
RPG design should also consider the spaces between the games. How will the game exist outside of the play environment. Unlike a novel it is reliant on a social space. If your solution to creating that space is "marketing" then you are weak. Marketing is a vector to deliver your game's power. It's a magic wand, a fetish. If you are weak then you will die when you run out of money.
Ok I'm done for today.
I design with absolute insincerity. It is not me speaking from my soul or anything like that, it is me creating a space that will force the viewer to enter it in the shape I want without them knowing. This is possible because RPG writing and reading is naive and trusting and I exploit that.
Mindreading is fake but it works. If I tell you mindreading is fake and then do it anyway it creates a different feeling.
When I read a book on psuedoscientific theory or weird anthropology I always take it in good faith and believe them utterly while I'm there. Then I take that belief with me after and hold on to it like a keyring from the giftshop on the way out. I will believe what is most pleasant or interesting to believe.
Gene Wolfe lies to his readers all the time. Good books can lie.
Writing anything is magic. It's a spell. Literally a spell. You write magic words to create an effect. The greater the effect the more powerful the spell you need. If I want to topple the western world I'd have to be a pretty potent magus.
Voice is not natural. If every book sounds the same then what's the point.
If an RPG is just rules on how to play a game then it's only a fraction of a complete game. If an RPG book doesn't make me feel the game with every bit of my body then it's weak magic. I should be able to read a book and then be so overwhelmed with power that I must expel it immediately by making something.
Good writing always makes you over filled with magic that needs emptying.
If you want someone to do something you don't say "do this thing" you make them want to do it themselves without asking. You've created a play cycle, or a mindset.
"It's ok. It's ok." Sometimes you have to break a spell. Say "you do not need this" over and varied. Say "you may do this" and some people will be released from a decades old curse. Often they need stronger magic. It's whacking the radio.
RPG design should also consider the spaces between the games. How will the game exist outside of the play environment. Unlike a novel it is reliant on a social space. If your solution to creating that space is "marketing" then you are weak. Marketing is a vector to deliver your game's power. It's a magic wand, a fetish. If you are weak then you will die when you run out of money.
Ok I'm done for today.
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.
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.
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
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.
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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.
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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
Vaulted Animarium
Vaulted Animarium
Julius Coldbridge 5/10/2Hamm Coldbridge 3/20/1
Spell: Befuddle
Small shop full of small animals. Some move freely. The animals are so loud as to make it impossible to be heard from anywhere other than mouth to ear contact. Julius runs the shop with his adopted son Hamm, a shambling mound of a man who rarely tries to talk and is mostly deaf. Hamm has two rabbits living in his pockets. Ruby Lorgnettes in a drawer by the counter. Cabinet full of luminous larvae and singing beetles. Choir rats, various common city-owls, a nesting pig, 17 ogre fleas, a pair of sympathy serpents (not on speaking terms) are among the selection.
Rumour: A famous hunter has caught a live alzabo and is exhibiting it in his apartments to selected guests.
http://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2018/07/bit-o-troika.html
Group of Seventeen
Group of Seventeen
Cyriaca verGrin 11/17/4Spell: Invisibility
Android 7/26/2 (1)
8ft tall and perilously thin. A bathouse mistress. Single large bath with multiple secluded areas. Remains proudly ignorant of customers' business. Staff are Thinking Engines, 9 of them left, who can pass as entirely organic. Open all hours, staff rarely seen abroad, Cyriaca more so and only while accompanied by staff. 1 in 6 chance of a herbal bath day 1- Green, red berries, restores all Stamina 2- Blue with silver streaks, ensures a restful night's sleep 3-Red and twigs, smells like dirt, tightens skin drastically, so no one recognises you for a day 4-Green with green berries, relaxing, -5 Skill for the day 5-Hot mud, -2 Stamina +1 Skill for the day 6-Pink, smells like cake, calm & happy for the rest of the week, immune to fear and panic.
RUMOUR: A giant is convinced that Troika is in fact Lost Corda and has blocked Owl Street with his ecstatic crying and celebrating. Danger of terminal hugging.
http://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2018/07/bit-o-troika.html
Court of the Summer King
Court of the Summer King
Open, the Summer King 9/18/5Spell: Assume Shape, Hurricane, Teleport, Zed
Reception hall for the divine Summer King. Front door and halls guarded by Feathered Folk wielding brass blowpipes-staves decorated with and firing peridots. Petitioners are mostly foreigners and cacogen, with the occasional hyrodules and their silver suited guards. None speak to the King, only touch his hands, drop a guilder in the chrome vase, and leave. The petitioners spend a long time talking in meaningless metaphors to one another. Non-comprehension will be met with disdain.
RUMOUR: The feathered-swine have captured radiant thought and hold it in disgust
Big map: http://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2018/07/bit-o-troika.html
Alcalde Station Juniper
Alcalde Station Juniper
Boris Saypurple 8/16/5
Spell: Darkness, Darksee
The local justice, Boris, is a short joyless man. Quick to anger, quick to forgive, violent and emotional. Four junior alcalde (7/14/2) are under his command and help keep the peace, mainly by spying and gathering harmful gossip. He is unsure who exactly pays his wages or what his jurisdiction is, which frustrates him greatly. The station occupies a large old home with Boris' private chambers, rooms full of papers, and a basement jail. Boris' rooms are full of cats, the jail is clinically clean and well lit. Loft full of unusual lost things.
RUMOUR: Recent random killings are due to a new cult of Cage The Dead-Maker operating out of the goblin labyrinth. They relocate nightly.
http://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2018/07/bit-o-troika.html
Boris Saypurple 8/16/5
Spell: Darkness, Darksee
The local justice, Boris, is a short joyless man. Quick to anger, quick to forgive, violent and emotional. Four junior alcalde (7/14/2) are under his command and help keep the peace, mainly by spying and gathering harmful gossip. He is unsure who exactly pays his wages or what his jurisdiction is, which frustrates him greatly. The station occupies a large old home with Boris' private chambers, rooms full of papers, and a basement jail. Boris' rooms are full of cats, the jail is clinically clean and well lit. Loft full of unusual lost things.
RUMOUR: Recent random killings are due to a new cult of Cage The Dead-Maker operating out of the goblin labyrinth. They relocate nightly.
http://whatwouldconando.blogspot.com/2018/07/bit-o-troika.html
