If I was put on the spot and asked what is the one that that would make me do more and better, it would be 3 days a week every week spent just reading full time. Not spare time reading, full-on 8 hour days with a notepad. If I only have one talent it is using every bit of the animal and making it last all winter.
Bits O' Troika (working ti...
2024-05-19 20:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Skill: 11
Stamina: 8
Initiative: 3
Armour: 2
Damage as Polearm
Mien:
1. Wild-eyed and intensely friendly
2. Chatty and easily insulted.
3. Thousand-yard stare
4. Gidd...
2024-05-16 16:44:00 +0000 UTC View Post
Skill 9
Stamina 24
Initiative 3
Armour 3
Damage as Polearm
Mien:
1. Deep in thought
2. &nb...
2024-05-14 15:14:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Skill 8
Stamina 14
Initiative 2
Armour 1
Damage as Spear or Modest Beast
Mien:
1. Surveying
2. Prodding
3. Searching
...
2024-05-13 14:00:43 +0000 UTC View PostThis list has been kicking around for years now, in various forms. It started as a simple mutation list to create some granular variety in Troika characters, and then spiralled into a fractal infinity that could never be finished.
In my project to create Troika 2 I'm ensconcing or burying every unfinished idea. Everything that didn't make...
2024-05-11 18:43:15 +0000 UTC View PostThis is the current hex crawling procedure we're using in the office campaign. It's missing the detailed encounter charts, but they're specific to the game you're running anyway so they shouldn't be too missed. I'd love to hear about it if anyone uses them in an actual game, playtesting is red hot on this one, anything goes.
... 2024-04-28 23:58:02 +0000 UTC View PostAs I said last time, work on Troika 2 is proceeding. One of the things on the list is an equipment and price list, which is what you will find attached here.
Doing this list has sent me halfway to madness, everything I see now is translated through the lens of how many hours a labourer would have to work to get it. I'd be very interested ...
2024-04-26 23:39:57 +0000 UTC View PostFirst thing first, I put up a member only room on the Discord for you folks: https://discord.com/channels/474663403470716928/1227754074833944576
It's a place for me to dump smaller bits of what's going on, and for you to make yoursel...
2024-04-15 18:47:52 +0000 UTC View Post
[I've spent the last month doing Kickstarter stuff. This guy has been looking at me funny so long, so I dedicated the weekend to figuring him out. I'll have more time for writing in the period between kickstarter ending and post beginning, so there should be a fair few more soon. More than the others, this is rough but it's got all the points do...
2024-03-03 20:26:20 +0000 UTC View Post
I've been speaking about this for an age. It was meant to be finished in September, but I got stuck doing more fulfilment than I had hoped for. The parts of the map that are crossed out in pencil are finished, which means every building and its primary occupants are described in some way or other. I'll share some of the better ones once I type t...
2024-01-26 14:18:16 +0000 UTC View PostThis was meant to be a cute little table to stretch my fingers but it tumbled out of control. Use it to add a few wrinkles to Troikan NPCs.
Start with a name and a job here: https://perchance.org/4tpvv57r56
## Table 1 - Below the surface &nb...
Yea I dunno. I make the adventures I want to play/run so they usually end up being exactly what I wanted and therefore perfect inside a narrow band i.e. me. If something is written with sincerity and joy it will find its audience and hit them hard. If something is written with arbitrary best practices and a target audience that doesn't include y...
2023-12-20 18:04:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Also added the image to the main post below.
2023-12-19 16:28:20 +0000 UTC View PostOne day I'll make a monster that isn't to do with the Saints of Troika, but not today. Enjoy this raw and wriggling first draft.
# Grigori
Skill 6
Stamina 12
Initiative 2
Armour 1 (thick hair)
Damage...
BEHOLD! Another enemy. Again, image incoming, which I will update as it happens. Here's my awesome map though:
# Saint Bernadino
Skill 11
Stamina 22
Initiative 4
Armour 2 (amorphous head)
Damage as Barrelling S...
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 pi...
2023-11-26 18:39:56 +0000 UTC View Post
Skill 5
Stamina 5
Initiative 2
Armour 0
Damage as Letter Opener or Small Beast
Mien:
1. Collapsed in a puddle
2. Heckling post carriers
3. Vandalising post
4. Asking others to read their faded address
5. Menacing with a letter opener
6. Laying in ambush for someone to...
Hello hello wonderful people, it is me. I have sent copies of the book out via automatic methods but I don't trust them so I'm also putting it here to be safe.
The book is done, tied up and at the printers, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. By the sounds of it players are enjoying it as well, which is the absolute...
2023-08-12 17:33:56 +0000 UTC View PostHello. It is time for me to overshare, you can forgive me this indulgence since I have been strong and constant in my flight from social media.
Melsonia is an oddity. It is a stubborn company in a poor industry, and at this point I think it has survived longer than most RPG publishers that have ever existed. Survived is the word...
2023-06-29 15:53:40 +0000 UTC View Post
This book has finally entered editing. The cover above isn't final, still wanna play with the text a bit, plus there's still lorem ipsum on it. The text is atttached in pre-edit markup for those brave enough.
I've had the map and the rough shape of the adventure for an ungodly amount of time and it took the bossing of Andrew Wal...
2023-04-01 13:08:25 +0000 UTC View PostJust thought you fine fellows might like to see the new Troika before it's ready to go out into the wild. Got to get a Backerkit up and running before the public can see it.
2023-03-28 15:40:03 +0000 UTC View PostAgainst all expectations I don't run a loosy goosy game. Sessions start at home and end there as well, days pass, training happens, odd jobs are performed and then BACK to the dungeon on Friday. The Troikan week is only 6 days long so it has a nice syncopation with our boring yahweh-ey 7. Is syncopation the right word? Either way, they drift pas...
2023-03-04 23:14:35 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a long time since I ran a game. I've run games for something like 20 years and they still fill me with dread and a sense that I am a terrible hack. Writing games and selling then to thousands of people, no problem. Running a game for 6 people, existential doubt. It's how it is.
I've been convinced to run games again and my plan i...
2023-01-29 13:37:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a quick FYI. Google Drive is a nightmare so I moved the shared folder to my Dropbox instead, which you can find at the above link. Sutlers' has been updated further and is now up to date with my hand written version. Time to pull away again!
We just need some more tourists, quiet day events, and to decide wether to expand out the Heav...
2022-11-20 17:52:13 +0000 UTC View PostIt's true! I'm always nervous to let something out of my clutches before I'm done with it, ask my editors. I'm ripping that bandage off right now 'cos I'm looking at my work in progress folder and there are 5 almost complete books that are entirely readable. I've linked here today the one most close to being printed: Get It At Sutler's. I won't ...
2022-10-24 10:24:19 +0000 UTC View PostSometimes I come through. This is a booklet about a magic item and where it comes from. Eminently usable and highly disruptive.
2022-08-20 08:07:47 +0000 UTC View Post
If I was a New Wave adventure I would be very concerned with form. Over the time I've been noodling with this city idea I've gone back and forth between extremes of control and conceit but in the end we're settling down on an intuitive understanding of how cities are. It's just an A-Z, everyone knows how that works. It's hard to let go of the fe...
2022-07-31 07:35:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Coming soon to no theatres and probably not any book shops either.
2022-06-11 14:27:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Where have you been? Work, it turns out, is fractal unless one is disciplined and focused. Jobs spiral off into unlimited detail and are happy to consume you. Did you read that thing by the biologist, the one who said you could spend your whole life studying the life in one garden and not even get close to reaching the bottom of it? Just like th...
2022-06-10 23:27:39 +0000 UTC View Post
I don't know if this is interesting to anyone else, but I enjoy knowing how people work. It's a dirty habit, entirely intended to make me feel better for any shortcomings. Like how mean I am about seeing Wheel of Time books in "shelfies".
The shelves here are populated by whatever books are being used regularly for a project. Some are for...