Troika Play Report Session One: Marching Backwards
Last week I played a brilliant session of Hammers run by Andrew Walter at Melsonia’s Iglootree store as a part of the many open RPG sessions they are running for members of the public. After the session I reflected a bit on how little time i’ve actually spent as a player, in comparison to my many, many hours behind the screen. This led me to reflect on some of my habits as a referee and the things that I could improve on, these play reports are expressions of that will to get better!
Once a fortnight I’ve been running an in-person Troika campaign in the basement of the welcoming Tower Bridge Arms with an ballooning cast of players with varying experiences - one or two are experienced in OSR style games, whilst for a couple, Troika is their very first TTRPG experience.
This was our fifth session of play with this group. I approached this week’s session slightly differently in two ways
Giving players a time restraint during dangerous tense encounters.
Putting a bit more work into the pregame prep rather than running from the book directly
Time constraints:
This one might be an obvious one to other referee’s out there but I have certainly not been putting as much pressure on my players in my games as I could have been! During a game of Swyvers run by Owen, (a brilliant ref from our OSR server The Squashed Peacock in a Black & White World), he made brilliant euse of a countdown in time sensitive moments in game. It’s a such a simple but effective way to align the players’ experience with their characters. In rules-lite games like Troika, players have very few abilities. Their turn is not going to be that complicated mechanically so giving a time restraint (a simple countdown down from 5) can work wonders for adding tension to moments where it matters. As a recent adopter of this I felt I could have been harsher and actually skipped PCs turns if they didn’t make a decision in time. As with anything there is a fine line and in a game about making decisions not all of them need to be rushed but after implementing this I immediately found my games to be more exciting in those moments where the character were strapped for time to think.
Running from the Book VS Prepping:
Since running OSR style games, I’ve mostly been running prewritten adventure modules: Evils of Ilmire, The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford, Winter’s Daughter etc written with my prep mostly taking the form of reading the module a few times before the session and occasionally adding some sandbox gristle to connect the adventure locations together.
Over the past few sessions of running the brilliant Slate & Chalcedony, there were times when I didn’t have an answer to some of the players’ questions straight from the book. I found myself flipping between the map and the descriptions when attempting to parse exactly what the players were able to interact with in each room. At times it made me a little on-edge as I tried to be one step ahead of the party - something that could of course be sorted with just a little prep in advance! I also know that one of my weaknesses as a referee is improvising sensory details on the fly and creating a sense of space.
To help in this area I used the Dungeon Dressing tables from the AD&D DMG to add a bit of colour and expand on the descriptions from the adventure book. This gave me a bit more to refer to during play. After spending some time prepping Stonehell (we might talk about this next week!) I find my style of prepping adventure modules is to essentially to re-write them in my own notes and expand on areas I figure i’ll turn to mid-game. Was it Hunter S Thompson who rewrote Old Man and the Sea to get the feel of Hemmingway’s terse prose? I reckon he could have run that as a one-shot easily! Equipped with my d100s , I spent my Sunday afternoon writing up some detail on the Slate Tower for the sessions. The irony being that of course, I actually didn’t have to use any of this prep! (See the session recap below).
!!!NOTE SPOILERS FOR FRONDS OF BENVOLENCE & SLATE AND CHALCEDONY BELOW READ AT YOUR PERIL!!!
Nowhere and Back again…
To cut a long story blissfully short we began with Fronds of Benevolence with the players seeking out rare earths to save the dying Duke of Plandra. After some scheming and plotting they hitched a ride on a stilt-loper which unfortunately crashed into a sinkhole following a clash with some Ybabya-Ygagaks. Deep in the pit two tunnels beckoned the party for exploration. The group had some time to kill as Pilot 81 needed a few minutes to restart the unreliable walking-machine. So, like any good referee, I shuffled some papers, rolled some d6s and after a short, muddy trek the party traveled through a portal and into the barren plains housing the fell towers Slate and Chalcedony.
That was four sessions ago, flash forward to Sunday, having been in the tower for four hours or so - their resources drained and morale at an all time low. The players ascended the tower of the Chalcedony wizard and found the cavity where the ‘core’ of the entowered wizard resides. The stretched skin of of a human face attached to a snail-like shell formed of warped and contorted bone. A misplaced ration thrown by Pavlov to see if the ‘thing’ was hungry, led to arousing the ire of this horror. It proceeded to throw spells and strange effects at the party. A brain golem emerged from the fleshy sacks surrounding the creature, the room began to flood with pink fluid from a hole beneath the creature, a hurricane erupted from the ‘wizard’’s screaming mouth, Cydoor was turned into a Boneroach and started to gnaw at his companions and writhe around the partially flooded floor. Markov the Necromancer was oblivious, sat in the room below with his permanently reanimated Apeman, Jack-Jack diligently stringing together Boneroach remains to weave a rope together. Realising they were unable to ‘win’ through martial means the party fled like cowards, descending the tower and tipping their hats on their way to a Apeman scout grooming itself in the foyer.
Perseus and Cydoor bravely saw off a pair of marauding Pig Harpies seeking to pick off the beleaguered party on their way from the towers, soon after, the Slate Wizard let off another burst of Dragon Fire from the tip of the tower. The party sprinted through the ‘sphere-portal’ in a rocky crevice and returned to the dank, humid tunnel they started in.
They returned to the Stilt-Loper and to the Plandran Body-Guards they’d left to oversee it. Pilot 81 managed to start the thing and thanks to a make-shift pulley system they were able to drag the vehicle up to the surface. They were back on track for their quest to recover rare earths. Before long though, danger struck! Black leathery reptiles poured from the tree-tops and darted towards the party. Only Pavlov’s quick thinking and piloting skills allowed them to resume their journey. But then a menacing, aged cackle came from the east, rippling across the fetid pools of the collapsing mire. The Ybabya-Ygagaks had returned to finish what they started! Pavlov desperately tried to restart the loper as fearsome hags drew near, the points of their fell weapons dripping with poison. Markov’s simian minions served to guard the witch-hunter as he struggled to find the ignition amongst the byzantine dials and switches on the machine. Cydoor cast Web on one of the fiends and the other was swiftly destroyed by Perseus’ Glaive and the fearsome fists of Jack Jack the Ape. Amongst the wreckage, within the ‘houses’ of these disturbing creatures they found two magic items, both labeled in packaging that reads ‘Sutlers.’ Pavlov discovered the Ego-Blade Conceit and Markov a Shattered Crystal Ball (with glue). The Stil-loper whirred into action as the party continued on their journey towards the Eye-Bleeds. What could possibly happen next time!?
Question of the week:
Do you roll your dice in front of your PCs or behind a screen? I personally feel that for roll opposed fights in Troika it’s good for them to see but then in a system like OSE rolling in secret can be useful.
Three Random Reflections
Jack Jack the undead Apeman controlled by Markov the necromancer is too powerful, a quick on the fly ruling that he damages as ‘Modest Beast’ has made a broken.
The players are still getting to know each other but are starting to work well together as a team.
Working on:
I’m currently working on the second draft of my Troika Module Rave On!
andI’m also getting round to converting my first blog post into a zine (if there are any artists reading this looking to collaborate on the zine please get in touch!)
Our OSR Server is always looking for members wanting to play games! I am running a weekly open-table game of OSE using Stonehell, it’s been a blast so far come on and join.
https://discord.gg/tRWaYH5h
Listening to:
Scott 2 - Scott Walker
Reading
Lankhmar - Fritz Lieber
Rob Roy - Walter Scott
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