The Troika Tribe Isn't Sending It's Best or Brightest (Or Maybe They Are)

Really quick: if you want a complete RPG that is to Dungeons & Dragons, but focuses on fun, usability, and quality—yet isn't grossly overpriced—as opposed to incomplete, derivative hipster trash, check out Dungeons & Delvers.

Someone named (or at least going by the alias) Frank A submitted a few comments on my very generous-and-restrained Troika review While they were riddled with exaggerations, misrepresentations, and peculiar excuses, they were at the least more...cerebral from a purely relative perspective than the bog-standard, semi-coherent, crass pseudo-statements:

So close, yet so far.

Given that he's the only Troika adherent thus far to deviate from this approach, I offered Frank the opportunity to have a more private dialogue via email, a back and forth as to why he is actually bothering to defend an obviously incomplete trash Fighting Fantasy ripoff, but he declined.

I've since approved his comments (and you should read them for context), but rather than respond in kind—which would require multiple comments on my part to address his various statements and (largely unrelated) claims—I decided it would be easier and more orderly to do so via blog post.

Frank opens with a willful distortion of but one of many impartial and deserved criticisms, that expecting even a fundamental selection of adventuring-appropriate equipment—standard fare in every other RPG I can recall playing or reading—is somehow on par with demanding a regular publication that features of all things prices.

Which is absurd: even featuring but a fraction of the typical Dungeons & Dragons selection would have been a trivial endeavor, and would have also been useful to provide meaningful perspective as to what things are supposed to cost. Because I have no idea what a "silver pence" in this incomplete trash game is intended to be worth relative to, say, a silver piece in D&D.

After all, the book describes silver as a "star metal" that apparently falls from the sky (I'm guessing all the skies of all the worlds, because as with everything else it doesn't explain this phenomenon). So unless it's a frequent occurrence it could easily be worth its weight in gold, if not much more.

Which then makes one wonder why they aren't using some other metal for currency...unless silver pence are made from an alloy, or aren't really silver at all, but simply some other metal with a similar appearance. Because besides probably being rare silver is useful for killing demons, unlike salt, which can apparently harm them though the book doesn't specify damage.

But then, if salt can inflict damage, then it could also kill a demon given enough salt and time. I suppose it doesn't really matter, as there's only one monster that I'm pretty sure is a demon (the bonshad), which is not only unsurprisingly undescribed, but there's no mention of it being immune to damage anyway, so I suppose it doesn't even matter.

Getting back to the lack of an equipment list: you can keep all the lol-so-random crap, if for some reason you think it helps support the incredibly shallow-and-derivative setting, I just wanted a handful of items that adventurers will even semi-frequently use. I don't need a bale hook (never have), I need food, water, shelter, light. You know, very obvious tools and supplies that one would use every single day while traveling and adventuring.

To a normal person with a normal brain, this complete lack of the basics wouldn't be acceptable in any standalone game, whether or not it pretends to be a "complete" RPG of any genre, but Frank tries to present this glaring oversight as a good thing. It's a feature, not a bug or comical lapse of minimal effort on the self-described game designer's part.

He actually thinks that, were Daniel Sell able to muster an ounce of creativity and integrity and describe the "golden-sailed barges"? Allegedly a major focus of this incomplete trash game given that page one specifically states that players will "travel by...golden-sailed barge between the uncountable crystals spheres..."?

Well—and I'm being completely serious—Frank argues that that would just rob you the GM of the "opportunity" to describe every single aspect concerning them. Not just the appearance, but how they function both narratively and mechanically, too. This is some Tom Sawyer tier chicanery, and what makes it even more hilarious is that Frank isn't Tom, he's one of the dumbasses that got tricked into doing all the legwork, and is trying to convince others that no, paying-to-work is both intelligent and fun.

Even more retarded, he tries to imply that me pointing out the complete lack of any meaningful content pertaining to magical flying ships that the book specifies are an intended method of conveyance is evidence that I lack imagination, as opposed to placing the blame where it belongs: the hack author who made a point of mentioning them multiple times.

It would be like buying an allegedly "complete" d20-based game ostensibly centered around being a pirate, but when you comb through the largely-barren pages discover that there's nary a single rule pertaining to them. Or even a complete sentence describing them. Or a terrible post-modern-tier illustration depicting them.

And then when normal-brained players go, wait, where are the ships? Some strawmanning mental gymnast hipster pretends that it's not an actual issue, and if you can't be bothered to do all the research into figuring out what ships look like, how big they were, what sort of crew you'd need, how fast they can travel, prices for passage, and some sort of combat system? Well you just lack imagination.

No, I just expected the bare minimum, and in that and more Troika was a severe disappointment. I didn't wonder where the rules for, say, summoning demons were, or magic trains or generating urban centers, because those weren't specifically mentioned as deviations from the fantasy standard.

Frank claims that having an incomplete trash game that deviates from time-tested trends spanning decades is a "breath of fresh air", deliberately mis-framing my want for perhaps a page or two dedicated to an equipment list, magical flying ships and portals as requiring that "every aspect of the world" be pre-written.

(As an aside, if silver falls from the sky, why not use a magical flying ship to go up there and just get it?)

There's a vast gulf between those two extremes: every edition of D&D has featured even a half-page of weapons, armor, and gear, with prices, whilst apparently somehow exercising restraint in the wholly unrelated task of worldbuilding, and Planescape managed to explain portals without describing every single aspect of even a single plane of existence.

Something that I wouldn't think needs pointing out, especially if you've actually played RPGs at all for any meaningful length of time, is that you can stray from the defaults. People do it all the time, modifying races, classes, monsters, magic items, even adventures. So, the non-argument that, were any of this explained in any capacity, that you wouldn't be able to tweak or disregard it in favor of your own interpretation is complete and utter bullshit.

If the book described the barges as just mundane ships, and it's the literally golden sails that make them fly? You could ignore that. Or use that, but have different types of barges, with different propulsion methods (I had a whole setup for designing ships in A Sundered World). Point is, you'd have something to work with. There would be examples and mechanics already developed, making it far easier to modify it to suit your needs.

So, Frank (and these are all his bizarre ideas, check the comments): you could still say they're all extremely well built (regardless of who owns it, how often it is used, and other relevant factors), that they can all take precisely three shots—regardless of how accurate the shot is, or where it strikes—from whatever the fuck a scatter cannon is (I guess all sky-pirates are required to use the same weapon), and no matter what will always get you where you need to go in three days (so long as the destination falls in whatever abstract distance "nearby" is).

Granted, the notion that they're all uniform in construction and durability makes absolutely no fucking sense, but even if the book when in another direction, in painstakingly detail? You could still tell the players that, no, they don't work that way, and rattle off your completely arbitrary and nonsensical details and rules.

Now, to answer Frank's questions about the quality and craftsmanship of the barges (that it would be "fun" for them to be ponderous deathtraps or cash-sinks for the moronic wealthy): no, neither would be inherently fun.

They might be interesting or rewarding, and might lead to entertaining incidents and adventures, but that depends on actual execution. Not that you must choose and cleave to one extreme: some barges might be poorly maintained and quite dangerous, especially if you have to repair one that you find, while others might be well-maintained, and outfitted with powerful defenses and weaponry.

Frank's last strawmanlette is as bizarrely pretentious as it is pitiful, that Troika is for people that "love to take ideas and spin them into stories", and "see an unexplained aspect of the world and can fill it with their imagination".

First, spinning stories is a terrible way to plan and run the game: it's best to just play, and see what stories organically arise. But Troika isn't inherently better suited than other RPGs at doing either. You can easily take an idea in D&D and "spin it into a story" (not that you should), and there's plenty of mystery for you to run with and interpret however you want. Hell, Eberron had several largely unmapped continents for you to flesh out however you wanted to.

The difference is that it also had a continent with plenty of content to work with (though not fully detailed by any means), so that you could run a campaign there without having to do a lot of work ahead of time. Maybe get a feel for the setting, change it up to better suit your taste and needs, and then have the players head elsewhere to explore the rest. Or start up a new campaign with them sailing off to the giant or dragon continent. Or another plane of existence.

Frank: Troika is "for you" because you're apparently too stupid and snobbish to know any better. Or you just hate D&D for whatever reason, and tried to convince yourself that 2d6-roll-under-or-over-it-depends is superior to d20. Or that "classes" that are really just skill and gear packages are superior to having actual features that cannot be duplicated by simply picking and improving skills. Or that being able to eat food and arbitrarily heal x times per day is better than having to rest or use an item explicitly intended for healing. Or that nothing at all is superior to a gear list with necessities and prices.

Everything you claim as a selling point can be just as easily if not more so achieved in countless existing games, it's just you'll have more foundation and content to work with because unlike Troika they're actually complete. Or at least mostly complete. I can easily take any edition of D&D and just say that Spelljammer ships and Planescape portals exist, and I'm already way ahead of the curve with a far better system.

Really though I'd just run A Sundered World since I already wrote that setting and it's far more interesting than vanilla D&D.

Daniel had the benefit of decades of examples and content to work with. Granted, much of it was from people far more talented, intelligent, and passionate than he could ever dream to be, but he didn't have to reach anywhere near their lofty heights to even be merely adequate. To say it fell short vastly overestimates what little was done: it's a half-assed pre-alpha elevator pitch draft at best. Something anyone could have done, and very easily done better.

As for Frank's second comment: 

Not providing coherent/detailed information about the world is but one of many issues. I have no problem with this in Dungeons & Dragons, or similar RPGs where the presumption is something that loosely resembles an apocryphal, anachronistic, pseudo-European backdrop.

But Troika is at least pretending to present something different, more unusual, even though it is merely plagiarizing surface concepts from vastly superior alternatives: this requires some sort of actual framework to work with, for people to build on who never read the source material and would honestly be far better served using them and D&D and simply doing their own thing.

Different opinions are fine. Personal attacks aren't, especially when they lack any sort of point even worth debating. I like arguing, and I love people telling me how my ideas and content are bad, as it can help me improve, but it's really my soapbox and no one is entitled to space: if some coward wants to call me a Nazi istaphobe, they can do so in their little echo chamber of choice.

You showed up with mostly a selection of strawmen, but I felt that it would be worthwhile and at least a little entertaining to knock them down while countering everything else.

As for the quote from the book, you conveniently left out the entire passage (and I find it telling that you posted it as if it was entirely isolated). Here is the whole thing:

What you encounter on those spheres and in those liminal places is anybody’s guess — I wouldn’t presume to tell you, though inside this book you will find people and artefacts from these worlds which will suggest the shape of things.

Again, Tom Sawyer chicanery. Daniel doesn't provide anything, really. He leaves it almost entirely up to you, so the statement of "I wouldn't presume to tell you" comes across more as an excuse for how fucking inept he is, rather than simply not wanting to step on your toes.