Pick up any popular role-playing game sourcebook and chances are you have a 200+ page omnibus packed not just with the games core rules, including a binder of spreadsheets to calculate one’s “to-hit chance”, but a veritable codex of the setting’s lore, an alphabetized list of every item in the game, and a detailed diary entry of the author’s intentions on every other page. 

Note, this isn’t a complaint. On the contrary, it’s a treat to hold such a laborious creative endeavor in your hands — a book that won’t yield all its fruit in one read, that may in fact take years to digest. Dungeons and Dragons is of course the most famous, perhaps even the most popular. But one would be remiss if they neglected to give Paizo’s Pathfinder an honorable mention, or even Chaosium’s Call of Cthulu for that matter. And among this author’s favorites was Rifts, from Palladium Games - a sort of epic, post-apocalyptic, multi-genre bastard, and Champions, from Hero Games — which featured a robust point buy system ripe for bizarre exploitation.

But, as part of a long-running DnD actual play podcast, I find DnD can get a little… well, let’s just say sometimes you want to sample from the buffet of tabletop, as it were. If you’re like me, we know well the joy that accompanies tabletop roleplaying. Our collection grows fatter by the year, but the ruts by which we steer our lives grow deeper and thus more difficult to escape.  Soon it’s been eight and a half years and all we’ve done is kill Strahd himself, and maybe convince the group our homebrew setting is worth a shot. 

I’m getting way off track. I only mean to tell you about another game.

In the throes of my TTRPG buying addiction, I was hand delivered an ad by the beautifully inscrutable targeting algorithm on Instagram. It was called “Troika! A Science Fantasy RPG” The art was… weird. But it was reminiscent of Moebius, the renowned comic artist. Digging a little deeper, the website told me nearly everything I needed to know to buy the game. But what really sealed the deal was the words of the author himself, Daniel Sell, explaining TTRPGs by saying,

“…nothing I say here can fully instruct you on what is a deep and rich form of entertainment on par with cinema or fly fishing.”

The absurd juxtaposition between cinema and fly fishing felt just ridiculous enough in the right way that I realized how curated it really was. If everything in this book was as painstakingly surreal as that description of gaming, I needed this book.

Troika! is a fantastic ride, but are you needing something more… “Mad Maxxy”? Check out Ultraviolet Grasslands: A Heavy Metal d20 Supplement!

In the introduction of the book, the author goes on to say,

“…what you have here is Troika!: a science fantasy RPG in which players travel by eldritch portal and non-Euclidean labyrinth and golden-sailed barge between uncountable crystal Spheres strung delicately across the hump-backed sky…”

“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. The adventure and wonder are in the gaps; your game is defined by the ways in which you fill them...”

Gods! Doesn’t that just tickle in all the right ways?

This book is barely 100 pages, and it manages to deliver a very tight and interesting rule set, with a unique dice system, in a way that avoids overwhelming new players. Every single word, every single drawing, is an absolute joy to behold. It manages to be equal parts surreal and earnest without packing its pages as full as a worldbuilder’s omnibus. But even without the codex of NPCs, locations, items, and lore, it manages to deliver a narrative or roleplaying thread on nearly every page — something for your imagination to consume, digest, and transform into your own delightful adventures and gameplay. 

It’s nearly impossible to explain without pictures, take a look for yourself.

Where games like DnD lean heavily into “hard” worldbuilding, Troika attempts to exploit the gaps most often proffered by “soft” worldbuilding. Take the Monkeymonger for example. “Life on the wall is hard.” Wall? What wall? The book never tells you. But it certainly sounds exciting. Is it on TOP of the wall? On the side? Suspended in some convoluted rope and pulley system? It’s really for the player to determine. But as Daniel Sell said, the book will “suggest the shape of things…”. The adventures are in the gaps. But don’t forget, lest we allow ourselves to be swept up in the new and exotic, “all monkeys are of course edible.” In other words, it’s still a tabletop roleplaying game, and it may not be all that different from another you’ve played.

“all monkeys are of course edible.”

Similar to “edible” monkeys is the dice system. Troika breaks no new ground, but leans heavily into a system as fun as the art on every page. When rolling dice, Troika may instruct you to use a d6 — common enough. But it may also ask you to roll a d66, or even a d666. Ever seen a 666-sided die? Fortunately, artisanal dice are not required. If the game asks for a d66, you simply roll a 6-sided die twice in a row. Say you roll a 3 followed by a 6. That gets you a result of 36. This allows them to get the greatest possible diversity out of the most common dice. 

Another clever use of mechanical game design is Troika’s inventory system. There’s no complex negotiation of weight versus strength, etc. Instead, a character has 12 vertical slots. Small items are one slot, big items are two. And if you need to get something out of your bag in a hurry, you roll. Consequently, things near the top of your vertical slots are far easier to get, so “packing” your bags wisely means fewer fumbles during combat or other intense situations. 

Combat itself is no round-robin determined by a simple dice roll, instead, each character gets 2 distinct tokens which are all heaped together and randomly drawn to determine a turn. There’s no certainty of order, or even round length, as the end of a round is determined by its own randomly drawn token. 

If you’ve gotten this far you might be asking yourself: “what the hell does ‘Troika’ even mean?” Which is not something I can confidently answer. I’m told on the Melsonian Arts Council discord server that ‘Troika’ is the world in which the author himself places his game, a large city of some sort divided into three layers: top, middle, bottom.

But I present my own read, just fun enough it would be at home in pages of the book. Troika is a word that revolves around ‘three’ — a three-horse drawn sled, or a group of three persons if you believe Webster’s Dictionary. And the game Troika! A Science Fantasy RPG is a perfect collaborative experience for the right group. But more than that, I’ve found it’s the perfect collaboration between the Game Master, the players, and the author! I’ve never played a game of DnD that didn’t involve a tweet from Jeremy Crawford, the de facto rules czar. But in every rule heading in Troika! The author makes clear the only intent is to have fun. If that’s too open-ended, well there’s plenty of accommodation for a strict reading. House rules in Troika! Quickly become… rules. A feature, not a bug, in my opinion.

The best part of Troika! to me is not just that it’s a joy to read and play. But, for a content creator like myself, the author and publisher offer clear permissions to use, adapt, and create new compatible material. To date, there are 11 companion books published by The Melsonian Arts Council, Troika’s publisher, each offering new unique character archetypes, monsters, items, spells, and locations to pluck and quickly insert into your own game. A handful of books even revolve around well-crafted campaigns and adventure hooks that elevate the game at any table.

Of course, that doesn’t even take into account the sheer number of compatible indie books one can find on the web. Just browse Itch.io and search for titles compatible with Troika, and you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed by accessible and affordable companion books to add to your collection.

Unfortunately, it’s going to be impossible to fully articulate why this game deserves a chance at your table. But if you find joy in the surreal and absurd, you’ll get many hours of entertainment. 

Visit troikarpg.com to learn more.

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Grab your sword and keep on adventuring!

This week’s communication from the Inn Keeper is courtesy of Rett. You can find out about Rett and all of his creative projects HERE.

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