Troika - What is it?

TROIKA! (hereafter referred to as “Troika”) is the science fantasy RPG. The latest edition is “Numinous”.

Mechanically, I am told it is based upon the system used in Fighting Fantasy. Rolls are 2d6 roll under, or sometimes 2d6 roll high.

There are some neat little damage tables (really, rows) for weapons and spells. Pulling things out of your inventory in time-sensitive situations is handled with a roll I really like.

Thematically, Troika is a weird mix of stuff. I don’t know, something about spheres? It’s surreal, and post-.

The average book for Troika you find will outline a setting (sphere) and have a multiple of 6 character packages. I have yet to be impressed by a Troika splat. On the other hand, the introductory adventure in the main book, Blancmange and Thistle, is one of my favorite in the broad category of “RPG adventure”.

Troika is the worst RPG system I have ever run

Admittedly, that is an overly narrow superlative. I don’t run that many games, and I like to think I pick good ones. But Troika felt really awful and I won’t run it again without houserules, despite its attractive qualities.

What was it that felt so bad? Well, when I’m GMing, I don’t like to tell my players to go pound sand. It isn’t fun to do!

Character Creation

Troika characters have three primary stats: Skill, Stamina, and Luck. Skill is 1d3+3, Stamina is 2d6+12, and Luck is 1d6+6 Stamina is a bit better stabilized, but a 4-Skill/7-Luck character is as likely as a 6-Skill/12-Luck character.

Skill is the real kicker here. It’s used for… everything the character does that requires a roll. A character with 4 Skill will succeed on attempts less than 17% of the time, while one with 6 will succeed nearly 42% of the time.

Rolling 3d6 down the line when building D&D characters is considered needlessly random by some, while others find enjoyment in making do with imperfect, un-optimized characters. But this generates a statline centred around non-modifying scores, and where any modifiers positive or negative are small.

It feels awful to tell a player that, yes, your character is significantly worse at everything they might attempt than another player’s character.

Initiative

When people talk about Troika, they will often comment on Troika’s initiative. It seems to be love it or hate it. I hate it.

The rulebook’s rationale (5.6) for this is that adds uncertainty. “[Y]ou never know how much time you have left.” There are other ways to do this. Re-rolling initiative every round is one way, but it works best for side-based initiative and is a little impractical if using individual initiative.

Troika’s initiative system means players may not get a turn every round. They are not guaranteed an opportunity to act at any point. When playing, a player asked me, “When will I get a turn?” to which I could only answer: “I don’t know. Maybe you won’t?” (i.e. go pound sand)

A minor point on characters

While the character packages (in the main book, at least) are impressive, evocative, and greatly creative, they don’t inspire as much mechanically. I agree with Skerples here that the conceptual density is low. Unlike Transformers, Troika characters are not (mechanically) more than meets the eye.

How would I fix them?

What would I house-rule that would fix Troika for me?

For characters, I think of the system used by Into the Odd / Electric Bastionland where characters are compensated for poor rolled stats with better equipment. There must be some trade-off where a low Skill could be rewarded with more Luck, or starting artifacts, or the like.

Or maybe not. Random starting Skill is such a huge weight on character competence that I struggle to see the virtue in making it random. It’s a bit like rolling to see if your character starts at 1st, 3rd, or 7th level. Maybe every character starts with a Skill of 5?

I like uncertainty in initiative systems, but Troika’s just goes too far. I’d need something that gives players an assurance that they’ll get a turn. Some options:

• Reserves: Each player holds one of their character’s tokens in reserve and the rest go in the stack. Any time after an enemy turn, instead of drawing from the stack, players can use their reserve to take their turn. When a character’s token is drawn, if that character’s player does not have a token in reserve, they can take the drawn token into reserve instead of taking their turn.
• Side-based: As Troika’s initiative, but each token corresponds to a side in the conflict and can be used by any character on that side. Limits on the number of turns a character can take before a Turn End token is drawn.
• Mercy: 4 Turn End Tokens are added to the stack. The first two drawn are treated as wild, being used to activate any character, while the third ends the turn. To be a little less merciful, some of the wild tokens could be for the enemy side.

As for character packages, if I were writing my own, I’d try to tack on about twice as many Skills and items as they usually have. Working with existing packages, I might try mashing them together, adding skills and equipment (but not background) from one package to another. Or I’d try devising a table of mini-packages representing hobbies, side-hustles, or other peculiarities.

Reconciled

Actually, that seems all right then. Start everyone with 5 skill, use side-based initiative, and give a smattering of extra skills. That would do it for me. If I ever find or conceive of an adventure or setting that would feel right for Troika, I could use it again. If I do, I’ll share the rules I use somewhere.