Troika! Numinous Edition by Daniel Sell is a role playing game supplement published by Melsonian Arts Council. This is the core updated book for Troika!
The supplement is available as a 120-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $18 but is also available as a printed book from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. Two pages are the front and rear covers, four pages are the inside front and rear covers, one page is the front matter, one the Contents and two pages are the character sheet.
The Introduction gives a brief overview of the system, which is science-fantasy and characters travel between crystal spheres and that the supplement has an overview of this.
Character Creation is the first step. There are three stats that are rolled, plus some baseline possessions. Next, the Background is rolled, and Backgrounds are everything a character used to be. There are some notes on creating backgrounds. There are 36 Backgrounds included, which are rolled randomly using d66 – each die is taken separately. The Backgrounds have a name, a brief description, some possessions that may be unique to that Background, advanced skills and spells and perhaps a special ability.
The Rules follow next, starting with rolling the dice. Troika! just uses d6s, and it can be used a number of ways. They are used as d3, which is half a d6, d6 or numbers of d6s. Dice are not added together; rolling a 2 and a 3 is not 5 but 23. The two main ways of rolling are Roll Under, which is 2d6 and aiming to roll equal or under, or roll versus, primarily used in combat and other contests, where 2d6 plus bonuses are rolled with the higher number being the winner.
Luck is a fluctuating stat and can be Tested. Every time it is Tested, it is reduced by 1. Lost Luck is regained over time and Luck can be used in combat to break a tie and, possibly, cheat death – an optional rule.
Stamina is health. If it drops below 0, the character is dead. It is regained through sleep, Provisions and possibly other ways.
Initiative uses an Initiative Stack, which will use some form of tokens Initiative determines who goes first in combat.
Actions are what can be done when the Initiative is held. This are hitting or shooting someone, casting a spell, choosing not to act, moving, retrieving an item from inventory, using an item and grappling.
Other Concerns considers cover, what are basically surprise, critical hits and fumbles, shields, using multiple weapons, falling over, drowning, henchmen and time.
Damage is the amount of damage done on a successful hit. How to determine the damage of an unusual weapon is covered as well.
Armour covers the protection this gives.
Encumbrance covers small and large items. There are 12 inventory slots; small items take one slot, large items two. When retrieving items, those at the top of the inventory list are faster to retrieve. If two much inventory is carried, the character suffers penalties from being overburdened.
Getting Better is how a character improves their abilities.
Advanced Skill Descriptions describes the skills used in the game, though other skills are available if needed.
Items are listed with an explanation as to what an item should do if it isn’t listed, namely give +1 to all rolls associated with it.
Spells has a list of spells for the game. They need both knowing and casting successfully, and there is always a chance of success or failure.
Enemies has a list of monsters. They are given base stats but don’t have Advanced Skills like characters, only a skill value. Each also a d6 table for rolling their Mien. Some are variants of Backgrounds.
The Blancmange & Thistle is an introductory adventure. It’s a hotel and the characters spend almost the entire adventure travelling to the roof, either by stairs or lift. There are new creatures, new items and advice on creating new advanced skills – give them a name and go with it. This is a thoroughly weird adventure.
The inside cover pages have weapon damages, random spell listings and damage for certain things as well as the OOPS! Table for spell miscasting.
Troika! Numinous Edition in Review
The PDF is bookmarked but only the most major sections are linked. The Contents are more thorough and are hyperlinked and there are a number of hyperlinks inside the book itself. Some of the navigation is good but the poor bookmarking lets it down. The text maintains a single column format and no errors were noticed. There are a lot of illustrations, most colour but some black and white, up to a full page in size. Given the types of illustration, presentation can be described as weird.
Troika! is a pretty simple game. It uses one die, the d6, in varying numbers to determine everything. There are not thorough and detailed rules for everything, and the rules that are there are pretty simple. New rules can be come up with on the fly, such as skills and items. Characters can die and that, unless luck is used, is that. Roll a new character. Fortunately, character creation just requires rolling four times and writing stuff down. Troika! is a rather weird system in some ways and is probably not to everyone’s taste (it does look like it would be ideally suited to adapt the Hill Cantons supplements to; weird setting and weird system). It’s also shorter than it might appear; the pages are smaller and the actual core rules only take up about a dozen pages. Troika! Numinous Edition is a strange game and it can be found by clicking here.
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