Fronds of Benevolence: Troika! OSR Adventure Review
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- čas přidán 20. 09. 2020
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That bit about the pools with their own ecosystems not having examples is especially galling, since it's printed on a page with a large amount of blank space at the bottom. Roughly 1/3rd of a page, with nothing at all. You could have put a small table for determining what sort of weird organisms might be found there.
I know that this is asking for more work from the writer. But it's just helpful to have, especially in a gonzo game like Troika. Plus, all else being equal, it's nice to for a printed book to make use of all the space provided. As if people who buy the book know they get to use the _whole_ book.
Love to see Troika content! Fronds is excellent.
I'm running thismodule right now. It's fun but definitely overly vague. Some of the players were very confused as to how things were laid out geographically, especially because they took the golden barge and ended up on the asteroid. The book isn't particularly clear on how to get off of it and is then even worse with some of the other locations. We are at The Wall right now, and it has been reasonably fun despite being too vague.
it's interesting, Troika's vagueness is both a selling point and a deterrent. I think it's just different tastes for different people. I end up doing that sort of work with adventures anyway, cause I hardly ever agree with the tone of written adventures.
Definitely lifting that Timekeeping method, that is inspired!
Also glad that I saw a less-than-appealing use of point-crawl orienteering. I’ve been planning on implementing a point-crawl system using old-school map styles that focused on portraying popular locations and routes more symbolically than literally, giving little to no attention to accurate relative positioning or straight-line distances. If players decide to go off the Beaten Roads, they enter the Wilds and must use overland travel rules and the occasional landscape orientation (using Noted Landmarks, originally seen from a height/afar) to find their way, eventually creating a “Doubtful Path” (new point-crawl route).
Locations and sights will be much more instinctively recognizable than in Troika, since it is a Low Fantasy setting, so hopefully the system will be intriguing and imposing rather than aggravating and confusing.
4:59 love jack vance. When I read it I really got an insight into early DnD, as you saw a lot more about what Gary was going for with his magic system and the Gods.
If you combine it with Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser the Tone of early DnD is much clearer - slightly comedic, fun, but terribily harsh!
Great review!
Nice review Ben! I'm wondering if you have already checked Acid Death Fantasy (setting for Troika) from Melosian Arts Council too. It looks gorgeous!
Adding to the Jack Vance inspirations, are there any OSR RPG's one would recommend besides Troika?
I think Into the Odd and the new Electric Bastionlands are both good and trippy. The Sleeping Titans adventure for ItO is very good. As a swede i might be biased but i love Mörk Borg. All these have been reviewed by Ben.
Help! I recently saw a questing beast or OSR video with a loot table that included "shoes that always fit" and a "compass that points toward the nearest spilt blood" and other items. I believe they were called "non-monstrous items? Anyone know?
@Questing beast do you know off-hand? Started a reddit thread on it as well.
@@MrGuyCali Nothing in particular pops to mind...
@@QuestingBeast we're trying to figure it out on the OSR subreddit. I'll let you know!
@@QuestingBeast Best left buried adventures, it was the deluxe version of the book. Page 92, 4:55 in your video. Thanks for the content!
I'll probably get it and never play it. Fun to read too weird to actually play.
Eh I ran it just fine tbh, took about five hours and never really felt too "off book"