Kind of mind blowing, but I'm about to run our 100th session of the STS Fulton campaign tonight. Incredibly grateful for the players in this game. I've still got two more PCs to add to the graveyard (both played by James!) with blog posts on each but wanted to just take a moment and marinate on how much fun I've been having and how lucky I am.
I've got this big stack of post drafts that I wrote and then left sitting for a long time. This post is an attempt to start clearing some of them out, inspired by Ramanan "just blog whatever man nbd" Sivaranjan and the encouragement of K over at noise sans signal.
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Benton Molina has a whole blog full of evocative fantasy writing over at Incunabuli but today I'm going to talk about his post on knucklebones and adapt for two games I've been playing. You should definitely go read the original post (and the rest of the blog, it's fantastic!) but the basic concept is that wizards cast spells through the use of special replacement fingerbones. Each knucklebone is created for a specific purpose and requires rare materials, careful runic inscription, and a skilled hand to implant them. They also might be passed down in families or buried with their owner (and thus very powerful temptations for grave robbers).
Different knucklebones then become interesting treasures that prompt follow-on questing to find someone to surgically install them, or the creation of a specific knucklebone could be a player-driven quest in and of itself. They are also a dangerous thing to possess, making you a target for assassination (or at least amputation).
Beyond the inherent danger of procuring and possessing knucklebones, what is the cost to a PC for having such power at their fingertips? In all cases the creation of a new knucklebone should require special materials, exotic engraving processes, and a skilled surgeon.
I'm on the fence about if I'd make them roll for the actual surgery. Probably just impose a monetary and time cost. Up to you and the specific creation methods used if you think the engraving methods would require a magic practitioner rather than just a skilled craftsperson.
Down below are specific proposals for both how to use these in Troika and Knave.
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| These are ancient animal knucklebones but close enough. |
For every knucklebone implanted permanently reduce maximum Stamina by 1. When casting that spell in the future reduce its Stamina cost by 1, to a minimum of 1. If you do not have the relevant Skill gain it at Rank 1.
Intent: A permanent Stamina investment reduces your overall survivability but gives you more opportunities to cast that spell in a day. Also gives you a way to learn forbidden or lost arts that you cannot train.
For every knucklebone implanted permanently reduce CON by 1, reducing your corresponding inventory slots and healing bonus. If your CON is 1 you cannot implant any more knucklebones. Treat the knucklebone as a spell book of the relevant spell, usable once per day but taking up no inventory slots.
Intent: Again reducing the ability to bounce back from danger and overall inventory flexibility in trade for a spell that is much harder to take away. Represents the strain that knucklebone implantation has on the body. Can be circumvented by a committed player by continuing to add to CON at level up.
Edit: At some point after I picked this post back up to finish it Benton reactivated Incunabula. Yay! And lo, he made a truly wonderful d100 table of knucklebones. Beat me to the punch! Go read all those for some bespoke knucklebones or use the lists below for inspiration.
1. Star metal
2. Metal forged in lava
3. Metal forged in dragon fire
4. Wood from the first tree
5. Wood from the world tree
6. Thousand year old ice
7. Living coral
8. Living wood
9. Fossilized wood
10. Dinosaur bone
11. Lich bone
12. Frozen gelatinous cube
13. Rare thing ground up and gelatinized with gelatinous cube juice
14. Teeth from a living relative
15. Wood from a hundred kinds of trees pressed together
16. Nightmare hoof
17. Owlbear toof
18. Dragon tooth
19. Lightning glass
20. Hippopotamus tusk
21. Metal from a monarch's crown
22. Knucklebones from a medusa's victim
23. Heart of a ghost
24. Weapon used to kill a monarch
25. Pauper's last penny
26. Funeral pyre wood
27. Faerie stag antler
28. Corpse-eye coins
29. Wood from a hundred year old shipwreck
30. Cornerstone of a holy temple
31. Bone of a god
32. Minotaur horn
33. Narwhal tusk
34. A complete set of baby teeth, ground up and reformed into a single knucklebone
35. Moon rock
36. Cockatrice coxcomb turned to stone
37. Gemstone appropriate to the spell (diamond, ruby, etc)
38. Giant's inner ear bones
39. Ambergris
40. Mithril forged in complete darkness
41. Amber with a mosquito inside
42. Clockwork
43. Roc talon
44. Single black pearl
45. Polar bear's toenail (ice cold)
46. Metal that's never felt sunlight
47. Purest copper
48. Wax
49. Chunk of a throne
50. Wooden stake that's killed a vampire
1. Burned with focused sunlight on top of a mountain
2. Tapped with a needle used to tattoo someone's whole body
3. Chisel made of star metal forged under a new moon
4. Beholder eye beam
5. Vampire fang
6. Gelatinous cube acid
7. Etched by tiny living grey ooze
8. Narwhal tusk needle
9. Unicorn horn
10. The lockpicks of a master thief, melted down
11. Devoured by grave scarabs
12. Melted by the stomach acid of a giant starfish
13. Water dripped for a hundred years
14. Water jet
15. Lightning strike to melt an overlaid pattern into the knucklebone
16. Casting the desired spell a hundred times into the bone
17. Bound in angel hair
18. Graven with diamonds
19. Carved in a dream
20. Compacted by the pressure of the deepest sea
We've had a few deaths, then a TPK, and a WHOLE lot of close calls in this game. My ideal is that whenever a PC dies the player response is "yeah that makes sense" and no one is surprised. A little upset is fine, heck I sometimes think I get more upset when their PCs die, but I always want it to feel fair.
The first death happened within the first few sessions. Two PCs went to talk to a sleeping dragon, one ignored warnings about not asking to ride the dragon, and the dragon killed her. Everyone on the same page with that one. It also helped to set the stakes for the game early one, which I appreciated.
Next two PC deaths were much later, due to a battle with some naked bandits. This one was a little more random but I think (hope?) fit in with the general potential danger of the setting. I'm also very intentional with trying to make encounters be more than "enemy kill!"
How do these deaths get handled from a play perspective? I have a standing policy of "immediate integration" for new PCs which means the new character shows up, everyone is groovy, and play continues.
The first death was real close to them landing their pod so we just handwaved it "oh yeah new PC was just walking slow." For the next two, the party was way out from their drop pod so I said that the Fulton shoots down new cryo pods because it can detect that someone from the Expedition Party has died. This does not stand up to scrutiny AT ALL because it can be exploited in all kinds of ways by my (very clever) players but we all agreed that it was a cool, hand wavey convenience and not meant to introduce new tools or resources for them. Highlights the importance of everyone being on the same page.
Great so random individual deaths are covered. What happened with the TPK? The party attempted a very bold plan of action to steal an airship from an island of pirates. It was not going well. After two PCs went down Gucci triggered the party's suitcase nuke and that was it, Total Party Kill and Total Pirate Kill. The one downside was that two of the players were not in attendance but I tried and failed to come up with some kind of rationale for how they might have survived the nuke that leveled the island they were on (no refrigerators). I really couldn't think of another way to handle it, and the players were sad but okay, but it still broke the general rule of "if you're not here then your PC is safe." It was a pretty extreme situation, at least.
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| All the best TPKs are player-driven. |
In a more standard fantasy game a TPK might just mean you roll up a new party and pick a town to start in but the STS Fulton LNK has an in game method and logic for where new PCs come from. That logic, as represented by the station AI H3LENE, dictated that there would not be a new party thawed out of cryo right away. In fact, 200 years passed in game before H3LENE woke up the next set of PCs. This gave the world a chance to progress and in turn gave the players a new, but still familiar, situation to deal with.
How do you handle TPKs in your game? I liked (and the players liked) the time jump so much that I think I'd go for it a more fantasy toe game as well.
Landing page for the STS Fulton campaign I've been running in Troika.
Session Count:102 (as of 12/28/2023)
Tempo: Every Thursday night
When I first started running Troika I had a hard time with Luck Tests. I
didn't really know how to use them and, with one memorable exception,
my players never really got in precarious spots from their luck being
low. For context, Luck is a stat that can vary from 7 to 12 and you test
it by rolling 2d6 under or equal the stat. Succeed or not, your Luck
goes down by 1, making you less likely to succeed on following attempts.
After almost 80 sessions of my STS Fulton campaign I think I've got a better handle on it so figured it's
worth sharing what's been working for me. Of course I'm curious to hear
what others' experiences or tips are as well!
1. Don't say "Test your Luck"; always ask "Would you like to test your Luck".
The
specific phrasing of a Luck Test being a player choice is right in the
Troika rules but it's something that I worked to internalize so wanted
to repeat it. Luck is a resource that decreases whenever used, making it
harder and harder to succeed as it goes down, so it should be up to the
player whether they choose to expend it. It gives my players a greater
feeling of control over the outcome which is always what I'm going for.
2. Luck is for stuff that happens to you.
Rough
equivalent to a saving throw in other systems, used for somehow
protecting yourself from dragon breath, airship mounted miniguns,
getting horrible spores in your mouth, and other similar events.
3. Luck is also for fixing undefined details
If
the players ask a question about the situation that I don't already
have an answer to and doesn't follow from establishes facts then I will
sometimes ask them if they want to Test Luck to make reality match what
they're looking for. "Is this important enough to spend your Luck on
it?" For smaller questions I'll often just agree, but testing Luck gives
an avenue for finding out if something more impactful goes the player's
way.
4. Use Luck to power special abilities
I've
primarily used this so far for a couple special abilities for
backgrounds, like the ole "pull something momentarily useful out of your
sack-o-crap", but there's no reason you couldn't more broadly apply it.
Stuff like finicky equipment, unreliable cybernetics, or cold calling
potential contacts could all work. I also just put a straight "+1 Luck"
in a particularly fortune favored background.
5. Use Luck for supernatural favor
I
said "favor" very specifically because it felt too mean (to me) to take
away from the meagre Luck reserves that most players seem to have. It's
not come up yet (soon!), but I could see giving a bonus over and above
the normal Luck cap to represent divine influence or exceptional
fortune. Maybe more to come on this one.
A lot of the follow-on complications in my longish running STS Fulton campaign stem from an incident in a cake shop that escalated very quickly. A critical stage in that escalation involved James' character accidentally killing a town guard. The PC in question attacked with a club, wanting to subdue the guard, but I interpreted it as a killing blow based on the damage. Oops. We talked about it and decided to let it stand, but it never felt quite right. It's come up a few times since in discussion but was intensely relevant during last week's game.
During the session we came up with basically "if it reasonably makes sense you can incapacitate someone" (i.e. the "good plan doesn't require a roll" approach) or that they could try to use Wrestling to restrain someone and then if they could maintain it then they could tie that person up. Still wasn't really satisfied but just had a flash of inspiration so wanted to get it written down.
First thing to note is that all weapons in Troika do damage based on a roll of a d6 and then compared against a lookup table (see below for a sample).
The second bit is how dying works in Troika. If you go below 0, you die instantly. If you hit 0 exactly, your friends have until the end of the round to get you back up above 0 or you die at end of round.
So how do you knock someone out in Troika? A player can decide to pull their punch and take a -2 on their damage roll. If they get their enemy to 0 exactly, the PC knocks them out instead of killing them.
This makes Clubs decent at subduing, Unarmed the best, and Hammers and Mauls unlikely but possible. It also means it's pretty hard to knock someone out with stabby / slashy weapons. Weapon choice has an impact and while you're trying to knock someone out you're leaving yourself open to getting wailed on. The player also has a choice to make on how many full power hits to do before trying to soften the blow and take a prisoner. All of these are about the right feel I was going for, but will see how it plays and update as needed.
