Thursday, September 6, 2018

Quill: Troika Edition Rev 1

I really love Quill. For solo gaming, it really paces things perfectly for me. This is an attempt to use Troika! and Quill White Box together.

Before each paragraph, roll a Luck check as normal. Within the paragraph, make an appropriate Skill check of some kind based on what you're writing. At the end, decrease or increase your Stamina. Once per letter instead of decreasing stamina you can take some other form of consequences - you use up some gear, you get in a worse situation for subsequent paragraphs, etc.

Pass Luck Check

  • Pass Skill Check: +2 Stamina!
  • Fail Skill Check: Damage as club
Fail Luck Check
  • Pass Skill Check: Damage as dagger
  • Fail Skill Check: Damage as sword
Between letters you can regain 2d6 stamina and 2d6 luck, and test for learning / improving skills. For the reader, a random amount of time passes: d66 1) minutes 2-3) hours 4-5) days 6) months 

This might be a bit too 'you died' for some folks. I picked clubs forgetting that they actually can do quite a bit of damage. But the idea is that if you fail 1 of the 2 checks, there's some kind of negative consequence, if you fail both, it's really bad. Of course, this also disincentivized casting spells, as they use up stamina, so some more thought is probably needed.

In the next rev I imagine luck tests will be to find / acquire needed gear which may give bonuses on skill checks, at the cost of 3 Luck per check (rather than 1). A failed skill check may or may not lead to Stamina loss, depending on the fiction.

Scenarios

Crashing Into Troika
Scenario: You are the lone awakened being aboard a Pilgrimage Barge. Row upon row of plinths house the frozen Sleepers awaiting the day of religious awakening. But of course, your peaceful days of loneliness and holo-dueling are coming to an end. 

Good Phrase / Bad Phrase
Sleepers / endless rows of freezing coffins
Yowling Alarum / strange warbling music
sluggish controls / dead stick
Impact Throne / trash-filled escape pod cavity
Cracked, beached barge / smoldering ruin
Helpful robed being / angry wizardling
Space Tick / warp monster
Cracked Firmament / rent skyway
free Hospitallers / drunk barber chiurgeon 
Bumbling local sheriff / flint-eyed lawman
rent-controlled under-hostel / lower bridge tarp-dwelling

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Tilting Windmills
Scenario: The local lightening-generators, a series of windmills, stand still in the becalmed air. Power rationing cripples the area and makes for angry mobs. You must somehow marshal some ineffable (or otherwise) force to prevail upon these conditions and make them tolerable again, lest the local constabulary burn you as a witch.

Good Phrase / Bad Phrase
Utterly becalmed / annual stilled months
Rolling brownouts / blackened city blocks
Angry mobs / riotous ruin cultists
Local Giant Labor Council 7734 / uncooperative officials
Massive whale sandwiches / silo of gruel
Plasmic air-condensors / Glimmer Empire artifacts
Gold-burning backup generators / picky power-shitters
Winning hand / Falsified cards
Giant electrovores / mutant underground leach-eels
Quick caravan / slow lines of refugees
Generous Noble House / tittering sentient-hunters

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