Sag River Extreme Cold Research Facility
Gourd Dwarf's Sag River adventure was great! This was my first Troika! experience and I was super grateful for the chance to play. I love it when rules are dead fucking simple. They're so simple that I have almost nothing to say on that front, I'm assuming anyone reading this blog knows what Troika! is. I would play it 1000 more times and probably be found playing it if I were a skeleton. I love really laid back, punchy games.
Something I was jazzed about was that our Handler used a map of a real life location for the adventure. I thought this was a super immersive and cool touch. There are so many locations I would love to do this for, but I think something that made it special was that this wasn't a particularly special town. It did have a cool name!
I played as Hank Tremaine, a pre-gen. He was experienced with Forensics and Bureaucracy, but I also threw in Grizzled (as Constitutional Fortitude). I haven't gotten to use Grizzled yet, but I did unsuccessfully hit on a cagey delivery driver. My co-PCs were Dembe Nkusi, someone who seemed to have some oddly specific and useful skills, and Dasha Cross, a therapist who interacted with ghosts and spirits. We were given custom character portraits that looked super gritty and cool. Looking at them makes me hear the sound of gunshots like you would hear in an indie point and click adventure game. And, oddly, this wasn't the only time I felt like I was in a videogame. Something about the pace and environment reminded me of Lethal Company, but this was a TTRPG and therefore better.
As a table we did a good job of just trying stuff and bracing for consequences. Fortunately for us they had yet to manifest in any obvious or immediately dangerous way. As the story unfolded, I found myself feeling genuinely creeped out and even turned on the lights in my home to keep the ghosties away. Exceptional gaming experience!
I look forward to playing again, but am also very grateful to finally have gotten to try Troika!. Thanks again to Gourd Dwarf for facilitating an adventure most excellent.