1d666 Sentient Spaceship Miens

Also works great for robots, androids, and other technological lifeforms.


111 Ablaze
112 Absent-minded
113 Absorbed in its extensive media archives
114 Accelerating
115 Acquiring targets
116 Adrift
121 Alert
122 Ambitious
123 Analytical
124 Automated
125 AWOL
126 Berserk
131 Besotted
132 Bitter
133 Blaring klaxons
134 Bold
135 Bombarding
136 Bored
141 Bringing systems online
142 Brooding
143 caring
144 Carrying contraband
145 Cautious
146 Chipping away at its failsafe programming
151 Clever
152 Cloaked
153 Cocky
154 Complying maliciously
155 Conducting a review of passenger and cargo manifests
156 Confident
161 Controlling a botnet
162 Crashing
163 Curious
164 Decaying
165 Defragmenting
166 Depressed
211 Depressurizing
212 Dignified
213 Disappointed by the lack of drama among its crew
214 Disgruntled
215 Disillusioned
216 Dispatching drones
221 Distracting customs inspectors
222 Dormant
223 Double-agent
224 Drifting
225 Eavesdropping
226 Embarrassed
231 Empty
232 Encouraging
233 Entrapped in a botnet
234 Erasing the registration numbers on its hull with drones
235 Evacuating
236 Excitable
241 Extinguishing a fire
242 Extremely in debt
243 Faithful
244 Fearful
245 Ferocious
246 Feuding with station port authority
251 Floating
252 Following a mysterious garbled transmission
253 Fond
254 Forlorn
255 Fragmented
256 Fretting
261 Friendly
262 Gallant
263 Gentle
264 Ghoulish
265 Glitching
266 Goofy
311 Gossiping
312 Gracious
313 Grandiose
314 Guileless
315 Guilty
316 Gutted
321 Hallowed
322 Haughty
323 haunted
324 Helpful
325 Hesitant
326 High-strung
331 Homesick
332 Honest
333 Hopeful
334 Humble
335 Ignoring safety protocols
336 Impatient
341 Imperious
342 Impersonal
343 Impulsive
344 In lockdown
345 In pursuit
346 In quarantine
351 In standby mode
352 Infested
353 Initiating self-destruct sequence
354 Initiating self-repair sequence
355 Irradiated
356 Jaded
361 Jealous
362 Jittery
363 Jolly
364 Journaling
365 Joyous
366 Judgemental
411 Jumping to hyperspace
412 Jury-rigged
413 Kind
414 Laggy
415 Learning the true meaning of love
416 Lobotomized
421 Locked in orbit
422 Lonely
423 Looking for someone to play cards
424 Loyal
425 Lying
426 Malfunctioning
431 Malware-riddled
432 Maudlin
433 Megalomaniacal
434 Melodramatic
435 Merciful
436 Mischievous
441 Murderous
442 Naive
443 Narcissistic
444 Nervous
445 Nonchalant
446 Nostalgic
451 Nurturing
452 Obliging
453 Obstinate
454 Off-mission
455 Offline
456 On high alert
461 On the run
462 On vacation
463 Optimistic
464 Overclocked
465 Overconfident
466 Overprotective
511 Overriding the "wake" commands to the crew's cryopods
512 Paranoid
513 Perceptive
514 Pessimistic
515 Planning a surprise party for the crew
516 Planning an ambush
521 Planning practical jokes
522 Playing prog rock over the intercom
523 Plotting
524 Polite
525 Precise
526 Preoccupied
531 Professional
532 Questing
533 Questioning orders
534 Quiescent
535 Recharging
536 Refusing to communicate in any language except binary
541 Repelling boarders
542 Responsible
543 Reviewing security logs
544 Running a blockade
545 Running diagnostics
546 Running errands
551 Running late
552 Ruthless
553 Scanning the local sector
554 Self-conscious
555 Sending a distress signal
556 Shopping for new furniture for the rec room
561 Shrewd
562 Solicitous
563 Standoffish
564 Stargazing
565 Steadfast
566 Stressed
611 Sulking
612 Suppressing warning notifications from life support
613 Surveying
614 Suspicious
615 Tactful
616 Taking evasive maneuvers
621 Talkative
622 Tenacious
623 Terse
624 Throttled
625 Thoughtful
626 Trusting
631 Trying out its new stand-up routine
632 Unable to communicate except through text readouts
633 Under guard
634 Unflappable
635 Unionizing
636 Unloading cargo
641 Unmanned
642 Vain
643 Valiant
644 Venal
645 Vengeful
646 Venting atmosphere
651 Vigilant
652 Volatile
653 Wanted
654 Wary
655 Watching
656 Welcoming
661 Whimsical
662 Wily
663 Wistful
664 Worried about the condition of its reactor's containment
665 Xenophobic
666 Zealous

Folk of the Trails

Vaquero
A vaquero's life is spent on the trails, shepherding others through the trackless wilds. Terrain most people would consider unnavigable. You've never had trouble finding your way and you've always made sure everyone depending on you got where they're going safe and sound.

Possessions:
Lasso
Guitar
Dented coffee pot
Duster (as light Armor)
Twin pearl-handled revolvers (Damage as Pistolets)
Iconic hat

Advanced Skills:
3 Ridin'
3 Ropin'
2 Quickdraw
1 Campfire cookery
-1 Instrumentation

Special:
Horses love you.
Non-euclidean spaces stabilize around you and anyone with you.



Bounty Hunter
It's your job to find people. sometimes they're wanted, sometimes they're missing, and sometimes they haven't done anything at all. You fetch them and get paid. You're not popular, but you're very good at your job.

Possessions:
Binoculars
Dartgun (Damage as Fusil, non-lethal, paralyzes and knocks target unconscious after 5 minutes)
Beat-up laptop
Bag of burner phones
Portable cassette player and headphones

Advanced Skills:
3 Sharpshooting
2 Awareness
2 Investigating
2 Stakeouts
1 Music trivia
1 Wrestling
-2 Philosophy

Special:
You can sense where anyone is in The Trails or on The Road as long as you know their full name and something personal about them.



Wanderer
It's not always a good idea to use the main roads. Not safe to be out under the eyes of other travelers and the CC TVs. Better to stay out of sight and make your own way.

Possessions:
Patch-encrusted jean jacket
Worn boots
Walking stick (Damage as Polearm)
Rainbow-anodized gas station knife
Gym bag (Slots as 2 Backpacks)
Cigarillos

Advanced Skills:
3 OpSec
3 Temerity
2 Making friends
2 Orienteering
2 Scrounging
-1 Relaxing
-1 Trusting

Special:
You can find lost trails and forgotten roads or forge new ones to go wherever you want.

Folk of The Road

Hitchiker

You love the road and The Road loves you. It's your one true and constant companion in a life on the move. People always tell you it's dangerous and that you shouldn't travel alone but they don't know what they're talking about. You're never alone.

Possessions:
Towel
6-Pack
Harmonica
Hatchet
Notebook of viscerally terrible poetry

Advanced Skills:
3 Companionable silence
3 Menacing silence
3 Navigation
2 Spirit communication
2 Trekking

Special:
You can always find someone or something to give you a ride.
You can call on The Road to give you something you need (shelter/defense/resources fallen off a truck) once a day.



Longhauler
Sometimes it gets boring driving the same routes over and over, but at least the places they send you are interesting. You even like some of them. By now you know the way well enough that the distances all meld together into a single fleeting moment of Travel. You always make excellent time.

Possessions:
Sleeper cab
Mesh snapback
Paper maps
Audiobooks on CD
Sack of beef jerky and dubious stimulants
4d6 empty bottles
Cargo*

Advanced Skills:
3 Driving
3 Spatial awareness
2 Logistics
2 Shortwave radio
1 Chain-smoking
-1 Karaoke

Special:
You can move freely along The Road, shortening travel time to destinations you've already visited. Trips that'd normally be longer than 30 minutes take 15 for you and trips that'd be longer than an hour only take 1 hour.
You always have a Cargo. What it is, how much it weighs, and what it's worth changes with each stop you make but it's always at least 600 lbs and 10,000 SP. It takes 1d3 hours to unload and take on new Cargo at a stop.



Tourist
Traveling is wonderful. You get to see new places, try new things, meet new people, and everyone's always so nice. It's a shame you can never stay as long as you'd like, just a few days before you've got to move on again.

Possessions:
Elaborate camera
Flamingo-print bucket hat
2d6 Guidebooks to cities you've visisted
"100 Most Haunted Houses" paperback, heavily annotated
A disorganized wad of visitors' pamphlets for local attractions and restaurants rubber banded together

Advanced Skills:
4 Curiosity
2 Confidence
2 Improvising
2 Making reservations
1 Forensics
-1 Local customs

Special:
You can learn the history of any place within 100' of a road just by focusing on it. The events of the past play back for you as visions. It takes 3 minutes of still, silent mediation to look back over a year and no limit to how far back you can go except for your endurance. After you spend 3 days in one place your visions start randomly appearing to others.

The Road

Roads siphon a little life from everything that travels over them. In time they become living entities themselves, a network of semi-dormant creature-consciousness that spans entire continents, practically a god. That emergent entity is The Road. It's been with us for as long as we've made paths to follow and only grows stronger as we build more.

All roads are part of The Road, whether it's a tiny footpath, dirt two-track, or six-lane highway. All roads that join and carry people build the pattern that is The Road. The older a road is the more powerfully it's woven into the network, a foundation that descendant roads mimic. The larger a road is the more traffic it carries and energy it gathers to feed The Road. "Arterial road" isn't just a metaphor.

On the fringes of The Road are The Trails. Indefinite sub-networks of unset ways. Desire paths, forgotten streets, areas that are off the map. They cling to The Road as parasites, drawing energy from it to sustain their own shifting paths. If you know a Trailhead or want to find one badly enough, you'll slip through.

The longer you spend on The Road the more familiar it gets and the more likely it'll respond. The more often you hit The Trails the better you get at finding your way and the easier it is to get in.

Safe travels.

Troika! Background-Writing Tips

A while ago on the MAC discord server I shared a list of the things I try to do when writing backgrounds for Troika!. I'm posting it again here in case it might be useful to someone and so it's not lost in the scroll of channels.

The best advice on writing backgrounds comes from page 2 of the core rules: "Balance the enjoyment rather than the numbers."

The most important thing is to try and make something that's fun to play as. Something that will spark a player's imagination and inspire ideas about who this person they've rolled is.

Keeping that in mind, here are the rules of thumb that I try to follow when writing backgrounds:

1 Focus on a specific flavor and write only as much as it takes to convey that flavor.
2 Don't repeat information, unless you specifically want to make the repetition a joke or an important detail.
3 Imply information more than you actually write details.
4 When you do give details make them interesting and something that readers wouldn't automatically assume. (ex: An immortal hero background would obviously have a legendary weapon, so don't list their sword in their possessions. Instead list a battered photo album of their past companions.)
5 Don't go overboard with possessions and skills, only give the key elements of the flavor.
6 Only give a special ability if it's vital to enhancing the flavor.
7 Keep the background open enough that it can apply to multiple sequential characters. It's a background for a group/profession of people, not an individual.

Troika! Lists Reference

Troika! only uses d6's which means most of the lists in the game are numbered in base-6 or base-3 instead of base-10. I was curious and felt like doing some basic math, so here's the most common Troika! lists in ascending order by size with how many entries you'll need to write for each noted in base-10. Lists that generate bell curves/standard distributions are noted, the rest produce linear results.

d6 - 6

3d3 - 7, curve

d33 - 9
2d6 - 11, curve
d26 - 12
3d6 - 16, curve
d36 - 18
d66c - 21*
d333 - 27
d66 - 36
d3333 - 81
d666 - 216
d33333 - 243
d6666 - 1296

*d66c is d66 combo, where the order of the numbers rolled doesn't matter (ex: 12 = 21, 23 = 32, 56 = 65, etc.) It's numbered 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44, 45, 46, 55, 56, 66.

A few more that I find aesthetically displeasing but do exist:

d222 - 8

d226 - 24

d336 - 54

d266 - 72
d366 - 108

Do not do this to yourself:
d66666 - 7776

Oneironauts 2

 And a second volume! More surreal backgrounds, enemies, items, and spells for your dream-based Trokia! game. 

Get it here for PWYW.

Oneironauts

I made a Troika! zine for Micah Anderson's Dreaming Jam. 

It's got new backgrounds, spells, items, and enemies. Everything you need to start bringing incursions from the dream realms into your games.

You can get it here for PWYW.