Rather than rave about this game, I'll summarise its major differences to Troika.
No prewritten backgrounds. You make six rolls on a table to determine your starting skills and equipment. This does lose some of the charm of Troika's writeups, but is easier to quickly customise for your game world and keeps the zine short.
No Skill stat. The game keeps Stamina and Luck, but breaks Troika's Skill stat into Brawn, Knack and Knowledge. These ability scores are determined by which starting skills you rolled: roll Archery and Navigation and you'll start with more Knack. Then to hit a target with a bow, you'll roll 2d6 equal-or-under Archery + Knack.
Combat round structure resembles The Black Hack. All characters act once a round. PCs test initiative at start of combat by rolling equal or over their number of filled item slots. Those who succeed act before NPCs each round (in any order). Those who fail act after the NPCs.
Attacks are Roll Under, not Roll Versus. If you miss a melee attack, the enemy doesn't get to hit you for free.
Armour reduces to-hit, not damage. You add the defender's Armour to your 2d6 attack roll. It's possible to start with a Shield (+1 Armour) but most PCs will start with no Armour. It goes up to +5 for PCs. The example NPCs max out at +4 Armour, though it indicates a dragon might have as much as +6. A starting PC will typically have 7 or 8 as their Skill Total for a weapon. So to hit an NPC with +2 Armour, they need to roll a natural 5- (28% odds) or 6- (42% odds). I bring this up not because it's a bad design choice (as a post-OSR/OSR-adjacent/NSR/whatever game, you shouldn't expect a straight-up fight to be winnable). But if you don't enjoy how attack rolls work in D&D (lots of misses, which don't provoke GM moves) you'd be better off sticking with standard Troika combat rules, or using Into the Odd's "attacks always hit" system*.
No quick spells, only slow rituals. Rituals have ingredients & requirements, but don't cost Stamina. The shortest example Ritual takes a minute to perform. Most take hours. Not all rituals are literal spells, the examples also include making a forgery, brewing poison, and leaving milk & mead to attract a brownie into your home (I love this)
The theme. I adore Troika's implied setting, but it's a lot of work hacking it to run something moody, folkloric, or closer to earth. This does most of the work for you. Note by "moody" I don't mean "grim, mud-covered fantasy with lots of random injury tables
Layout is excellent, both in visual attractiveness and in containing information within single spreads.
It looks like it'd run just fine as-written, but the end has a few pages of advice on hacking the game for different settings, introducing quick-cast magic
I bought the printed zine on a whim from the Soul Muppet web store, not knowing what to expect, and I'm really glad I did. It's a well-thought-out game, and I hope this overview helps you decide if it's to your taste.
*I also think kitbashing this game with Cairn would be an excellent idea.
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Rather than rave about this game, I'll summarise its major differences to Troika.
A starting PC will typically have 7 or 8 as their Skill Total for a weapon. So to hit an NPC with +2 Armour, they need to roll a natural 5- (28% odds) or 6- (42% odds).
I bring this up not because it's a bad design choice (as a post-OSR/OSR-adjacent/NSR/whatever game, you shouldn't expect a straight-up fight to be winnable). But if you don't enjoy how attack rolls work in D&D (lots of misses, which don't provoke GM moves) you'd be better off sticking with standard Troika combat rules, or using Into the Odd's "attacks always hit" system*.
Layout is excellent, both in visual attractiveness and in containing information within single spreads.
It looks like it'd run just fine as-written, but the end has a few pages of advice on hacking the game for different settings, introducing quick-cast magic
I bought the printed zine on a whim from the Soul Muppet web store, not knowing what to expect, and I'm really glad I did. It's a well-thought-out game, and I hope this overview helps you decide if it's to your taste.
*I also think kitbashing this game with Cairn would be an excellent idea.