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We have learned very quickly not to trust these creepy bastards in Dan's current Troika campaign...

It's an honest-to-goodness RPG ZINE in the tradition of the pre-Zinequest rot days.  That is to say, it's a one person effort that has (great) black and white art, a rough-n-ready quality, useable game stuff, and even gives back to the community with a couple of mini-reviews of other zines at the end. Two mini-dungeons, several great hand-crafted maps for your own stocking, some bespoke character sheets and a whacked out character class that I won't spoil.  Ten fucking skulls!

Looks awesome, I wonder did a certain classic Earache Records band inspire that title?

That last death is worthy of the best 80s slasher kills!

[superintendent chalmers]You call them d66 tables, despite the fact they're obviously d36 tables[/superintendent chalmers]

Even outside of the fact these are for Meatheads, this is a selection of magic and not-so-magic items that deserve a place in your dungeon experience. The Beartrap Helmet is one of those great ideas so simple you'll wish you'd thought of it, and Dungeon Berries may be the perfect magic item.

One of thee freshest OD&D/Chainmail hacks I've seen in ages. Can we get a single pages version of the ashcan version for home booklet printing though?

Forgive me if this question could be answered by me digging out my copy of Chainmail, but does the #HD = #actions rule allow for casting multiple spells in one round?

Thanks for the comment! It's just me, and basically I publically mentioned it to hold myself to account and actually publish UD-2  and beyond.

Fabriano are most well known for their artists/watercolour papers, but the pad in question isn't anything extra fancy. Likewise Rhodia basically make somewhat fancy looking notebooks/pads - not in the ridiculously lavish Moleskine bracket though.

The maps are drawn on A4 paper, and then the contrast on the pencil was tweaked a little bit in Photoshop.

Hi Stuart - it's a pad of dotted Fabriano graph paper I stole from an office I worked at a few years back. I think Rhodia do some similar exercise books.

Great stuff! This is more like the Troika setting I envision. Be careful out there...

Thank you very much, reciprocated. Looking forward to seeing what's next. PS There's three separate ways to win ROTFM, you'll get there!

Fun little game, I've been splattered by the worm three times so far but I'm determined to win. I have a gift for turning over 10s and 9s in my first few turns it seems. An expanded version with variable placement of the impassable terrain features and/or the extra locations would be a cool twist!

Hi NubiS - could you get in touch at andrewjameswalterATgmailDOTcom and send me the email address you use on DrivethruRPG please? I'll get you sorted out.

Hey P.R.

What's the level range for this?

Cheers

A

Hi Orxalot

Thanks for the purchase and for your question.

It didn't really come up in playtesting, mainly because I mostly presented stunts to playtesters as 'A little somethin' extra' on top of your successful hit, rather than very complex set-ups.

In the grenade round a corner example, I might rule something like the hostile around the corner is damaged but only takes 1d8 damage from the splash damage instead of the full 3d8. Or, if I was having a bad day, I might instead just say no damage was dealt and those are the consequences for trying something so tricky. What were your own ideas?

Rulings-on-the fly are very much part of Slipgate, coming as it does from OSR type games. Depending on your table, you may wish to roughly outline what the success or failure consequences could be before the player attempts the stunt, although you'll find that slows things down with players hemming and hawing before they commit. All depends on the sort of game you want.

The Stunt Die mechanic is shamelessly ripped off the Mighty Deeds rule for Warriors in the Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game (though extra damage is explicity never a result of a Mighty Deed - slightly different) so if you wanted to read further about how people use that rule it might elucidate things a bit - there's certainly a lot more DCC players than SGCP players!

Let me know if you need anything else.

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Ray! A couple of people asked me about doing a print run but I decided to keep it as a purely non-commercial product of the MSPaint Jam. Feel free to print it and I'd love to see how it comes out!

Finally got this to the table - review and actual play posted on my blog! See here to check it out.

Fun fact (and small leak) - Dan Sell and I are going to be working on expanding those blog posts into a small publication in the near future!

This is fuckin nuts. More people should know about this!

Hi there, could you clarify a little bit more what you mean by hex-based combat? Does it apply to both person-to-person combat and space combat? Is it sort of like The Fantasy Trip style or something different? Cheers!
A

Nice one!

At a guess, it might be the same stock texture run through several different levels of a Threshold filter, and then the resulting layers used as a Photoshop mask over flat layers of yellow orange and blue? Nice effect!

This game needs more attention. It openly cribs mechanically from Whitehack, Troika, Maze Rats and probably some others, but the feel is definitely unique.

Starting characters pack a lot of punch and essentially have an equipment list granting them immediate access to two magic items, as well as potentially great powers from the abstracted spell system, high damage output, multiple attacks and even 'extra lives' (at a cost) with the True Name system. Despite this, it can be GM'd as deadly even with these advantages. The resulting experience feels a bit like immediate mid-to high level OSR play from the get-go, crunchier than many indie rules light games but entirely manageable. Add in the modularity of the planeshopping Rungs system that make up the implied setting and you've got something perfect for quick pick up and play games or short campaigns.

Don't drown in the hype stream, check out Ruiner instead!

Damn man, now you've got me thinking!! Into the brain cauldron...

Cheers mate! I recognise the system isn't really designed for solo play, so I appreciate these thoughts. Great game!

Not sure if you read this Ray, but I have been messing around with some solo play of this game using the Recluse solo engine/oracle. I wondered if you had any ideas for how gaining an Insight might work in solo play, since there's no GM to question apart from yourself, and you're kind of doing that constantly in solo play anyway. The only thing I've thought of so far is to put a scenario or question that relates to something 'off camera' the PCs couldn't possibly ask or even be aware of to the oracle when an Insight is rolled, but it still doesn't feel entirely right.

Thank you! Really, I do hope that it makes it to the groups of some tables, I tried to shoot for something that was loose but also rich enough to provide enough sessions for a mini-campaign at least.

Great front cover image!

Love that cover illustration! Very rat-regal

Thank you very much! They're just Photoshop skills really, filtered through some careful "unlearning" based on what Paint would allow me to do.

A different, more sombre take on Troika! city, written in the space you'd find on the back of a credit card. I like that cityscape illustration too!

I am definitely going to be paintstakingly writing my text in Paint and damn the consequences.

Thanks for your reply. In order:

-Thanks for clarifying, I think I was confused by the dice icons on the delver sheet.

-I am proud of my survivor! I feel like he might be doomed for the next trip though...

-In the current version, it says that a fully mapped room has Danger 0, not +1! So that might be something you want to look at. Also more generally I would recommend rigorously checking how you use and differentiate the terms entry and room in the rules as it seems a bit flaky right now!

Also I only got a Drop at the mission end, is the intent you can also buy them during a delve? Because it doesn't say that anywhere.

- Yeah I would settle on either power up or checked and eliminate all other mentions of the other!

Curious how many rooms will be in the final thing? And yes please I would love to be credited as playtester!

A

Okay so I had a good time with this last night, running three delvers through their paces, I really like the 'push your luck' aspect, the ultra light touch rules, the terse area descriptions, and being able to name an area after it's fully mapped is just flat out cool.

BUT I've got a lot of questions:

- Is a starting Delver's maximum DNG 20pts, or 40pts? I was playing it was 20 since I thought the only thing that affected it was your mask. Is it actually meant to be 20 (your limit) and your mask ADDS another 20?

- When you return after a delve, does your DNG reset? I can't see anything that says it does, but it seems like it would basically be impossible if it doesn't. My third guy made it out but he's got 17 DNG and he's still only got the starting Mask.

- Satellite Drop Orders are specified that they can be ordered and delivered to any [-1 DNG] room, whether the delver is present or not. So that's something intended for use in a later delve, once you reach the room you specified? And also, is the only was for a room to reach -1 DNG to fully map it and then make use of the Atmo Processor augment?

- Happy Times Resupply I have all kinds of questions about. It says that DNG reduced by current mask's limit. But doesn't that mean it would just reset your current DNG to 0, since as soon as you reach your mask's limit, you perish? Power Up - what does that mean in this instance? What would it mean for this specific drop item for it to be powered down, and how would I ever power it up?

That's very kind, cheers for the quick reply. Purchased and printed - looking forward to sticking some dark ambient albums on and diving it.

Hello - I'm not sure if this is set up as a correct print file or not - I appreciate you've kindly tried to lay it out as a booklet for the user, but for me it's easier to set up as a booklet if the file is simply exported as single pages - choosing 'Booklet' on my print settings then arranges it for me. Would there be any chance of uploaded it as a file with single pages? It looks great and I'd love to print it and give it a try.

Lovely bleak little experience. Float around as a phantom with an initially sluggish and eventually soaring and free mode of control and collect the energy orbs/husks/souls/whatever the hells in a wonderfully immersive and bleak alien dockyard or something. Maybe even some humour here as well (I loved how the orb husks mess up your careful landings or decide to dogpile on you). Kudos for the screenshot function. This is the kind of stuff I come to itch.io for!!