Troikafeld! A Review and Starting Adventure
Photography: K.T. Nguyen
The only thing missing from Troikafeld!, a mini-supplement for Troika! from Spear Witch and Exalted Funeral is the familiar, percolating rhythm of a bass guitar. That and an adventure to run it in, but this blog has you covered on that. This post is a two-for-one: a review of a scanty RPG and a starting adventure for those wanting to run their own episode of the beloved 90s show about nothing.
The game itself will bring a smile to both Seinfeld super-fans and those with only a passing familiarity. With hopes I do not lose all my credibility in the admission, I’ve only watched the occasional episode despite growing up in a Seinfeld-positive household (more on that later). As such, much of the references - with which this product is laden - flew over my head. I know the characters and their quirks but why George starts with a bootleg copy of “Roshelle, Roshelle” eludes me. Despite my relative outsider status, the description of Jerry (or “Gerry” as the game calls him) had me laughing out loud.
Super fans may ask you to run it for your older relatives. My brother, who also read this brief manual, is my opposite in both his familiarity with roleplaying games and with Seinfeld. He has watched every episode (as well as Curb Your Enthusiasm) but has only played RPGs (i.e., Dungeons et Dragons) sparingly. I found the first page so funny I sent it to him. He instantly demanded to read the entire thing. He didn’t write a blog-length review but was effusive in his own taciturn way, calling it “hilarious” and “so good.” More telling was his insistence that we play this with our parents over Festivus. They have never played a game more niche than Monopoly, but love Seinfeld, traveling to nearby states on occasion to watch his comedy. I agreed that they might like it, but I was left with an obvious question: How would I run it? I can’t just throw Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine into the Keep on the Borderlands and call it a day.
Art: Al Hirschfeld/The Margo Feiden Galleries
Game Master’s Guide to Troikafeld! When you run a game like the Xth Edition of Xungeons and Xragons, where the lion’s share of rules are about punching and being punched by monsters, the unspoken imperative for the Game Master is to put the characters in contact with either (a) monsters they want to punch or (b) monsters that want to punch them. Anything else is a variation on that theme. Is there a similar baseline for a game where characters have skills like arguing (Jerry), litigiousness (Kramer), lying (George), intimidation (Elaine), monologue (Newman)? Put the characters in contact with NPCs that either (a) want something from Jerry and friends or (b) Jerry and friends want something for them. The weapons of the NPCs are not hatchets and halberds, but stubborn opinions, incurable pretension and quirky eccentrics. Troika!’s innovation of a Mein table for Enemies is particularly well-suited for the world of Seinfeld. Close your eyes and imagine the Mein table for the Soup Nazi.
You don’t need to reinvent the wheel to run Troikafeld! Most adventures aren’t ideal fits for “the tabletop game about nothing!” because most adventures aren’t about nothing. However, with some reflavoring, one already wonderful Troika! adventure fits nicely into the world of Seinfeld. And if you have Troika! Numinous Edition, you already own it. The Blancmange & Thistle is the introductory adventure for Troika! It says it can take place anywhere but “is best suited to metropolitan areas prone to bouts of exoticism.” If that doesn’t describe New York City, it doesn’t describe any place yet on this planet. It’s also a perfect location for an adventure involving an old-school, slow elevator in a building in need of renovations. But for the Blancmange & Thistle to be a perfect fit for the Seinfeld universe, we will need to perform a bit of light tailoring. Run Troikafeld! using Blancmange & Thistle as written with the following adjustments:
The Set Up. This may be the biggest change. The characters are no longer New in Town, looking for a hotel and invited to a rooftop party. Instead, they are New Yorkers in their city and one of the characters (George, if he’s in the party) has a coupon for half off the entire order at the most extravagant Chinese restaurant in the city, at the top of an old (but well-maintained) building. He’s had the coupon for a while and, because it is such a great deal, he wanted to wait until he had an occasion to really pig down on Chinese food. That’s right, this is a Christmas adventure! (My family celebrates Christmas by eating Chinese food and going to the movie theater, so this adventure is written with that in mind).
Where’s Jerry? This is an optional addition to the above set up if none of the players are playing Seinfeld himself (I suspect my family game will be a George, Elaine and Kramer episode), but adds an extra powder keg of drama to the mix. Jerry went on a lunch date with a friend of Elaine’s at this same restaurant an hour before the adventure begins. George knows this because Jerry told him. Kramer knows this because he overheard Jerry tell George. Elaine knows this because Kramer accidentally told her. Elaine wants to arrive before Jerry’s date ends - she has no issue with the match but is irked by being kept out of the loop. George is trying to delay–he told Jerry they’d arrive at exactly 1:05 p.m. after much debate. Kramer is guileless and along for the ride.
Art: W.F. Smith (I’m sorry)
SPOILER WARNING: If you are going to be a player in a Troika! game, stop reading here because the following contains spoilers for the starter adventure for Troika!
Ground Floor (Lift). The only change needed is the mandrill, but we want to keep the same spirit. The mandrill’s qualities is that it can’t speak (except to cite unintelligible union rules), understands speech perfectly well, and may be distracted with bribes of food. My proposed replacement is a famished bellhop. He can’t speak because he’s busy stuffing his face with a sandwich (ham, lettuce, heavy mayo) while operating the lift with his other hand. The bellhop is a member of the municipal bellhoppers’ union, which had negotiated employer-provided lunch but not a break to eat said lunch. The bellhop speaks only to shoot down requests as violating union rules and, if upset, makes the elevator go slower out of spite.
1st Floor (Lift). This encounter fits perfectly, replacing the proper nouns (e.g., the Red Church becomes the Communist Party). I’d lead with the “How much do you weigh?” question because an entire Seinfeld episode could be based on the premise of a stranger asking this in an elevator. This is an ideal Troikafeld! encounter - she wants something from them (information) and is armed with a quirky, aggravating personality. All the old lady needs is a name, and I’m going to use Ethyl.
2nd Floor (Lift). The obese gas form is now an obese, gassy man (Fred). But he doesn’t just walk in and rip one. Instead, after a few seconds, he accuses one of the characters of having dealt it. Although he is obviously the culprit, he doesn’t relent in attempting to shift the blame. The man is garnished with jewelry (a gaudy Rolex, a gold wedding band [he’s divorced], and a diamond stud earring) but I just don’t see Jerry and the gang trying to rob a man in an elevator unless things go absolutely south.
3rd Floor (Lift). Another encounter without much need for editing beyond the fact that the obese, gassy man doesn’t float through the bars but instead leaves when the lift opens at the 4th floor. He still buys the salt and vinegar chips. To keep the merchant’s inventory setting appropriate, the characters can buy anything that would be for sale at a bodega.
4th Floor (Lift). This encounter isn’t really about the tigers. They are well-behaved and ignore the mandrill yanking their tails. It’s about the awkwardness of the woman for squeezing the tigers into an already packed elevator. Replace the tigers with 4d6 suitcases, all in a variety of jungle cat print. The scrawny woman (Elizabeth) packs in as many of the suitcases as she can fit. She may ask if one of the characters can get out so she can cram in one last suitcase. The bellhop will start going through one of the suitcases, but he doesn’t take anything.
5th Floor (Lift). The tiger trainer (Mike J.) is just a hospitality liaison, helping Elizabeth by getting the suitcases off the lift and onto the 5th floor. If any are open, he blames the characters and the bellhop confirms it was them. If they refuse to return their stolen goods and the argument gets heated, he will throw a nearby lamp at them.
The mysterious friend is going to require a larger change. A second character that doesn’t talk much is a non-starter. We already have the tight-lipped bellhop, and Seinfeld is a world where everyone is quite talkative. Instead of being a friend who will “say nothing but motion enthusiastically,” the mysterious friend will talk enthusiastically but say nothing. But I want to keep them both mysterious and a friend. The solution is that they recognize one of the characters and greet them by name, treating them like an old, dear friend. The character in question doesn’t remember their name or how they know them. Clearly they are a friend but who and how is the mystery. Because this mysterious friend is going to be annoyingly gregarious, let’s call them Greg (but they’ll have to figure out his name themselves).
He is a loathsome, offensive brute. Yet I can't look away.
Ground Floor (Stairs). Because New York City in the 1990s is a progenitor to the uber-capitalist helltopia we now all live in, we will just replace the almost religious art scenes with advertisements. Here is a list of big 90s ad campaigns if you can’t improvise a dot.com billboard ad on the spot.
1st Floor (Stairs). Let’s turn the spiteful owls into unusually big pigeons and call it a day. If the characters remark on how large the pigeons are, the maid (Jim) swears that they are ordinary-sized pigeons. Any other characters agree with the maid. They are all obviously wrong, these pigeons are massive and their refusal to see that is infuriating.
2nd Floor (Stairs). Sadly, we have to remove the demonic side effects of the water. But to keep it a bit more interesting, tell one of the characters (whoever is most neurotic, likely George) that they recently saw how there is an E. coli outbreak in the city and that you can catch that stuff from standing water. The water doesn’t have any E. coli, but how are they supposed to know. The building staff is reticent to efforts to force them to mop up the spill.
3rd Floor (Stairs). Translating a slug monarch to 1990s New York City is easier than it might appear at first glance. It’s gotta be the Mayor of NYC from 1993-2001, Rudy Giuliani. He is accompanied by four NYPD members serving as security detail. As it says in the adventure, “No one may violate His Majesty’s personal space and dignity and be suffered to live!” Rudy is experiencing some distress (read the news over the last month for some ideas). Assistance would be rudely accepted and meanly rewarded.
4th Floor (Stairs). This encounter can remain the same, except instead of the papers being three random spells, they’re all revolutionary pamphlets. The pamphlets are red ink printed on green paper and warn against the color-blind who have taken positions of power and must be stopped. Whether their plot is related to the Mayor’s presence in the building is up to you but too close involvement in a terrorist plot is a bit too gonzo for “the tabletop game about nothing!”
5th Floor (Stairs). The transdimensional stuff is a bit much for Seinfeld, but we can keep the woman sleeping in the stairwell. Describe the woman (Belle) as attractive; so much of Seinfeld is about meeting and dating people. If awoken, she explains that she has narcolepsy. She also realizes that she lost her checkbook and asks for help in finding it. If they help, it doesn’t take long to find it in the stairwell, but Belle quickly notices that some of the checks are missing from the book. Whether she suspects the characters depends on how suspiciously they’ve behaved.
6th Floor (Destination). This is the Chinese restaurant, the holy grail. For my group, this is a great stopping place and a chance to participate in one of the annual Christmas traditions that we can still do in this strange year. If you’d like to pair this adventure with a Seinfeld viewing, I recommend following up this adventure with Season 2, Episode 11: The Chinese Restaurant.
However you choose to celebrate the holiday(s), I wish you yule tidings and safety for you, your family and your gaming group.
