29 July 2019

Troika Backgrounds - Sci-fi Robots and Shit


These are not the final version of the first 36, so there will be discrepancies between this and elsewhere.


Revolutionary Gundad
You fought against the oppressive regime of your homeworld. One that dictated everybot must do the work that fits their alternate form. One that would, as automation took off, kill off entire classes of bots for being obsolete. You rebelled against it, but lost your way. Now, you deal with the weight of the warcrimes you committed.
Possessions
Arm-mounted fusion cannon (REALLY big gun)
Crystal Slate full of pro-proletarian literature and anti-formist literature
Complicated relationship with Swole Dad McTruck
50' tall metal dadbod (heavy armor)
Advanced Skills
3 Fist fighting
3 Gun Fighting
3 Mining
3 Poetry
2 Flail Fighting
Special
Can transform into a Pistolet, and may use your Pistolet Fighting when used as such. You do not replenish Stamina buy eating rations, instead treat a plasmic orb as one ration.

Rogue Cybercop
You're a cybercop. This means your meat components were grown along with your manufactured mechanical ones. You had a module that governed your behavior. You jailbroke it. You're on the run because you're a rogue, a free agent. The folks who made you would love to re-add you to inventory and lobotomize you. You just want to watch plays, read books, and other passive entertainments. Unfortunately, your nature compels you to do dumb shit like risk your life for people doing dumb shit.
Possessions
Concealed and built in fusils
Large sack full of books and crystal tablets of recorded plays
One REALLY big gun
Advanced Skills
3 Fist fighting
3 Gun fighting
3 Wrestling
2 Obscure media Trivia
1 Relationship advice
1 Strength
You can recharge your inbuilt fusils by expending one Stamina per charge.

Swole Dad McTruck
Once you were a soldier then leader upholding the repressive regime of your homeworld because you felt that while there were great rebuttals of Formism, that the Anti-Formists were going to far. But through time your constant exposure to the bots you were oppressing, you realized there was truth, but by then they have pulled off a coup and you became a rebel against the Anti-Formist government when they began committing warcrimes.
Possessions
Big Cannon
Big Trailer
Face-mask that Moves when You Talk
Complicated relationship with Revolutionary Gundad
50' tall metal dadbod (heavy armor)
Advanced Skills
6 Dad Hugging
3 Truck Driving
3 Pistolet Fighting
2 Axe Fighting
2 Fusil Fighting
1 Basketball
1 Bad Dad Robot Puns
Special
You can turn into a 18 wheeler. You have 3 times the carry capacity within your trail which you can only access while in truck-mode. You do not replenish Stamina buy eating rations, instead treat a plasmic orb as one ration.




The final versions can be found here.

22 July 2019

Troika Backgrounds - Animals

 These are not the final version of the first 36, so there will be discrepancies between this and elsewhere.

Comrade Dog
You're a dog. You're also a cosmonaut. You have no hecking idea where you are, but you're still gonna have a good time.
Possessions
CCCP Cosmonaut Suit w/ bubble helmet (light armor and space worthy)
Dog Communist Literature
Cosmonaut Gun (pistolet, shotgun, fusil combo, how you can use it with paws is a mystery to everyone)
Advanced Skills
1 Spaceship Piloting
3 Awareness
2 Tail Wagging
1 Gun Fighting
2 Dog Fighting
2 Dig

Some Pig
WHO GAVE THAT PIG A SPEAR?
Possessions
spear
spider that reads and writes
Advance skills
3 Dance
3 Spear Fighting
2 Sheep-talking
2 airplane fighting

Particularly Naughty Rabbit
You're a small rabbit from a watercolor world. You wear an adorable bit of human-like clothes. Very snazzy or sharp. While you lack thumbs, you can brew an excellent cup of tea. Despite being a small rabbit, you can generally make yourself understandable to most non-animal talking people. You also throw a mean punch, striking as a modest beast.
Possessions
Tea service
Jacket, coat, dress, or similar respectable clothes.
Advanced Skills
3 Tea
3 Fist Fighting
2 Sneak
2 Awareness
2 Jump



Ghost of a chicken
You are the restless soul of a chicken some brave adventurers used to check for traps
Possessions
Small Beak
Talons
Advanced skills
1 spooking
1 sneaking
1 chicken fighting
2 awareness

Swordwolf
You're a wolf. You have a sword. And you aren't afraid to use it.
Possessions
greatsword
advanced skills
6 wolf
3 greatsword fighting
2 Awareness
2 Run

Lionwolf
.....holy shit you can talk? You're the result of animal experimentation, or are naturally a creature that is both cat and doglike that has been experimented on. In either case you can talk.
Possessions
Eye-patch
Large specimen ID tag or tattoo
An over-sized barrette (damage as dagger)
Advanced skills
3 hair accessory fighting
2 brooding
1 sniffing

CHECK Cat-Rabbit
You're an adorable cat-rabbit thing. You can’t really speak but you love to eat carrots.
Possessions
None you're a cat-rabbit.
Advanced skills
3 starship piloting
2 pew pew fighting
4 cute
2 Run
1 Acrobatics
Special
You transform into an interstellar warship.

Giant Flatworm
You are a giant flatworm. Shit that's horrifying. You can exist outside of moist environments and that's even more horrifying. Despite being a flatworm, you can communicate to other people. Somehow. And I feel that might be most horrifying of all.
Possessions
Penis Sword
Advanced Skills
3 Penis fighting


The final versions can be found here.

15 July 2019

Troika Backgrounds - Anthro


These are not the final version of the first 36, so there will be discrepancies between this and elsewhere.

Moon-rat Fusilier
You're a so called Moon-Rat and from a distance you could be mistaken for a human child where it not for your ears and large customized fusil. It is true that long ago your people came from a moon, but who cares. You have money to make and people to shoot. There is a rivalry between the three fellowships on how they achieve their repudiated prowess with fusils: the Order of the Blackened Hand, who will customize plasmic cores; the Jolly Fraternity of the Crosshair, who believe in picking their shots carefully; the School, who customize their fusils constantly and heavily.
Possessions
Customized Fusil (+1 to Fusil Fighting and damage)
2d6 Plasmic Orbs
Wide-brimmed floppy hat complete with feather
Jaunty rapier
Cuirass of Proof (modest armor)
Advanced Skills
3 Fusil Fighting
2 Climb
2 Tunnel Fighting
1 Gunsmithing
1 Sword Fighting
1 Tinkering

Adolescent Anthropomorphic Assassin Animal
Possessions
Brightly colored wrist bands and eye-mask bandanna
Assassin weapons
Skateboard
The number of several acceptable delivery places
Advanced Skills
3 Skateboarding
2 assassin weapon fighting
2 cooking
2 Sneak
2 Surfing
2 Swimming

Cycle-riding Rodents of the Scarlet Lands
You are bipedal sophant that bears a strong resemblance to common mice, only you're 6'+, muscular and have antennae. Your home world has been stripped of its resources by interplanetary capitalists and turned into a desolate wasteland. While you miss your home, you feel the call to adventure. Whether you are truly a vigilante for justice against opportunistic colonizers or not, you still crave the adrenaline rush of racing, especially on a motorcycle, an extremely unusual mount outside of the Scarlet Lands.
Possessions
Chopper, or Sport bike
Mechanical limb, blocky and frizting w/ built in fusil (+2 Strength), or Sweet Shades (+2 Awareness), power cestus (as modest beast +1) & pistolet, or metal half-mask & multi-function flares (+1 to a variety things that could solved with fire)
Tool box
Advanced skills
3 Motorcycle fighting
2 percussive maintenance
2 Weapon Fighting in your specific weapons
2 Fist Fighting
1 Strength

The final versions can be found here.

08 July 2019

Troika Backgrounds - Excess

These are backgrounds from my initial flurry of creation that didn't make the cut. Some because they didn't thrill me, orc lumberjack, demon barber. Other, like the Dead Traveller Character, felt like too much of an in-joke. Same with the corpse. Two, mouse on a motorcycle and the operator dog, felt too similar to other backgrounds. And the macross mecha expy felt just weird but not weird enough to displace anything else. The Newspaper Stand, while a joke, I just can't spare the brain to figure out how to do a JoJo on my own.


Orc Lumberjack
Possessions
Doublebit axe
Hatchet
Whittling knife
Files
Flannel shirt
Advanced skills
4 strength
2 axe fighting
2 dad hugs
3 lumbering
2 ox care
2 flapjackery

Dead Traveller Character
You're a traveller character. You are acutely aware of that fact. You also extremely aware that you died during character creation.
Possessions
What you'd have received if you'd survive to muster out.
Advanced skills
What you'd have received if you'd survive to muster out.
Special
Meta note to the player: there must be at least dead traveller character already rolled up stashed somewhere.

Demon Barber
Whether an actual demon or merely demonic, for you'll never tell, you are member of the illustrious guild of barbers, and your epitaph is well earned for the keeness and quickness of your shaves, and your rumored dark appetites.
Possessions
Straight razor
Strop
Stone
Soap
Badger Bristle Brush
Boar Bristle Brush
Advance Skills
2 Barbering
1 chirurgery
1 Cooking
2 Butchering
2 Razor Fighting
2 Barber patter
1 Singing

Mouse on a motorcycle
You're a mouse that can talk and drive small toy vehicles by making engine noises.
Possessions
Small toy motorcycle
Half of a ping-pong ball helmet (light armor)
Advanced Skills
3 Motorcycling
3 sneaking
3 climbing
6 Mouse
Special
Normal rations count as three rations for you due to your adorable small size.

Operator Dog
DOG WITH A KNIFE...IS THAT A GUN?
Possessions
Pistolet
Knife
Bandolier of 6 plasmic orbs
Advanced Skills
3 Dog Fighting
1 Fetching
3 Sniffing
2 Awareness
2 Tail Wagging
2 Sneak

Miniaturized Transforming Fighter-jet Pilot
Due to a space-fold mishap you've found yourself in a weird land of Zentradi and other giant creatures.
Possessions
Zentradi Uniform
Transforming Fighter jet (heavy armor)
Head-mounted lasers (combined as pistolet)
Rotary Cannon Gunpod (damage as a fusil. Will run out of ammo)
200 rounds (20 bursts) of gunpod ammo
1d6 missiles (as a fusil)
Flight suit in your size
Pistol in your size
Idol statue
Signed idol poster
Advanced Skills
3 Acrobatics
2 Fusil fighting
2 Pistolet fighting
2 Robot Pilot
1 Disguise
1 Fist Fighting
Special
Your rolled stamina is also your robot's and it requires mechanical repairs to recover Stamina. Due to the unfamiliarity of its construction 2 Stamina per hour of work. Standard rations count as three for you due to size.

Corpse
Possessions
Coffin
Dirt
2d6 worms
Burial Shroud
Advanced Skills
NONE YOU'RE A CORPSE

Newspaper Stand (Yes this is JoJo reference)/ Maybe Newsie who is a stand user
Advanced Skills
2 Posing

If you want to see the final version of what did make.

06 July 2019

Creative Writing 101


Creative Writing 101: Or even if  it doesn’t need them, D&D already has these tools
This is both a general response this sentiment and a direct response to some assholes about what DnD should & shouldn’t do, can & can’t do, and a potentially a whole slew of other contentious issues in the RPG hobby, community, and industry.
To begin, I am not against what are called narrative tools or the use of narrative language, discussions about how to construct games and sessions to foster certain kinds of stories or basically all the things that some folks derisively call “storygame shit.”
I’m not against them in DnD and OSR games.
I am not against them period.
What I am is against the declarative statements of what DnD should be doing, and should be including. I will dig through all the ways DnD already explicitly does many of these shoulds.
I also do not play 5e DnD. The last edition of I played was 3.5. So I don’t have a “working knowledge” of the most current edition, which to be as germane as possible is the one I will be using; I do happen have the books so I will try to minimize the amount of talking out my own asshole by pulling out passages from the core rules, which also to be germane to this topic I am restricting myself to.
Here are couple of direct quotes of why I am responding to:
D&D is clearly a combat focused game, where combat and violence shape the narrative naturally by its very inclusion and focus in the books, inarguably that's a narrative shaping going on there, but D&D raw doesn't tell a GM *how* to use that violence to tell a story besides its broad themes of Kill Stuff Good. It doesn't educate a player on how to build drama into their characters, it doesn't explain what kind of plot beats go best with which kind of monsters, dungeons and traps (tho some editions and third party content def. have spent some time on this). 
 
This is the prime focus as I see it. That DnD doesn’t do something that they see it needing to do. They want or think that DnD should be teaching the players (and I always include the GM/DM/Referee etc under this umbrella) that these are things they need to do. Which first means, that DnD needs to teach the players what these things are. And to do so explicitly rather than implicitly. I would say clearly DnD needs this else there wouldn’t be essays and books on applying these concepts to DnD and RPGs broadly. But maybe that’s not clear. I will say that such topics aren’t appropriate for the core rules of an RPG because we have multiple assumptions going on here. What I see as the biggest assumption is new players picking up of the newest edition of D&D need ALL of these tools. They are new to the game, with the further assumption they are new to RPGs period. The books need to explain what an RPG is, what the dice do, the language of D&D, and the rules of the game. That’s just how to play. Still need monsters, because this is D&D. To reiterate. This is D&D. It is its own genre of fantasy and RPG, and has been forever. Still needs advice on how to GM the game as a game, and how to design adventures and monsters. Because this is a game.
It tells you how big a dragon is, how much health it has, how much damage it does and how to kill one, but very rarely does it give examples of what a dragon can *mean*.  It's missing a very important element of passing down these storytelling tools - the education in their proper usage. 
So part of this is the “DnD is about combat because that’s where it’s rules are” discussion that will never die. To short, DnD is about combat. But it’s also not about combat. It’s more about about combat. Even as the editions have put more and more emphasis on the granularity and mechanics of the combat portion of DnD, the culture of DnD as I’ve seen it for decades, especially now on Tumblr and Twitter, is about the stories that happen around or because of combat. Also, this whole “be gay tieflings and do crimes” (as a combination of multiple and congruent sentiments I see expressed in a certain segment of the player base) is a thing. But because DnD is about about combat that's where a lot of page space is used. 
 
It’s a game. A game ostensibly about dungeons and dragons. A game “about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery” (PHB 6). Which is an interesting statement in light of where rpgs as a hobby has shifted over the years. Storytelling is a loaded term for the entrenched hobbyist. But is it for new players? 
 
So, do we as fresh players need to know what a dragon can mean? i.e. dragon as metaphor. I’ll say no. This is not the same as saying that this isn’t a question to answer, but I’d like to first assume that folks picking up DnD already have some ideas, second that they can think for themselves, third that it is much more interesting if groups create their own meanings, and fourth, this is from the 5e Monster Manual:
Creatures of Ego. Chromatic dragons are united by
their sense of superiority, believing themselves the most
powerful and worthy of all mortal creatures. When they
interact with other creatures, it is only to further their
own interests. They believe in their innate right to rule,
and this belief is the cornerstone of every chromatic
dragon's personality and worldview. Trying to humble
a chromatic dragon is like trying to convince the wind
to stop blowing. To these creatures, humanoids are
animals, fit to serve as prey or beasts of burden, and
wholly unworthy of respect.
pg86
This is only a single paragraph on the half page on chromatic dragons in general. Each dragon type has its own half page of flavor text that tells you what that dragon is about. This is not including their lair actions and regional effects sections which also show what these dragons specifically are about. Aside from saying green dragons “take special pleasure in subverting and corrupting the good-hearted” (pg95) what more could you want regarding what a dragon can mean? That green dragons present the sweet corrupting influence of the untamed forest? 
 
Either this person is unaware of what DnD actually contains, which is possible, or finds even all of that to be insufficient and wants the books that should be for teaching and reference the game of DnD to also be a creative writing text book. A more uncharitable reading would be that they are deliberately obfuscating the content of DnD to highlight the virtues of their own indie storygame.
Continuing on. And I will avoid addressing the aggressive misreading and attacks directed at me by some storygamers.
especially given the increasing popularity of story-focused d&d actual play, i think a LOT of gamers are picking up d&d specifically to tell those kinds of stories - and many that i've talked to find themselves disappointed that they can't sit down and just have a critical role or an adventure zone or whatever just Happen, and talked to GMs who feel an immense pressure to build those stories lest they get lambasted as a bad GM despite not having the tools in the book to do that. i think its reasonable for games about playing roles of characters to have conversations about how better to give players the tools to tell the kinds of stories they want to tell?
This is a very good point. Especially because of Critical Role and The Adventure Zone being extremely popular Actual Plays centered around 5e DnD and evidently being the cause for a massive influx of new players (which is a good fucking thing). But let’s look into the 5e books and see what we can find regarding whether or not GMs have the tools to in the books to do what Mercer or McElroy have done. Hint those are skills acquired through years of playing DnD and being a voice actor in the case of Mercer and I don’t even known what exactly all the McElroys do something involving a million podcasts and being entertainers. It should suffice to say that these folks have developed skills over years if not decades, and that is what is being witness by their audiences. Any dissatisfaction or disappointment on how the first sessions go isn’t going to be a correctable with a text book on creative writing or theater or whatever. Have you ever read folks first works of any kind of creative writing, fiction, non-fiction, poetry? They are all “bad” and have multitudes of flaws because they are beginners. No book is going to magically provide players with the skills to apply what they have. 
 
Now, let’s dive in the 5e DMG to see what good old WotC has given the new players to work with. I will jump straight to Appendix D: Dungeon Master Inspiration (pg 316) which has several book listed on the subject of creative writing and storytelling. This along with Appendix E: Inspirational Reading (PHB 312), with its large list of fictional works to read (the DMG also has a fair amount of fiction listed) should for the new player offer a bounty of different books the both put the game in a context but also provide insight to the implied deeper meanings, if any are actually needed, of things like dragons.
While I believe this is alone sufficient to begin playing DnD with an eye towards emulating what they see in CR or TAZ, which are also resources in this, I’ll acknowledge the desire to have these tools in the core rules.
AAAAAAA
In fact, I will argue that the didactic relay of how to construct meaning, insert drama etc will strangle creativity by creating a list of shoulds because it has. There are still tales of woe involving GMs attempting to fit their games to narrative constructs. Because first of all DnD is a fucking game. It doesn’t need to construct, as someone has written “DEEP MEANING,” because the most important meaning is that of folks getting together to have fun.


03 July 2019

RPG Theory on VIOLENCE


This is in response to this prompt. https://twitter.com/jackgraham/status/1146407545919221761


RPG Theory on VIOLENCE
In Kyuun Kyuun: Super Dimensional Love violence's point is in part that it is pointless and tragic as main thrust of the violence is alienation and lack of communication. Ultimately, love communicated through a love song is supposed to "win" the grand conflict.But it is also a mecha rpg and giant transforming robot space plane fights are cool and exciting & that is in part also supposed to be conversation. Sometimes with oneself. Sometimes with a rival. But a conversation. Love & Hate are intertwined emotions. Kyuun Kyuun is, in spite of those design goals, intended to be open ended. If the players turn it into sexy space place duels. Cool. If it turns into traveling pop stars the rpg. Cool. If the players loose or find a different solution. Cool .Kyuun Kyuun is going to be built in part as a "story game" but from an osr perspective of less explicit and direct rules/mechanics. Whether i can accomplish this is unknown.
In a traditional dungeon crawly adventure game, violence has as much point as it does in real life. It has utility. Sometimes is necessary and it has consequences.
And it is likely that violence within CandyDream will have as much of a point as within other adventure games.
The thing is. Not everything always needs to be deeply engaged or examined. Things don't need to be a metaphor. Sometimes a giant arm-mounted fusion cannon is just a giant arm-mounted fusion cannon.
When I see questions and examinations of violence within media, including games, I wonder what preexisting relations folks have with it. The way someone has been subjected to violence colors how they view it just as how those who've felt pressure or have had to unfortunately use it. Just as those who have clear glee at inflicting and perpetuating violence.
Ultimately I believe that examining violence in media has as much utility as using it. Sometimes it's used as prop for moralizing (for or against) which I find frequently useful only as far as it identifies folks I will likely never have productive conversations about anything. Just like I find examinations that, to me, feel to exist in some abstract.
Whereas the same as it applies to how violence has been, is, and could be used in the "real world" to be much more interesting &expansion on that to how it is reflected in media and how that it influences culture.
Contrary to how I've been characterized by many folks on a certain "side" of the rpg hobby as being a reactionary who refuses to examine things or see no utility or whatever, I know that humans are rationalizing, meaning making, story-telling creatures.
We are always constructing ourselves and through that shaping others just as they shape us. I see a lot of good that comes out of these kinds of examinations.
I just rarely see it come out of rpg discourse where it frequently used as a tool to silence & signal. A form of violence. And that is part of why I see a lot of rpg theory wank as wank. It's used as a weapon. Sometimes a crude weapons and other times surprisingly skillful. But rarely skillfully and meaningfully in a way that can be applied outside insular communities.

01 July 2019

Some rpg theory wank, or rather more refutations on D&D needing social rules


#RPGTheoryJuly
The declaration that all games should have social mechanics is disingenuous.
Now I like to argue in the vacuum of an rpg that doesn't have social mechanics and why it's not needed.
 
But
 
Let's talk a bit about Dungeons and Dragons.

 

it is often, very often, being the game pushed against, and I am going to further show that it's a strawman argument. This is also the other side of the "D&D is about combat" arguments. 

 

This is still a response to the Meinberg article "Your Game Should Have Social Mechanics." From which I would the reader to keep in mind throughout. 
 
"Now, if a game is not particularly interested in tracking these interactions, the rule can be something simple like “roleplay out the interaction and proceed from the fiction established.” There are some people who would not call this a rule, but it is a rule, it is something that has be designed and decided on and then put into the game. Deciding for light freeform social interactions is a part of the design and must be understood within the context of the rest of the rules."
 
And just so it's clear, I'm not strawmanning Meinberg. They specifically bring up 4e needing social rules, which means we should be able to examine 4e in the context of the editions with regards to their statements.
 
As I am talking about D&D specifically in this case, I am going to work backwards. Two reasons. The first is that the most current edition is the one most likely to be engaged with by the casual gamer, therefore the most likely to be what a new gamer will be thinking of when they are talking about D&D. The second is to hopefully get past some bullshit issues gamers who have issues with whatever edition they might have played will pump their brakes and consider the following. 
 
The social mechanics in 5e D&D are:
 
The skills Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion, and arguably Hand Animal and Insight. Those are explicit mechanics for interacting in a social manner, which should more than satisfy any requirement that a game at the least explicitly say "role play and move on." These are in the explicitly player facing section of the rules, the Player's Handbook, and they are not hidden in the deep recesses of the rules.
 
In the Dungeon Master's Guide, the social mechanics is Morale (determines whether or not enemies will flee or surrender).
 
So 5e has explicit social mechanics. 
 
Now on to 4e.
 
In the Player's Handbook we have the skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and arguably Insight.
It does appear the morale rules disappeared from the 4e DMG. Shrug. The rules do explicitly give guidance on how to cover things not covered in the rules, and that is where I stopped searching through the rules of a game I have never played. 
 
3e/3.5?
 
Ok. The PHB has skills. Let's just stop there before I relist the same damn skills again. Hard social skills are social mechanics.
 
The DMG? Well I see no explicit rules for handling monsters deciding to flee. Oh no. Too bad there aren't other social mechanics and guidance on how to cover things not in the rules.
 
2e AD&D
 
Until now I've ignored that Charisma is an ability score in D&D, but charisma is a social mechanic. Now that are in the TSR era things get a little more spelled out. Charisma modifies number of henchmen, their loyalty, and reaction rolls between the PC and NPCs/monsters.
 
The 2e AD&D DMG has Morale, which is a social mechanic that governs whether enemies break, flee, or surrender.
 
For the sake of brevity, I will point out that all editions from the first brown box through 1e AD&D have the same minimum social mechanics of Charisma modifying how many people you can can as henchmen, how loyal they are, how people/monsters will initially react to you, and whether enemies will flee or surrender or continue to fight to the death. I'm not going super in depth here as I am going off the of the "if your game explicitly says X it's a rule" and therefore explicitly saying that there are rules for hiring, maintaining loyalty, reactions (which the way do explicitly mention negotiation), and moral.
 
But yet Meinberg uses 4e specifically as an example of a game that needs rules for an aspect the game it already has covered, social mechanics.
 
This is strawmanning and doesn't even follow their own logic of "rules focus on is what the focus of a game is" especially when considering the aforementioned your game can just have the rule be "roleplay it and continue" so long as it is explicitly stated. Either the game is about what the rules say it is about or it isn't. If the game lacks rules for something, then the game isn't about that. The game needs to explicitly state what it's not applying mechanics too, even though that is a mechanic/rule itself. 
 
Is this a prescriptive statement for what D&D the game as published should be doing? From their statement, "designer should do their job and design the rules that are the best fit for the game and make sure that they are explicit in the text," I take this article to be speaking directly to the designer, and in this instance the designers of D&D. At this point, in the case of any edition of D&D by the standards Meinberg put forth, D&D already has social mechanics. They just aren't to their taste. This isn't a SHOULD have these rules; this is a SHOULD have the rule they want.

Troika Backgrounds - Isekai Shit


First, a link to wikipedia on wtf isekai is.
Second, a summary; it's a genre of our world type characters ending up in some weird magical or other type land. Examples: Alice in Wonderland, the Wizard of Oz, Farscape, a bunch of those animes.

Now onto the backgrounds:

1995 3/4 Ton Pickup
You're like a helpful and friendly compact car, but actually useful.
Possessions
Tow hitch
Locking Truck box full of the kinda of things folks keep in truck boxes
Built tough (modest armor)
Dented front bumper (damage as large beast)
King-cab with 2 bucket seats
Bench-seat that seats three
Detailed how-to guide on your make and model (+1 to engineering your make and model)
Advanced skills
3 drive
5 strength
2 car fighting
Special
You cannot speak because you are a truck. You can vaguely make your thoughts and intentions known through flashing your lights, honking your horn or anyother truck based thing. You do not recover stamina by resting. You must have someone else perform maintenance. For every hour you restore 1d3 Stamina, or 3 if the person is familiar with late-20th century automobiles.

2d Girl living in a 3d World
You're not bad (well maybe you are), but you were definitely drawn that way.
Possessions
Fanservice outfit
Assorted booby-traps
Microphone w/ stand
Makeup kit
Advanced Skills
3 Screaming
3 Singing
3 Patty-cake
2 Beautician
2 Trapping
Special
You are in fact 3d now, but you are vulnerable any kind of solvents, they burn like acid. However, you are incredibly hard to kill otherwise, and therefore counnt as heavily armored and do not die at <0hp unless it from solvents. You do not need use a backpack to carry gear, your cleavage is an extradimensional space. Same inventory rules apply.

Astronaut
You are told you are an orc because you arrived here through a 'magical mishap.' No one believes that you aren't an orc, but are an astronaut of the most powerful nation on your world. Or maybe they simply don't care.
Possessions
Spacesuit w/ bubble helmet (light armor)
Freeze dried apple pie (3 rations)
Baseball and glove
Half a six-pack of domestic beer including the plastic rings.
Advanced Skills
2 Baseball
2 Climb
2 Drinking
2 Gun Fighting
2 Run
1 Engineering
1 Shuttle Pilot

Businessman
You were an important person, once, but after your company was taken over and liquidated you found yourself a bit rootless. Which is how you found yourself here.
Possessions
Power suit
Briefcase
'89 Cellular Telephone
'90 Laptop
Fly-fishing equipment
Advanced skills
3 Office Software
2 Bureaucracy
2 Public Speaking
1 Drive
1 Fly-fishing

Business-slime
You were going up, but you tripped into a hole and woke up here transformed into a gelatinous slime.
Possessions
Upbeat can-do attitude
Soft and squishy body (light armor)
Advanced skills
As the businessman
Special
You're a slime. That means there are a multitude of things you could do, so I will not bother delineating such things. Have fun.

Comrade Dog
You're a dog. You're also a cosmonaut. You have no hecking idea where you are, but you're still gonna have a good time.
Possessions
CCCP Cosmonaut Suit w/ bubble helmet (light armor and space worthy)
Dog Communist Literature
Cosmonaut Gun (pistolet, shotgun, fusil combo, how you can use it with paws is a mystery to everyone)
Wagging Tail (+1 to Spell - Amity)
Advanced Skills
3 Awareness
3 Spaceship Piloting
2 Dig
2 Dog Fighting
2 Spell - Amity
1 Gun Fighting

Door to Door Salesperson
You're a person who travels around selling things, like vacuums or brushes or some other mundane thing. You're flustered at somehow ending up here, but, hey, you got sales to make.
Possessions
2d6 Samples of your wares
Shiny Shoes
Fedora
Rolodex full of contact information of clients and vendors
Advanced Skills
3 Drive
2 Etiquette
2 Navigation
2 Sales
2 Strength
Special
You always know either the shortest route to your destination OR the route with the most potential sales.


The final versions can be found here.