Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

You might recall that back when I reviewed Goblin Mail, I bemoaned the lack of modules for Troika! and the preponderance of random-table-only settings, which I’m on the record for not enjoying at all. Well, apparently this is a problem Melsonian Arts Council has recognised per here, and there’s a push for more official Troika! modules proper. One of these is The Hand of God, a 59 page module for Troika! by Mike Knee with development and art by Andrew Walter, who also did the recent Troika! re-release that I’m a huge fan of. In The Hand of God (within the module, referred to as THOG), the party has been left in a nest at the top of the Hand of God, and must escape down it, stealing as much fantastical treasures as they can. I purchased this myself.

Effectively THOG is a mini-setting, a point-crawl containing multiple dungeons and multiple locations and settlements. It’s probably the most vanilla approach to Troika! I’ve seen, and I really like it, strangely enough. Perhaps the baseline weird inTroika! is such that also innovating on form is a little bit much? It’s still set on the severed hand of an ancient god, and features a roc with a hand for a face, though — a giant magpie that wants your trinkets — and whose trinket stealing is the reason there’s plenty of treasure to steal. And aside from that, you’re just commuting. I like that simplicity.

The locations are written out in long-handed prose, something I always struggle with. Generally, we have effectively a read aloud text — these are very good, “the whistling scream of the wind is underscored by creaking of a great weight above”, followed by any specifics. After that are subheadings for “From here you can see”, i.e. exploration and exits, and for “You might find” i.e. characters, creatures or treasures. This isn’t a bad structure, I just wish it were better visually flagged. If you’re writing boxed text, just put it in a box; those people who criticise it are not criticising the box itself. Characters all get wants and knows, which is the absolute minimum in my opinion, and are excellently well described (“absolutely paper-thin patience”). The main issue is that the application of these visual cues is poor — in the Gondola Station, for example, the treasure is not in a “You might find” section, but rather in a secondary paragraph. This inconsistency makes it harder to run.

I really like all of these locations. They feel epic, almost mythological. My favourites are the Index Scar, where an iron serpent eternally winds, carving a scar like a giant ring, the Eel King, a kind of foul fae, and the drunken zombies of Jgigli Town. But often they leave out key information. For example, in the description of this serpent, it states you can hear it grinding from above — but it’s not mentioned in any of the above locations (1, A, 2, 4 or D). You need to read the locations closely and take notes, I think, to get the most out of these locations.

I wish the bird were a little more fleshed out. I want its presence to be randomised and frequent, always forcing the players hands, like the giant in Waking of Willowby Hall. Instead the referee is instructed to introduce it “whenever things are getting boring”. That’s disappointing to me, and I just think the bird should’ve been on the random encounter tables. And the random encounter tables are pretty good, and very Troika! “Wandering Star. During the day stars are dimmer, and vicious.” I adore the 2 page spread that is simply titled “relationships”: Eight factions all with clear and simple desires and fears.

The layout is minimalist and if I’m not mistaken reminiscent of Troika! But I find it disconcerting, and it’s unclear to me exactly what my eye dislikes about the choices. The leading is huge, as is the paragraph spacing, and combined with the broad margins it honestly has so much white space I have trouble locating things on the page, especially when combined with variable indenting, and the odd placement of the location titles — half in outer margin, half indented to the text — is both effective for navigation and jarring visually. It is also often i adequately padded — a huge contrast with the vast white space between every other piece of text. Certainly, I really struggle with textual hierarchy when the key headings switch justifications mid location, depending on the page. There are 12 illustrations, plus maps, and they’re gorgeous, but their placement is odd, and there are some pages half blank — instead of the frankly stunning full page paintings, the book would’ve benefited from a lot more smaller sketches. I really love the central map of the hand; it’s visually compelling and useful; it turns the utterly mundane and unromantic point crawl into a thing of beauty.

Troika! never says this outright, but in my opinion, part of the sales pitch is ease of play. The rules are simple, stats are consistent, character creation takes a minute, but despite all of that, you get to experience the same bizarre world that you always wished Planescape was! This isn’t a review of Troika! But what I’ve noticed is that the line — as I’ve said before, things like Acid Death Fantasy and Spectacle — mistake simple writing for simple play. In elevating simple writing and straightforward layout (to be clear, generally backed by evocative writing and striking art), I feel the line tends to sell itself short — these stop being easy to run, and end up relying instead on the referee, arriving at the same kind of prep-heavy space as Horde of the Dragon Queen, but travelling the opposite way around to get there. If the line have more thought to these ancillary concerns, I think the whole project would hold together more strongly, rather than parasitically thriving on the enthusiasm of its audience and their willingness to mistake elegant prose and clever implied world building for effective and useful referee support. As I said at the top, I think there’s recognition of this problem at Melsonian, or Hand of God wouldn’t exist, and I like Troika! a lot. But there’s still a ways to go, I think, and one thing that would help would be a consistent and deft hand at a house style and developmental direction that isn’t filled with befuddling choices.

The Hand of God is damned solid, and a lot of fun, with piles of potential for social and faction play, interesting creatures and weird treasures. It really brings some excellent classic play and translates it to the weird city of Troika! in a satisfying way. It’s just heavily marred by inconsistencies that should have been identified in a developmental edit, and a befuddling approach to layout and information design, that contradicts the ease of play that Troika! sells itself on. By itself it is compelling enough for 2 or 3 fun sessions, though, and I feel introducing these factions and characters into your city of Troika! would add to the crazed metropolis in a very pleasing way. If you’re playing Troika! regularly, you should definitely pick up The Hand of God, but it’s a trickier proposition for those who aren’t: I think if the conceit of fleeing a roc across a terrain defined by a giant hand appeals to you, it’s worth adapting it running as a 2-shot.

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