TROLL: THE CULLING - PART 1: THE BASICS

Troll: The Culling is heavily reliant on many of the features from the Storyteller System, so it’s beneficial to go over them before really biting into the meat.

The Storyteller System

The Storyteller System is a numbers-light Role Playing Game that relies more on storytelling and narrative than numbers and maps. The primary resolution method is a dice pool system that uses pools of 10-sided dice to resolve conflicts. The System’s key Character Traits are Attributes, Skills, Health Levels, Willpower, Backgrounds, Merits, and Flaws.

Troll: The Culling is specifically built around the v5 system seen in the most recent versions of Vampire: The Masquerade, Hunter: The Reckoning, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. As such, it uses its own version of ‘push your luck’ mechanics (Mutation Dice), Superficial and Aggravated damage, and the newer morality trackers (Stains, Touchstones, and Convictions).

Troll: The Culling adds a few new or modified mechanics to this system: Castes, Adaptations, Abnormalities, Lusii, Duties and Duty Norms, Mutation, and Stability. Each of these will be covered with more depth in their respective sections. Additionally, Troll: The Culling has its own set of Factions that interact with each other in different ways.

Most things in the Storyteller System are tracked by Dots, which function like a rating system rather than using complex numbers. The only value not tracked by Dots is EXP, which is tracked using actual numbers.

Attributes

The nine Attributes measure a character’s innate abilities. They are split into three categories (Physical, Social, and Mental), and are limited to ratings between one and five dots, with 1 being relatively bad, 2 being average, and up to 5 representing peak ability. In Troll: The Culling, the classic WOD Attributes have been renamed to match the theme and are now labeled as follows:

Physical

Grit - A character’s physical strength
Vim - A character’s agility and dexterity
Pulchritude - A character’s stamina and hardiness

Social

Chumminess - A character’s general charisma
Sleaze - A character’s underhandedness
Panache - A character’s composure

Mental

Acuity - A character’s intelligence
Gumption - A character’s resolve
Rationality - A character’s wit

Health and Willpower

Health

Health is the measure of a character’s physical condition. It tracks how injured the character is in two different ways, and is calculated by adding three to a character’s Vim rating. Health has a total range of one dot to ten, but freshly-created Player Characters will usually be between four and eight dots.

Health can be used in certain rolls, but its primary use is to track how much damage a character has taken. There are two different types of health: Superficial and Aggravated. 

Superficial Damage

Superficial Damage represents smaller, surface-level wounds. Scratches, Cuts, Bruises, etc. Things that are painful, but not debilitating. Superficial damage is represented by a single slash through a health dot, and can be recovered in various ways (Medicalizers, Food or Drink, Radionics, etc.). Additionally, depending on the Storyteller, some amount of Superficial Health may be healed between sessions or nights.

Aggravated Damage

Aggravated Damage, on the other hand, represents serious injuries. Broken bones, deep gashes, burns, etc. Things that are both painful and debilitating, and potentially life-threatening. Superficial damage is represented by an “X” over a health dot, and is not so easily healable. Aggravated damage can only be recovered through the use of Medicalizers, Medblocks, or through high-level Radionics abilities.

Willpower

Willpower is the measure of a character’s force of will. It indicates a character’s overall determination and strength of personality, and is calculated by adding a character’s Panache and Gumption ratings. Willpower has a total range of one dot to ten, but freshly-created Player Characters will usually be between two and nine dots. Willpower can be spent to reroll failures, and is sometimes used as part of a roll’s pool (a Stability Roll, for example).

Skills

Skills are more specific abilities that a character may or may not be able to do. These are also split into the same three categories as Attributes, and are rated between zero and five dots, with no dots meaning they have no knowledge or formal training, one meaning that they have basic knowledge, two meaning general knowledge, three meaning a professional Skill level, four meaning they've specialized, and five meaning mastery of the Skill. Troll: The Culling uses all of the same skills as WOD, except for Animal Ken, which has been renamed to Lusus Ken. The skills are as follows:

Physical

Athletics - Sports and physical movement in general.
Brawl - Hand-to-hand combat
Craft - Creating, Building, and Shaping objects
Drive - Operating vehicles like Scuttlebuggies or Hoofbeasts
Firearms - Using ranged weapons like Guns or Bows
Larceny - Thievery skills like Lockpicking or Safecracking
Melee - Using close-range weapons like Swords or Bats
Stealth - Going undetected and blending in
Survival - Surviving in the wild

Social

Lusus Ken - Knowing and understanding Lusii to handle and work with them
Etiquette - Knowing and understanding social norms to blend in with different groups
Insight - Reading body language, facial expression, and emotional cues
Intimidation - Using menace or force to ensure compliance, submission, or fear
Leadership - Motivating, inspiring, and commanding others
Performance - Showcasing some form of art, such as singing, dancing, or oration
Persuasion - Convincing others through argument, reasoning, or emotion
Streetwise - Understanding the rules and norms in urban or criminal settings
Subterfuge - Deceiving or manipulating others

Mental

Academics - Knowledge of the “humanities” and arts, such as history or philosophy
Awareness - Vigilance of one’s surroundings and environment
Finance - Knowledge of how to handle money, legally or not
Investigation - Reading an area for clues or hints towards some mystery
Medicine - Knowledge of the diagnosis and treatment of injuries and diseases
Occult - Knowledge of supernatural, mystical, and otherworldly things
Politics - Knowledge of the inner workings of government and society
Science - Scientific knowledge and theory of the real world, such as biology, chemistry, or physics.
Technology - Knowledge of computers, internet, and other technological devices

Specialties

Characters may also have specialties in these skills, which provides a boost in certain situations. For example, a character may have a specialty of “Surgery” in the Medicine Skill, giving them an additional die to all pools involving surgery. The Academics, Science, Performance, and Craft skills all come with a free specialty.

Touchstones, Convictions, and Tenets

Touchstones

Touchstones are a Troll's closest connections beyond their Lusus, the people they confide in and fight for. They could be a mentor, a quadrantmate, or anyone else that a Troll sees as important to them. Each Touchstone is represented by a Conviction, an important personal belief or rule that a Troll lives by. These can be as simple as “don’t kill kids” or as complex as “lying is a tool, and, like any other tool, there are proper and improper ways to use it.", but they have to be something that the Troll lives their life adhering to as best they can. Breaking a Conviction or harming a Touchstone, intentionally or not, causes significant psychological turmoil within a Troll that may ultimately lead to a loss in Stability.

Chronicle Tenets

Chronicle Tenets are guidelines by which the Chronicle will run. These should be agreed upon by both the players and the Storyteller, and can encapsulate anything from genre or period emulation to dramatic irony or personal taste. Chronicle Tenets apply to all players in the Chronicle regardless of whether the player’s Troll holds this belief personally. Breaking a Chronicle Tenet results in one or more Stability Stains, depending on the severity of the action.

Rolls

Troll: The Culling’s primary resolution method is Dice Pools. When called for by Abilities, Merits, Flaws, or at the Storyteller’s discretion, a player will roll a number of ten-sided dice calculated by their dots in one or more areas (Attributes, Skills, Adaptations, etc.). The roll is made against a difficulty rating, again determined by whatever triggered the roll, and each die that rolls a five or above is counted as a success, while each that rolls below a five is counted as a failure. Success on a roll requires a number of individual successes equal to or greater than the difficulty of the roll.

Critical Failures

A critical failure is one in which the player rolls no successes and at least one 1. Critical failures have consequences beyond just failing the roll. Trying to shoot something? The character’s weapon jams. Trying to hack a computer? It locks the character out permanently and alerts its owner. The consequences are ultimately up to the Storyteller, but they’re rarely anything but detrimental.

Mutation Dice

Depending on their character’s Mutation and Stability levels, one or more of a player's dice will be replaced by Mutation Dice. These are a representation of how mutated their character has become as a result of using their Adaptations, and can affect a roll in various ways. These effects are called Mutated Successes and Failures, and will be more closely covered in the Stability Section but will be briefly addressed here. 

Mutated Successes happen when one or more of a player’s Mutation Dice roll a 10, and, while considered a success, can cause unpredictable side-effects, typically relating to a character’s Adaptations. Mutated Failures happen when there are no successes and one or more of a player’s Mutation Dice rolls a one, and, similar to critical failures, can have disastrous consequences relating to one’s Adaptations. The consequences of both are, once again, up to the Storyteller.

Experience Points

Experience Points are Troll: The Culling’s primary reward system and can be used to upgrade characters. Players can spend EXP to increase their Attributes or Skills, add dots or extra abilities to their Adaptations, purchase additional Merit dots, or buy back Flaws. Players may not buy back Rejection Flaws, nor can they use EXP to purchase Abnormalities.

Experience Points are earned at the discretion of the Storyteller, but all players should gain some number of points each session.

Outro

Hey, all! Long-ass first post, but I wanted to get this out of the way before hitting the cool, new stuff (like I did for the original posts). This is going to be the longest mechanics update, given that I went over every non-original system (outside of one which I'm saving for later), but it's important to give a bit of a foundation before really digging in. Anyway, next week we'll be tackling the first of Troll: The Culling's core mechanics: Mutation, so stay tuned for that!

Big Playtesting Announcement

In the Shake-Up announcement that came a few weeks ago (2 posts up from here), I unintentionally told a tiny little lie, that being that I didn't know when Playtesting would start. At the time I didn't know it was a lie, but very recently things have picked up, and I'm confident in saying the following: Playtesting will start in Late September/Early October! The systems are finished, the backstory is coming along quickly now that I'm really in the zone, and I'm confident that things will be ready for playtesting by then. I'll start contacting everyone who signed up for Playtesting around the middle of next month, so if you've filled out the form keep an eye out for a friend request from me on Discord!

Anyway, on to the usual: The Playtesting Interest Form (link here: https://forms.gle/ShNDqjVLUqNBds736 ) is still open, and it'll stay that way until the end of next month (hey, we have a deadline now). If you are interested in participating in the first round of playtesting (and having your Troll immortalized within the digital pages of Troll: The Culling's source book), go fill it out! Like I've said the last few times, it is 18+, since, again, mature themes and all that, but any level of experience with WOD or TTRPGs in general are welcome! As a reminder, everyone who fills it out, whether they're part of playtesting or not, gets access to the Sourcebook earlier than the general public, and everyone who participates in playtesting can have their Troll added to the Sourcebook as an official T:TC character if they so wish.

Thanks for reading, and see you all next week with Part 2: Mutation!