Rambling On: Tricube Tactics

Tricube Tactics Header

Some times, rules-lite RPGs will put emphasis on role-playing but fail to cater to those who want to play games. I personally enjoy the “G in RPG” as much as the other letters. Storytelling is great and narrative immersion is fun.. but I’m not alone when I say it’s fun to move pieces on board, spend my tokens for a risky move or pull a wildcard ability to overcome an opponent.

And this is why I want to talk about Tricube Tactics, an expansion to the super-lite Tricube Tales (which I have rambled on about previously) that adds a myriad of new gameplay options that turns the game into something a bit heftier and chewier. Not crunchy, chewy. The original game was designed as something light and fun for the author’s child; now it appears he has taken his experience working in the Savage Worlds sphere and adding some more GAME to the Tales!

The book itself rolls in at about 119 pages versus the original’s 58. And again, this is an expansion that adds on to the core, not a stand alone game. The majority of the rules here are related to combat and action — folks who are less interested in tactical choices* for their fight scenes will probably gloss over the majority of the book. That said, there’s a few neat extras in here that can be plucked and inserted into your game. The PDF is $2, and like other products in the line Zadamar has the entire thing free in the Publisher’s Preview.

Lots of Little Changes (Can Do So Much)

It feels like every aspect of the core rules is tweaked in little ways, yet adding it all up definitely makes it feel like a different game. I wouldn’t compare it to, say, “Basic D&D vs AD&D” but maybe more like the difference between “Fate Accelerated vs Fate Condensed”. It’s recognizably the same game, but with additional nuts and bolts to tinker with. Some notable changes:

• Base difficulty is now rated 3 to 7 (instead of 4-6).
  
• When the difficulty is higher than 6, rolling a six on two dice is a success. Three sixes is an exceptional success in this case; this also means rolling 1 die is impossible to succeed at this difficulty.
  
• The three traits (Agile, Brawny and Crafty) now have three sub-traits. For example: Brawny has Strength, Athletics and Endurance; Crafty has Perception, Charisma and Intellect. Actions are now broken down by sub-trait, and as a character can earn new sub-traits as they advance.
  
• Characters now choose preferred combat styles (Ranged, Melee or Mental) and those are also split into sub-styles.
  
• Minion Tokens are a new way to handle allied NPCs like henchmen, pets, or sidekicks. Should you choose to gain them, you can either treat each token as a new minion or stack them to make a more powerful one.

Action is a Whole Different Ballpark

As stated earlier, the action and combat options take up the bulk of this expansion, and it’s a lot. Not in a bad way — I think folks who enjoy the G in RPG will get a kick out of this system. Where the original Tricube would handle conflict as any other obstacle (to the point you could “zoom out” and treat an entire fight scene as a single roll), Tactics adds on all the goodies we expect from traditional games at the table:

• Initiative is now a thing; all players roll a Reflexes challenge and success goes before the opposition, failure goes after.
  
• There’s now an Action Economy, where during a round a PC can perform a Standard, a Swift and a Simple action.
  
• There’s also three different Movement systems — you can play on a grid or map, you can use abstract zones or narrative range bands.
  
• There’s a whole bevy of different combat stunts like pinning an opponent, intimidation, tripping, distracting them etc.
  
• Different attack and defend options, rules for cover and terrain, the works.

And then there are Knacks — These are the cool feat/powers player characters take that offer a mechanical advantage in play. Instead of giving us a big catalog of defined knacks, we instead receive the blueprints to design our own and skin them how we want. These can grant re-rolls on specific actions, grant bonuses to certain attacks or defenses, allow you to perform major actions swiftly, or trigger in certain events (like being attacked at close range). There’s also “Freeform” knacks (for things like spellcasting) that allows the player to create an effect based on circumstance, but does so at the cost of spending their Karma.

All of this gives the GM more tinker toys on their side as well. Where NPCs and monsters were originally presented as a description, a difficulty and maybe some Effort tokens… they can now be presented in full stat blocks of various sub-traits. I love this format a lot.

Tricube Tactics Cultist stat block

So all said — this expansion adds meat to the bones of the original but won’t weigh you down. I can see me using this with playmats or my HeroQuest boardgame to entertain my son in his first steps into the hobby. I’d run it for my old 4E D&D crew, who miss the old Friday night combat sessions but lack the time or stamina to keep up with the number crunch.

It’s technically free (and worth the $2 asked for). It’s modular. Go check it out for yourself and give it a shot. You can also grab one of the myriad of one-page games built for Tricube and plug this in and see it how it feels.