In the realm of tabletop adventures, there are rare moments when system and setting align so well that the experience just goes beyond expectation. Such is the case with Troika! and Bakto's Terrifying Cuisine by Roll 4 Tarrasque. Our GM, Faisal, made a brilliant choice by opting for Troika! - not for its mechanics necessarily or rule set - but for its gonzo-style setting that just created a great blend of the wacky Master Chef scenario that Bakto's presented.
Troika!'s strength is deffo in its weird character backgrounds, versatile skillsets, and OSR-style rules that seamlessly blend simplicity with depth - for those reasons, I feel it would have been great if this module was longer than a on-shot, so we could have really made use of some cool mechanics. Still, it's a system built for co-creation that invited both GMs and Players to weave a tapestry of storytelling together - and when paired with the content-rich cooking dungeon that is Bakto's Terrifying Cuisine, the result was a great blend of vibes and setting that elevated the experience. I will note, that Bakto’s is a literal two-page pamphlet that would seem short in content - but the little but unique prompts they provided were a great inspirational shotgun for GM + players to make it a content rich adventure and dungeon-crawl.
Things to note:
- Bakto's Terrifying Cuisine is a system neutral module + Dungeon crawl.
- I've seen some people play it with LotFP, 5e, or other d20 systems.
- This breakdown and session recap is from the player's perspective.
- Once we were done, I rehashed the module with the GM, and gave the module pamphlet a quick review.
My Favorite Theme! (and maybe Bias? Heh)
So – I've got this undeniable thing for anything food and cooking themed. It's like a warm embrace from the past, reminiscing about the days playing Cooking Mama or hustling pizzas in Club Penguin's pizza parlor. From Ratatouille to Master Chef, and Animal Crossing to Monster Hunter.
Even during my early D&D 5e days – when I stumbled upon the "Chef" feat, and guess what? I tried sneaking that into my game as much as possible. Not just for the mechanical bits, but to cook up a storm for my buddies in the name of roleplaying. Maybe I'll spill more stories about my chef characters someday. Who knows? (I also need to watch/read Delicious Dungeon, I've been holding myself back. I'm worried it will be my whole personality after I watch it)
In a nutshell, if it's got that magical, foodie touch, you bet I'm all in!
So when my friend, Faisal, recommended we play Bakto’s Terrifying Cuisine, I could not have said yes fast enough. And despite my inclination towards food themed games - I am an even harsher critique when it comes to the things I love and can be nit picky about. And I am happy to say I was super pleased with the adventure.
Entering the Kitchen
....GONG!! Its cooking time!
The lead-in our GM used was where us players were having dinner in the local tavern, where a new and boastful new cook, Bakto, has taken over the kitchen after the old cook had mysteriously disappeared.
After ordering some food, Bakto made his appearance and offered us a chance to learn to cook the best food in the world - by taking a cooking class in Bakto's kitchen... And that is how we were lured into a dungeon-style Master Chef extravaganza.
Bakto has trapped us in his kitchen, we are forced to gather ingredients and whip up a meal that will convince him to free us. The dish had to be creative, presentable, and delicious to Bakto's tastes and preferences.
One of the best things about this module is the timing and turn system - signaled by a gong.
We had 20 turns of the gong to find enough food items to make our dish in the cooking area in the main room. So we got to it - and the dungeon mapping and exploring began. Where each movement to a room (forward or backwards) was a turn, a gong. Some rooms were further away and cost 2 gongs. So we had to be strategic and creatively come up with ways to navigate the kitchen dungeon - by using our senses or charm when we interacted the various and violent veggie civilizations that lived in the kitchen.
Without giving away too much of the fun, we gathered a great amount ingredients! The methods of gathering them were sometimes traumatic, thanks to our other player's wacky tactics as a Rhino-man (I will never eat a tomato the same way again).
At the end of all our turns, we returned to the kitchen arena where each member of the team was in charge of an element of the dish - we decided to make a fancy steak tartine! For this part we had a lot of fun describing in dramatic detail the ways we cooked, simmered, broiled, and emulsified our ingredients.
In the end, we decided to both serve a dish Bakto will love, and also sneak in a poison that took him out for good. We couldn't let our chef reputations down, after all.
Our ingredient list and final dish preparation!
Final thoughts:
If you're thinking of trying out Bakto's for your next one-shot, I say go for it. It seems super low prep, yet still rich in content. Despite the small pamphlet it comes in, the short description of rooms, the adventure's design was a great facilitator for a dynamic experience where the outcome wasn't predetermined but emerged organically from our choices.
The adventure's timing and turn system, marked by the resonating gong, added an immersive layer of urgency that I just dont see as often as I’d like in other games and really was a fun test of our creativity, wit, etc.
With regards to the system, one notable aspect of Bakto's adventure is that it’s system-neutral, allowing GMs to adapt it to various rule sets. However, it's the inherent chaos of Troika!'s vibes and setting that added an extra layer of unpredictability to the culinary mayhem. I do wish it was a longer module so we could have made more use of some Troika!’s system.
Batko’s Terrifying Cuisine: https://roll4tarrasque.itch.io/baktos-terrifying-cuisine
Troika!: https://www.troikarpg.com/
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