Odd Occurrences!

by Philip Reed

Are you not the games master? Look away, low-life, for that contained within the pages of this slim volume are not for your eyes! What hides within this 27-page zine was crafted solely for the eyes – and to fire the imagination of – the games master.

Odd Occurrences! is a collection of 36 city encounters for use with the Troika! roleplaying game. Following a virtually useless page of introduction (after all, you are bright enough to know what to do with encounter ideas), you will find a selection of d66 events to populate almost any bizarre cityscape . . . including the city from which the game takes its name!

Odd Occurrences! is an independent production by Philip Reed and is not affiliated with the Melsonian Arts Council.

27 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 2021

About the author

Philip Reed is a novelist, playwright and journalist who has been nominated for the top mystery award for his first book Bird Dog, which is currently under an option from Hollywood to be a feature film. He has also written three sports performance books including the popular golf memoir In Search of the Greatest Golf Swing. His other sports books are Free Throw, 7 Steps to Success at the Free Throw Line and Wild Cards, about learning to become a blackjack card counter. Philip has also worked in the automotive industry and went undercover as a car salesman to write the expose “Confessions of a Car Salesman.” Philip’s novels are Bird Dog and the sequel, Low Rider; The Marquis de Fraud, Off and Running and the young adult novel Ponga Boy. Working with the TV icon, he wrote Candidly, Allen Funt. He currently lives in Long Beach, California and enjoys playing tennis and golfing nearly anywhere. Born in the midwest and raised in New England, Philip also spent a year going to school in Oxford, England, where he played on the rugby and cricket teams. He was a poor student but his soccer playing ability got him into the University of North Carolina. Philip started his career as a police reporter in Chicago and Denver and then moved to California and became a playwright. His plays were staged in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. He wrote one of the first episodes of "Miami Vice." His insider knowledge about car buying, and automotive information, has earned him many national radio and television appearances.

Reviews

[Dom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd Occurrences is the final zine of the three recently released by Phil Reed. It is a collection of sixty-six random encounters to add the bizarre to a cityscape. Some of these are more fantastical and whimsical than others, but all add something a little bit different. They range from small missions to friends and antagonists to encounter. Some encounters are very simple (unsticking a window, calming a baby, stopping troll children accidentally hurting themselves and others) and others may be more complex, involving a scavenger hunt across the city or a social encounter. These may be too weird or whimsical for a more traditional campaign, but I think they'll fit right in with the kind of settings described in Troika.