I've been meaning to write this up for the last month; Tom's post here finally tipped the balance.

We had a typically outrageous back-stabbing fun time, the tone of which was set when the Orks emerged from their cave and Josh goes: 'I eat my goblin'. Uh, OK. I described the *crunch* of raw goblin, which attracted Aaron's Ork. They faced off over the body and we very quickly had our first PvP kill.

Matt's Ork ignored the disgusting feast and headed down the hill, only to get promptly killed by an elf arrow.

Aaron's Ork finished off the last of Josh's goblin and headed down the hill himself, just in time to see Matt's Ork get pincushioned. He made a Sneakings and Peekings roll to hide behind a tree, failed miserably, and also died.

Back to the drawing board.

Three new Orks appear from the cave and start for Little Umplingham.

Then Joy came home and we made her create an ork and join in.

(Digression: I had what I thought was a great idea and ran around town the afternoon before our game looking for silly putty, which I handed to each player along with the character sheets. I told them to sculpt their Ork's head out of silly-putty -- which was that wierd green glow-in-the-dark kind, so it looked pretty cool. My great idea was that when their Ork died I'd reach across the table and *BAM* squish their Ork's head. I could hardly wait to see their faces the first time. Unfortunately, it was a hot day and the silly-putty wouldn't hold a shape. They got these great Ork heads which within a few minutes *splooged* out onto the table into a shapeless mass. If you try the same thing use plasticine.)

I stopped taking even rudimentary notes from there so I'll just recall the highlights:


-- Matt's ork chasing after a shepherd boy (with decidedly impure intent), failing a Flailing Limbs roll and getting run over by the stampeding sheep.

-- Josh's ork trying to knock a fat merchant off his mule, failing a Flailing limbs roll and getting all tangled up beneath the mule.

-- Aaron's ork tumbling off the roof of a barn (whither he'd gone to kill the elf) and oh-so-narrowly missing Matt's (new) ork, who hadn't got to do anything yet, and who wasted no opportunity to gain some Oog by killing the stunned Ork at his feet. (Yeah, we got viscious.)

-- Josh's (third) ork named Pansy Lord Tennyson, and his faithless goblin sidekick, Bosie.

-- Joy's Ork trying to rescue the mayor's daughters from the flames after someone had set fire to the mayor's house.

-- Pansy L-T dying when a Flaming Mayor's Daughter (TM) fell on him.

-- Josh's (fourth) ork never bothering to fight anyone, largely 'cause most of the village was dead by then. He found the bodies of the elf and the dwarf, scalped them, and took the trophies back up to the cave to show to the Troll (whom I'd roll-played as a cross between The Godfather and Dopy Dog). Mr Troll was Really Impressed (despite, as I recall, a Hard Lying Tongues roll) and gave him some beer.

For his next trick Josh's Ork (helped by the fact that Josh controlled Obscurer of Things) dug a pit just in front of the entrance to the cave, and camoflauged it with sticks. Then he sat and waited for the others to return. The look on Josh's face when the Troll started out of the cave toward the pit was priceless.

Naturally the troll fell in the hole and died. Josh's Ork set himself up as king and gave beer to all the orks as they returned. Some of the goblins got into the beer, which was a bad idea, because their noise (really really naughty songs) caught the ear of Old Grandma Troll, who came in and killed everyone.

The End.


We had a great time. If I were to run it again I'd fix a few things. I used the latest version of the rules where an ork has as many goblin followers as he has points of Oog. Unfortunately this meant my players looked at goblins as a limited resource and were reluctant to kill them off; I fudged a bit and let them do some non-lethal stuff with goblins for free, but then that made it a bigger deal when the goblins actually died and they got the idea that you SPENT Oog in order to kill a goblin, which I didn't catch at first, and so by the end the whole inter-relationship between goblins and spite and oog and death had been irretrievably confused and I just said to hell with it and we went on killing each other without really keeping track. I think I prefer Jack's first impulse that goblins are 'free', and not in any way dependent on how much Oog an ork has, which encourages a lot more outrageously creative goblin death, which is the whole point, right?

In retrospect I'd have made the dwarf a bit more difficult to kill. Joy's ork ran into him right off and (partly because that's the way I read the rules, and partly because I wanted Joy to 'catch up' with the rest of the party) I let her kill him with just one successful roll. Which was anti-climactic. The elf was much more fun to kill because I made him take several successful 'wounds', which created a bunch more chaos, killed a couple of orks, and was a whole lot more fun.

I also ran into the same problem Tom did:

[T]he big thing is that most of the Oog comes from killing things. Since that's almost always a Slashing/Slaying roll, that means that Vincent was always on the verge of picking up Oog forcing the other players to spite in just to keep him from getting an easy kill. But that usually meant that on his next go, Vincent had no opposition (because Emily and Corrie didn't pick up enough spite on their turns).

(snip)

Vincent usually had the biggest spite pool of anyone actually. Which kinda made the situation worse. When you played to your strengths you didn't get any spite, but when you needed to kill someone, you had to go against Vincent and his spite pool (which was 3 at the high end, but that was enough). Plus, Vincent would usually only chip in a single spite point, so if you succeeded, he'd get the point back and not be down anything.

I should've tried to figure out more ways to force non-combat rolls to give other players a chance to pick up Spite.

We had a great time. If I were to run it again I'd fix a few things. I used the latest version of the rules where an ork has as many goblin followers as he has points of Oog. Unfortunately this meant my players looked at goblins as a limited resource and were reluctant to kill them off; I fudged a bit and let them do some non-lethal stuff with goblins for free, but then that made it a bigger deal when the goblins actually died and they got the idea that you SPENT Oog in order to kill a goblin, which I didn't catch at first, and so by the end the whole inter-relationship between goblins and spite and oog and death had been irretrievably confused and I just said to hell with it and we went on killing each other without really keeping track. I think I prefer Jack's first impulse that goblins are 'free', and not in any way dependent on how much Oog an ork has, which encourages a lot more outrageously creative goblin death, which is the whole point, right?

Oh, I'm aware that Goblins don't equal Oog.

The players heard that you have as many goblins as you have Oog, used Oog to keep count of how many goblins they had, and when they gained an Oog they'd be real happy 'cause they got another goblin.

Which implanted the idea that Oog=goblins fairly firmly in their heads.

The result is that they saw a limit on the number of goblins they had and got worried about 'running out' and so didn't use them all that often. I'd prompt them to kill a goblin and they'd go 'nah, I'll save him for later'. Which meant that the goblins were largely ignored.

I tried to fix THAT by encouraging them to use the goblins any way they wanted, even short of killing them. That didn't affect Spite, but it did get the goblins into play, which was more entertaining.

Finally, toward the end of the game, I noticed (sometime in the middle of a fairly hectic cycle of PvP rolls, where they'd finally killed a few goblins to reduce the spite spent against them) that a couple of them had been tossing the poker chips which represented Oog back into 'Oog pile' at the center of the table every time they killed off a goblin.

I knew that was totally wrong, but by then I was confused enough and we were having enough fun that I didn't worry about it.

I didn't think of the goblins as hit-points, which would probably have solved the whole thing. Thanks.

In any case I think I'd make sure they refresh immediately ('cause the more goblins die the more fun things are), so I don't see how THAT would be different than the first version of the rules.

Well, a goblin with one Oog would only be able to kill one goblin at a time, and so only reduce Spite by one at a time, so he'd be less powerful (ie, lower level) than a goblin with two Oog, so I guess that does make sense. But it's not spelled out very clearly in the rules. Or, at least, I didn't get it clearly enough to explain it properly to my players.

The result is that they saw a limit on the number of goblins they had and got worried about 'running out' and so didn't use them all that often. I'd prompt them to kill a goblin and they'd go 'nah, I'll save him for later'. Which meant that the goblins were largely ignored.

I tried to fix THAT by encouraging them to use the goblins any way they wanted, even short of killing them. That didn't affect Spite, but it did get the goblins into play, which was more entertaining.

I didn't think of the goblins as hit-points, which would probably have solved the whole thing. Thanks.

In any case I think I'd make sure they refresh immediately ('cause the more goblins die the more fun things are), so I don't see how THAT would be different than the first version of the rules.

Hi,

Sounds like you had a lot of fun despite your confusion.

The rules about Stunts are there to reduce the over-use of one God (generally Slashings and Slayings) - I suggest you encourage their use as much as possible.

The rules contain nothing about refreshing Goblins; as written you simply don't get any followers you kill back. However, I rather like Ralph's take on it, so feel free to play it that way if you wish - how has everyone else been playing this?

Remember, as well, that players can use free goblins as well as their own followers as fodder for roles - they're just less reliable.

Cheers,

Jack.

The rules contain nothing about refreshing Goblins; as written you simply don't get any followers you kill back.

Remember, as well, that players can use free goblins as well as their own followers as fodder for roles - they're just less reliable.

Hi there,

Jack, do I have this right?

1. Start with as many "available" goblins as you have Oog.

2. Every time you gain a point of Oog, you gain an "available" goblin (if the GM says they're hangin' around, which I typically do).

3. Lose an "available" goblin every time you succeed in a roll that utilized that goblin, which must have come from your pool of "availables."

4. Oog never decreases, but spent goblins never come back (being dead & mutililated & all).

Thus you will almost certainly have less available goblins than your current Oog, but you will also typically have one or more (given the dynamics of play).

I think that some people might be confused about whether, upon gaining Oog, there are "un-spoken-for goblins" in the vicinity, one of which will suddenly attach itself to the Ooged-up ork. In my games, the answer to that is typically "Yes there are" and make little or no reference at all to the plausibility of the goblin being handy; it just is. Seems to keep the relevant quantities in the game (Oog, goblins, difficulty, Spite) humming nicely.

Best,
Ron

Hi,

The second playtest rules are, quite frankly, confused when it comes to Goblins - reflecting the transition from completely free Goblins to follower Goblins the game has undergone. In the rules, as written, there are:

1. Free Goblins - these are just 'around', and the players can use them on rolls if they happen to be near by, or give them orders which they'll follow for a bit. These Goblins are no different from the original concept.

2. Follower Goblins - these are gained and lost as Ron descibes above. These will follow an Ork around, and so are always available for sacrifice. They are also more reliable when it comes to giving them orders.

I've come to feel that these rules are in dire need of tightening up: I think follower goblins should be only ones 'used' and the Goblin Stealing rules will go as well. So pretty much as Ron describes, really.

Cheers,

Jack.

Jack,

Despite the confusion we DID have a lot of fun, and I'm glad to know the confusion is not entirely mine. :)

Regarding goblins. I know that the first version made them entirely free, and that the second (current) version doesn't. My impression (from an old post somewhere) was that this was a reluctant change on your part in response to other GMs feeling that free goblins were somehow too munchkinish or too unrealistic or too destablizing to the difficulty rules, or . . . something.

Do I have that right?

I'm curious about the process there, because based on our (admittedly confused) play experience I felt that goblin-limiting rules -- besides being ambiguous as written -- are really unnecessary, and potentially distracting from entertaining play. Too much book-keeping, too much incentive for turtling, creates uninteresting PvP interactions (fighting over a game resource -- goblins -- is not as interesting to me as interacting with the world).

If I run it again I want to experiment with your original idea that whenever an ork feels like killing a goblin then there's just one there to kill. Sounds much more fun to me.


So . . . to revisit the entire issue, if you don't mind, I have two questions:


First for Jack: What was your thought process behind changing the goblin rules?

Second for Jack and everyone else: What do you think is gained by restricting the goblins -- or, I suppose, the other way around: what do you feel doesn't work about goblins simply being free?

cheers,

If I run it again I want to experiment with your original idea that whenever an ork feels like killing a goblin then there's just one there to kill. Sounds much more fun to me.

Second for Jack and everyone else: What do you think is gained by restricting the goblins -- or, I suppose, the other way around: what do you feel doesn't work about goblins simply being free?

Hiya,

Well, there are goblins and goblins. I'll go ahead and improvise some terminology (which Jack obviously has total authority over after this post):

"Environmental goblins" = an unspecified number of goblins which happen to be in an adventure's locale, considered more-or-less to be paying attention to the ork characters. Typically they don't do much of note.

"Available goblins" = an individual ork variable. These goblins are gained with each point of gained Oog, on a 1:1 basis. They may be spent to reduce Difficulty level, either down-to-Easy (when Difficulty is first announced) or 1:1 to counteract Spite (after that point). They die in droves when spent, occasionally surviving when rolls fail.

Indisputable point #1: the "availables" are drawn from the "environmentals." Is this an issue during play? I.e., is it possible to gain a point of Oog and not immediately increase your current number of "available" goblins, because "environmental" ones are not handy? As I stated above, I tend to GM it such that this is never an issue. If an ork gains a point of Oog, in my games, I've decreed that an "environmental" goblin must have been present and is now suddenly added to that ork's supply of "available" goblins.

Indisputable point #2: goblins may be told what to do, with a great deal of GM spin on how well they do it. Is this an issue during play? Can "environmental" goblins be ordered like "available" ones can? (Currently the rules suggest they can, but that the "environmental" ones are especially stupid, not being personally terrified/loyal.) To be absolutely clear, I am not discussing spending/sacrificing goblins to alter Difficulty, but rather merely ordering them to do things like "hold the end of this rope for a minute" or "go see what's in that room" and similar.

Jack, where am I in my understanding? Loopy, or does this parse out the issues a little?

Best,
Ron

Excellent question Ron.

My initial thought is that the prevalence and quantity of "Environmental" Goblins would be ideal as a scenario specific designation, with a default of "unlimited: they're everywhere, they crawl out of the wood work like rats".

But it would be interesting to have a scenario where there are only 5 "Environmental" Goblins, that will go to the first 5 Oog increases, and then there aren't any more.

Or a large pool of goblins that die one by one each "round" (or every 5 minutes of game play, or whatever) killed by elven hunters until the elves are dealt with.

Or 0 available "environmental" goblins because they've all been taken prisoner down in the dwarven mines, where small groups of them can be freed by successful orcs.


Lots of different possibilities to build right into scenario design, along with precedence rules for which Ork gets dibs on new gobs first.

I'm with Ralph on this one. The number of environmental goblins available (and how to affect that number during play) is a cool extra dial to slap on scenario design.

When I run GOG, I'm going to have a pile of green stones in the middle of the table to represent the available environmental goblins. When you gain Oog, you get a black stone (representing the Oog point) and you may also snatch a green stone from the pile in the middle. When a goblin dies, the stone goes off the table and out of play for good. If the Orks come across a dungeon full of goblin slaves, they can free them to add more goblin stones to the pile in the middle. Eleven poachers can dwindle the pile unless some Orks go do something about them.

Question: Can an Ork order environmental goblins to do something that will get them killed, thus reducing the pool of available free goblins? I can see this as being a good strategy if you're ahead on goblins and want to keep others from gaining new ones with their Oog.

Hi all,

Good discussion. Let's use the terminology implied by the rules, and which I use above: Free Goblins (Ron's environmental) and Follower Goblins (Ron's available).

Eszed,

The change from all free to having follower goblins came about because of a change in emphasis about the Goblins. In the pre-playtest rules, Goblins were only there to be ordered about - they couldn't be sacrificed to counter spite. With the change of emphasis towards sacrificing them the rules needed to be more precise in their dealings with, and that's where the follower Goblins came in. Ralph's right on the money when it comes to the mechanical issues behind this.

Ron,

Yup. That parses it out quite nicely. My inclination is that only Follower Goblins (and your own at that) should be used as sacrifices, while with your own followers or free goblins could be ordered around (although Free Goblins will only obey as long as the Ork is there to kick them if they don't).

Ralph,

I like the idea of free goblins as a Scenario variable - it has a lot of potential. More thought is needed, though.

John,

Currently you could kill off environmental goblins this way - however, I'd like to see that option reduced (although an Ork could just take to ripping the heads off them anyway).

Cheers,

Jack.

Hi there,

Jack, you wrote,

My inclination is that only Follower Goblins (and your own at that) should be used as sacrifices, while with your own followers or free goblins could be ordered around (although Free Goblins will only obey as long as the Ork is there to kick them if they don't).

Paul's excellent "Fruits of Woe" game, being set in a dungeon and all, had a fixed pool of floater goblins that you couldn't do anything with (except narrate funny stuff) until you won them under your influence with Oog. When new orcs came into the game, their goblins didn't come out of the pool, but all in-game goblin recruitments came out of the pool. I think we started with six extra in the pool (over and above the one each we started with). We did run out of floaters at some point, but it was late enough in the scenario that it was OK.

Oh - important though. When an orc died and still had goblins, that orc's remaining goblins got returned to the floater pool, ready to be recruited in case of new acts of Ooginess by the orcs.

I thought this method did provide a fun optional variable. On the other hand, the game doesn't need it - the random roamin' goblin pool so every oog-gain involves goblin-gain would work fine too. But tightening up the goblin-economy puts the screws on play nicely in certain ways too.

Oh yeah, and I agree with Ralph, this game plays tighter than Angus Young, and the economy of spite and goblins is the main reason why. I definitely favor goblins being a quantified resource for game purposes (though if you have 'free floaters' I suppose you can narrate their death for shits n' giggles too, but not for a die roll bonus), however that works out. Maybe there's a section called 'Optional Goblin Rules' marked off from everything else that opens up discussion on different forms of goblin-stealing, fixed numbers of floaters, the consequences of killing floaters in games with a fixed number, or whatever, but however it turns out there should be a definitely stated baseline goblin rule that strongly and clearly supports the really, really fun metagame competition that powers this thing.

My opinion and $3.75 will get you a mocha frappucino at Starbuck's, but there it is.

The way we played with Tom (at least this was how I was playing it) goblins weren't linked to Oog, but you could only use one per action, which kept a lid on the character ability to hose god/spite opposition.

--Em

eh, ya'all've changed my mind. Ralph, very convincing. I didn't get my mind around it until I saw it layed out like that. I like John Harper's suggestion of different colored stones for Oog and for Goblins.

Now I REALLY want to run GoG again.

Thanks!