I'm happy to hear it and even more happy to have the jam get you to draw some! That's a wonderful outcome!

A great new draft! I like it! I have only one question about the "Official Papers" Feat: What is +2 to a task success? Is the level of success of a risk roll always two levels higher, so you can't fail? Or does it grant you extra dice? I like the idea of changing at least one success into 3 successes. If you succeed with your papers it's at least a profound success, even if you roll only one success.

I am just now noticing the "goggled" eyes and I love it. I think the tweaks are pretty good, here's a few more thoughts and ideas:

This is Interesting: Maybe rephrase this? "When you pick up a letter, note or package; give it a...". This makes it seem less like the feat gives you a letter note or package? Alternatively you could turn it into one of the "ask the TP" moves: "When you shake, sniff or look at a note, or package, you may ask the TP: What's it contain? Gain +1 dice when you act on the insight."

Apart from that it's looking great. I agree that you may have a few too many advanced feats. You got 11, not counting any extra stat Advanced feats. The usual number is 7+2. That said, I think what I'd scratch in order of "scratchworthyness"

1. Wait I've Got That Somewhere Here (because it encroaches on the Rowdy's gadget skills)
2. The Mail Must get Through (because it encroaches on the Rascal's squeeze skill AND Unexpected entry is essentially the same, just funnier.
3. Well Connected: Because it's a Rambler move and adding more new stuff is always cool. People can always mix and match if they want anyway.
4. Delivery Error: Because it overlaps with News in a Flash, but the News seems like it has more potential to be useful and/or funny.

Also you are missing a Starting Feat that helps cement the idea at the moment. I think moving one of the Advanced Feats up might help with that. My candidates for that in order of "startingness" would be:

1. Official Papers because it puts a focus on the "official business" and duty aspects of the messenger. Gives them an air of importance I think that might be fun. In this case the question could be about the form and/or origin of these papers?
2. It’s in the Air!  Goal! because throwing things probably comes in quite handy. (Oh "Air Mail" would be another fun name for the feat!)
3. Better Than Walking because they are all about covering large distances and that gives you access to fun shenangians

Hope that helps!

Looking great! I Love all the illustrations so much!

Really nice! I love the idea of a postman/messnger/delivery boy playbook! A great fit for the game!

Here's some of my favorite points:

• Zoot is a great name for the Messenger! Lovely!
• Oh, I also love the dutiful heart! Definitely creates an image of a specific vibe of goblin!
• I also love unexpected Entry. A great feat, but I think it would be better as an advanced feat though. It also overlaps a little with "The Mail Must Get Through".
• No Matter Where You Are: Also great! Maybe useful to specify it as "a person you know"? Or maybe even better: "A person whose name you know". That has weird mystical implications!
• Speed Sorter is also a great feat!

Here's some additional feedback, which you might want or not:

I Read Your Mail

I don't like the fact that the Messenger opens letters. While it fits the goblin mind I think it's intrusive in a way that might be squicky for some players. I wouldn't bake it into the playbook. Players can still opt for that, if they want.

Here's an alternative suggestion that gets you a similar in-game result: The Messenger is really good at reading cues and understanding people. Tells and mannerisms. Interpreting writing and words. So he gets a lot of information by just holding a letter, looking at the writing of the address, the way it smells. So a little sherlock-holmes-y.

Which is also interesting because it's in some ways a trauma response. If you grow up in a highly unstable environment, many people learn to be very observant in the hope to avoid instability. And since mental health is an undercurrent in the game, that feels like a good fit, for me :)

The Mail Must Get Through

Interesting move! I feel it overlaps a little with the Rascal though. I think unexpected entry might be a better core move. Or instead doing the whole "I Read Your Mail" thing from above as the core feat.

How do you carry your messages?

The feat question is remarkably important to help people come up with a character. I think it should be as open ended as possible and allow for as many different interpretations of the character as possible, without leaving the core idea behind. As such, I think always assuming the goblin has a vest might be too contained.

Here's some suggestions for different questions:

• Why are you so passionate about delivering messages? (one answer could be: Because I'd be bored otherwise)
• Where does your duty as a messenger come from? (I like the idea of "duty" being a thing for this goblin)
• What do you deliver? (Opening it up into a wider delivery boy idea: Parcels, paper route, everything, magical ingredients, food?)

Just What's Needed

I like the idea of delivering something that will turn the recipient into a friend to goblins. However this feels like it can't come up very often because how likely are you to have the perfect thing? Unless you have the feat that gives you that, and then it's trivial. (Also that feat kind of infringes on the Rascal a little, I think).

Advanced Feats

Advanced feats are a really important part of the playbook. All regular playbooks have 7 complex and 2 simple ones. That's a pretty good number to hit. You're a little short of that so maybe by putting Harebrained Schemes back into the Starting Feats you can move one down to fill out the lineup a little.

Also here's some ideas:

• The ability to produce some authentic/official/important looking document
• The ability to lob something precisely on target without damaging it (paper delivery)
• The ability to pilot/operate/ride any kind of vehicle/beast (but it might not come out unscuffed)
• The ability to find a mode of transport anywhere?
• The ability to (once per errand) deliver an important piece of news to someone. Come up with the news, as strange as they may be. Good news? Bad news? Your call. (Might be a replacement for Just what's needed and rewards creativity)

Feat Capitalization

Your feat capitalization is a little inconsistent. "I ready your mail" should probably be "I Read Your Mail" (here's a tool that helps: https://capitalizemytitle.com/)

Possibly! I actually envision the relationship between minion and patron to be a genuine friendship. It's just that the minion is pretty goth and frames everything in sinister ways. Warlocks want to be edgelords after all. For example the Crown of Darkness from the ol' Grandma could just be a nice beanie. 

That said, I don't think this idea comes across that well in the text as is.

If you've caught the office hours you might have seen me work on a goblin class: the Minion!

Inspired by the warlock D&D class this goblin has a close tall-person friend! Their gifts give them strange and eerie powers. Which might be the gifts themselves or just because the goblin is a little goth and looks at the world through a lens darkly.

Here's the current Draft! I'd love to get some insight and feedback on it!

Goblin Errands - Minion

Inspired by the Warlock class

You are eerie and gifted. A powerful being has taken an interest in you, adopting you, becoming your friend. Now their gifts help you twist reality, while your companionship gives them strength in return.

Starting Feats

Master's Secrets

Spend the Focus to introduce a secret fact that is relevant to the story. Explain its consequences and why and how your patron confided this to you.

Mother is Helping / Calling the Cavalry

Spend the Focus to let your patron know about an obstacle or challenge in your way. They will personally intervene to remove the obstacle but their influence or presence adds a truly big complication to your errand.

You can roll normally, and even if you fail, you succeed but with a big complication

Melodramatic

Add +1 to your Mouth stat.

Friendship is Power

Spend the Focus and explain how one of your patron's gifts lets you do one of the following:

• Obscure a fact or object
• Tempt someone

Who is your mysterious friend and patron:

A neurotic dragon, a regular ol' grandma, an overtaxed sorcerer or a bored demon. Pick one and give them a name or come up with your own.

What gift have they given you:

You start each errand with a gift from your Patron: The crown of darkness, tome of secrets, chains of temptation, socks of fate, or mask of hunger. Pick one or come up with your own.

Advanced Feats

Sinister Aura

You start each errand with another gift. Spend the Focus and wear one of your gifts to create an aura that:

• makes people stay away from you
• makes people want to be close to you

Puppet Master

You start each errand with another gift. Spend the Focus or consume one of your gifts to

• briefly bring an inanimate object to life
• manipulate shadows or dim a light source

Beguiling Influence

You start each errand with another gift. Spend the Focus or give away one of your gifts to

• gain insight into the surface thoughts and immediate desires of someone nearby
• make someone briefly ignore the rules and limits imposed on them by others

Grown Alike

When you help another goblin in an action, you can express an aspect of your patron. The acting goblin can upgrade all stumbles without complications but you suffer one of your patron's limitations for a while.

Impish Little Helpers

You can consume a gift to summon a small number of helpers from your patron's domain. They will come and either open up a new pathway or block an existing one.

Phone Home

Once per errand you can call your patron for insight and ask them three questions. The TP will answer and help you understand things a goblin might otherwise not. For each question gain +1 dice on one appropriate risk roll.

Sinister Bargain

When you fulfill someone's immediate desires or give away one of your gifts, they either owe you a favor or become a friend to goblins.

Glib

Add +1 to your Mouth stat

Astute

Add +1 to your Eyes stat

I love it! I really like the introductory text and the method to use two D20 as a D100 alone made me go WOAW :D

I do think calling one table the Focus table when the game has a Focus mechanic is a little confusing. I don't have a better suggestion though. Also you the Descriptor table has the heading DescriptION. And I am a little unclear which combination of tables I should use when. I think expanding on that with some examples might be useful?

Also, if you're interested in making it look a little more like the original book, check out the digital extras and the "GoblinExtras_playbook-instructions" file. It contains colors, font choices and more...

Whatever works for you! Happy to provide feedback, if you want me to!

I haven't really shared much in the channel but maybe I should. So far it's been mostly relegated to the Twitch stream :D

Oh man I LOVE Oracles! I love solo-playable games. I think it make stuff so much more accessible. Generally I love the social aspect of RPGS but I enjoy Ex Novo as a creative tool all by myself. And I think oracles for goblin errands sounds like a SUPERB idea! It's the kind of idea where I go: I should have thought of that! 

I can only encourage you to work on them. Happy to help in any way if I can.

If you missed the streams - I started working on a warlock-inspired player class about the power of friendship :D

I've updated the main page of the Jam with the full information! If you've already read it, here's the salient points:

• The theme is UNLIKELY FRIENDS
• I will hold open office hours on twitch.tv every Tuesday at 7PM German time. Come to watch me work on my entry and ask question about yours, game design and life in general!
• Among all entries (excluding mine, of course) I will raffle off a prize: A free digital copy of the Sharkbomb Studios game of your choice!

Sorry for the slight delay in the update but I was celebrating my birthday and just now got around to catching up with things :D

Let me know if you have any questions! And I hope you have fun!

If you are curious about the potential themes and want to participate, join the Sharkbomb Studios Discord server and vote! But don't worry, even if we end up with a theme that doesn't inspire you, it'll be optional. A goblin isn't bothered too much by Tall People rules anyway :D

Yeah, it's been a while since we made the game but I think the best option is to get away from them. There's not really a happy end.

Yeah, this is not a story about well-adjusted people. I think a big part of it is also that if you don't deal with your problems, you'll put them on other people.

Thank you so much for the kind words. I am happy to hear you're enjoying the game...

So happy to hear this! Sounds like a perfect session!

You'll probably get an automated message from itch once the game's files here are updated.

Hey! In principle yes, but I'm currently overhauling the text COMPLETELY. New structure, more content etc. So it would probably be a waste of your time. However once the new version is out  which will take a bit - I'd appreciate it!

Where/how are you trying to open the file? I tested it both on my iPad and my Kindle so I'm surprised it's giving you issues.

Thank you! Goblin Errands is my first physical release and already available. But yeah, I am excited too...

Can you elaborate? What links is broken, and where?

Happy to help! Let me know if you have any more issues...

It absolutely would! We playtest it with cyberpunk and sci-fi cities as well! I think the important part is that if you're using a real-world timeline, it is useful to have a target decade and then roughly use the age of the city to figure out in what historical period the city was founded, and then go from there...

Hey Pepe. I'm afraid there is no demo version, but you can find some playthroughs on YouTube, like this Ex Umbra playthrough:

Hey Katjaja,

Ex Novo has no system requirements because it is a physical game. The download is a PDF of the rules, no interactive software here. So anything that can open and display a PDF (which should be pretty much any computer made after 2000) should be fine!

Hope that helps!

You really are into planar fantasy! I love it!

If you have any thoughts on Planedawn Orphans, I'd love to hear them!

Thanks for sharing!

That looks great! I'm happy to hear that you've been having so much fun with Ex Novo! Thank you for sharing your stories!

Hey Pixie, thanks so much for reaching out! It's really kind of you to think of your friend and how to help them.

As such, The Mending Circle is meant as a playful way to explore some of your own issues through the lens of other characters. However it's not a tool that can replace therapy or anything like that. In the end, I think the question is whether your friend would be comfortable exploring their issue through play. The game does it's best to give all players control how much they want to delve into things but it's still a very personal question. In any case I definitely recommend playing with some kind of Safety Tool. Either the one supplied with the book or something else.

I hope this helps. If you got any more questions, feel free to ask!

Oh, and  thank you for your kind words about Ex Novo and Ex Umbra!

Thank you! That is a very nice comment. Especially since I've been pondering the project lately :)

That is a good question. I was so busy with the Goblin Errands crowdfunding I didn't really think much about this. But it's definitely something that needs an approach. I guess I need to come up with some solution for this!

Understandable. I do like BitD but the whole metagame with the gang and the factions always felt too busy for me. I do enjoy more lightweight things.

There actually is a planar fantasy version of Blades in the Dark! It's called SIG: City of Blades and it's actually referenced in an easter egg in the text! 

You can check it out here:
https://genesisoflegend.com/products/sig/sig-city-of-blades/

And you can grab it on itch, here: 
https://genesisoflegend.itch.io/sig-city-of-blades

oh, hm. I‘m mean D&D is the obvious one but I‘m a big fan of Dungeon World… I‘ve ran and enjoyed a bunch of planar fantasy games with that system…

Thank you for the kind words! 💚

You might be interested to know that I just ran a successful kickstarter for a different game (Goblin Errands). And it went pretty dang well. There's still a lot of work to do - such as actually producing and shipping the product in the first place. But it's definitely one of the steps that gets us to an eventual EX NOVO box ;)

Also: Please do share a picture of your deluxe version!

Well deserved!

That sounds awesome! Thanks for sharing.

A little note: You can download the latest version at any time so you don't have to remain stuck on 0.8.

Thank you for the kind words. I hope you'll enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it. As for a German version: Honestly, I don't know. I could translate it but so far it wasn't successful enough to really merit it, to be totally honest. I am thinking of maybe doing a Kickstarter for a print version next year, maybe that pushes the topic forward but I don't know.