itch.io

Hi SPC

Thanks for a great game.  I suggested it to my writing group as a challenge for our Journalling topic (as an alternative to those who'd prefer not to write about themselves).  Of course, having suggested it, I needed to play it myself.  https://hurunuiwritersgroup.substack.com/p/journalling-for-writers

It ended up being a somewhat bigger exercise than I had originally planned, but that's part of the appeal.

Here are the links to where I've uploaded it to my Box.com repository:

Corrodedv1.epub - https://app.box.com/s/jet2mkoq2cx0ym9w7zakbhpbrl76j9e8

Corrodedv1-ShareItchIo.pdf - https://app.box.com/s/dxd1212d18617meoch5qld4opkhaqiul

It was interesting trying to fit the card draws and developing story to a smaller country where driving for twenty four hours should see you drive off the end of the country and fall in the sea.  The threat I chose sometimes required some broad reinterpretation of the cards.

Thanks again for the rather edgy experience.

Hi Martin

Thanks for running this.  It's been great fun and gave me a chance to dust off some old skills (and sit by the fire making up stuff on some cold winter nights).

I look forward to any further feedback you may have.

Thanks again for all your quality feedback so far.  I feel I've learned a bit about balancing games and things that make them sparkle.

cheers

Hamish

Phew!  7 minutes to go and it's submitted.

Admittedly it still needs some refinement.

Thanks Martin for your guidance and expertise in balancing this character.

Hi Martin

Phew!  Starting to squeak close to the close-off but here is the latest edition of the Messenger class.  I've taken the liberty of coming up with a new advanced feat to make up the numbers after removing the feats that were close to others.  The new feat "Job Well Done" is intended to work with the whole duty idea, and also link it to helping others.  I feel it may be a bit over-powered.  See what you think.  Otherwise it's all looking pretty good and well balanced thanks to your recommendations.

The Messenger - Speedy and Determined

Name: Gonza, Snazz, Kegal, Dram, Brumm, Camber, Jaybar, Voosh, Zoot

Hands: Fidgetty, Precise, Firm

Eyes: Darting, Innocent, Goggled

Frame: Lean, Wiry, Tough

Legs: Rapid, Agile, Callused

Mouth: Quiet, Tumbling, Excited

Heart: Determined, Dutiful, Exploratory

Starting Feats

This is Interesting:  When you shake, sniff, chew, or examine a note, or package, you may ask the TP for an insight about the package or its contents.  Gain +1 dice when you act on the insight.

Hairbrained Scheme:  Harebrained Schemes: Spend the Focus and explain your plan. If it sounds plausible, you can roll with +2 dice. Otherwise, it can still be attempted at normal difficulty, no matter how impossible.  [From original Playbooks]

Official Papers:  Somewhere on your person you have just the right paperwork.  This adds +2 to any task success where officious looking documents will help.  How did you obtain these?  Are they genuine?

Speedy:  Add +1 to your Legs stat.

Wow!  You’re a Messenger?  That’s So Cool!

* How do you keep track of which notes or parcel goes to who?

* Why are you so passionate about delivering messages?

* What are you delivering today?

* What’s driving you to do such a good job delivering messages, letters, and parcels across the whole region?

Advanced Feats

No Matter Where You Are:  Spend the focus to know exactly where another character you know the name of can be found.

Speed Sorter:  If faced with an unordered pile of stuff, you can quickly sort through it to find what you want.  Your sorting may not be accurate though,and so if you roll 1 on a D6 you will pull out something nobody needs.  Explain what it is you have extracted and what shape the “sorted” pile is now.

Unexpected Entry:  Spend the focus to pop up in another location within the same area that will surprise another character.  Shrug and make up a vague answer when anyone asks you how you managed to get there.

Air Mail:  How do you do it?  You can throw with spectacular precision most of the time.  Add +2 to any rolls where precision throwing is required.  What’s more, the item thrown will not be damaged.  Blow on your fingertips and polish them on your chest.  Look smug.

News in a Flash:  Once per errand you can give an important piece of news to someone. What is the news?  Good News?  Bad News?  We must know.  Explain how you delivered it and how it was received.

Better Than Walking:  You can spend the focus to find a mode of transport that may or may not suit your current need.  Roll 1D6.  If you roll 1 or 2, the mode you have found is not all that useful.  Explain how you came across the transport solution and how confident you are driving it.

Job Well Done:  Whenever you deliver an unbroken item to the right recipient, roll D6.  On a 6 you get the happy glow knowing you’ve done a good job.  Remove an impairment if you have one, and the next time you help someone, they can add +2 to their risk roll.

Like Lightning: Add +1 to your Legs stat.

Pin Point Accuracy: Add +1 to your Hands stat.

Thanks Martin

It's been a while since I last put pencil to paper and drew something.  It was rather enjoyable.  I must get back into it.

Thanks Martin

I was hoping you'd give me some guidance on which to drop and how to balance the feats between starting and advanced.  Thanks heaps for that.

"Air Mail" is a great name for the "It's in the air!  Goal!" feat.  I've gotta get that one in there.

I'll do a shift around, make up some quick sketches, and drop it into Inkscape for a pretty document.

Thanks again for the excellent suggestions and guidance.

Hi Martin and All

Thanks for the great suggestions and rebalancing tweaks.  I have run with these and come up with the following.  See how this takes your fancy.  Personally, I'm really liking this character class.  I feel they have a lot of good fun play.

The Messenger: Speedy and Determined

Name: Gonza, Snazz, Kegal, Dram, Brumm, Camber, Jaybar, Voosh, Zoot

Hands: Fidgetty, Precise, Firm

Eyes: Darting, Innocent, Goggled

Frame:  Lean, Wiry, Tough

Legs:  Rapid, Agile, Callused

Mouth:  Quiet, Tumbling, Excited

Heart:  Determined, Dutiful, Exploratory

Starting Feats

This is Interesting: You have picked up a letter, note, or parcel; give is a shake, a sniff, look at it.  What shape is it in?  What’s the address handwriting like?  You gain some insight about the sender or the recipient or the circumstances.  The Tall Person will be able to help you out with what this may be.

Hairbrained Scheme:  Harebrained Schemes: Spend the Focus and explain your plan. If it sounds plausible, you can roll with +2 dice. Otherwise, it can still be attempted at normal difficulty, no matter how impossible.  [From original Playbooks]

Speedy:  Add +1 to your Legs stat.

Wow!  You’re a Messenger?  That’s So Cool!

* How do you keep track of which notes or parcel goes to who?

* Why are you so passionate about delivering messages?

* What are you delivering today?

* What’s driving you to do such a good job delivering messages, letters, and parcels across the whole region?

Advanced Feats

No Matter Where You Are:  Spend the focus to know exactly where another character you know the name of can be found.

Delivery Error:  Spend the focus to deliver something that is bound to annoy or embarrass to a character within the same village or city district.  What was it you delivered?  Who sent it – if anyone?  What effect did it have on the recipient?

Well Connected:  Once per errand you may remember that you know a goblin (or some other outsider to the world of the tall folk) who could help you out.  Describe them.  The TP will tell you how to call them or where to find them, right now.    [From original Playbooks – the Rambler]

The Mail Must Get Through:  Spend the focus to force your way through a physical barrier.  Brush yourself off and explain what feature of the barrier or yourself you exploited to get through.

Speed Sorter:  If faced with an unordered pile of stuff, you can quickly sort through it to find what you want.  Your sorting may not be accurate though,and so if you roll 1 on a D6 you will pull out something nobody needs.  Explain what it is you have extracted and what shape the “sorted” pile is now.

Wait!  I've Got That Somewhere Here:  Somewhere in your many vest pockets is just the right thing for the occasion.  Once per errand you can pull out just the item you need.  Roll D6, this is the number of other totally useless items you need to pull out before you find that right thing.  Describe the odds and ends you pull out and who ordered them.

Unexpected Entry:  Spend the focus to pop up in another location within the same area that will surprise another character.  Shrug and make up a vague answer when anyone asks you how you managed to get there.

Official Papers:  Somewhere on your person you have just the right paperwork.  This adds +2 to any task success where officious looking documents will help.  How did you obtain these?  Are they genuine?

It’s in the Air!  Goal!  How do you do it?  You can throw with spectacular precision most of the time.  Add +2 to any rolls where precision throwing is required.  What’s more, the item thrown will not be damaged.  Blow on your fingertips and polish them on your chest.  Look smug.

News in a Flash.  Once per errand you can an important piece of news to someone. What is the news?  Good News?  Bad News?  We must know.  Explain how you delivered it and how it was received.

Better Than Walking.  You can spend the focus to find a mode of transport that may or may not suit your current need.  Roll 1D6.  If you roll 1 or 2, the mode you have found is not all that useful.  Explain how you came across the transport solution and how confident you are driving it.

There are enough advanced feats here to do a bit of pruning.  It this stage I'll see if I have enough time to whip up some quick illustrations in the same style as the official playbooks.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Hi Martin

Your suggestions and tweaks are fantastic.  Thanks for these.  I'll have a crack at working them in and rejigging some of the originals.

Cheers

Hamish

This is a really last-minute class that's been buzzing around in my mind these past couple of days.  Is it balanced?  Probably not.

The idea behind this one is for a character who connects between individuals and different Kenn.  Basically they know everybody, and are always out and about.  They carry parcels, messages, mail etc for the various Kenn and occasionally for Tall-People.  They're determined, but their reliability is questionable.  Being curious they also occasionally might take a peek at the various notes and items they're conveying. This means they're remarkable well informed about what's going on and all the gossip.

Anyway, here's the draft description.

The Messenger

Speedy and Determined

Name

Gonza, Snazz, Kegal, Dram, Brumm, Camber, Jaybar, Voosh, Zoot

Hands: Fidgetty, Precise, Firm

Eyes: Darting, Innocent, Goggled

Frame:  Lean, Wirey, Tough

Legs: Rapid, Agile, Callused

Mouth: Quiet, Tumbling, Excited

Heart: Determined, Dutiful, Exploratory

Starting Feats

Unexpected Entry:  Spend the focus to pop up in another location within the same area that will surprise another character.  Shrug and make up a vague answer when anyone asks you how you managed to get there.

I read your mail: Spend the focus to gain intelligence about another character (NPCs).  The Tall Person will reveal some scurrilous or embarrassing fact about this character.

Speedy:  Add +1 to your Legs stat.

The Mail Must Get Through:  Spend the focus to force your way through a physical barrier.  Brush yourself off and explain what feature of the barrier or yourself you exploited to get through.

How do you carry your messages?

You have a vest with a huge number of pockets.  How do you keep track of which notes goes to who?

Advanced Feats

No Matter Where You Are:  Spend the focus to know exactly where another character can be found.

Delivery Error:  Spend the focus to deliver something that is bound to annoy or embarrass to a character within the same village or city district.  What was it you delivered?  Who sent it – if anyone?  What effect did it have on the recipient?

Just What’s Needed:  When you deliver an item of great use to a character you will gain a friend of Goblins.

Well Connected:  Once per errand you may remember that you know a goblin (or some other outsider to the world of the tall folk) who could help you out.  Describe them.  The TP will tell you how to call them or where to find them, right now.    [From original Playbooks – the Rambler]

Speed Sorter:  If faced with an unordered pile of stuff, you can quickly sort through it to find what you want.  Your sorting may not be accurate though,and so if you roll 1 on a D6 you will pull out something nobody needs.  Explain what it is you have extracted and what shape the “sorted” pile is now.

Wait!  I've Got That Somewhere Here:  Somewhere in your many vest pockets is just the right thing for the occasion.  Once per errand you can pull out just the item you need.  Roll D6, this is the number of other totally useless items you need to pull out before you find that right thing.  Describe the odds and ends you pull out and who ordered them.

Ideally there need to be a few other advanced feats but it's a start.

Hi All

I've just posted the latest update (Version 6).  The only additions of note are the requisite legal stuff.

You can find this latest version on the project page:  https://hamytnt.itch.io/a-goblin-alone

Hi All

I'm pleased to say I've released what I hope is the final edition of the "A Goblin Alone" solo rules.  It is now formatted as per the Goblin Errands themes, illustrated, and includes a few examples of the oracles in action.  You can download it from the submissions page or through this link.

https://hamytnt.itch.io/a-goblin-alone

Have fun

There's a bit of darkness in this one.  I like it.

I especially like the "Mother is Helping / Calling the Cavalry" Feat.  I can see that adding some interesting twists to the story.  I wonder what other similar feats could be devised which are relatively benign but create bumps along the way - the over-powered friend who is not subtle, discrete, or all that accurate in their help.

Would the minions be the occasional accidental/on purpose guinea-pig for some of the patrons experiments?  Growth potions, etc?

Thanks Martin

I'll take a look at the playbook-extras for some extra styling and illustrations.  Tah for that.

Agreed the "Focus" table does need renaming I'll have a think about that.  In a way the Theme and Focus oracles are very similar.  It may come down to rolling the dice and selecting something from either of the Action and Description oracles and then another from the Theme or Focus oracles - whatever best suits the narrative.  As you say, some more examples could be the best way of demonstrating the differences.

Thanks for the feedback.

So, you're on your own. The tall person has gone off and is doing something else, probably claimed they were washing the dog or something. Your Kenn still need errands run. Just take a look at pages 37-39 of the Goblin Errands rule book, roll a few dice and you'll be up to your pointy ears in errands. Work work work and no tall person to help you out. Stress not. You don't really need a tall person. You can solo it.

Here, for thoughts and comments, is the first hack at producing some solo rules and oracles, customised to suit the levity of Goblin Errands.

The source files can be down loaded as a zip from my Box.com repository.  Use this link.

https://app.box.com/s/vhccey1q1mh98jxicp4lp89xrcupsgnd

The rules text and oracle table developments have been done in Libreoffice.  MS Word and Excel will open these files without problems.  The svgs for the Yes/No oracle chart have been done using Matplotlib followed by Inkscape.  There are two styles here.  One is as presented in the rules document, while the other has the different types of "yes" and "no" shown as a legend.  It would be good to get some feedback on which way of presenting this table works best for easy understanding.

At this stage the oracle tables were just created as a stream of words rather than carefully considering each one.  You will see in the spreadsheet documents that there is an overflow list under each oracle list.  These are words that didn't occur to me in time to make the initial list.  Is there value in making extra oracle tables.

This hasn't been play tested other than being used for the examples given in the text.  Hopefully the balance is about right.  If I have time I'll sharpen my pencils and set to with some illustrations.

Have fun

HamyTNT

The draft rules and oracles pdf has been posted in the Game Jam submissions.  Check it out there.

Thanks Martin

I looked at the Discord channel and have decided to just carry on with posting stuff here.  If I may, I'll start a new topic in this Goblin Errands Jam community discussion.

I've made the first draft of the various oracles and now just writing the draft guide.  I hope to get these up either today or tomorrow.

Fabulous!  I'm onto it.  I'll brainstorm some bits together and get them posted up as soon as I can, so they can be refined.

Maybe I'll have to sign up for your Discord channel and see this new class of yours.

Cheers

Hamish

Thanks Martin.

Great idea.  Though I must say "Yikes!" for some reason I'd got it into my head that it was starting in June.

Oh, and Happy Birthday.

A question for you:  What are your thoughts on creating oracles and other similar tools for solo play?  I know the idea is that this is supposed to be played with friends, but I tend to use RPGs and solo RPG tools to help add interesting complexity to story development.  The solo engines I often use are Mythic, and Starforged, but a more light-hearted one would suit my writing better and fit well with the Goblin Errands game.  I'd be keen to have a crack at making up some suitable oracle tables and story element generators. It would mean players could run tall-person free games!  Yeah!

Anyway.  Your thoughts?

What a fantastic game!  I've spent wayyy too much time  playing this but I'm beginning to learn some of the smaller Central American and Western African nations now.  I still have a long way to go learning the different 'stans.  I will admit that a few package recipients have had to swim for their parcels.  Sorry to the recipients in Jamaica and Tonga.

Thanks for creating this.

Thanks Martin

It was fun to build both as a hand drawn map and then in this tidier version.  The environmental disasters that occurred early in the village's development were a great curve ball that dramatically reshaped the village.

Full res map here: https://app.box.com/s/hq7s4e7lmfi99yw9x0sbyi6ytw8vltv9

Thanks Martin and team for an inspiring game.

I've played it with my partner and solo a couple of times and turned up fascinating locations with interesting histories on both occasions.  I look forward to trying a large settlement with a long history.

Cheers

Hamish