You will randomly roll or choose from a table, acquiring items such as a broken bottle, a handful of herbs, or a goat skull, and traits such as “extra green”, a job at the local soup kitchen, or the ability to talk to dead people. Dunn-O’Connor has crafted a set of character generation tables which assure you will never be stuck playing the same character twice. Speaking of goblins, one of the most important parts of the Goblinville setting is the actual goblins you can create to play as. Gobta is a youngish goblin who wears a butcher’s smock which is always mysteriously covered in blood. Hock is a tough looking goblin with an eyepatch and a pet rat. Chop is a stocky, hirsute goblin who wields a pointy stick and wears a large knitted scarf. A bevy of hand drawn goblins dot the pages of the zine, and are as unique as the characters you can create. Eric Swanson, Goblinville ’s layout artist and illustrator, has done a great job of delivering a well-divided text framed by charming greyscale depictions of the titular town. Goblin society is a complex and multifaceted affair, and its members are as unique and varied as they come. In Goblinville your goblins are still diminutive monsters with a penchant for pillaging, but instead of being generic cave dwelling enemies they have names, jobs, titles, fashion, and bosses who they have to answer to. But, once they have cleaned up their fallen brethren, dug dozens of small graves, and held a flurry of ineloquent funerals, where do you think they go? To Goblinville of course, where strict social hierarchy, entrepreneurial spirit, and a can-do attitude rule over all else! They are the mischievous fodder of adventurers everywhere. If you’ve played many fantasy RPG’s, you have probably smashed goblins into cavern walls, blown them up with fireballs, and sliced, diced, and skewered them by the hundreds. What is a goblin? In most games they are puny green obstacles, only truly threatening in large numbers. You can pick up your copy of Goblinville on Dunn-O’Connor’s itch storefront, located here. I’ll be talking about Issue #1 of Goblinville, which contains the core rules and an example adventure, but I’m already excited for the next two issues which will tackle expanded character options, more trouble, and variant rules to tweak the game to your liking. Goblinville is actually a collection of zines-three to be exact-the first of which has already been delivered. The game is perfect if you are looking for a short-to-mid length campaign with a goal-oriented focus and some interesting character management rules. Goblinville wears its inspirations on its sleeve, and owes a clear design debt to games such as Torchbearer, Blades in the Dark, and Psi*Run, welding the three together on top of an incredibly rewarding town-building minigame. It was funded as a part of Kickstarter’s Zine Quest this past February, along with a slew of other amazing games, essays, and modules. Goblinville Gazette is a new game by Michael Dunn-O’Connor about a town of goblins gathering all the gold, goods, and experience needed to transform their home from a ramshackle campsite to a veritable goblin metropolis. Strap on an eyepatch, grab your rusty knife, and get ready to build the best goblin town that anyone has ever seen-which, to be fair, is a pretty low bar. If you’ve ever wanted to play as a lovable band of misfit monsters, Goblinville has something special for you. Welcome to Goblinville Gazette, a game of bumbling adventure, shiny loot, and the ever-approaching threat of calamity. We bury this lizard mess in remembrance of him. It’s unfortunate that he was killed by a gelatinous cube, and even more unfortunate that the cube was then eaten by a giant cave lizard. He once let me borrow his shovel, and was barely even mad when I sold it for mushrooms. He was a good goblin, and a better friend. Here lies Lump, Expert Lamplighter, Goat Rider, and The Iron Gut.
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