Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by CommonUse - "Patrons: their source of power/wealth and their goals in using the party."
Practical Patrons, their natures and what they seek from their hirelings
1. Sithulf - whiter-than-white, the clergy of Bahamut, support through the church, needs deniable catspaws but if things are done by the book, they can drop the hammer on anything proved
2. Mallory - keen long-haul traders, breathless explorer, demands good notes, provides good briefings, can find or fence anything
3. Master of University - classic wizard, wrong species, lots of weird help to hand out, bound imps, consumable magic
4. Ragnbjorl - delvers into beyond, hunters of eldritch monsters for profit, seek gutsy, ask-no-questions types, support subcontractors, tend towards wild victory parties
5. Rynskald - ancient house, guardian of hazards, dangerous deeds, well paid, good intel, operational support, bloody handed defenders of the realm, everything is expendable
6. Kalfyra - minor members of the ruling house, odd hobbyists, sketchy briefings, official support, shows appreciation through lands and titles.
7. Hentlebrock - minor lordly deeds, local political power, fixers for the common folk, often seek classic adventurers for typical quests
8. Pillars - bordermarch lords, monster expertise, local guides, often seek rescue assistance for lost travellers or cut off settlements
9. Mhysanor - glitteringly wealthy coastal lords, sleek and polished, seek spy-hunters and capables to stalk magical foes on their home terrain
10. Kordites - disorganised church, motivated, messianic, supported by living saint, temple network plus mythic overlap, has prophetic visions to be handled
11. Sellal - river-baron, trade-taxers, covert actors, connections to the seelie courts, seeks sneaks and spies
12. Crown - the realm, ultimate but distant authority, officially their writ is law, lots of support until there isn't, quests often wrong on the details
13. Mysmys - Orthodox Church of Tiamat, guided by oracles, seeks contract killers, ruin delvers and hoard plunderers
14. Alchemists Guild - makers of warforged, tomb-divers and tower-raiders, pay well, need deniable
15. Chiming Zam - smuggling boss, network everywhere, needs discrete, cunning folk to help shift cargos quietly
16. Drizero - looks like a dragon cult, is the local lord, sponsors ruin diving
17. Uncargicks - wealthy smiths guild, pays top coin, needs muscle for clearing mines, path-breaking, caravan escort
18. Thenya Palace - city rulers, the local law, lots of odds and ends the palace guard cannot deal with, mostly message runs or ruin exploration
19. Gray Wasp - sorcerers collective, continuous demand for wierd and exotic fetch errands
20. Garzidh - military stronghold, excellent equipment, henchmen support, steady mercenary work keeping supply routes open
Bonus Eldritch Patrons seen in-world
1. Queen of the Terror Birds - recently dug up after long aeons underground, gleefully seeks to restore avian dominion
2. Last Star - the Special light
3. Ezbotha - your local hag, runs a very charming bathhouse
4. Master of Tongues - gruesome plucker of the strands of fate
05 October 2024
02 October 2024
Dungeon Cities (GLoGtober 1 '24)
Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #1 is from a list by Walfalcon - "A city where you can dungeon crawl."
The key difference between a 'lost city' and a standard dungeon to my mind is that there are a bunch of factions/peoples present who are just living normal lives to a relatively sophisticated standard - it is just that the distance to very dangerous neighbours and deadly ruins is measured in minutes walking rather than days of hiking.
I am using 'Lost Conchordia' from my home campaign for my model here - the city of the Titans, predating giant-kind, from the time of Amman ruling supreme, before the Ordning. I had it lost beneath a glacier but this also works for buried under sand or silt, engulfed by volcanic ash or any other number of cataclysms that would fill the streets and spaces of a city with something solid.
Intent is that your standard urban location toolkit would be used, whatever that is, then layer on these tables below to capture the 'buried city' flavour.
Conchordia beneath ice.
d6 room types
1. dug out of ice
2. old room as was
3. adapted room
4. non-dwelling space but big enough to be room
5. rubble/ruin still navigable
6. bubble/crevasse or other naturally occuring gap
In Conchordia, the original inhabitants were mostly gone but for a very few remnants - automata, undead, moving statues, etc. Things of course had moved into the space over the long run of time - both beasts and people finding spaces to live within the old city. Finally there are other non-dwellers - both welcome visitors and unwelcome intruders that might happen to be there.
d20 things encountered
1-2. original inhabitant
3-8. beastie moved in
9-17. recent dweller
18-20. intruder/adventurer
My suggestion for cities where you dungeon crawl is to set the range on attitude tables as equivalent to cities, and have monsters encountered be both more savvy around humans - like urban bears, crows and coyotes - habituated to people, not man-eaters, and perhaps more of a nuisance, less of a direct threat. Going about your daily business is a little more risky however with things falling on you or out from under you and the poorly ventilated buried nature of the whole place.
d6 background hazards the locals cope with daily
1. rickety walk ways over plunges
2. low door lintels
3. bad food
4. sleep-ruining noise
5. random collapses
6. bad air
7. disease
8. getting lost and disorientation
This would also come into play during any chases.
The key difference between a 'lost city' and a standard dungeon to my mind is that there are a bunch of factions/peoples present who are just living normal lives to a relatively sophisticated standard - it is just that the distance to very dangerous neighbours and deadly ruins is measured in minutes walking rather than days of hiking.
I am using 'Lost Conchordia' from my home campaign for my model here - the city of the Titans, predating giant-kind, from the time of Amman ruling supreme, before the Ordning. I had it lost beneath a glacier but this also works for buried under sand or silt, engulfed by volcanic ash or any other number of cataclysms that would fill the streets and spaces of a city with something solid.
Intent is that your standard urban location toolkit would be used, whatever that is, then layer on these tables below to capture the 'buried city' flavour.
Conchordia beneath ice.
d6 room types
1. dug out of ice
2. old room as was
3. adapted room
4. non-dwelling space but big enough to be room
5. rubble/ruin still navigable
6. bubble/crevasse or other naturally occuring gap
In Conchordia, the original inhabitants were mostly gone but for a very few remnants - automata, undead, moving statues, etc. Things of course had moved into the space over the long run of time - both beasts and people finding spaces to live within the old city. Finally there are other non-dwellers - both welcome visitors and unwelcome intruders that might happen to be there.
d20 things encountered
1-2. original inhabitant
3-8. beastie moved in
9-17. recent dweller
18-20. intruder/adventurer
My suggestion for cities where you dungeon crawl is to set the range on attitude tables as equivalent to cities, and have monsters encountered be both more savvy around humans - like urban bears, crows and coyotes - habituated to people, not man-eaters, and perhaps more of a nuisance, less of a direct threat. Going about your daily business is a little more risky however with things falling on you or out from under you and the poorly ventilated buried nature of the whole place.
d6 background hazards the locals cope with daily
1. rickety walk ways over plunges
2. low door lintels
3. bad food
4. sleep-ruining noise
5. random collapses
6. bad air
7. disease
8. getting lost and disorientation
This would also come into play during any chases.
30 September 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #192
Links netted from about the interwebs. For even more, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Thriftomancer hosts Hexcrawloween
The Foot of Blue Mountain gives us Having an Opinion; How to Play OSR Games
Zedeck Siew's Writing Hours shares GNS is not a Theory; it is a Tradition
CBC writes How Dungeons & Dragons went from 'satanic panic' to pop culture fixture
u/_Zodaxa discovered A Google groups conversation board for Fantasy RPGs with archived posts dating back to 1982!
In My Campaign gives us Making History
Thriftomancer hosts Hexcrawloween
The Foot of Blue Mountain gives us Having an Opinion; How to Play OSR Games
Zedeck Siew's Writing Hours shares GNS is not a Theory; it is a Tradition
CBC writes How Dungeons & Dragons went from 'satanic panic' to pop culture fixture
u/_Zodaxa discovered A Google groups conversation board for Fantasy RPGs with archived posts dating back to 1982!
In My Campaign gives us Making History
28 September 2024
Actual Play: Goblin Mail
I tested out the Goblin Mail - a zine about a chaotic goblin post office I reviewed recently. Written up to follow Gorgon Bones first best practice: "Record your hobby experience".
Run as an open table at our regular Friday night sessions using 5e, this was a seven player table and we ran a ~4hr session, half of which was Goblin Mail.
Characters were:
Maxi the Tabaxi - a rogue
Gwensora - a cleric
Giovanni Giovanni - a rogue
Hyperion IV - a barbarian
Thomas Wetsack - a cleric
Archie Gruble - a fighter
Balthus Darkcloud - a cleric
Session Report: Goblin Mail
Our heroes received a letter from the Merchant da Pra, whom they helped previously in Pesto Alla Lungarvese. They ask that a package be delivered to their aunt out in the Penumbria borderlands - with the catch that the package needs to first be retrieved from the goblin post office.
Venturing into town our heroes find the ramshackle goblin post office, barge into the office and are directed to customer service. They point them to the boss. After scrambling up the stairs to find a loud and horrible break room they interrupt a card-game-argument to get directions up to the boss. Forging their way through drifts of letters and thieving gremlins they arrive at a second more civilised breakroom and thence to the bosses office.
[DM Commentary - initial interactions with the goblins went well, a lot of barging past the queues of locals but getting to the front did not make the goblins much more helpful. The coffee and snacks in the break-room proved an unexpected attraction and the gremlins among the letter drifts were a good hazard. I played those more as 'save vs effect' hazards rather than combat since the gremlins were so out matched. One was captured and hauled around for the rest of the adventure cursing its captor.]
The boss queries them then sends them to customer service, where the party splits. Half deciding to just try searching the next room - special package storage - and the rest returning to customer servce. Archie decides to follow the 'faster service' ladder and finds Griselda the All-Seeing. Directed from their to the basement and Agatha then venture down and find Agatha who despite the irregularities, directs them towards the special package storage.
[DM Commentary - by this point 'you need to go see the boss' was causing eye-twitch reactions among some of the party as they were failing to distinguish between who is in charge in this room and who is in charge of the whole building. There was much running up and down to try and out-pace the package. The party split into a group led by Archie who followed the Boss instructions and another of Giovanni, Thomas and Balthus who decided to just start searching for the package themselves.]
Arriving first into special package storage, Thomas, Hyperion and Giovanni poke about in the giant stacks of parcels and when Thomas casts a Detect Magic, filching one or two. As the others arrive, and finally bring some light to the gloomy room, a giant book worm is revealed nibbling packages in the far end of the room. Returning (most of) its packages, they are told the latest delivery has already been sent to the roof.
[DM Commentary - the random package generators came in very handy here as the room was searched and random packages pocketted. Eventually someone cast Dancing Lights and the bookworm woke up - they assumed it was staff and did not fight it.]
Scrambling up the ladder they find a giant stork in its nest and a baffled goblin staring in, with a sack of packages abandoned nearby - and a trio of hogmen sneaking up to grab it. Shooing off the hogmen, our heroes attempt to reconcile the stork and goblins confusion over the hatched winged lizards in the nest before Balthus manages to grievously insult the storks parenting skills and they are chased off.
Archie and Giovanni grab the package they are looking for and dash back down the inside of the post office while everyone else follows the hogmen back down their grappling-rope.
[DM Commentary - the random roll for the Stork and Goblins disposition had them confused over the strange hatching of winged lizards - so I made the mail bandits be a group of sneaking hogmen in place of a loud attack. The players managed to intimidate off the hogmen then tried to help the stork figure out what was going on. This turned into an effort to persuade the stork to give up the hatchlings for adoption by the party that was going ok for a bit until it was blown by implying the stork was a bad parent for building their nest here. Cue angry chase off]
Abandoning their plan to deliver the package today, our heroes return to the Golden Cockerel with two packages - one for the Wizard da Pra and another covered in ancient return addresses and warning stickers. Giovanni cuts this open and find a mysterious animated bug which speaks a strange tongue. They give it a lute and it plays music unlike any they have heard before. Deciding not to worry about it, they leave the bug at the Golden Cockerel and set out again to deliver the package.
Session report for Goblin Mail ends
Overall view - it ran more quickly and less violently than I might have thought, people did not dig into the 'why are there goblin post offices' at all. It very much got across the kafka-esque run-around of being endlessly pointed to different desks. By the time the party left they needed to go for an in-game drink.
All in all a nice little drop in module - use it the once for a sessions of have it in the background to be used and re-used. No reason more goblin post offices might not be encountered in the future.
Cover by Evlyn Moreau
Run as an open table at our regular Friday night sessions using 5e, this was a seven player table and we ran a ~4hr session, half of which was Goblin Mail.
Characters were:
Maxi the Tabaxi - a rogue
Gwensora - a cleric
Giovanni Giovanni - a rogue
Hyperion IV - a barbarian
Thomas Wetsack - a cleric
Archie Gruble - a fighter
Balthus Darkcloud - a cleric
Session Report: Goblin Mail
Our heroes received a letter from the Merchant da Pra, whom they helped previously in Pesto Alla Lungarvese. They ask that a package be delivered to their aunt out in the Penumbria borderlands - with the catch that the package needs to first be retrieved from the goblin post office.
Venturing into town our heroes find the ramshackle goblin post office, barge into the office and are directed to customer service. They point them to the boss. After scrambling up the stairs to find a loud and horrible break room they interrupt a card-game-argument to get directions up to the boss. Forging their way through drifts of letters and thieving gremlins they arrive at a second more civilised breakroom and thence to the bosses office.
[DM Commentary - initial interactions with the goblins went well, a lot of barging past the queues of locals but getting to the front did not make the goblins much more helpful. The coffee and snacks in the break-room proved an unexpected attraction and the gremlins among the letter drifts were a good hazard. I played those more as 'save vs effect' hazards rather than combat since the gremlins were so out matched. One was captured and hauled around for the rest of the adventure cursing its captor.]
The boss queries them then sends them to customer service, where the party splits. Half deciding to just try searching the next room - special package storage - and the rest returning to customer servce. Archie decides to follow the 'faster service' ladder and finds Griselda the All-Seeing. Directed from their to the basement and Agatha then venture down and find Agatha who despite the irregularities, directs them towards the special package storage.
[DM Commentary - by this point 'you need to go see the boss' was causing eye-twitch reactions among some of the party as they were failing to distinguish between who is in charge in this room and who is in charge of the whole building. There was much running up and down to try and out-pace the package. The party split into a group led by Archie who followed the Boss instructions and another of Giovanni, Thomas and Balthus who decided to just start searching for the package themselves.]
Arriving first into special package storage, Thomas, Hyperion and Giovanni poke about in the giant stacks of parcels and when Thomas casts a Detect Magic, filching one or two. As the others arrive, and finally bring some light to the gloomy room, a giant book worm is revealed nibbling packages in the far end of the room. Returning (most of) its packages, they are told the latest delivery has already been sent to the roof.
[DM Commentary - the random package generators came in very handy here as the room was searched and random packages pocketted. Eventually someone cast Dancing Lights and the bookworm woke up - they assumed it was staff and did not fight it.]
Scrambling up the ladder they find a giant stork in its nest and a baffled goblin staring in, with a sack of packages abandoned nearby - and a trio of hogmen sneaking up to grab it. Shooing off the hogmen, our heroes attempt to reconcile the stork and goblins confusion over the hatched winged lizards in the nest before Balthus manages to grievously insult the storks parenting skills and they are chased off.
Archie and Giovanni grab the package they are looking for and dash back down the inside of the post office while everyone else follows the hogmen back down their grappling-rope.
[DM Commentary - the random roll for the Stork and Goblins disposition had them confused over the strange hatching of winged lizards - so I made the mail bandits be a group of sneaking hogmen in place of a loud attack. The players managed to intimidate off the hogmen then tried to help the stork figure out what was going on. This turned into an effort to persuade the stork to give up the hatchlings for adoption by the party that was going ok for a bit until it was blown by implying the stork was a bad parent for building their nest here. Cue angry chase off]
Abandoning their plan to deliver the package today, our heroes return to the Golden Cockerel with two packages - one for the Wizard da Pra and another covered in ancient return addresses and warning stickers. Giovanni cuts this open and find a mysterious animated bug which speaks a strange tongue. They give it a lute and it plays music unlike any they have heard before. Deciding not to worry about it, they leave the bug at the Golden Cockerel and set out again to deliver the package.
Session report for Goblin Mail ends
Overall view - it ran more quickly and less violently than I might have thought, people did not dig into the 'why are there goblin post offices' at all. It very much got across the kafka-esque run-around of being endlessly pointed to different desks. By the time the party left they needed to go for an in-game drink.
All in all a nice little drop in module - use it the once for a sessions of have it in the background to be used and re-used. No reason more goblin post offices might not be encountered in the future.
26 September 2024
Field Report: The Arcanists Tavern
Stopped into the Arcanist's Tavern in near Hoxton in London. Billed as "London's first immersive tabletop gaming cafe" I found out about it through Wyrd Science #6 and since I was in London for work I thought to check it out. I caught up with an old gamer pal for a couple of drinks - both of us, ridiculously travel shocked so we weren't exactly up for taking full advantage of the facilities, but it was more of a recon for like, what is this place? The premise sounds awesome but how is it actually?
The place has an upstairs bar/cafe/board-gaming space, the downstairs is the wargaming/TTRPG space. On this occassion we mostly sat upstairs, admiring the giant wall of games and acknowledging that if we were less shattered there were many things we would have gone for. I also had a pint of the tastiest stour I have had in ages, really nice. Overall the place was busy while we were there on a random Wednesday, there seemed to be two shifts of folk in, an early evening bunch and a later bunch and when we packed it in at ten there were still folk chucking dice about in full flow. Vibe was very chill and relaxed, lots of folk running games, including what looked like another TTRPG session running in the upstairs space. A strong 'dark wood walls with weird things mounted on it' vibe wich is just what you want. Lots of nooks about the place for quieter games if you wanted too.
They have a fairly large table space in the upstairs that you take games out of the giant board games library. There's a bar with a couple of available drinks, a selection of pizza's, toasties and nibbles to eat - good to get you through your session. The board games library was a giant wall of games with a great selection of stuff in it. There were some properly chunky ones in there - bless the optimism of someone who's going to pull Twilight Imperium down off of board games library and get stuck in - that game is a full working day worth of play! Plenty of other good ones there too.
Off on the other side you could buy TTRPG stuff - I was very amused to see that there was a copy of Where the Wheat Grows Tall on their little sort of side shelf of indie games. That was cool.
The downstairs has a ton of space for playing war games. Lots of big tables, good space around them in there. There were also six kind of booths for RPGs that each had a private dining niche sized space - imagine that double depth, double width of a family dining table. Not a huge amount of space around the sides, enough to get in and out, but maximised for table-top space. Heavy theatre-curtains close off the front and that would be your space.
There are some fairly significant add ons and widgets like screen-in-table that intrigue me - I would be interested to try out this hardware-heavy mode of play with digital maps and all the good elements of digital gaming there on the table. My standard playing away from home model is pretty light, meeples-and-scribbled maps, it would be fun to test out.
Not super cheap but looked like decent value for the effort gone into it. I think next time I'm back I'll be trying to pull together a table and try it out for real.
I like that this space exists, in fairness in the big bad city of London you can find anything, but I like that this particular little niche is well served, long may it last.
The place has an upstairs bar/cafe/board-gaming space, the downstairs is the wargaming/TTRPG space. On this occassion we mostly sat upstairs, admiring the giant wall of games and acknowledging that if we were less shattered there were many things we would have gone for. I also had a pint of the tastiest stour I have had in ages, really nice. Overall the place was busy while we were there on a random Wednesday, there seemed to be two shifts of folk in, an early evening bunch and a later bunch and when we packed it in at ten there were still folk chucking dice about in full flow. Vibe was very chill and relaxed, lots of folk running games, including what looked like another TTRPG session running in the upstairs space. A strong 'dark wood walls with weird things mounted on it' vibe wich is just what you want. Lots of nooks about the place for quieter games if you wanted too.
They have a fairly large table space in the upstairs that you take games out of the giant board games library. There's a bar with a couple of available drinks, a selection of pizza's, toasties and nibbles to eat - good to get you through your session. The board games library was a giant wall of games with a great selection of stuff in it. There were some properly chunky ones in there - bless the optimism of someone who's going to pull Twilight Imperium down off of board games library and get stuck in - that game is a full working day worth of play! Plenty of other good ones there too.
Off on the other side you could buy TTRPG stuff - I was very amused to see that there was a copy of Where the Wheat Grows Tall on their little sort of side shelf of indie games. That was cool.
The downstairs has a ton of space for playing war games. Lots of big tables, good space around them in there. There were also six kind of booths for RPGs that each had a private dining niche sized space - imagine that double depth, double width of a family dining table. Not a huge amount of space around the sides, enough to get in and out, but maximised for table-top space. Heavy theatre-curtains close off the front and that would be your space.
There are some fairly significant add ons and widgets like screen-in-table that intrigue me - I would be interested to try out this hardware-heavy mode of play with digital maps and all the good elements of digital gaming there on the table. My standard playing away from home model is pretty light, meeples-and-scribbled maps, it would be fun to test out.
Not super cheap but looked like decent value for the effort gone into it. I think next time I'm back I'll be trying to pull together a table and try it out for real.
I like that this space exists, in fairness in the big bad city of London you can find anything, but I like that this particular little niche is well served, long may it last.
23 September 2024
Shiny TTRPG links #191
A busy week scrobbling links! For even more, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.
Weird Wonder gives us On People-Centered Adventure Design
James M. Spahn's RPG Musings writes The Hobbit Alone
Anna B. Meyer on Patreon wrote Hawk Tales FRP – Goals
Missives From Mooncastle gives us The Gamemaster Pipeline
Personable Thoughts launches with A card-based duelling mechanic
hex culture gave us but i repeat myself
Weird Wonder gives us On People-Centered Adventure Design
James M. Spahn's RPG Musings writes The Hobbit Alone
Anna B. Meyer on Patreon wrote Hawk Tales FRP – Goals
Missives From Mooncastle gives us The Gamemaster Pipeline
Personable Thoughts launches with A card-based duelling mechanic
hex culture gave us but i repeat myself
22 September 2024
Review: Goblin Mail
tl:dr; neat troika zine about a chaotic goblin post office - a short-ish kafka-esque run-around, drops nicely into settings or adventures.
Backed on the Kickstarter - had a surprisingly chunky feeling 40 page zine turn up. Art by Evlyn Moreau, text by Sofia Ramos, layout by Luna P. I got great mileage out of the Kobolds Art Exibition (play log part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, part VII and part VIII) and hope this replicated that 'goblinoids at work' model.
First impression - artwork is as ever a joy. This is all statted up for Troika / Fighting Fantasy but is fairly system neutral until you get to the NPC states in the Appendix. A bit of work calibrating off whatever a goblin stats as in your system of choice will make this useable for whatever you care to run.
In the zine you have three sections really with the central one being split into four.
First you have 8 pages of set up - intro, hooks, direction for exploring the place
Next you have the largest part with 20 pages covering the four floors of the post office
Lastly you have a 12 page Appendix with a bunch of useful miscellany
Running through this chunk by chunk:
STarting with the set up - intro, hooks, direction for exploring the place. The mission is always the same 'get your package back from the clutches of the goblin post office' but what the package is and who you are doing this for can vary. We get six example patrons in the intro then the rest is, in no particular order, what the goblins will sell you, what they think their workflow is and then what you will probably have to do to track down your missing package. These are really helpful for setting up the place and knowing what will be happening where as your players get there. We also get the general table for 'goblin mien' once you enter any room and the map of the whole place. Each level has two to three locations within it.
The floor guides - mostly room descriptions take up most of the zine. Going floor by floor we get
First Floor - reception, customer 'service' and delivery/triage area.
Basement - treadmill triage and customs desk.
Second Floor - first break room, letters room, rented room
Third Floor - second break room, boss' office, special storage room and the roof
Each of these locations comes with some flavourful illustrations and random tables of things you can find there. Given the likelihood you may traipse over and back through a few of these more than once trying to make sense of the goblins chaos, these are good tools to have to refresh locations on a repeat encounter. I found it suffered a little by not having a pithy one-liner of what each room was at the top of each entry - when flipping over and back between rooms during play, along with juggling the chaos of a table, that killer one-liner of what the impression of the place is was buried in the text sometimes.
In this section there are no stats, just numbers of things encountered at most. It is pretty clear how things connect, especially with the whole site map in the intro, so it all feels pretty playable straight out of the book. It bears careful reading at least once to spot where all the bits and bobs can be found - one person is missing a thing and it is mentioned in the description of another place but if you were skimming you could miss it and be confused.
The Appendix contains the Labyrinth, generators for packages, clients and goblins and finally a bestiary/stats for everyone to be found in the post office. When I took this to table they ended up arguing with everything so never got in any actual blade-drawn fights - which meant I was not going for the nice little mien tables attached to each of the entries. The random package generator tables got a work-out, especially when players got sticky-fingered while searching for the package themselves.
All in all this went over well at the table when I played through it - they got into the spirit of things and argued with the goblins as opposed to getting violent and killing everything. There is a ton of stuff packed in here, worth marking up with sticky-tags or something for the random patron table and the page with all the maps as you will end up flipping over and back to those a lot. A neat addition to the shelf and potentially re-useable in-game if the players return to the post office or encounter another one elsewhere.
I took it to a 5e table, that worked fine despite it being statted for Troika.
For another view, see Playful Void.
Backed on the Kickstarter - had a surprisingly chunky feeling 40 page zine turn up. Art by Evlyn Moreau, text by Sofia Ramos, layout by Luna P. I got great mileage out of the Kobolds Art Exibition (play log part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, part VII and part VIII) and hope this replicated that 'goblinoids at work' model.
Cover by Evlyn Moreau
First impression - artwork is as ever a joy. This is all statted up for Troika / Fighting Fantasy but is fairly system neutral until you get to the NPC states in the Appendix. A bit of work calibrating off whatever a goblin stats as in your system of choice will make this useable for whatever you care to run.
In the zine you have three sections really with the central one being split into four.
First you have 8 pages of set up - intro, hooks, direction for exploring the place
Next you have the largest part with 20 pages covering the four floors of the post office
Lastly you have a 12 page Appendix with a bunch of useful miscellany
Running through this chunk by chunk:
STarting with the set up - intro, hooks, direction for exploring the place. The mission is always the same 'get your package back from the clutches of the goblin post office' but what the package is and who you are doing this for can vary. We get six example patrons in the intro then the rest is, in no particular order, what the goblins will sell you, what they think their workflow is and then what you will probably have to do to track down your missing package. These are really helpful for setting up the place and knowing what will be happening where as your players get there. We also get the general table for 'goblin mien' once you enter any room and the map of the whole place. Each level has two to three locations within it.
The floor guides - mostly room descriptions take up most of the zine. Going floor by floor we get
First Floor - reception, customer 'service' and delivery/triage area.
Basement - treadmill triage and customs desk.
Second Floor - first break room, letters room, rented room
Third Floor - second break room, boss' office, special storage room and the roof
Each of these locations comes with some flavourful illustrations and random tables of things you can find there. Given the likelihood you may traipse over and back through a few of these more than once trying to make sense of the goblins chaos, these are good tools to have to refresh locations on a repeat encounter. I found it suffered a little by not having a pithy one-liner of what each room was at the top of each entry - when flipping over and back between rooms during play, along with juggling the chaos of a table, that killer one-liner of what the impression of the place is was buried in the text sometimes.
In this section there are no stats, just numbers of things encountered at most. It is pretty clear how things connect, especially with the whole site map in the intro, so it all feels pretty playable straight out of the book. It bears careful reading at least once to spot where all the bits and bobs can be found - one person is missing a thing and it is mentioned in the description of another place but if you were skimming you could miss it and be confused.
The Appendix contains the Labyrinth, generators for packages, clients and goblins and finally a bestiary/stats for everyone to be found in the post office. When I took this to table they ended up arguing with everything so never got in any actual blade-drawn fights - which meant I was not going for the nice little mien tables attached to each of the entries. The random package generator tables got a work-out, especially when players got sticky-fingered while searching for the package themselves.
All in all this went over well at the table when I played through it - they got into the spirit of things and argued with the goblins as opposed to getting violent and killing everything. There is a ton of stuff packed in here, worth marking up with sticky-tags or something for the random patron table and the page with all the maps as you will end up flipping over and back to those a lot. A neat addition to the shelf and potentially re-useable in-game if the players return to the post office or encounter another one elsewhere.
I took it to a 5e table, that worked fine despite it being statted for Troika.
For another view, see Playful Void.
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