Goblins!

This past Friday I attended Origins Game Fair in Columbus. My original plan was to run games with Lurking Fears, but due to things earlier this year, I had to stop my commitments. However, thanks to my friends at Limitless Adventures, I was able to go for a day at no cost. As usual, most of the money I dropped was at the Goodman Games booth. Over the next few weeks I'll review some of the items I picked up. 

Today I'm going to talk about Goblins!. This is a 16 page zine for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The writing is easy to understand and the art is classic OSR/DCC style. It presents goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears as DCC classes. Each class has all abilities and things you'd need to make a character, including three tables (level, titles, and starting occupations),

Goblins are stealthy little buggers. They can backstab, sneak, and hide like a thief. They have infravision which helps them see in the dark. One of the most interesting traits they have is bad luck charm, which is the opposite of the halfling's good luck charm trait. They can spend their luck to lower the rolls of other creatures they can see. Also, like halflings they regain some spent luck overnight.

Hobgoblins are strong fighters. Like warriors they have deed die and can perform Mighty Deeds of Arms. Hobgoblins have an interesting trait because they are trained in formation fighting. Allies standing next to the hobgoblin gains a variable bonus to their AC.

The final class is my favorite goblinoid, the bugbear. They are large size which allows them to do feats of strength smaller adventures couldn't dream of. They are also experts at being in charge. They can command others to take actions, sacrificing their own. They can howl orders at allies and buff them in similar ways to D&D bards. Finally, despite their size bugbears gain climb, sneak, and hide like thieves. Having infravision, they can also see while doing so in the dark. 

I can see some fans of the DCC not being into this zine. "Monsters are unique" is a key point of DCC. However, I've never really seen goblins as monsters. They are humanoids, so I put them somewhere between humans/demihumans and monsters. Personally, I grabbed this one because I love goblins and I've been thinking about using DCC rules to play in some established settings, like Freeport or Greyhawk. This would be a great resource for doing that.

Grab your copy of  Goblins! today from the Goodman Game store today.