August 29, 2024 • 22 mins
“Neither Super, Nor Heroic,” is a Rules Hack for Goblin Quest the RPG. Super-heroes are real in this game. Unfortunately, the bad news is…you’re not one of them!
Resources mentioned during episode:
- Hollows TTRPG by Rowan, Rook, and Decard - Click Here
- Marvel Civil War Story Line - Click Here
- Marvel Multi-Verse Roleplaying Game (Hardcover) - Click Here
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - (Xbox 360 Pre-Owned) - Click Here
Items mentioned during episode:
- Goblin Quest RPG - Softcover Book - Click Here
- Goblin Quest RPG - PDF Version - Click Here
- Honey Heist - PDF Version - Click Here
- Die: The RPG - Print Version - Click Here
- Die: The RPG - PDF Version - Click Here
- Spire: The City Must Fall - Print Version - Click Here
- Spire: The City Must Fall - PDF Version - Click Here
- One Last Job - PDF Version - Click Here
- Heart: The City Beneath - Print Version - Click Here
- Heart: The City Beneath - PDF Version - Click Here
- Eat the Reich - Print Version - Click Here
- Eat the Reich - PDF Version - Click Here
*As an amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Some of these links are affiliate links for other programs but once again, if you choose to purchase through these links, it's no extra cost to you. I only promote products or services that I have investigated and feel can deliver value to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Clint Scheirer (00:00):
Did you pretend to be a superhero when you were a kid? Whether
you wore a cape or imagined yourself in durable
spandex suits, im guessing the Hero you
played was competent, effective and
well, super. In todays episode we are going
to pick up rules hack number five for Goblin
the RPG. Neither super nor
(00:20):
heroic, superheroes in this Game are
real. Unfortunately, the bad news is youre
not one of them. Welcome to claim to Game the
podcast helping busy people Master tabletop role playing
Games one Game at a Time I'm Clint Scheirer. I've been
an educator for over twelve years and have helped gamers of
all levels quickly grasp Tabletop RPG's
(00:40):
so they can enjoy playing them to the fullest.
Stay tuned so you can make your claim to Game.
(01:14):
Hello and welcome back to episode
21, season one of Claim to Game, a
predominantly educational, fun Podcast in which I'm
daring to coin the word fun ducational. It's
like when you open up your lunchbox on the first day of school and
it's packed to the brim with s'mores, skittles and your favorite
colored jelly beans. The Game for this season is
Goblin the RPG brought to you by Game
(01:36):
designer Grant Howitt, whose works include, but are not
limited to, Honey Heist, Die (01:39):
The
RPG Spire Unbound. One last Job,
Heart Eat the Reich and right now, at the Time of this
episode release the new tabletop RPG,
Hallows, fully funded on backer kit. Our running
definition of a rules hack for Goblin Quest is a series of
tweaks and twists to the main Game, which allow you to use it
(02:00):
to tell different stories. The fifth of these hacks
to appear in the Goblin Quest RPG book on page
98, earned through the Kickstarter stretch goals
in 2014, is neither super
nor heroic. As a child, I was obsessed
with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though they
technically didn't have any superpowers. Much
like DC Comics Batman, their ability to fight
(02:22):
crime for a city that didnt always want their help was
captivating to me. These Green vigilantes
taking on the Foot clan, living in a secret hideout down
in the sewers of New York, eating pizza. I wanted
to be a ninja turtle. What, is it about
superheroes that make me, in my heart, want to be
a superhero? A few reasons may be helping
(02:43):
those in need, bringing justice to evil, and
possibly getting to have superpowers any mere
mortal may just dream of. Superheroes are
in many ways godlike, or in the case of Thor,
an actual God. Whether it be flying,
shooting lasers out of your eyes, or slicing people up with
adamantium claws that unsheathe from your hands.
(03:04):
Superpowers are fascinating and leave no end
to the infinite opportunities in tabletop role playing
Games. Getting to roleplay my favorite
superhero archetype for me satisfies my
inner child well. With neither super nor
heroic, I almost get to satisfy my inner child.
You get to play as an almost Hero.
(03:25):
The book puts it like maybe you have
superpowers, but you always struggled with that
Hero bit, and you never could do the right thing in Time
to save anyone. Maybe your heart is in the right
place, but you lack powers and often are
useless in more situations than not. Maybe
you have no powers, maybe you have no heart, and you
just tick the wrong box on the application.
(03:47):
You get the idea. When playing this Game, your character
is put on the spot of being the idyllic, competent,
effective, successful superhero, but
does not live up to that expectation. The
premise of this hack is though you are not a superhero,
you're not superhero material. You are the only
available option to the government who needs you. The
(04:08):
real heroes are either dead or too busy to
assist. So this is your big chance to prove
yourself a true Hero, or
truly prove that you are no Hero at all.
Each player during character creation is going to
create three superheroes that are a part of the same
team. Each player's Hero begins with just three
injury boxes. You'll have the opportunity later
(04:31):
in character creation to receive more than three injury
boxes. We'll get to that. In a moment. To flesh out
your team, you'll need to roll 1 d 6
for a result on the three tables appearing on page
99. Alternatively, you can come
up with your own concepts. I decided to roll on each
table. So for table number one, that is,
(04:51):
"The table for the power source of the team
superpowers, I rolled a two that said
that my superheroes got their powers from some sort of
super science. In table number
two, it's the power focus. What is, "The
superpower exactly? I rolled another
two, which put my team's superpower in the
might strength and combat category.
(05:13):
And then table number three is, "The theme of the
team, and my same cursed dice rolled another
two. Maybe that's my superpower. Which said that my
team is a part of the same military
unit. I'm going to use these concepts as my
launching point for my gameplay. The super
science behind my character's powers are Red
(05:34):
mushrooms with white spots. The focus
of might and strength is that when these
mushrooms are eaten, my hero's bodies get physically
larger, or they got physically larger. This was a one
Time occurrence, kind of like getting bitten by a
radioactive spider. And they were also given the power to
jump extremely high into the air onto their
enemies. And finally, being a part of the same
(05:56):
military unit, I'm going to alter this slightly
and go with my, if you haven't guessed it yet, Super Mario
Brothers theme. My team is, "The Super Mario
Bros. Seals. Like the Navy Seals,
but not like the animal, you know. Arf Arfdan
disclaimer Grant Howitt has a sidebar
on page 99 suggesting not to get too
(06:16):
silly too fast. He recommends going on
with normal, Mundane concepts that
are not too wacky or out of place. And then,
just like in a comic book, you evolved through
storytelling and gameplay to the fanciful, amazing,
and funny. I want to apologize to Grant right now.
I did not follow his advice. Luckily, I'm not playing
(06:37):
in an actual game, so my consequences are
minimal.
Next up in character creation is to determine
why your team of heroes haven't been hired yet.
What's going to trigger the setbacks you'll experience during
the Game as you attempt to be a Hero.
You're going to roll 1 d 6 and compare it with
the I wasn't hired until now because
(06:58):
table I rolled and got a six, which says
I am dangerously incompetent
mechanically. This means that as I play the
Game and take action, I will resolve the results of
all of my dice rolls against the
dangerously incompetent roll table on page
100. If any of my dice roll a
one or a six, that's a one or a
(07:20):
six. This will result in an injury to my
character as well as follows, "A
setback, which we'll discuss momentarily.
I've decided narratively that my team is
dangerously incompetent because the very same Red
mushrooms with the White dots that make their bodies
physically larger and give them their superpowers and mad
hops. They are also psychedelic
(07:42):
shrooms, man, and this team is
constantly on the most insane mushroom
trip this side of the Mississippi river.
And the final step is technically optional.
But if you choose to participate, you can gain your
characters extra injury boxes to assist them
when they are likely to fumble through their tasks. And
(08:02):
to do this, you go ahead and you draw your
Hero. You get an extra injury box simply
by drawing your Hero. You can also get an
additional box for the character if you color them in
four different colors. And I've gone ahead and I've
done this, and I'm going to pin my character's image to our Discord
server on the Goblin Quest text channel. that is
GQ Podcast resources
(08:25):
and for reference, I have named my superheroes
Barrio Muiji and
Goshi practical, ingenious, and
in no way plagiaris. And while I'm at it, I'm gonna go ahead
and change their name to the Super Barrio brother
seals.
Eat your heart out, Shigeru Miyamoto quick pause on
the episode have you felt that life is too crazy
(08:45):
busy that the tabletop role playing games you've always wanted to learn
and play are passing you by? The
Claim to Game Podcast has one mission,
helping busy people Master tabletop role playing Games
one Game at a Time. If you are enjoying what
you are hearing, please share the Claim to Game Podcast
with others. Share it with at least one other person
(09:06):
who you know listens to podcasts and who could
benefit from what this shows. Talking about this helps grow
the show, spreads the message, and helps others learn
new tabletop role playing Games. Remember to share
the show once you finish listening today. Thanks.
And now back to the episode to begin the Game. Just like
the Goblin Quest core rules, when you choose to act, you will
(09:26):
roll dice, and in this case, you get two dice to
roll. Then you interpret the results of each
dice against the table on page 100. If
you use your superpower during your action, you can
roll four dice at the same Time, and as before, you
will interpret the result of each dice against the table
on page 100. Every dice counts
(09:46):
individually. If your characters don't have
superpowers per se, like Batman doesn't have a superpower
power, but he has a lot of gadgets and the ability to kick some
ass, then you roll whenever the characters
on your superheroes team do their thing,
whatever that is. For the Super Mario brothers, their
thing is doing a super jump to get super
high more ways than 01:00 a.m. i,
(10:09):
right? Or to get really high to pounce
down on the skulls of their enemies. Don't forget,
they will be rolling against the dangerously
incompetent column on the table,
page 100 because they got the shrooms,
man. Once per scene, you can
team up with another member of your team to get
a reroll of your dice, and you just do this by
(10:31):
narratively explaining how the team up
helped you divert disaster. Of course, you might
roll just as poorly the second time, but hey, it's
worth a shrew. I mean, worth a shot. And if you
have no other heroes left in action on your team
except for your current Hero, then you're allowed to either
do a flashback when one of your teammates was still in the action
(10:51):
and taught you your current Hero, something useful to
overcome the sitch. Or another option would be to team
up with another player superhero character that is still
in action. That works too.
All right. I promised I would talk about setbacks, and
here we are. Promise kept.
Setbacks will determine the stability of each
situation. Every important scene has something
(11:14):
that's going to go wrong unless you fix it fast. The
GM will decide what that something wrong is.
The setbacks you incur through your dice rolls will
make it worse. On the competency table
on page 100, if your team is dangerous, you
incur a setback if you roll a one. If your team
is simply incompetent, you incur a setback
(11:34):
if you roll a six, and if your team is
dangerously incompetent, like the Super Barrio Bro
seals, then you incur a setback if you roll
a one or a six. When a character
gets a setback, the player should describe how they
made things worse in an attempt to solve the problem
and subtract one from the scenes. Stability
(11:55):
for each dice rolled that incurs a
setback. The lower the stability rating the scene
has, the more likely something will go wrong. A,
stability level of one means that the scene is
seconds away from disaster. It's a cluster.
A stability level of eight means things are
reasonably calmer, and the GM will set up all the
scenes and will determine each scene's difficult rating based on
(12:18):
the table on page 102, as well as the
stability level of the scene based on the table on
page 103. We will cover the doctor in a
moment, but let's meander through the scene.
Stability table on page 103. The table
has three sections. The first level of stability
on the table is two, which means really
risky. Shit will likely hit the fan, both literally
(12:40):
and proverbally. Four is, "The next
level, and that means kinda risky. Something could
go wrong, but maybe it won't. And the final
level is eight. It is stable,
kinda safe. Maybe you can choose
stability numbers between one through eight, but the
two four eight benchmarks are guides for the GM
(13:01):
as they assign the appropriate level of stability
to the scenes they create before the Game begins.
For each scene, the GM will also
decide what is unstable
narratively to match the stability level that they
set for the scene. An example may be that the Super
Mario brothers seals are at the farmer's market in a
swanky Brooklyn, New York neighborhood. An
(13:22):
argument breaks out among one of the art vendors, whose potential
customer has become aggressive and is
shouting that the vendor is unfair and
crooked. I would set this maybe at a six, not
calm. The world's not ending and there's no violence
that's occurred yet. Now, a fun twist to the
stability level is that the GM doesn't have to tell the
players what the stability level is for the scene. I
(13:45):
assume the aggressive customer above was no more than a
jaded art connoisseur, but let's
backpedal and let's say that the individual is actually
Krebtor, an up. And coming common
criminal who happens to have the super ability of sonic
sound. The stability could escalate
quickly within the scene. In this case, maybe the six
(14:05):
would instead be a four, which, according to the table,
is kinda risky. The standard fit for most
scenes during this hack, not allowing the players
to know right away, gives way to the element
of discovery as the story plays out. So
what happens. If a scene's stability level reaches zero
through the sheer bad fortune of the players rolling
(14:26):
to get enough setbacks during their dice rolls?
The first thing that should happen is, "The GM should describe
in the story what bad thing is about to occur.
Second, if you cleared the scene by hitting zero on
the stability level at the same time as getting the
appropriate number of victories needed to move on in the scene
to the next scene, you still succeed,
but not in the way that you wanted. And if
(14:49):
appropriate, on a failed scene, each active team member
should roll one D20, six and half that number
rounded up. All active characters being
played by players in the scene receive that number of
injuries and check off those number of boxes on
their character sheet. In regards to injury and
death, Grant Howitt made a very good point.
Superheroes rarely die. Instead, when you check
(15:12):
off all their injury boxes, think of another appropriate way
to take them out of action. Some examples could be that
they're kidnapped, they're trapped, they're knocked out, they're
lost, et cetera. Whatever you choose, that
character is out of the Game once all those
injury boxes are checked off.
Now, there is a dedicated section for GM
tips, and for neither super near heroic it is
(15:33):
revealed, and I'm not sure why I never figured this out,
probably because Mathy is not my main jam, but it's
revealed that on page 102 103 that
typically Goblin Quest allots
nine victories per player before the Game
finishes. So let that be your guide
as to how many victories you should allot between
scenes. You can go higher than nine per player for
(15:56):
a longer Game, or lower than nine per player
for a shorter game. If the players seem to be getting too
bored and they are achieving success too easily, you
can lay on more victories that are needed to clear that
scene, or the following scene. If the players seem
to be getting too discouraged and everything's taking too long,
you can lower the number of victories needed for the scene to
(16:16):
help them move along. And if you're a purist,
feeling like this feels too much like breaking the rules.
Keep your predetermined victories as is and let them
deal with it. It's up to you. The difficulty
rating table on page 102 gives a great
description of the doctor ranges and how
long or in depth each scene will be based on the number
(16:36):
of victories that are needed to pass the scene.
If your players need one to three victories
to pass a scene, it's a short scene. unimportant
tasks or breaks in the pace would be used with
a one through three. Four through six is
a meaty scene and most scenes will fall in here to
help develop main events and plots. And
(16:57):
lastly, and this will be used sparingly. Eight to
nine is epic. It's never necessary to
make an epic scene in any Game, but this could
be awesome for a final showdown feel
and make it very difficult for them to overcome the
big bad evil guy. I'm not sure
why the table left out the number seven, but I'm
guessing that would also be in the epic level. Pushing
(17:20):
the difficulty. Now, using the previous
example of the normal aggressive customer, that
might be a one through three short scene
and it's on its way to bigger problems.
However, if the aggressive customer is actually
the up. And coming criminal Krebs door with
supersonic sound, then we're probably looking at a
scene that's more of a four to a six.
(17:42):
Grant talks about an awesome concept
on page 103 and I love this concept. It's
about falling forward. When players fail,
the story doesn't have to stop, it can just change
directions. Think of it like a branch on a
tree. You were moving towards one branch that was
branching off of your main flow and then you just went
in a different direction. And this is all based on the dice flow and
(18:05):
the choices of the characters. Players will fail
in neither super nor heroic, and its encouraged
to make true failure impossible.
The Game goes on and instead of failure
blocking success, think of the story as the
branch failing. The desired outcome instead
results in an alternative reality which allows the
narrative circle to get completed
(18:27):
regardless of whether its what they were hoping to do.
An example for my heroes may be that the
influential, charismatic political figure
Governor Peach was kidnapped, ransomed by
the mafia crime boss, Mister Bowser. What
happens. If the infiltration of the crime boss's
lair results in the governor being taken deep
underground without any hope of being recovered.
(18:50):
What do the heroes do next? Now, this
doesn't mean to keep playing the Game until Peach is
recovered. No. That reality might be
lost, but keep playing until the scenes are
played through to an ending that is complete.
Matt Forbeck is a writer and Game designer
who's worked on the Marvel superheroes multiverse Role
(19:10):
Playing Game. He also happened to send
in adventure ideas to Grant to be added to this
book. And one of my favorite storylines with
Marvel superheroes is, "The Marvel Civil
War. Here's the premise. The government wants to
install a system of accountability since the
superheroes cause so much collateral damage when fighting the bad
guys. Captain America is against this
(19:33):
idea, and he believes superheroes should be free to defend
humanity without government interference.
Ironsworn Man. Tony Stark, on the other hand, he
agrees with the system of accountability. And this splits the
Marvel superheroes in half. And some of the heroes are
supporting the captain and others are supporting Ironsworn
Man. I was so giddy back in 2012 when
(19:53):
I got to live out this storyline playing the Xbox 360
Game. Marvel Ultimate alliance two.
My favorite adventure idea sent in by Matt.
Here is a hat tip to this Marvel
storyline with the following caveat. Here it is.
Secret civil war. The biggest
heroes in the World have disappeared, and you are
convinced it is so that they can finally duke it out over
(20:15):
which team is, "The best. Your invitation
must have gotten trapped in your spam filter, but you are
determined to join in just as soon as
you can figure out where everybody is. This
scenario sounds like a party. And even though
your characters are not invited to the
party, it's time to crash that party with the
secret civil war. Alright, final
(20:37):
thoughts. This hack is a great opportunity to
turn the superhero trope on its head. So get
ready to fumble, get ready to bumble, and get
ready to be neither super nor heroic.
Join us next Time as we continue our Quest claiming
Goblin Quest with five rules.
Hacks down. We've got two more hacks to go, and
our next one is Space interns. It
(21:00):
pays homage to the reality that most of the
security officers wearing Red shirts in Starforged Trek
beaming down to the planet's surface with the main
characters. They don't usually beam back up to the
ship by the end of the episode. And it is not because
they decided to start a new, hope filled life on a
strange new planet. No, no, no. It's because
they always die. Have
(21:22):
you been listening to the first season of the CTG and do
not yet have your very own copy of Goblin Quest,
the RPG? Picture yourself pretending to
be gross, grotty little buggers on your next Game night with
your closest friends. Laughs,
goofs and goblins don't wait. Click on the
link in the show notes you don't like goblins.
Enjoy seven different Goblin Quest setting hacks in the
(21:45):
back of the core rulebook. Its almost like getting eight
Games for the price of one. Enjoy your copy of
Goblin Quest the RPG today. And
until the next time we make our claim to Game one
Game at a Time.
Did you pretend to be a superhero when you were a kid? Whether
you wore a cape or imagined yourself in durable
spandex suits, im guessing the Hero you
played was competent, effective and
well, super. In todays episode we are going
to pick up rules hack number five for Goblin
the RPG. Neither super nor
(00:20):
heroic, superheroes in this Game are
real. Unfortunately, the bad news is youre
not one of them. Welcome to claim to Game the
podcast helping busy people Master tabletop role playing
Games one Game at a Time I'm Clint Scheirer. I've been
an educator for over twelve years and have helped gamers of
all levels quickly grasp Tabletop RPG's
(00:40):
so they can enjoy playing them to the fullest.
Stay tuned so you can make your claim to Game.
(01:14):
Hello and welcome back to episode
21, season one of Claim to Game, a
predominantly educational, fun Podcast in which I'm
daring to coin the word fun ducational. It's
like when you open up your lunchbox on the first day of school and
it's packed to the brim with s'mores, skittles and your favorite
colored jelly beans. The Game for this season is
Goblin the RPG brought to you by Game
(01:36):
designer Grant Howitt, whose works include, but are not
limited to, Honey Heist, Die (01:39):
The
RPG Spire Unbound. One last Job,
Heart Eat the Reich and right now, at the Time of this
episode release the new tabletop RPG,
Hallows, fully funded on backer kit. Our running
definition of a rules hack for Goblin Quest is a series of
tweaks and twists to the main Game, which allow you to use it
(02:00):
to tell different stories. The fifth of these hacks
to appear in the Goblin Quest RPG book on page
98, earned through the Kickstarter stretch goals
in 2014, is neither super
nor heroic. As a child, I was obsessed
with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, though they
technically didn't have any superpowers. Much
like DC Comics Batman, their ability to fight
(02:22):
crime for a city that didnt always want their help was
captivating to me. These Green vigilantes
taking on the Foot clan, living in a secret hideout down
in the sewers of New York, eating pizza. I wanted
to be a ninja turtle. What, is it about
superheroes that make me, in my heart, want to be
a superhero? A few reasons may be helping
(02:43):
those in need, bringing justice to evil, and
possibly getting to have superpowers any mere
mortal may just dream of. Superheroes are
in many ways godlike, or in the case of Thor,
an actual God. Whether it be flying,
shooting lasers out of your eyes, or slicing people up with
adamantium claws that unsheathe from your hands.
(03:04):
Superpowers are fascinating and leave no end
to the infinite opportunities in tabletop role playing
Games. Getting to roleplay my favorite
superhero archetype for me satisfies my
inner child well. With neither super nor
heroic, I almost get to satisfy my inner child.
You get to play as an almost Hero.
(03:25):
The book puts it like maybe you have
superpowers, but you always struggled with that
Hero bit, and you never could do the right thing in Time
to save anyone. Maybe your heart is in the right
place, but you lack powers and often are
useless in more situations than not. Maybe
you have no powers, maybe you have no heart, and you
just tick the wrong box on the application.
(03:47):
You get the idea. When playing this Game, your character
is put on the spot of being the idyllic, competent,
effective, successful superhero, but
does not live up to that expectation. The
premise of this hack is though you are not a superhero,
you're not superhero material. You are the only
available option to the government who needs you. The
(04:08):
real heroes are either dead or too busy to
assist. So this is your big chance to prove
yourself a true Hero, or
truly prove that you are no Hero at all.
Each player during character creation is going to
create three superheroes that are a part of the same
team. Each player's Hero begins with just three
injury boxes. You'll have the opportunity later
(04:31):
in character creation to receive more than three injury
boxes. We'll get to that. In a moment. To flesh out
your team, you'll need to roll 1 d 6
for a result on the three tables appearing on page
99. Alternatively, you can come
up with your own concepts. I decided to roll on each
table. So for table number one, that is,
(04:51):
"The table for the power source of the team
superpowers, I rolled a two that said
that my superheroes got their powers from some sort of
super science. In table number
two, it's the power focus. What is, "The
superpower exactly? I rolled another
two, which put my team's superpower in the
might strength and combat category.
(05:13):
And then table number three is, "The theme of the
team, and my same cursed dice rolled another
two. Maybe that's my superpower. Which said that my
team is a part of the same military
unit. I'm going to use these concepts as my
launching point for my gameplay. The super
science behind my character's powers are Red
(05:34):
mushrooms with white spots. The focus
of might and strength is that when these
mushrooms are eaten, my hero's bodies get physically
larger, or they got physically larger. This was a one
Time occurrence, kind of like getting bitten by a
radioactive spider. And they were also given the power to
jump extremely high into the air onto their
enemies. And finally, being a part of the same
(05:56):
military unit, I'm going to alter this slightly
and go with my, if you haven't guessed it yet, Super Mario
Brothers theme. My team is, "The Super Mario
Bros. Seals. Like the Navy Seals,
but not like the animal, you know. Arf Arfdan
disclaimer Grant Howitt has a sidebar
on page 99 suggesting not to get too
(06:16):
silly too fast. He recommends going on
with normal, Mundane concepts that
are not too wacky or out of place. And then,
just like in a comic book, you evolved through
storytelling and gameplay to the fanciful, amazing,
and funny. I want to apologize to Grant right now.
I did not follow his advice. Luckily, I'm not playing
(06:37):
in an actual game, so my consequences are
minimal.
Next up in character creation is to determine
why your team of heroes haven't been hired yet.
What's going to trigger the setbacks you'll experience during
the Game as you attempt to be a Hero.
You're going to roll 1 d 6 and compare it with
the I wasn't hired until now because
(06:58):
table I rolled and got a six, which says
I am dangerously incompetent
mechanically. This means that as I play the
Game and take action, I will resolve the results of
all of my dice rolls against the
dangerously incompetent roll table on page
100. If any of my dice roll a
one or a six, that's a one or a
(07:20):
six. This will result in an injury to my
character as well as follows, "A
setback, which we'll discuss momentarily.
I've decided narratively that my team is
dangerously incompetent because the very same Red
mushrooms with the White dots that make their bodies
physically larger and give them their superpowers and mad
hops. They are also psychedelic
(07:42):
shrooms, man, and this team is
constantly on the most insane mushroom
trip this side of the Mississippi river.
And the final step is technically optional.
But if you choose to participate, you can gain your
characters extra injury boxes to assist them
when they are likely to fumble through their tasks. And
(08:02):
to do this, you go ahead and you draw your
Hero. You get an extra injury box simply
by drawing your Hero. You can also get an
additional box for the character if you color them in
four different colors. And I've gone ahead and I've
done this, and I'm going to pin my character's image to our Discord
server on the Goblin Quest text channel. that is
GQ Podcast resources
(08:25):
and for reference, I have named my superheroes
Barrio Muiji and
Goshi practical, ingenious, and
in no way plagiaris. And while I'm at it, I'm gonna go ahead
and change their name to the Super Barrio brother
seals.
Eat your heart out, Shigeru Miyamoto quick pause on
the episode have you felt that life is too crazy
(08:45):
busy that the tabletop role playing games you've always wanted to learn
and play are passing you by? The
Claim to Game Podcast has one mission,
helping busy people Master tabletop role playing Games
one Game at a Time. If you are enjoying what
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with others. Share it with at least one other person
(09:06):
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the show once you finish listening today. Thanks.
And now back to the episode to begin the Game. Just like
the Goblin Quest core rules, when you choose to act, you will
(09:26):
roll dice, and in this case, you get two dice to
roll. Then you interpret the results of each
dice against the table on page 100. If
you use your superpower during your action, you can
roll four dice at the same Time, and as before, you
will interpret the result of each dice against the table
on page 100. Every dice counts
(09:46):
individually. If your characters don't have
superpowers per se, like Batman doesn't have a superpower
power, but he has a lot of gadgets and the ability to kick some
ass, then you roll whenever the characters
on your superheroes team do their thing,
whatever that is. For the Super Mario brothers, their
thing is doing a super jump to get super
high more ways than 01:00 a.m. i,
(10:09):
right? Or to get really high to pounce
down on the skulls of their enemies. Don't forget,
they will be rolling against the dangerously
incompetent column on the table,
page 100 because they got the shrooms,
man. Once per scene, you can
team up with another member of your team to get
a reroll of your dice, and you just do this by
(10:31):
narratively explaining how the team up
helped you divert disaster. Of course, you might
roll just as poorly the second time, but hey, it's
worth a shrew. I mean, worth a shot. And if you
have no other heroes left in action on your team
except for your current Hero, then you're allowed to either
do a flashback when one of your teammates was still in the action
(10:51):
and taught you your current Hero, something useful to
overcome the sitch. Or another option would be to team
up with another player superhero character that is still
in action. That works too.
All right. I promised I would talk about setbacks, and
here we are. Promise kept.
Setbacks will determine the stability of each
situation. Every important scene has something
(11:14):
that's going to go wrong unless you fix it fast. The
GM will decide what that something wrong is.
The setbacks you incur through your dice rolls will
make it worse. On the competency table
on page 100, if your team is dangerous, you
incur a setback if you roll a one. If your team
is simply incompetent, you incur a setback
(11:34):
if you roll a six, and if your team is
dangerously incompetent, like the Super Barrio Bro
seals, then you incur a setback if you roll
a one or a six. When a character
gets a setback, the player should describe how they
made things worse in an attempt to solve the problem
and subtract one from the scenes. Stability
(11:55):
for each dice rolled that incurs a
setback. The lower the stability rating the scene
has, the more likely something will go wrong. A,
stability level of one means that the scene is
seconds away from disaster. It's a cluster.
A stability level of eight means things are
reasonably calmer, and the GM will set up all the
scenes and will determine each scene's difficult rating based on
(12:18):
the table on page 102, as well as the
stability level of the scene based on the table on
page 103. We will cover the doctor in a
moment, but let's meander through the scene.
Stability table on page 103. The table
has three sections. The first level of stability
on the table is two, which means really
risky. Shit will likely hit the fan, both literally
(12:40):
and proverbally. Four is, "The next
level, and that means kinda risky. Something could
go wrong, but maybe it won't. And the final
level is eight. It is stable,
kinda safe. Maybe you can choose
stability numbers between one through eight, but the
two four eight benchmarks are guides for the GM
(13:01):
as they assign the appropriate level of stability
to the scenes they create before the Game begins.
For each scene, the GM will also
decide what is unstable
narratively to match the stability level that they
set for the scene. An example may be that the Super
Mario brothers seals are at the farmer's market in a
swanky Brooklyn, New York neighborhood. An
(13:22):
argument breaks out among one of the art vendors, whose potential
customer has become aggressive and is
shouting that the vendor is unfair and
crooked. I would set this maybe at a six, not
calm. The world's not ending and there's no violence
that's occurred yet. Now, a fun twist to the
stability level is that the GM doesn't have to tell the
players what the stability level is for the scene. I
(13:45):
assume the aggressive customer above was no more than a
jaded art connoisseur, but let's
backpedal and let's say that the individual is actually
Krebtor, an up. And coming common
criminal who happens to have the super ability of sonic
sound. The stability could escalate
quickly within the scene. In this case, maybe the six
(14:05):
would instead be a four, which, according to the table,
is kinda risky. The standard fit for most
scenes during this hack, not allowing the players
to know right away, gives way to the element
of discovery as the story plays out. So
what happens. If a scene's stability level reaches zero
through the sheer bad fortune of the players rolling
(14:26):
to get enough setbacks during their dice rolls?
The first thing that should happen is, "The GM should describe
in the story what bad thing is about to occur.
Second, if you cleared the scene by hitting zero on
the stability level at the same time as getting the
appropriate number of victories needed to move on in the scene
to the next scene, you still succeed,
but not in the way that you wanted. And if
(14:49):
appropriate, on a failed scene, each active team member
should roll one D20, six and half that number
rounded up. All active characters being
played by players in the scene receive that number of
injuries and check off those number of boxes on
their character sheet. In regards to injury and
death, Grant Howitt made a very good point.
Superheroes rarely die. Instead, when you check
(15:12):
off all their injury boxes, think of another appropriate way
to take them out of action. Some examples could be that
they're kidnapped, they're trapped, they're knocked out, they're
lost, et cetera. Whatever you choose, that
character is out of the Game once all those
injury boxes are checked off.
Now, there is a dedicated section for GM
tips, and for neither super near heroic it is
(15:33):
revealed, and I'm not sure why I never figured this out,
probably because Mathy is not my main jam, but it's
revealed that on page 102 103 that
typically Goblin Quest allots
nine victories per player before the Game
finishes. So let that be your guide
as to how many victories you should allot between
scenes. You can go higher than nine per player for
(15:56):
a longer Game, or lower than nine per player
for a shorter game. If the players seem to be getting too
bored and they are achieving success too easily, you
can lay on more victories that are needed to clear that
scene, or the following scene. If the players seem
to be getting too discouraged and everything's taking too long,
you can lower the number of victories needed for the scene to
(16:16):
help them move along. And if you're a purist,
feeling like this feels too much like breaking the rules.
Keep your predetermined victories as is and let them
deal with it. It's up to you. The difficulty
rating table on page 102 gives a great
description of the doctor ranges and how
long or in depth each scene will be based on the number
(16:36):
of victories that are needed to pass the scene.
If your players need one to three victories
to pass a scene, it's a short scene. unimportant
tasks or breaks in the pace would be used with
a one through three. Four through six is
a meaty scene and most scenes will fall in here to
help develop main events and plots. And
(16:57):
lastly, and this will be used sparingly. Eight to
nine is epic. It's never necessary to
make an epic scene in any Game, but this could
be awesome for a final showdown feel
and make it very difficult for them to overcome the
big bad evil guy. I'm not sure
why the table left out the number seven, but I'm
guessing that would also be in the epic level. Pushing
(17:20):
the difficulty. Now, using the previous
example of the normal aggressive customer, that
might be a one through three short scene
and it's on its way to bigger problems.
However, if the aggressive customer is actually
the up. And coming criminal Krebs door with
supersonic sound, then we're probably looking at a
scene that's more of a four to a six.
(17:42):
Grant talks about an awesome concept
on page 103 and I love this concept. It's
about falling forward. When players fail,
the story doesn't have to stop, it can just change
directions. Think of it like a branch on a
tree. You were moving towards one branch that was
branching off of your main flow and then you just went
in a different direction. And this is all based on the dice flow and
(18:05):
the choices of the characters. Players will fail
in neither super nor heroic, and its encouraged
to make true failure impossible.
The Game goes on and instead of failure
blocking success, think of the story as the
branch failing. The desired outcome instead
results in an alternative reality which allows the
narrative circle to get completed
(18:27):
regardless of whether its what they were hoping to do.
An example for my heroes may be that the
influential, charismatic political figure
Governor Peach was kidnapped, ransomed by
the mafia crime boss, Mister Bowser. What
happens. If the infiltration of the crime boss's
lair results in the governor being taken deep
underground without any hope of being recovered.
(18:50):
What do the heroes do next? Now, this
doesn't mean to keep playing the Game until Peach is
recovered. No. That reality might be
lost, but keep playing until the scenes are
played through to an ending that is complete.
Matt Forbeck is a writer and Game designer
who's worked on the Marvel superheroes multiverse Role
(19:10):
Playing Game. He also happened to send
in adventure ideas to Grant to be added to this
book. And one of my favorite storylines with
Marvel superheroes is, "The Marvel Civil
War. Here's the premise. The government wants to
install a system of accountability since the
superheroes cause so much collateral damage when fighting the bad
guys. Captain America is against this
(19:33):
idea, and he believes superheroes should be free to defend
humanity without government interference.
Ironsworn Man. Tony Stark, on the other hand, he
agrees with the system of accountability. And this splits the
Marvel superheroes in half. And some of the heroes are
supporting the captain and others are supporting Ironsworn
Man. I was so giddy back in 2012 when
(19:53):
I got to live out this storyline playing the Xbox 360
Game. Marvel Ultimate alliance two.
My favorite adventure idea sent in by Matt.
Here is a hat tip to this Marvel
storyline with the following caveat. Here it is.
Secret civil war. The biggest
heroes in the World have disappeared, and you are
convinced it is so that they can finally duke it out over
(20:15):
which team is, "The best. Your invitation
must have gotten trapped in your spam filter, but you are
determined to join in just as soon as
you can figure out where everybody is. This
scenario sounds like a party. And even though
your characters are not invited to the
party, it's time to crash that party with the
secret civil war. Alright, final
(20:37):
thoughts. This hack is a great opportunity to
turn the superhero trope on its head. So get
ready to fumble, get ready to bumble, and get
ready to be neither super nor heroic.
Join us next Time as we continue our Quest claiming
Goblin Quest with five rules.
Hacks down. We've got two more hacks to go, and
our next one is Space interns. It
(21:00):
pays homage to the reality that most of the
security officers wearing Red shirts in Starforged Trek
beaming down to the planet's surface with the main
characters. They don't usually beam back up to the
ship by the end of the episode. And it is not because
they decided to start a new, hope filled life on a
strange new planet. No, no, no. It's because
they always die. Have
(21:22):
you been listening to the first season of the CTG and do
not yet have your very own copy of Goblin Quest,
the RPG? Picture yourself pretending to
be gross, grotty little buggers on your next Game night with
your closest friends. Laughs,
goofs and goblins don't wait. Click on the
link in the show notes you don't like goblins.
Enjoy seven different Goblin Quest setting hacks in the
(21:45):
back of the core rulebook. Its almost like getting eight
Games for the price of one. Enjoy your copy of
Goblin Quest the RPG today. And
until the next time we make our claim to Game one
Game at a Time.
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