Goblin Market Kickstarter Update #9. Playtest results introduce a new way to play as well as examining exactly what humanity means. Also, new micro-game by me!
Player: Ugh, I rolled another one.
Escort: Right on. *rolling* You are being told to deal with a springjack sighting in the Foggy Bottoms district. This now makes three additional scenes you need to complete before the Tootle Pip strikes thirteen. All together everyone has HOW many extra scenes and we are in the *checks notes* SECOND city phase?! This game will never end…
On paper even the greatest architecture will reveal flaws once rendered into reality. Role-playing games are no different. Once my players began to pull and prod at every nuanced ruling, they caused the edifice that is Goblin Market to sway under their critiques.
But it never collapsed or even hinted at falling apart. The foundation is incredibly solid. Traditional role-players quickly found the rhythm of creating the scenes themselves for the first time. The power of deciding the direction of the storyline and what scenes to delve into came naturally. What’s better, it was fun. Like, really fun!
Play halted in a chorus of ‘woahs’!
Deciding what is over the line is best discussed before the game.
The only problem with having that much fun was the three hours we had set aside to play only got us 1/6th of the way through an adventure. I know part of it was walking through a new system and everyone had a bunch of questions but it was a red flag. Kind of. I think I’m willing to live with this issue if it means folks are having a ball (more on that later). It did, however, spark a couple ideas including a new way to play…
Here’s what we discovered:
- Blunders (rolling a 1) happened waaaaay more than anticipated. I’ve done the math, I understand statistics. I did not take into consideration how many times some folks were going to roll 3 bones. Easy fix; during Market Scenes blunders don’t assign a new debt (totally new scene). The players accrue ‘burdens’. An action the player MUST do during the next City Scene or become cursed. This does two things 1) encourages more roleplaying 2) keeps debts from spiraling out of control. The game is about doing the bidding of the Empress, not the market booths!
- I still really like the Debt system so I just moved that down to a disastrous result when rolling during Market Scenes.
- Added a gambling action to the Market Scenes. This helped emphasize and bolster the economy of fairy folk.
- In the unlikely event a scene leader (now known as the Ringleader) is unable to complete the scene goal (success doesn’t matter, it just CAN’T be done) no big deal. The scene doesn’t just keep going forever. The escort cuts it short and awards a fortune for trying something. (good roleplaying opportunities here too!)
- We didn’t even play with Jinx. We discovered that the players already had a wide range of choices to keep themselves occupied.
- The most divisive ruleset was the Humanity scale. As a way to complete a task the ringleader also planted a seed to finish another task. A genuinely inspired role-playing and problem solving moment. However, the solution was to corrupt the task target into the springjack killer. Play halted in a chorus of ‘woahs’!
After a lengthy conversation we decided the Humanity Scale mechanic was good. But it was too vague and menacing as a good to evil scale. Instead, we adjusted it to law to chaos. Now I will write out more concrete Fairy Accords and Mortal Laws for players to break or uphold to move up and down the range. That being said, each play group is going to be different, and the subject matter should be decided ahead of time. The darker side of the mirror can create compelling role-playing opportunities for those that wish to explore it.
- It was pointed out Frailties didn’t play that big of a role in the game and were rarely referenced. The players also wanted more direction of how to act. Which led to…
- The Goblin Market Game Play Accords! Basically there will be snippets sprinkled throughout explaining not necessarily alternate rules but bonus rules to play. For instance, a blunder also triggers a Frailty, roll on table and cross reference with Humanity. It can range from having to say your Aspects ‘catch phrase’ [Cat aspect character must say the word ‘meow’ constantly] to having to spend fortune on your Frailty’s vice.
The most awe-inspiring mechanic to test next session is limiting City Scenes to 20 minutes. Going over the time limit physically moves the clock forward an extra wind. However, players may choose to spend a fortune to expand (or contract) the allotted time. Thus, reinforcing the central theme of the Tootle Pip!
I have at least two more sessions planned out to navigate these updates. I’m super excited about testing out the updated Frailties and real time Tootle Pip! But the more mundane changes are going to help smooth out an already pretty slick system. While not everything went as planned it helped focus writing in weaker areas and expanded previously unexplored options. I hope everyone is excited about this project as I am!
A New Micro-Game by Me!
I have found that working on two or more ventures keeps my creative juices flowing. That being said, the closer I get to finishing Goblin Market the less time I want to give to other projects. This one one was special. It was a riff on something I had already made. Just smaller. About the size of a bookmark!
Read It and Weep is the core system for another game I made called Creators of Myth (find the full description here). The central idea is to tell a shared story using the same hero figure. The players interject villains, love interests, and various challenges to the current narrator. Because the challenge of the game jam was to fit all the rules on a bookmark, I scrapped everything but the conflict rules and an extremely simplified win condition.
Check it out on Itch here and get it for free in the next two weeks!