Goblyn Market

Welcome to Goblyn Market! A role-playing game for two to six players and one Escort who will act as the game guide. The players take on the role of goblyns being sent out into a fictionalized Victorian Era city to pay off debts assigned to them by the Coterie of the Moon.

Their tasks will range from tempting mortals down the path of sin, destroying great artefacts of machinery, or manufacturing prophecies. The players must negotiate being discovered by mortal and wyrdling enemies. To make things more difficult, they must complete the tasks under both real and game time limits!

The characters aren’t completely isolated or helpless. Every round they can gain favours from the goblyn market in the form of fey items, secrets, or dice affecting magics called Fortune. They are also armed with spell-like abilities and animal instincts. It is up to the players to work together in a world steeped in curses, fairy tale creatures, and mortal morality tales to cultivate a safe haven for all of goblyn kind.

Goblyn Market uses the newly minted All4Two mechanics and the Scene Builder game play system.

What is it Like?

Goblyn Market is a shared story telling game between the players and the Escort. The Escort has background information, knows the end goal and sets the beginning stage for action. The in between is a vast swath of unregulated shared storytelling confined only by the time limit of 5 minutes per player.

If playing Call of Cthulhu is like Sherlock Holmes and Brindlewood Bay is like Murder She Wrote, then Goblin Market is the spiritual successor to Columbo. The gameplay is similar to the Carved from Brindlewood system, the difference is there are known plot points.

Inspiration came from all different media types:

• Goblin Market, Poem
• Carnival Row, TV Show
• Pride Prejudice and Zombies, Book
• Labyrinth (from the Goblin King’s POV), Movie
• Penny Dreadful, TV Show
• This playlist on Spotify!

The All4Two System

The All4Two system doesn’t use regular dice. But, any object (called bones) with an even number of sides that can be marked 0 or 1 equally will work. Each player will rarely need more than five or six bones to roll (or flip!) at a time.

To promote the chaotic nature of goblins it is encouraged to use many different objects. No matter how many bones you roll the only numerical totals you will use are 0, 1, and 2. The 2 doesn’t JUST represent the number 2. It stands for every number that is 2 or higher. The art of counting is largely lost on goblinfolk. Below are the three possible results:

• 2= Success
• 1= Blunder
• 0= Disaster

Example: Player A rolls 6 bones. (6B for shorthand) They total 5. However, the result translates to 2. Success! Just the same if the player had rolled a total of 2, 4, or 100. It is the same success. No success is greater than another so no need to count higher than 2.

Success means the player achieves the stated goal. Some goals are required in chosen scenes while others are player driven.

Blunder means the player mostly achieved their goal but also earned some sort of drawback. Most likely a curse!

Disaster means the player failed…spectacularly. Not only do they fail the stated goal but they alter the storyline in a spectacular way.

Most scenes or checks will give concrete rewards or punishments but the game guide is encouraged to add their own roleplaying hooks.

The Scene Builder System

The Scene Builder System is a streamlined way to contain action into manageable shorter scenes in order to tell a longer shared story within one session. The ‘lead’ player chooses a reasonable end goal, picks a location from the ones provided, and then each other player dresses the scene with additional objects, characters, or descriptions. Play begins with the player to the left of the lead character.

The scene ends when either the Escort or the players feel they have come to a natural conclusion to the scene. Dice are then rolled to discover if what the players described is exactly what happened. It is up to the Escort to read the bones and interpret the character’s fates! Goblyn Market adds another difficulty of a physical timer of five minutes per player.

Here’s how it looks:

1. Squabble – choose the lead player
2. Set the Scene
   1. Choose Debt
   2. Set Goal
   3. Choose Location
3. Dress the Scene
4. Act out the scene
   1. Start the Tootle Pip
   2. Begin action with player to the left of the ringleader
   3. Continue clockwise
5. End scene