“...Another Day Older And Slugmen Attack” [DCC RPG Funnel]

Being a History of The Adventure of Goblins Enslaved To Work An Abandoned Salt Mine

“A half-moon ago, the big hairy mans attacked your home and deaded your friends and made you go to the salty place and do the hardwork. They chained you to each other and said "cut-the-salt-and-bring-it-out" and were bad, bad-bad so you cut the salt and stayed in the cave and be scared.

To-day there were so many more big hairy mans outside the cave and it was scary when they said "go-in-the-sun-and-load-wagons-stupid" but you did it all day and there was still more salt so night came and you still loading up salt with goblin friends, all sore.

Then! The mans stop everything and act real scared then, at night, and there were arrows that hit everywhere from the dark where they can't see but we can and oh-no! it's not more goblin friends coming to save you it's angry slugmans!! they don't want hairy mans to have all the salt that hurts them so much! So you grab what you can and run back into the cave all chained up and want to get away home while the mans and slugmans kill on each other outside!”

Rules Modifications for Goblins

Each player controls a gang of four chained-together goblins trying to get away from human slavers and angry slugmen by hiding out in or finding a route out of the depths of a previously-abandoned salt mine.

Rules are a very bare-bones version of DCC RPG for zero-level play; the Judge is happy to help new players. You're gonna lose a few goblins but they won't take it personally. No need to generate characters yourselves.

In many ways, Goblins are like human children: mean, kinda stupid, short, fearful, and annoying. In others, they are slightly different: they can see in the dark pretty well, don't bleed and have insides like wet Wonder Bread. While often panicky, they are much more accepting of physical injury and death than other races.

Goblins don't use Hit Points. Wounds doing less than 4 points of damage have a small chance of killing a Healthy goblin, but usually just replace their Healthy skill with a Wounded skill. Those same minor wounds dealt to a Wounded goblin have a small chance of leaving them Wounded instead of killing them. Wounds doing 4 or more damage are much more likely to kill goblins outright.

Wounds cause them to either die or lose the Healthy skill and replace it with the Wounded skill, depending on severity. Wounded goblins taking additional wounds may either die or remain Wounded, depending on the severity of the wounds.

Goblins have a 1d14 Action Die for unskilled actions and start with only two skills: Goblin(+1) and Healthy(+1). Healthy applies at any tasks "being healthy" would assist in, which is most of them. Goblin applies when doing something characteristically Goblin: hiding, sneaking, lying, executing a poorly thought-out plan, running away. When attempting a task, add up the numbers for all applicable skills and apply that bonus/malus to the Dice Chain and the final result. A healthy goblin wrestling a slaver could apply Healthy(+1) and roll attacks at 1d16+1. Fighting slavers in a goblin-y way, like rushing at their shins to trip them off a cliff, would allow Healthy(+1) and Goblin(+1) to both apply, attacking with 1d20+2. 

Each goblin gains two additional skills in play at two different times: the first time they succeed at a task and the first time they fail at one. When a player's goblin hits one of these milestones, the player decides why the goblin succeeded or failed and adds that as a skill. Successful tasks can give skills like Quick(+1) or Iron Stomach(+1), while failures might give Sleepy(-1) or Stupid(-1). The player should name each Goblin only after it gets one of these positive or negative skills. Until the goblin gets the opposite result on a roll using one of these skills, increase the number associated with the skill. 

Example: a goblin dodges a blast of rock salt and its player decides it was because this goblin is Quick(+1) and names the goblin "Bune" which is how the goblin thinks "bunny" is spelled. Bune then tries to run to a moving mine cart and leap into it, and gets to roll 1d16+1 thanks to being Quick. Success! Bune now has Quick(+2). Later, Bune makes a dive into a niche in the cavern wall to avoid a rockfall, rolling 1d20+2 (for Quick(+3)) but fails. Further uses of Quick will not change the associated value. This happens to be the first failed roll for Bune, and the player decides that Bune didn't fit because he has a Beer Gut(-1).

As play begins, each player decides which area just outside the mine their goblins happened to be standing around in as the arrows started flying, which determines what starting equipment the goblins grab, if any. They can linger a few rounds for more attempts at grabbing things, risking dangerous interactions with angry men and angrier slugmen, but eventually retreat into the mine.

How To Join

Play can start with as little as 4 players, but I'm allowing a max of 6.

The Author is running this adventure multiple times on Discord (for voice and video) and Roll20 (for sheets, dice, and scene-setting). You can join the adventure session on Roll20 here or leave a comment below if you'd like to play another time.