itch.io

I'm really excited to give this a try!

[Edit] I've played this several times now, and it has solidly become my favorite TTRPG.

How is this game different from Inspirisles?

Sounds cool!  Will this be uploaded to drivethrurpg?  I have purchased it there, but it doesn't look like it's got the newest version.

Got it, thanks!

Thanks!

I guess I was too impatient...

I'm excited about your game!

A couple of days ago, I saw the old kickstarter for this game, which links to Gamefound, and I decided to support it. 

But I haven't received anything through Gamefound. 

Later, I found this on itch.io, and I realize maybe I should have paid through here.  What should I do?

I'm going to chime in with some advice. I've run some games of Goblinville, and I've run lots of other types of RPGs, too. Goblinville combat turned out to be tricky for me to grasp in certain ways, so I hope I can help.

Try to avoid setting up scenes or adventures about combat. The goblins are not setting out on missions of destruction. This game doesn't work well with that premise. The goblins set out to find things or people that will improve their life in town. Focus on that. With that in mind, I always give the players alternatives to dealing damage to the enemies, and I try to keep pushing creative ideas. The players pick up on it, and they start thinking of creative ideas after you lead by example.

First, give the goblins a way to interact with the enemies in order to improve their position. Let them push a skeleton to the ground, jump onto a table for higher ground, move into a narrow space between furniture or pillars that a larger creature has trouble moving in, or all the goblins scatter to cause confusion among the enemy. Try to think of environmental details you can incorporate into offering an idea of how the goblins can do fun things besides attack.

Second, give the goblins a way to make progress without fighting, and assume they won't be able to defeat enemies if they fight directly. Describe a door near the enemies, and tell them straight up that they can make a dash for the door. Give them ways to trap enemies, or cut them off from the goblins. Give them people to bargain with. Give them ways to sneak around. Give them ways to learn about the enemy ahead of time, to find a weakness. Offer a way out.

Third, when the goblins take opportunities to improve position or try to get out, use indirect dangers in response. Think in the reverse of the first two recommendations. If the goblins try to find a better position, have the danger be that the enemies cut off their escape. If the goblins try to escape, have the danger be that the enemies maneuver to be a greater threat, or they set up some trap that the goblins will have to contend with when they return to the room later. Again, try to find ways of incorporating the environment into the enemies building some sort of advantage.

Last, try to form a sequence of dangers. I love to use one danger to tell the players what bad thing is going to happen. If they stick around, then the next danger is something much worse. For example, if someone tries to jump onto a table to get into a better position, describe the danger as "the necromancer starts muttering a curse and pointing at you as you jump on the table, and the danger is that they'll target you with a magic spell." If they take the danger, the next danger can be suffering some effect from the spell, and probably harm, too.

Thanks for all the help. I ran the same adventure again, but this time for a different group. When I got to the crows, I did as you suggested, turning them into something to deal with immediately. I had the crows get up in their business and told them if they ignored the crows it would put them in a bad position, then asked what the first goblin what they wanted to do. On their action, I made the danger be that they would panic from the crows.

It worked great. It didn't change the tone, really, but the rules felt more fair to everyone, and it still made the crows take roughly the same amount of real time to deal with.

Thanks for making this game!

Here's one example I remember: The goblins were tasked with entering an orc camp that had previously been raided and pillaged by human adventurers. The goblins were to find any leftover treasure and bring it home. A palisade of wooden spears surrounded the camp, which I used as a barrier to get inside and as something for a Shrike Fly to impale goblins on (cool monster design, btw!).

Upon defeating the barrier, the goblins entered the camp to find a bunch of dead orcs being picked over by a murder of crows. I wanted to have the crows be disturbed by the goblins entering, and have a chance for them to fly up and swarm the goblins, cawing at them, and then flying away. I didn't want a full encounter with crows, I only wanted the goblins to have a chance to panic. It felt like a danger just for entering the area, which in hindsight maybe is an unfair situation to begin with? I didn't want to just declare they panic, either, so it felt like a danger roll without any action.

Do you think a grim favor roll would work here?  Perhaps 1-2 means they panic, and a 6 means they get to be put into a good position somehow? Or do you think it sounds like an unfair situation to have something happen here before they have a chance to take an action in the area?

Thanks! That's how my first reading went, but then I second guessed myself as I was preparing to play.

Our first game went pretty well. We all loved the system, but we missed some stuff (as tends to happen with first time plays...). One thing that came up was that sometimes goblins would want to do something that would definitely succeed, but a danger seemed to be involved. I didn't know how to handle that, because it didn't seem right to have a danger roll without an action roll. In hindsight, I think these should have ended up being grim favor rolls. Any advice for situations like that?

I'm about to run my first game, and one part of the rules confuses me. If a player introduces a Twist in order to help another goblin's Action, does the helping player take their Action Die off of the initiative track for the roll?  Or is the Twist represented by the general dice?

It seems like this has a big impact on how much help the goblins can give per turn, because helping would take their action for the turn.

I'm assuming you've found the difference between Harm and Damage?  Page 35 of the preview explains it.

As far as I can tell, there are no rules for what happens when Damage is dealt to individual people (such as a ship firing Lasers to hit one of the characters standing on the ground).  I've made a rule in my game that weapons such as these deal Harm equal to Damage+2.  However, I also always assume that these weapons don't score direct hits against an individual, since a person is so much smaller than a ship.  If there came a situation where the fiction called for the character to suffer a direct hit, I'd say the character dies, as in Death in the Void on page 37 of the preview.

The handout character sheets seem to have the older universal moves, such as Interrupt, Acquire Target, and Assist.  (The ones listed under the Approaches)

Thank you so much!  This is exactly what I needed to understand.  I had suggested using Lean On Me during the discussion at the table, but I think the player was attached to the idea of using +Calculating because it gave him better odds and fit his character concept.  However, I hadn't considered the ability to choose 1 more or less option in the Lean On Me result, and I think pitching that to him would have helped.

The group at large is still a bit confused about Share Expertise as a general move.  Can you give an example where a player might want to use it?  Is it always used to establish something new in the fiction?  My players have been using Scope It Out to ask me questions that I haven't already answered, but Share Expertise says the player should ask me a question.  Since Scope It Out and Share Expertise are both roll+Calculating and both about asking questions, when should each apply?

I'm multiple sessions into playing/running Impulse Drive with a group, and we all love it.  We've run into difficulty with the Share Expertise move, particularly for the player with the Intellect playbook who frequently wants to use "Expert".

Here's an example: The group got into a secure building in search of information.  The group knows the information they seek is likely to be stored in a locked computer terminal, so once they get to the terminal, the Infiltrator declares he wants to Hack into the system to look for the information.  We decide the stakes are that a failed Hacking and Cracking roll would mean that they cannot get the information here, and they'll have to try to find the information somewhere else.  

The Intellect interrupts and says that he is an Expert in "programming, artificial intelligence, and cyberspace" and we all agree that his expertise should apply here.  He wants to help the Infiltrator gain Advantage to his roll to Hacking and Cracking.  We all think this makes sense, but we can't figure out how to run it mechanically.

"Expert" says he needs to make a move to enable it, then also mentions "you share your expertise with a crew member... for advantage" which the player took to mean he should be using the "Share Expertise" move as the trigger for Expert.  We all got into a discussion about how this should work, and none of us came to a satisfying mechanical approach.  In the end, I allowed him to roll+Calculating to give Advantage, but we agreed that this probably isn't the intended use.

My questions are: How does "Share Expertise" work?  How does "Expert" work?  What should we have done differently to explain this situation in a way that interacts with the moves more effectively?