2003 June 4
Goblins character creation
This is an administrativa post for those who will be playing in my Goblins campaign. (If you aren't in, but think it sounds like fun, let me know -- there's room for more players.)
The world of Goblins is England of 1830, with all the humans edited out and replaced with goblins. Think of it as Dickens, reinterpreted by Terry Gilliam. The following is a summary of the rules I'm going to use for character creation.
The character creation system in Goblins involves a lot of dice-rolling for random mistreatment and bookkeeping to work out arm length and so on. This is both kind of tedious, and tends to end up with mishmash characters, so I'm going to go with a scheme more like standard GURPS.
The standard character creation rules are available here: GURPS Lite PDF. Don't worry too much about the play rules, which I'll probably fudge as we go along anyway, and if there's an advantage or a skill you want that isn't in there, like Read People, just write it down Unknown Armies-style and we can work out later how much it should cost.
For this Goblins campaign, use the following mods:
- Characters start with 40 points, but no limit on the disadvantages you can take.
- For starters, you should take Social Status -3 (-30 pts) and Dead Broke (-25 pts). Alcoholism (-15 pts) is also recommended.
- You are required to have at least one phobia. Delusions are also quite appropriate, goblins' flame of optimism often being stronger than the frying pan of Reality.
- In this setting, all characters are assumed to be illiterate unless they have taken the Literacy advantage (10 pts).
Mistreatment. "When born, all goblins are exactly the same -- stubby, cute, round mannikins. For this reason they are not given names until the age of six; before this, they are all known as Prole. The period up to the age of six is known as preschool, and because of notably high levels of Prole resilience, malleability and abuse, it is a period of great physical change and development in young goblins, resulting in individuality." Goblins are universally appalling parents, in no small part because proles are almost unkillable. Give some thought to what kinds of abuse your young prole went through, and what deformations and abilities your adult goblin has therefore ended up with. (The standard rules involve rolling six times (once per year) on a table of random mistreatments. Take these as examples.)
Form factor. Because of the malleability of Proles, adult goblins come in an extraordinary array of shapes and sizes. The tallest goblin in London is Mr Zion Rheese-Jones of Covent Garden, 12'4" tall, weighing 530 lbs (in childhood he lived in a laundry and was frequently hung from the line by the hair, to scare away birds). The shortest goblin is Mr Ahab Godwilling of Whitefriars, who is just 18 inches tall, weighing 8 lbs. It is not unusual to encounter a goblin with arms longer than his torso and legs put together; sometimes these will even walk on their palms with their feet dangling. Skin colour ranges from fishbelly white (for those who grew up locked in a cellar) to fiery red (for those habitually boiled clean with the laundry). Proles are sometimes raised to systematically encourage certain features: for example, the regiment of the King's Dragoon Guards are all virtually identical.
Goblin features are, however, at least confined to those possessed by a standard humanoid -- all have (or at least started out with) two eyes, ears, one nose, one mouth, and so on; no goblins have wings, tails, horns or suchlike.
Feel free to decide how you want your goblin to look, then work backward to justify why he or she looks that way.
Education. A variety of charity, private, and dame schools exist to give disadvantaged goblins a leg up in life. They are worth approximately what you pay for them. ("Public schools" -- Eton and Rugby and so on -- also exist, and serve the purpose of keeping the offspring of the upper classes out of the way until their parents are no longer legally responsible for them.)
Apprenticeships. Fashionable apprenticeships include barber/surgeon, burglar, choirboy, dustman, military ("it's a tough life in the service of King George, but you look very suave and get to hit people as well"), pickpocket, pirate/sailor, prostitute, rat-catcher. Less fashionable ones include clerk, chimney sweep, coster/merchant, gypsy, dredger/purl-man, factory worker, mud lark, patterer, servant, sewer hunter, street entertainer, street finder, and tradesman (of all types).
Regrettably, despite your great skill and training, there are no jobs and you find yourself camping on the floor of an unfurnished low lodging house in Whitefriars, four to a room.
Starting Possessions. If you are starting out Dead Broke, as recommended, you have:
- A shiny new sixpence;
- 8p worth of clothing;
- Rent paid for the next month for your 25 sq ft of well-polished floor;
- Half a small pork pie, left over from last night; and
- A consuming thirst.
Still, it's not as bad as all that. Summer is coming, and any day it might stop raining.
Updated 6/5: Added comment on Delusion; list of starting possessions.
