OSSR: GURPS Goblins

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angelfromanotherpin
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OSSR: GURPS Goblins

Post by angelfromanotherpin »

GURPS Goblins

Not these guys.
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Not these guys.
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Not these guys.
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Not these guys.
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These guys.
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Goblins was a role-playing game put out by a tiny publishing house in New Zealand sometime in the mid-late 80s. The idea was borne out of a classic RPG dilemma: how does ordinary society cope with murder-hobos? The Shire-like pastoral villages commonly presented were basically destroyed on contact when PCs did... like PCs do.

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The proposed answer was a society where everyone was a murder-hobo. And the go-to source was a book about the lower classes in 19th-Century London. (You can read it here if you really want to.) In '96, the game was snatched up by SJ Games for a GURPS treatment.

The result:

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Next up: Contents and Introduction.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Contents

One thing that stands out by the time you get to page 2 is that this book, unlike most of the 3e GURPS sourcebooks, is in full color. Mostly that seems to be to show off the marvelously grotesque art, which does a really good job of setting the mood. Running along the bottom of each page is a sepia-toned city skyline, and pictures of the twisted, lumpy eponymous creatures in every shape, size, and profession pepper the pages.

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I'm just going to list the chapter titles here. They do a pretty good job of foreshadowing the book.

1. GOBLINS!
2. THE WORLD
3. PUNISHMENT AND THE LAW
4. STATUS
5. CHARACTERS
6. SUPERSTITION AND THE DEVIL
7. FIGHTING AND DRINKING
8. DISEASE
9. DIRECTING THE GAME
10. ADVENTURES


Introduction

It is challenging to introduce the book better than it does itself.
A roleplaying game usually sends characters on an exploration, in which they seek elusive treasure through uncharted jungles, ruins and dungeons, overcoming obstacles and whacking monsters with magic or astounding technology.

Such things are sadly rare in this game. Goblins is set in a city, where every square inch has been trod by one and a half million pairs of feet, and all obstacles are marked on a handy street map. The ruins and dungeons are far from uncharted – the only creature who never explores them is the landlord who rents them out. The magic is dubious. The technology isn't astounding.

There are, however, plenty of monsters, in every conceivable shape and size. They live in the characters' houses; eat their food; buy groceries at the same market. Many of them are relatives. The characters of GURPS Goblins roam well-worn, familiar streets in a sea of unwashed, diseased rogues and villains. The characters are unwashed, diseased rogues and villains. They seek the same elusive treasures that all do – gin, glory, and bags of money.
But in addition to setting up the low-cunning/low-comedy expectations, the introduction also lays out some of its actual design philosophies: dying is rare but disability is not; the general goal is to gain security by social position faster than you degenerate by disease, age, and maiming; fights are lost more to fear than to injury, and so on. More than just flavor text, these are things that help the reader to grasp the game that's being presented.


Next up: GOBLINS!
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Post by rasmuswagner »

I have run this and it was glorious.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Goblins!

This is a very short chapter about what these goblins are like, and biologically speaking, they are very strange. Way stranger than most of your fantasy oddities. It's also clear that close to zero science-fictional thinking has gone into how their biology would shape their society, because their society is (mostly) early 19th-Century human society – the focus is on London, but there are totally goblins from other places – and the chances that anything as unlike humans as these goblins would produce such a recognizable society is... vanishingly small. It's a setting conceit, don't think about it too hard.

Point one is that goblins are born very generic, but individually adapt to the stresses of their environment for about the first six years of their life, becoming large or small or long-armed or crazy toothy or whatever until their bodies lose plasticity. 'Very few have hooves, tusks, fur of any valuable quality, or retractable claws. No goblin has wings or gills or a tail.' That's why they don't really look at all alike, except in vaguely humanoid body arrangement. As far as I can tell, they mostly look like British political cartoons.

Point two is that goblins (somehow) choose which sex to express at age 14. I'll get back to that in a moment.

The authorial intent of the first two points was to remove issues of racism or sexism from the society. Now, you might be thinking: '19th-Century Britain without racism or sexism? What's even left?' Don't worry, there's plenty of dreadful unpleasantness left to explore. It's just that now you understand that no matter what incredible assholes the goblins are, they are still less assholish than history. I suppose that could be comforting.

Point three is that despite goblins having two sexes, they reproduce asexually (which is why all goblins are born the same). Female goblins have a chance to become pregnant any time they are sufficiently aroused (a spicy novel can get them there), and male goblins contribute nothing except a potential vector for that arousal. The only contraceptive practice is boring sex. Insert all-British-sex-is-boring joke here.

On a related note, most goblin children (who, being undistinguished, are all named Prole) are kicked out of the house as soon as they're mobile, and then exploited by whoever comes across them in whatever manner seems convenient. Because there's no heredity, there's no parental bond. Even noble lineages come from nobles picking a fresh Prole at random and then subjecting them to as close to the same stresses as the nobles themselves faced growing up to produce a reasonable 'family' resemblance. The whole thing seems like the result of a monkey's-paw wish for a truly egalitarian society.

Anyway, the prose is kind of amazing: wicked, satirical, deeply cynical in a humorous way. You know exactly what kind of game this is supposed to be well before they start talking about the complete lack of affection parents and children have for each other. There is even the occasional poignant touch.
The cohesive bonds of love, honour in the family name, inheritance, and even lust are of little consequence to the average goblin. Poets and novelists write about these subjects at length, but they do not apply very long in real life. At the end of the day, goblins care for no one but themselves... and even that is a half-hearted affection. Goblins are moved thoroughly by a good piece of music, however, because it lets them imagine for a moment what it might be like to be loved.
We also get a frank view of the goblin psyche, which is driven chiefly by Greed, Fear, and Revenge. If you ever feel moved to ask "what's my motivation," it's those three things. Almost all other urges boil down to those; even lust is said to be a misunderstood fear of age and death, which is SMBC-level grim psychology.

The sidebars in this chapter describe some of the extremes of goblin development, which not only give you some idea of the range of goblin topology, but also include flavorful personal details which flesh out the setting as much as the specific person.
The tallest goblin in London is Mr. Zion Rheese-Jones, of no fixed abode, generally to be found in the area of Covent Garden Market. He is 12 feet 4 inches tall in his socks, and weighs 530 lbs. In his childhood he lived over a laundry, and was frequently hung on the washing line by the hair, to scare away birds. His mother is believed to have been frightened into labour by a stampeding giraffe at the Zoological Gardens, but this tale has not been confirmed by any actual witnesses to the event. Mr. Rheese-Jones makes his living by threatening other goblins in the street.
The chapter ends with a map of London that is more-or-less useless for gaming purposes. It's a real shame, because this was before the good internet and maps of period London weren't just a google away. I never really noticed before because I had a great map that came with a different game (possibly For Faerie, Queene, and Countrie) and just used that.

This chapter is excellent and excellently-located, introducing the reader to the inhabitants of this world, and priming them for the following chapters with the knowledge of the specific weirdnesses involved.

Next up: THE WORLD
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Post by Username17 »

The big thing I never understood about this book was why it was powered by GURPS. It's basically a low comedy injury fest, which seems to cry out for a rules-lite system like Toon or a ludicrous chart based system full of crazy like Rolemaster. I genuinely don't understand what a game system like GURPS was supposed to bring to the table.

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Post by Prak »

Not quite the same, but the mediocre-to-good-with-a-few-attractive-characters comic Flaky Pastry has this to say on Goblin Psychology
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Also, I would love to play a GURPS Goblins game.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

So far, I really want to play this game...
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Post by Chamomile »

FrankTrollman wrote:The big thing I never understood about this book was why it was powered by GURPS. It's basically a low comedy injury fest, which seems to cry out for a rules-lite system like Toon or a ludicrous chart based system full of crazy like Rolemaster. I genuinely don't understand what a game system like GURPS was supposed to bring to the table.

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I don't understand how you could possibly fail to understand. GURPS' belief that their system works for literally any premise may be completely wrong, but it's hardly a secret.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

FrankTrollman wrote:I genuinely don't understand what a game system like GURPS was supposed to bring to the table.
I understand there are a lot of potential game systems that might be a better fit if they existed, but absent those as we are, GURPS is a pretty good fit. First, the general setting is right in GURPS' comfort zone of low fantasy. Second, as we'll see later on, Goblins characters come loaded down with piles of wacky problems, most of which GURPS already had rules for in their long lists of Disadvantages. Third, mutilation is a significant part of the game, and there are very few RPGs which address that issue at all, let alone as integrated into the general injury rules as GURPS'.
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Post by Shatner »

Years back I was killing time in a Half Price Books and I cracked a copy of this book open. The real interesting idea for me was a race that's entirely nurture and nature can go hang itself. I found the concept sufficiently cool that I bought the book and have it still to this day.

I don't think I've ever bought a GURPS book for the actual gameplay elements or mechanics; I just loot them for interesting setting, plot, and cultural ideas.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

The World

This chapter is a little odd. First off, by 'the world,' they mostly mean London. That's probably an intentional bit of humor at how important Londoners think London is. Other places are mentioned, but only in passing.

The text remains satirical throughout:
The first surge of the industrial revolution has just finished and the second surge has not yet begun. In the first surge the lower-class folk who were rendered surplus by mechanisation had taken a short-sighted attitude, demonstrating discontent over their lack of jobs, money and food, and failing to appreciate the long-term benefits for the nation as a whole. They have now passed away, and the present generation of lower-class folk is amply satisfied with the lack of jobs, money and food.
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The sidebars list historical events from the previous ten years of history, but while several are clearly significant, others are just random and presumably meant to be amusing.

There is a lot of London detail, physical description of neighborhoods in the main body, and sidebars full of side details like the theatre-going experience, slum life, etc., presented as quotes from 19th-Century books, which seem to be genuine, and genuinely awful. At first glance it feels a little excessive, and in some cases overly dry, but this was before the good internet, so if this was presumed to be your only resource to represent period London, you needed a fair amount of material.

Following that are a pile of short, somewhat random sections. Power and Government is a very vague and questionably useful description of the parliamentary monarchy. Climate is a very useful listing of typical, occasional, and unusual weathers for each month, and a tiny table you can roll on to see which is plaguing the city on any given day. The temperatures given are in Fahrenheit (appropriate for period England), and hilariously range from Bitterly Cold (36) to Stinking Hot (61). As a Bostonian, I laughed.

Technology is a long segment and is pretty great. For instance, there's a page and a half on the relative merits of various light sources, which not only drives home the pre-electricity vibe, but also provides some nice details of the daily life experience, including the hazards of an unregulated market (re: arsenic candles).

The last of the sections is called Buildings, but would more accurately be named 'Living Conditions' or something. Lots more good info here, including the usual function that rooms are put to in order of acquisition (e.g. If a goblin only lodges in one room, it's a bedroom. If they get another room, it's usually made into a parlour. The next room is usually a dressing room. etc.) That might seem like a bit of fluff, but it's actually really useful for putting together a convincing apartment off the cuff.
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Special merit goes to a subsection on furniture. Furniture comes in two styles: Louis Quatorze (elaborate and flimsy) or Elizabethan (bulky and uncomfortable). These styles are popular solely because they are difficult to steal, with the one falling apart if handled and the other inducing herniation in would-be burglars. Flavorful, practical, and funny.
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Overall, this chapter is a little bit hit-and-miss, but the hits are home runs. Some version of the climate table should be in every setting book ever (It's Inside Outside and variants excluded), and the section on furniture has made me actually think about furniture design for every setting I've written up since I read this book.

Next up: PUNISHMENT AND THE LAW.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Punishment and The Law

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I love that this chapter has pride of place just after the general setting info. That's just a marvelous way of communicating how much your characters should be aware of the judicial system. Because they're criminals.

The Law is presented as a completely cynical power play, specifically restrictions imposed on the lower classes, by the upper classes, at whim, by force. This is not historically accurate, but the whole setting is about presenting a certain lower-class perspective as fact. And I can totally buy that a poor Londoner perceived the law as merely the highest level of organized crime rule. It also plays into the 'everyone is a murder-hobo' theme - everyone is getting away with whatever they can, legitimacy is a fraud, such public order as exists is enforced because the strongest benefit from it.

Only actual crime discussed is murder, which receives special attention, particularly involving how it should only be used as a last resort. Partly because being caught means death by hanging, and partly because of supernatural consequences. The sidebars in this chapter are brimming with little superstitions and folk magic of the time, with no comment on their game efficacy, but in the text about murder, it is clear that some combination of ghostly revenge and unwelcome attention from the Devil (more on him later) can reasonably be expected to afflict a murderer, to a degree from annoying to potentially fatal at the discretion of the MC.

This may seem like an odd thing, to disincentivize killing in a game which is clearly about a certain kind of lawless mayhem. The chief benefit is of course that NPCs who wind up with the PCs in their power have at least one reason not to kill them. The other is that the game has a particular theme of revenge that it promotes, and that works better if defeat comes with humiliation and disadvantage rather than death.

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There isn't quite a modern police force yet - you have a few detectives to investigate serious crimes, with military cavalrymen as muscle, who roam the streets in large groups with predictable consequences. The public will often help to catch the more flagrant criminals, if only because many of them, directly or indirectly, personally profit from a hanging.

Trials are presented with many trappings of legitimacy - witnesses, a jury, and so on (not an advocate for the defense), but also as complete shams. Seats on a jury are frequently sold to interested parties, and the judge is whatever lord happened to feel like putting on a wig that morning. There are several brief historical accounts of the trials of low-class individuals, with an average time of four minutes each, to rub in how little actual process is involved.

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The section on punishments covers Imprisonment (only a temporary thing until the actual sentence is carried out), Corporal Punishment (beatings, brandings, and mutilations), and Capital Punishment. Capital punishment includes a detailed account of the sequence of events of being hanged (referencing the as-yet-unseen expanded rules for fear), so if a PC is sentenced to death, it can be done as a properly dramatic event, with several opportunities for shenanigans, and even more opportunities for the condemned to freak out and lose their shit in an entertaining way.

This is another mostly-good chapter, providing a lot of very practical information. My only criticism would be the very vague guidelines for the supernatural consequences for murder. I think a random table would have been better than MC discretion, retaining unpredictability while removing some temptation to play favorites. Also, some sort of mechanics for the haunting would have been appropriate. One can infer that there's some sort of will-related roll involved, but it's basically completely open. A person couldn't even be expected to crack open GURPS Undead to see what sort of thing a ghost might be expected to accomplish, because that wouldn't be published for another two years.

Next up: STATUS
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Post by Red_Rob »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The Law is presented as a completely cynical power play, specifically restrictions imposed on the lower classes, by the upper classes, at whim, by force. This is not historically accurate
Well, actually, now that you mention it....

Loving the OSSR, I really like the "Victorian London with all the stereotypes turned up to 11" setting. It fits the whole Goblin-eat-Goblin aesthetic, and Goblinoids always get given cockney accents anyway.

I'm having a hard time seeing how you'd get a defined party or what type of adventures you could run that would motivate a group of Goblins to stick together though. Does the book go into this at all or is that the big twist ending (Great setting, impossible to run games in!).
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Post by Insomniac »

This is a fantastic setting and the art alone is reason enough for admission. Especially when the GURPS edition change happened and you could pick up these great sourcebooks of fluff and inspiration for a few dollars.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Red_Rob wrote:I'm having a hard time seeing how you'd get a defined party or what type of adventures you could run that would motivate a group of Goblins to stick together though. Does the book go into this at all or is that the big twist ending (Great setting, impossible to run games in!).
This is foreshadowed a little bit in the housing section. The nuclear family doesn't exist, but poor people still have to share lodgings with someone. So they wind up in groups of friends, or workmates, or former schoolmates, etc. This creates a certain amount of trust (because you sleep in the same room as they do anyway) and a certain amount of shared interest (likewise).

That established, and it being easier to commit crimes in groups, such a group rapidly establishes some shared enemies, and sticking together starts to seem like a better and better idea.
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Post by Prak »

So, basically Sitcom rules?

...there should totally be an animated sitcom based on this book.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Status
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As much as I like seeing the Law put early, this chapter really should have come first. Not just because the prior chapter references the social strata defined here, but because this chapter more-or-less defines the whole game (from the PC perspective).

Status in GURPS is baseline a very poorly-handled thing; it costs 5 pts per level and gives you a certain amount of social standing which modifies reaction rolls (which is fair enough), but the game has been dreadfully hypocritical when it comes to other side benefits of Status. Specifically, if a player wanted to buy 6-8 levels of status and be a high noble, king, or emperor, all the apologists would come out and declare it to be a technical title without attendant benefits of legal power, military command, etc. unless the player dropped another huge pile of points into wealth and allies and shit. Conveniently ignoring that very few of the published NPC monarchs had any of that. It was, in short, incoherent. (Military Rank is even worse.)

In Goblins, status gets so many additional mechanics that it's almost unrecognizable. In a good way.

Status runs from -4 (the scum of the scum) to 8 (King George), and a goblin improves their status (almost) solely through conspicuous consumption, by visibly spending money. There's a table that tells you how much you have to be seen to spend in various categories to maintain or improve your position; Status is an all-but-bottomless hole to throw money down. And if the quality of your fictional food wasn't enough motivation to do that, your Status is also a modifier applied to all your rolls. Yes, on a 3d6 curve. It's not clear if that represents the benefits of better food and leisure, or the blessing of the God of the prosperity gospel, but there it is. The assumption is that PCs start where all goblins (except the occasional groomed nobility heir) start: -3.
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Speaking of money, the game uses the old British system of 1 pound = 20 shillings = 240 pennies. It also provides details of the bewildering variety of coinage in period London, and I really do suggest making players cope with the vagaries of guineas, marks, half-sovereigns, nobles, crowns, florins, doubloons, reales, groats and farthings, at least for a little while. It's good setting detail, and somehow seems to be the fun kind of annoying.

Another new status effect is defined as 'goblin jingoism,' where status declines the further one travels from home, described by the following table:
Initial Status Range
-4 Block
-3 Parish
-2 Ward
-1 London City and Westminster
0 Greater London
1 South England
2 England
3 The United Kingdom
4 The Empire
5 Western Europe and North Africa
6 Eastern Europe and the Near East
7 The Middle and Far East
8 The Known World
> Terra Incognita (Jungles of South America, Darkest Africa)
> The Known Universe (out to Neptune)
> Beyond the reach of God and The Angels
It works like this: crossing the boundary associated with your status lowers your effective status by 1, and each larger boundary you cross does it again. So a well-to-do Status 2 English goblin visiting France leaves England, the UK, and the Empire; has an effective Status of -1, and finds all the French treating him like he was a working man. I very much like this setup, and use a variant of it for reputation mechanics if my own games warrant such a thing.

Also, all goblins have an inborn compulsion to throw things at people of Status -4. This sharply limits the scale of early shenanigans, and even though gaining status rapidly expands your potential area of not-getting-stoned, the incentive to stay relatively close to home remains. The result is that the MC can focus their efforts on developing a relatively small yet gradually expanding chunk of the setting and the PCs will mostly stay in it of their own volition.

Goblins can get a temporary virtual status bump by being in the service of a more regarded goblin, so paying a guttersnipe to deliver a message actually empowers that unworthy to carry out his duty.

The status levels are broadly divided into four classes: The Gutter, the Working Class, The Leisured Gentlefolk, and The Titled Aristocracy. Most of the rest of the chapter gives you a good idea of the various lifestyles and fashions of these classes. As has been established as standard for this book, this content is full of details both flavorful and practical.
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The only thing I'm not sold on is the value of three pages of vague descriptions of alcoholic drinks. Yes, alcohol is very important in the setting (as we'll see), but that's just overly indulgent.

The chapter closes with a one-page price list. I think it's a bit long on mundane food items and different varieties of fancy coat, but it does also include a fair amount of cab fares and matches and meat knives and other things PCs are likely to want.

Next up: CHARACTERS. Oh, man.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Characters
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A 'normal' GURPS heroic character is supposed to be about 100-150 points all told. An ordinary, unheroic person is generally about 25-50 points. A starting Goblin is ~15 points, but also spits on the usual guidelines of the game by carrying an enormous number of disadvantages, well over the -100 that was the suggested limit for even Supers characters at the time. Goblins embrace being the caricatures of lopsided point-balancing decried in Champions and GURPS alike, being capable far beyond what their nominal point-values suggest, at the cost of being (for instance) a morbidly obese albino lecher porciphobe klepto anosmiac dwarf. In most games, that sort of thing would be distracting and out of genre, but in Goblins it's practically normal.

It's worth mentioning that while the default Goblins game starts its PCs in the gutter, the suggestion for starting at higher levels of society is to let the players take even more disadvantages (enemies and maimings) to pay for the status and wealth involved.

The opening paragraph includes the curious sentence 'Because of the various disadvantages and advantages a goblin acquires during school, starting goblins in the same adventure will not all have the same point total.' That statement is puzzling for a number of reasons. The first reason is that there are a number of life-junctures where a goblin acquires advantages and disadvantages that might not be the same value as those of other goblins, and school is arguably the least of those. The second, more important reason, is that all of those things happen before most of your points are spent and so there is no reason that they could not all be accounted for at that point, with the Goblins who got lower or higher value things in the early stages simply getting more or less discretionary points at the end. Indeed, that seems to be the assumption of the rest of the chapter, and the curious sentence an anomaly from an earlier draft of the book.

Making a Goblin character is an eight-step process, and I'll have a look at each step, and even do an example.

Step 1: Goblin Racial Template
All Goblins start with the goblin racial template, which includes a lot of things that don't normally go in a racial template. The only (obvious) upside is the Goblin Resilience, which makes it really hard to die of injury. In the pre-GURPS version of the game, death was actually not possible, but here it is merely extremely difficult.

All Goblins also have Alcoholism, Intolerance of Social Status -4 people, and Goblin Aging. The first is a humorous commentary on lower class British society following the introduction of really cheap booze. The second is an important part of the whole Status/territory thing previously described. The last is a symptom of the very strange relationship GURPS has with aging, which is kind of a sub-rant.
Aging in GURPS
See, considering that GURPS grew out of a gladiatorial combat game, it had a frankly bizarre concept of what lifespan was worth. Originally Longevity (which meant you lost stat points to aging more slowly) cost forty points. Fucking forty! Out of the hundred your standard character was supposed to have. Considering how few campaigns that was going to come up in at all, that was absurd and insane. And a lot of similar advantages and disadvantages showed up, from the racial Short Lifespan to the inexplicably-still-current Terminally Ill, where you could get up to -100 points for having a character with a nearby expiration date. The difficulty was that either the expiration date didn't come up in the time scale of the campaign and the PC was getting free points... or it did come up, the PC died, and the player presumably just made a new character and moved on. Possibly the new character also had an expiration date.

There was also a whole thing in pre-4th versions of GURPS where your age was supposedly a cap on your skill points, and someone might start old to have a high skill cap, and starting old meant you had to make some aging rolls to see if you just randomly lost attribute points and thus arbitrarily became a lower-point total character in the process. (You might think that in a point-buy game the ravages of age would just be another thing you built into your character, but nope.) Also, being old was itself a disadvantage where you got some points in exchange for the chance that you might lose more points to the aging mechanic. From that perspective, Longevity was buying improved odds that your stats wouldn't vanish from under you leaving you at sidekick point-levels. But nobody really did the old/skill thing because overspending on skills in GURPS was a newbie trap anyway.

The whole thing was surreal, the elements of it that remain in the game are still surreal, and I honestly have no idea what anyone involved in any part of it were thinking.
Now, Goblin Aging gets around a lot of the associated problems by being universal; all characters are essentially getting free points for the setting element that goblins reach maturity at age 9 and start to visibly deteriorate at 25. It's not even inconceivable that it might come up in an actual game.

Anyway, Goblin Jingoism (which is the loss of effective status with distance from home) and Goblin Snobbery (Status as a modifier to all rolls) are also in the racial package as disadvantages. On some level these seem more like campaign elements that you're getting free points from, which is not really a problem, although it is somewhat inconsistent when two other such elements (Goblin Luck and Courage) are also described as 'racial traits' and then not given point values.

On a side note: Goblin Snobbery was a hilarious element of a lot of munchkin GURPS builds back in the day. It's nominally a modest -10 point Disadvantage, but since it doesn't baseline set your Status to a negative number, it actually has no effect at all on most characters. And while it does double the point cost of raising your Status, that's... actually still a bargain. For a net 70 points your character can be some sort of Emperor and also have +8 to all rolls. That's nuts.

Being poor and scrubby (Status -3 and Dead Broke) are actually listed under the racial package, so strong is the assumption that you will begin play as Gutter trash. The final element is that all Goblins have a couple of points in Brawling.

Example (Step 1):
Name: Prole (-73 points)

Advantages:
Goblin Resilence [25]

Disadvantages:
Alcoholism [-15], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Status -3 [-15], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25]

Skills
Brawling-DX+1 [2]
Step 2: Preschool
The first six years of a goblin's life are when they are the most physically malleable and least in control of their fate, and so this period is represented by one roll on the mistreatment table per year to see how the goblin was shaped. On the one hand, it's kind of against the spirit of GURPS to turn over such a large chunk of your character to random chance. On the other hand, it's a lot of fun and you get characters you'd never have come up with on your own. I've seen goblins who came out of childhood so overweight that they couldn't move and had to be wheelbarrowed around, and so ugly they caused fright checks. Also, its good immersion on the complete disempowerment of goblin children. The table is actually fairly short, as the roll is only 3d6 plus age. I made up a much longer one for a campaign, and I'd be surprised if other people hadn't done the same thing.

There are some unfortunate vagaries of the table where it is possible to end up with a negative height or weight or something, at which point there is not much recourse but to re-roll.

Example (Step 2):
Age 1: Hurled Across Room (+1 Jumping, -12" torso, +18" arms)
Age 2: Used as Rat-Bait (Musophobia, Scotophobia, Acute Hearing, +1 Running, -25 lbs)
Age 3: Fed to Pigs (Porciphobia, -Appearance, +1 Menace, -12" arms/legs)
Age 4: Locked in Breadbin (Claustrophobia, Night Vision, +1 Arm DX, Prehensile Toes, +90 lbs, +3" fingers)
Age 5: Boiled in Tea (Tanniphobia, -Appearance, +1 Menace, Temperature Tolerance, -10 lbs)
Age 6: Hanged By Heels (Acrophobia, +3" legs)

The modifiers to various lengths and weights are denoted in the table as +3n or -5n, where n is (7-age), so the younger a character is when mistreated, the more extreme their response to that mistreatment. Finalizing the effects of shape and size happens later, but for the moment...

Name: Prole (-78 points)

Advantages:
Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Claustrophobia [-15], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Skills
Brawling-DX+1 [2]
Step 3: School
Image

School is two years long and optional. Schools exist for a variety of reasons: to provide the various trade guilds with pre-beaten-into-obedience apprentices, as a form of conspicuous spending for the upper classes, as an outlet for the sadistic impulses of the 'teachers,' and so on. The choices are Public, Charity (religious), Private, or none. The benefits are Literacy, some modest bonuses, a new school-specific mistreatment, and a small item of dubious value, such as a school tie or a bible.

Example (Step 3):
This prole is going to a Private School, gaining Literacy, +1 IQ, -1 HT, -10 lbs, +1 to a skill from whatever apprenticeship it goes into, +2 to Brawling, and the mistreatment Starved (-5 lbs). Also it gets to keep a thing it made in class, which in this case is a decorative candle to help with its scotophobia.

Name: Prole (-61 points)

Attributes
ST: 10
DX: 10
IQ: 11 [10]
HT: 9 [-10]

Advantages:
Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Literacy [10], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], [Skill] +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Claustrophobia [-15], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Skills
Brawling-DX+3 [8]

Belongings
Decorative Candle
Step 4: Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship starts at either age 6 or 8 depending on school, and lasts until age 14, during which time the prole is basically slave labor for whichever trade guild they wind up in. There is a substantial list of apprenticeships, many with humorous multi-paragraph descriptions. The descriptions include some suggested disadvantages, as well as recommended quirk-level 'occupational deformities,' such as the permanent 5 o'clock shadow that all burglars possess; also 'material benefits,' one or two minor possessions you take away from your training. What they do not include is a list of pertinent skills, which is slightly hilarious because it suggests that your training, such as it is, is very vague and you are more or less guessing at what you're supposed to be doing. But hilarity aside, this is a real and significant omission which actually hurts the book. GURPS players often struggle with the long list of fairly narrow skills, and this was a missed opportunity to help them out, especially since most other books which include occupational descriptions include such a thing.

Example (Step 4):
While there are many amusing professions, this prole is going into the rather dull trade of candlestick maker because scotophobia in this time period is not a joke.

Name: Prole (-63 points)

Attributes
ST: 10
DX: 10
IQ: 11 [10]
HT: 9 [-10]

Advantages:
Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Literacy [10], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], Candlestick-Making +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Claustrophobia [-15], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Quirks
Narrow eyes [-1], Splotched with Wax Burns [-1],

Skills
Brawling-DX+3 [8]

Belongings
Decorative Candle
Workingman's Hat
Wax Pouring Pot
Step 5: Strength, Shape, and Size
At this point you decide on your goblin's ST (strength) and follow certain simple calculations to find their dimensions. Then, depending on those dimensions, you may discover that they have additional advantages or disadvantages.

Example (Step 5):
This Prole is going to have ST 13, because whacking things is an important part of life. According to the GURPS basic set, this gives him a default height of 6 feet and a default weight of 165 lbs. The base length for a goblin's torso, arms, and legs is each that default height minus 3 feet. The base weight is the default weight minus 40 lbs for inadequate childhood nutrition. Applying the modifiers from early mistreatments, this prole winds up with Torso: 24", Arms: 45", Legs: 27", Weight: 165 lbs. Although this prole's knuckles drag on the ground (and indeed they could readily walk on their hands and use their prehensile toes to manipulate), they are not extreme enough to qualify for mechanical Long Arms/Legs, Short Arms/Legs, overweight or underweight, Dwarfism or Gigantism.

Name: Prole (-33 points)

Attributes
ST: 13 [30]
DX: 10
IQ: 11 [10]
HT: 9 [-10]

Advantages:
Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Literacy [10], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], Candlestick-Making +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Claustrophobia [-15], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Quirks
Narrow eyes [-1], Splotched with Wax Burns [-1],

Skills
Brawling-DX+3 [8]

Belongings
Decorative Candle
Workingman's Hat
Wax Pouring Pot
Step 6: Other Attributes
All the previous steps had their own section in this chapter. This one does not, unless you count the sidebar explaining some of the new attribute of Courage. A goblin's courage is a kind of morale hit points. It starts equal to a goblin's strength (unless bought up or sold down), and is reduced by opposing Menace at the start of a fight, and by injury during the fight; once it drops to zero or below, the goblin starts making fright checks and is likely to involuntarily run away, faint, or otherwise disgrace themselves in a fight-ending manner.

Example (Step 6)
Name: Prole (37 points)

Attributes
ST: 13 [30]
DX: 13 [30]
IQ: 13 [30]
HT: 11 [10]

Advantages:
Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Literacy [10], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], Candlestick-Making +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Claustrophobia [-15], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Quirks
Narrow eyes [-1], Splotched with Wax Burns [-1],

Skills
Brawling-DX+3 [8]

Belongings
Decorative Candle
Workingman's Hat
Wax Pouring Pot
Step 7: Last Points
This step also doesn't have its own section, but it is the general finish-up phase. Most notably, goblins are allowed to take the full normal complement of -40 disadvantage points on top of everything that's already gone wrong with them (and fill out the -5 points of quirks), and then spend until they top out at a suggested 15 points.

Example (Step 7)
Name: Prole (15 points)

Attributes
ST: 13 [30] Courage: 13 [0]
DX: 13 [30]
IQ: 13 [30]
HT: 11 [10]

Advantages:
Absolute Timing [5], Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Literacy [10], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], Candlestick-Making +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Bad Sight (Nearsighted) [-10], Bad Temper [-10], Claustrophobia [-15], Gluttony [-5], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Greed [-15], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Quirks
Endlessly Discusses Relative Merits of Lighting Methods [-1], Fastidious About Crumbs [-1], Loves Pork [-1], Narrow eyes [-1], Splotched with Wax Burns [-1].

Skills
Brawling-16 [8], Candlestickmaking-14 [2], Climbing-13 [2], Jumping-15 [2], Knife-15 [4], Running-13 [2], Stealth-13 [2], Traps-13 [2].

Belongings
Decorative Candle
Workingman's Hat
Wax Pouring Pot
Step 8: Name and Gender (also, you're fired)

Image
This guy fits in Goblins surprisingly well.

At the age of 14, a prole chooses a gender, conforms to it physically, has a party, and gets a name. Males get a name, or even just a word, from the Bible. There aren't many women's names in the bible, so most women get a flower's name. For a last name, some goblins choose the surname of a patron they home to flatter, some get together and choose a collective surname to represent an alliance, others just choose something that sounds like the impression they want to make, like something seductive if they are a prostitute, or scary if they are a thug or a different kind of prostitute. My favorite is a fellow whose last name was Emdee in the hopes that people would assume he had medical training.

Then they are discharged from their apprenticeship, with sixpence compensation for their years of labor.
Starting Out On Life's Big Adventure wrote:When this game commences, then, the newly-formed characters find themselves on the first day of the new financial year, their apprenticeship having ended on March 31, and they being without gainful employment.

They do have the following possessions:
A shiny new sixpence;
8p worth of clothing;
Rent paid for the next month, in salubrious social status -3 accommodation;
Half a small pork pie, left over from last night; and
A consuming thirst.

This may seem like little, and indeed it is.
Example (Step 8)
For my prole, I chose male, a random word from the bible and a frightening last name in the hopes that people might not notice how terrified he is of damn near everything.

Name: Wall Stabbington (15 points)

Attributes
ST: 13 [30] Courage: 13 [0]
DX: 13 [30]
IQ: 13 [30]
HT: 11 [10]

Advantages:
Absolute Timing [5], Acute Hearing +1 [2], Arm DX+1 [10], Extra Arms 2 [20], Goblin Resilence [25], Jumping +1 [1], Literacy [10], Menace 2 [20], Night Vision [10], Running +1 [1], Candlestick-Making +1 [1], Temperature Tolerance (Heat) [1].

Disadvantages:
Acrophobia [-10], Alcoholism [-15], Appearance (Ugly) [-15], Bad Sight (Nearsighted) [-10], Bad Temper [-10], Claustrophobia [-15], Gluttony [-5], Goblin Aging [-15], Goblin Jingoism [-15], Goblin Snobbery [-10], Greed [-15], Intolerance (Anyone with Social Status -4) [-5], Musophobia [-5], Porciphobia [-5], Scotophobia [-15], Status -3 [-15], Tanniphobia [-5], Wealth: Dead Broke [-25].

Quirks
Endlessly Discusses Relative Merits of Lighting Methods [-1], Fastidious About Crumbs [-1], Loves Pork [-1], Narrow eyes [-1], Splotched with Wax Burns [-1].

Skills
Brawling-16 [8], Candlestickmaking-14 [2], Climbing-13 [2], Jumping-15 [2], Knife-15 [4], Running-13 [2], Stealth-13 [2], Traps-13 [2].

Belongings
Decorative Candle
Workingman's Hat
Wax Pouring Pot
A shiny new sixpence;
8p worth of clothing;
Half a small pork pie.

The chapter has a bunch of standard GURPSy things, like new advantages and disadvantages (many of which are alcohol-focused), and commentary on the appropriateness of established ones. e.g. 'Goblins are never pacifists. If they saw one, they would hit it and then steal its money.' There is also one of the 3e Job Tables, which is especially amusing at the low-end, including such professions as Girl, Mud Lark, Pure Finder, and Dog 'Finder.' (Mud larking is basically a messier form of beachcombing. 'Pure' is dogshit, used in a variety of industrial processes.)

As a whole, the chapter suffers from a few deficiencies, but has still provided me with hours of Traveller-style entertainment, rolling up random and randomly-deformed weirdos.

Next up: SUPERSTITION AND THE DEVIL.
Last edited by angelfromanotherpin on Sun Mar 01, 2015 2:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

I'm with Frank. This sounds very amusing, but the more I hear about this the more I wonder why this system uses fucking GURPs. It sounds like they did a good job of making lemonade from lemons, but why go through all of that work?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Apart from my previous comments (lots of wacky disadvantages already written up, maiming already integrated in the combat system), one suspects that there were just not a lot of other offers being made to the author of a tiny game from New Zealand, so when he got an offer to work with a company that had international reach and brand recognition he jumped like he was made of frogs.
Insomniac
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Post by Insomniac »

The logical successor to this game is called Low Life and uses the Savage Worlds system.

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Mistborn
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Post by Mistborn »

To be honest this seems like the sort of game that the Bear World engine supports, given that it's supposed to be a comedy of errors.
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Whipstitch
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Post by Whipstitch »

Character creation is a load of fun right up until that whole gurps thing kicks in. A shame, really.
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angelfromanotherpin
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Superstition and the Devil

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I really want to just transcribe the whole first part of this chapter. It is the most hilarious folk interpretation of Anglican Christianity I have ever seen. It is explicitly what the general public believe the teachings of the church to be, despite most of them not attending. The whole thing is couched in economic terms, which is a brilliant way to demonstrate how thoughts of money are entwined in every aspect of society.
Any imbalance at the Last Post is made up a thousand times over at the Clap of Doom by an abundance of pleasure or suffering in Heaven or Hell respectively. Those with a deficit in their account are given endless torments and scourgings without relief forever, while those with a credit become saints and Angels, and float in Heaven. It is a good thing to have plenty of suffering and as little pleasure as possible during one's life on earth, so that in the afterlife one's sins and vices have all been paid for already, and one's virtues are still due for reward.
I've mentioned this before, but the book has already touched on superstition. In various sections, the sidebars are devoted to a variety of bizarre superstitions on various subjects. That's kept up here, so that everyone can be aware that pointing nine times at the moon will bar you from heaven, and that whistling at night is an unpardonable sin.

Image

The Devil is an unusual interpretation of the figure. Although immortal and able to recover eventually from any wound, he has no other superhuman capabilities except those which have accrued to him over his millennia on earth, such as enormous proficiency in many skills. Although a master of disguise, he can be distinguished by a lack of foul breath and one cloven hoof.

The section on praying to God is unfortunately more like a 5e-style design document than an actual system. There's a roll on the NPC Reaction Table, but it faces undefined modifiers based on the supplicant's past behavior as the MC chooses to recall. It does have a couple of flavorful guidelines, such as God never solving your problem directly but rather providing you with the means and opportunity to do it yourself. The implied system is one that I'd be much in favor of: as a last resort (because it's unlikely to work), scramble to do as many good deeds as you can manage, then pray. But it is not that system.

The Devil is handled somewhat better, in that there is a specific format by which he offers to solve your problems while gradually drawing you into sin and also making your situation worse such that you are tempted to ask for his help again in a vicious cycle. It could do with a few specific examples, but it's a good racket and I've used it in several other games. Getting the better of the Devil is specifically called out as being difficult, but possible.

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The last of the chapter talks about magic and psi. By default, neither is in the setting, but there are notes as to how to include either or both in an appropriately low-key degree. In particular, someone did a good job of going through the spell list and listing all the inappropriate spells as 'only known in Ancient Egyptian,' a language no-one living can manage - except perhaps the devil.

Next up: FIGHTING AND DRINKING
Eikre
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Post by Eikre »

That bit about the Ancient Egyptian gives me the hibbie-jibbies for some reason.
This signature is here just so you don't otherwise mistake the last sentence of my post for one.
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