Characters
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
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)
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.