These Goblins Won’t Kill Themselves
For 3-6 adventurers of low to moderate levels of experience
By Christopher Clark (Inner City, Fuzzy Heroes, My First
LARP)
Art by Dave Peterson (interior) and Lloyd Metcalf (cover)
Published by Inner City Games Designs
34 pages, $6.00 PDF, $14.95 POD SC
TL; DR: These Goblins Won’t Kill Themselves (TGWKT) is a fun,
one-shot dungeon delving adventure in the classic, humorous style reminiscent
of the early days of fantasy gaming. If you liked Keep on the Borderlands and
the April issues of Dragon, this is right up your alley…
In Short: TGWKT is a fantasy adventure module written in a
classical style; that is to say, it deals with a fairly standard type of
adventure (Seek the Treasures Lost in the Bad Guys Lair), and to this it adds a
heaping helping of another classic element – humor. TGWKT isn’t anything new –
it evokes the same style of adventure classic in TSR modules in the late ‘70s
and early ‘80s, down to Gygaxian naturalism, flavor text, puns, and in-jokes.
But for this reviewer, that is very much a feature, not a bug. Much like In
Search of the Unknown, Keep on the Borderlands, and Horror on the Hill, it is a
light dungeon crawl adventure, suitable for play in one to three sessions. So
if that is what you are into, it will be right up your alley.
The Look: TGWKT evokes the classic look; most of the
interior art by Dave Peterson would be at home in any classic OSR style
adventure. The art mostly depicts scenes and characters in the module, so you
can print those separately to show to your players. The maps are simple, but
well done and utilitarian. The font is simple and easy to read. Flavor text is
in bold. Like many of the old modules, it’s not fancy, but it works, and unlike
a lot of modern works, it won’t kill your printer cartridge to print it up to
have a paper copy at the table.
The Feel: TGWKT definitely falls within the “classic
punster” or “tongue-in-cheek” style of adventure; the fact that it is the first
in a series of adventures taking place in the “Lands of Igpay” should give
anyone reading the cover fair warning of the style of play expected. It feels
like something one would find as an insert in a classic April issue of Dragon
Magazine. However, while the adventure certainly works well with the humor
style of play, if that’s not your thing, the core elements can also be used
with a more heroic style of play with minimal work. Minus the humorous
elements, TGWKT fall solidly in the “heroic fantasy” style of play, with a dash
of Faerie style (as Igpay is a “land apart” from the character’s normal
homeland).
The System: TGWKT uses a generic system, much like the
various Eldritch Enterprises adventure modules that Clark has published with
Frank Mentzer, Jim Ward, and Tim Kask. This is really a non-issue; most of the
monsters can simply be lifted from whatever system you are using by simply
looking for the monster name or a similar type in your core rules. A little
conversion might be needed on the fly, but even for an inexperienced game
master, the conversion needed is minimal.
The Adventure: The characters, removed from their own natal
lands, somehow end up in the Land of Igpay, a fairy-tale land where the Elves
have been at odds with the Goblins over an unfortunate misunderstanding. Elven
heroes put a stop to the Goblin War some time ago, but now the Goblins are
back, and the Elves today have no defenses, being pacifists. Thus they offer
their treasures to the adventurers if they will go into the Goblin caves and rout
out the enemy, or at least, return to the Elves their lost weapons of power so
that the Elves can once again defend themselves. After a short wilderness trek,
the adventurers must delve into the lair of the goblins, where several fearsome
tricks and traps await, in addition to the martial menace of the goblins. There
is also a lead-in to the sequel, though this can be ignored if the game master
simply wants to run the adventure as a one-shot.
Some of the traps in the module are outright lethal… which
again, to this reviewer is a feature, not a bug. So if you do not like the
“Save or Die” style of gaming (or worse, the “No Save and Die” style), you
might need to tone down a few things.
NB: Back when TGWKT was originally released, Inner City
Games Designs sent me a complementary copy of the PDF to review. As they have now
released the sequel Why Are We Here? These Things Are Already Dead! I was
reminded of TGWKT and went to find it to finally write the review… and
discovered that at some point in the previous year, I had lost it in a purge of
my computer. So I went and bought a copy of the PDF in order to review it.
5 out of 5 stars
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