Ask the Game Master: How should we roleplay We Be Goblins?

Got a gaming question? Ask the Game Master to make a ruling, provide advice or referee your gaming troubles. Send your questions to [email protected]. This week, we’re talking about goblin silliness.

I’m running the We Be Goblins adventures from Pathfinder. Problem is, goblins do goofy things, but player’s don’t. Should I have the players roll each turn using the Goblins Antics table, or bug them to play goofy? The table is in the Pathfinder comic book (vol. 1, issue 1, Darkwater Rising).

—Paul

I guess it depends on your players. Are they good roleplayers? Will they get into the headspace of goblins who will plunder and steal and horde? Goblins are weird and sort of insane, so the more of that sort of behavior they participate in, the more goblin-like the adventure will be.

Fortunately for you, We Be Goblins facilitates a lot of that goblin weirdness through dares and other challenges.

That’s gonna push you a little as GM. The more you can create scenarios where their goblin-ness helps push the adventure along, the better.

For example, I highly recommend you require the players to speak as the goblins would.

In the first We Be Goblins adventure, the highest Intelligence score among the group is a 15. They’re not exactly geniuses. The entire story begins when they burn down the house of a goblin who was doing the forbidden: Writing things down.

So if they don’t articulate things the way a goblin would, perhaps their goblin compatriots won’t understand them at all.

Similarly, they should play the goblins as brash, impulsive and impetuous. If you present scenarios that reward that kind of risk-taking behavior, I’m sure the players will oblige.

If they don’t do any of the above on their own, I absolutely think you should pull in the goblin antics table you mentioned. You can either force them to roll on it every several rounds OR (as our friend John suggested) force them to make Will saves.

On a failure, they have to roll on the table.

That should add the kind of chaos a troupe of goblin PCs require.

Happy gaming!