Goblinauts: Goblins in Space!
You are one of the few, the proud, the demonstrably death-seeking. You are a goblinaut!
Did you know that stars are basically giant explosions? When goblins learned this they immediately set out to see them up close and personal. And since one explosion begets more explosions, so they began putting explosions off underneath themselves. They soon discovered putting something between themselves and the explosions got slightly better results.
Now you and a crew of goblinauts cram yourselves into a metal bucket with weapons grade oil underneath, ready to reach the stars--or the crash site at least. The objective of the goblinaut mission is to collect SCIENCE! to better goblinkind and improve the likelihood of success on future missions.
Let’s meet our goblinauts! Goblinauts have four stats that all start at 5. They are:
Mechanics -- How well the goblinaut can hammer and twist and tape something into proper working order
Electronics -- How well a goblinaut can make wires provide electricity to the ship without providing that electricity to their own body
Space -- How well a goblinaut moves in 0 gravity, resists throwing up, and maintains composure in the face of the vast dark void of space
Science -- How well does this goblinaut actually perform experiments that provide useful SCIENCE! to bring back?
Those first three directly impact how the goblinaut crew operates their rocket, deals with the inevitable system failures, damage from asteroid impacts, and perhaps even extraterrestrial encounters. That last one is more how you achieve a victory condition. A mission that returns without enough SCIENCE! is basically a failure. Better a pock mark on the moon than a wasteful joyride.
So I said those stats start at 5, but they don’t stay there. Each goblinaut has 7 stat points to SUBTRACT from those stats. The lowest a stat can be reduced to is 1 and you want your stats as low as possible. The lower a stat is, the more likely your rolls for that stat will be successful.
You have two more relevant “stats”: physical health and mental health, both of which start at 5 as well. If you fail a stat check your game master will likely tell you that it negatively impacts one of these stats. If that has a greater impact on your game they will inform you of that as well (maybe you lose an arm and this your mechanics and electronics stats increase for the rest of the game to represent more difficulty working with physical objects, or you fail a science experiment with an extraterrestrial, making you afraid of those aliens so for the rest of the game you need to do your best to avoid them and certainly can’t attempt science with them) or at least they will let you know at the next most inopportune moment. If either of these stats get to 0 then your career as a goblinaut is over (and also you life as a goblin is over).
So you need a crew to gob up this vessel. Each player rolls a D6 and takes on the following role:
Captain -- Leads the vessel, makes tough decisions, and inspires greatness
Navigation Officer -- Makes sure the rocket is pointed up and not down (which is trickier in space where there is no up or down)
Communications Officer -- Mostly just very talkative, sometimes conveys useful information or acquires useful information from mission command
Science Officer -- Hopefully the best at science, the mission’s success or failure rests heavily in this goblinaut’s claws (the GM may provide a list of experiments they are expected to conduct on the expedition -- and any goblinaut can still attempt to gather SCIENCE!)
Weapons Officer -- There are no actual weapons on these vessels. This is a peaceful SCIENCE! gathering mission but you can be damned sure that won’t stop this goblinaut from seeing what can be weaponized in space
Medic -- Assuming all these explosions don’t take out the goblinaut crew from the word “launch!” then there’s a good chance the medic will finish the job. Goblin medicine isn’t super advanced so most medical procedures they do likely fall under the mechanics skill (though players can make an argument for other skills and may have special tools to help torture fix up their crewmates)
Goblin foresight and planning being what they are, it’s unlikely every expedition has all of these roles filled. Sometimes you get two captains and a medic. Maybe you’ve got four weapons experts by some disgusting twist of fate. Don’t tell a goblinaut the odds, just get out there and do SCIENCE!
So how do you do that? Players and the GM will talk to each other about what happens and progress he expedition in that manner (why did I feel it necessary to explain the very basic act of roleplaying in this manner?) but sometimes the outcome of an event isn’t always clear. To find out what happens when that’s the case the player in question does the following:
Subtract them from each other
Ex A: I roll a 6 and a 1. 1 - 6 = 5
Ex B: I roll a 3 and a 4. 4 - 3 = 1
Ex C: I roll a 2 and a 2. 2 - 2 = 0
Compare the resulting number to the relevant stat (the GM should have told you what stat that is before you rolled)
If the result is equal to or higher than the stat then you succeed! YAY!
If the result is lower than the stat then you have failed (and probably broken something, including your own body or brain)
There you have it, intrepid young explorer of the stars. SCIENCE! awaits!
