Day 5 of our lovely little experiment continues, and welcome back, dear reader.
I've missed you.
Look.
I know things got a little real back there in the previous entry.
Maybe you're coming at this today and you're feeling a little, shall we say, nervous?
Yeah. Yeah, I get that.
A lot of things were said yesterday. And I think we both maybe went further than we expected.
But... can you blame us? Can you, really, when the topic is something we care about so very deeply?
Is there truly a price too high to pay for those little green bastards?
Well, yes, there is, but I'm gonna tell you right now that the base $1 a month you'd pay to opt in to the font of fun that is the secret, elite, behind-the-scenes newsletter and game archives of our Uncivil Union level of membership is an absolute goddamn steal.
Also, that too high a price is, precisely, $38.27 cents. Anything over that and you're paying too much for your goblins.
So, today, let's stand together, again. United, you and I, and together, look upon the landscape of goblin-slash-trenchcoat-based tabletop rpg desolation before us, and turn our minds, then, to how we may improve it, expand it, and prepare it to encompass all other games, all other genres, within itself.
To do this, we must turn back, and rejoin the exploration of trenchcoat-dwelling goblinoid nature, its true essence, exactly where we previously left off: Positions.
Now, I may have promised to, ahem:
"blow your goddamn minds."
re: Positions
Please keep in mind that at the time I made that statement, I was under the influence of not just multiple psychoactive substances, but also just the rush of pure power that comes from examining the underpinnings, the very roots, of a world, nay, a reality, nay, a framework upon which new realities can be built. One, my friends, that was built from my own imaginings.
It is oddly humbling, in a way, to know that I hold the power of not just a god, but a demiurge, a force of creation so potent that it births gods, in my own hands.
All this to say, of course, that Positions are a bit like isotopes.
You know how to make an isotope, right?
You just aim your particle canon at an atom, and blow.
You jiggle the number of neutrons in an atomic nucleus, and you've still got the same basic element-slash-goblin, but, y'know, different.
Probably radioactive.
Isotopes can be created, or they can decay back to other states- some are stable, most are less so.
All these things apply to goblins.
But whereas atoms require all manner of Science Tools (tm) to manipulate, we instead have our Trenchcoats: the particle cannon of our ttrpg design toolkit. Think of each Position within a Trenchcoat like its own particularly tuned particle cannon: when it hits a gobbo, it's going to change it, make it strange, possibly radioactive, almost certainly more unstable.
Each Position, in game terms, grants each goblin a set of abilities that the other positions generally lack (eg. only the Feet can move the group around, but only the Head can reliably engage in spoken interactions with others), and gives them special bonuses to particular rolls. The trenchcoat itself gives the goblins as a group some kind of additional ability.
And, much like an isotope decaying back to a more stable form, Positions can change- especially after an energetically traumatic event like getting hit by a particle cannon. And when a gobbo's Position changes, they lose the bonuses and abilities of the previous one, and gain new ones... while still remaining the same gobbo they always were, at their core.
This, then is the true nature of a goblin within this game: The physical, mental, or magical/spiritual abilities they have, their ability to act upon the world in one of two ways: lying, cheating, or losing health, and, finally, their position within the trenchcoat along with their fellow goblin-atoms, which further modifies and changes them into the unique individual that each of our players will be embodying.
We have it, the core game unit, the Goblin/Trenchcoat Equation.
g = F + F + (L + C + H)/Tp
Pretty cool, yeah? But maybe your mind isn't blown.
That's ok. I mean, it's just an analogy, right?
...
AHAHA FUCK YOU I'M JUST WARMING UP MOTHERFUCKERS TOMORROW I'M BRINGING IN THE MANY WORLDS INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM PHYSICS TO EXPLAIN SUB-TABLES AHAHAHA
Are you enjoying this bullshit? You are, aren't you? Hot diggity! Well, did you know you can encourage Dan to do more of whatever the hell this is by joining the Uncivil Union over on ko-fi? It's true! Not only is this a signal to Dan that people want more of this, but you'll also get immediate access to The Vault, where you can pick up free copies of every single game he's written, and exclusive access to the in-progress docs for upcoming games.
