Writing and Layout by Matthew Webb ◆ Art By Dan Smith, Rachael Lindmann & Otterdraws

Special Thanks to Mika Nicole ◆ Playtesters: EriCA phelps, mika nicole, joe ginnings, Lex, Tegan M

GOBLINS GRABBED MY DICE is a game where you play a team(?) of goblins that have snuck into a
gaming convention somewhere in Middle America. Your goal is to steal the most precious jewel among
goblinkind. Mathy rocks. Clickity clacks. Dice.

FAQing Gobbos
Let’s get some questions out of the way first.

So, is this some kind of fantasy universe?

Nope, it’s a present-day Middle America city hosting a gaming convention. It’s
our world. It won’t matter much. You won’t be leaving the sprawling convention
center.

So, where do the goblins come from?

The Goblin Place.

But there aren’t goblins in our world.

You must not go to the same gaming cons that I do.

I’ve never seen any there.

Listen, you decided to read this game, not me. You are playing goblins.
They have big ears, big fangy mouths, and can maybe reach a grown man’s
belt if they stand on their tippy toes. They have the strength and energy of
a spider monkey, and the impulse control of a toddler. The goblins are at a
gaming convention in modern day America. They want to steal dice. That’s the
premise, are you down to play?

Fine, fine. What do I need to play?

• Some paper for character sheets.
• Something to write with, preferably non-toxic crayons.
• One poor sod - errr - one valiant soul to gamemaster. Or in this case,
gobmaster.
• A pile of d6s.

If the words “character sheet”, “gamemaster”, or “d6” don’t mean anything

to you, I’m flattered that this is your first RPG you’ve decided to try. But
find someone in a t-shirt with a 20-sided polyhedron hidden cleverly in the
design and ask them. Or tweet @matthewmercer; I’m sure he’s not busy.

A mild dose of goofiness, a taste for cartoonish shenanigans, and a

sarcastic understanding of geek culture is recommended but not required.
Build-a-Gob
1. Get yourself a piece of paper. You’ll only need one side. The back
of junk mail, marriage certificates, or college acceptance letters are
perfectly fine and eco-friendly choices.
2. Write GOB NAME somewhere on the paper. Yes, in capitals. It’s very
important.
3. Choose your goblin’s name. You can name them anything. Literally
anything. If you require inspiration, I recommend opening your fridge
and reading the very first thing that catches your eye. Szechuan,
Ketchup, Two Percent, and Crisping Tray (Crispy to their friends) are all
perfectly valid goblin names.
4. Write GOB KIND somewhere on the paper. Again, capitals, important.
5. Choose from the three kinds of goblins: GLITTER GOBLIN, FERAL GOBLIN,
or TRASH GOBLIN. It should be noted that each goblin’s kind is just
a personal identity chosen over their own free will. Even these little
horrible monsters would like racial essentialism to kindly buzz off out of the fantasy genre.
6. Write SKILLLLLS somewhere on the paper, and underneath it write on three lines - GOBBIN’,
PEEPLIN’ and TRENCHCOAT! - these are the only three skills a goblin has or needs.
7. Add your skill ratings. Write a 4 next to one of the skills. This is what you are best at. Then write
a 3 next to another one. You are kinda good at that. Write a 2 next to the last one. You’re kinda
garbage at that.
8. Draw a crude stick figure of your character somewhere on the page. Or show off your art degree
and try not to think about the crushing student debt. Whichever works for you.
9. Grab two d6 from the pile. Show them off to the rest of the table, cackling. That’s the beginning of
your dice hoard.
And you’re done. You’ve got your gob!

What kinda gob?

GLITTER GOBLINS are the shiniest goblins, drawn to bright colors,

flashing things and most of all glitter. They talk at length about how
they are a Leo, whatever that means. They cannot be trusted around a
karaoke machine.

Glitter Goblins have the urges to be the complete center of attention at

inconvenient times, or to make themselves shinier. Could be with glitter,
shinies, blinkies, or rolling around in metallic paint.

TRASH GOBLINS are the most vile, tasteless, and unfiltered

creatures on the planet. Outside of certain political talk show hosts,
and even then the goblins have far more charm. They cannot be
trusted to not break something or steal anything.

Trash Goblins have the urges to break things that they shouldn’t, or
steal worthless garbage when they should be stealing click-clacks.
 FERAL GOBLINS aren’t suitable. They just aren’t. They use their
mouth more than their hands for grabbing things. They will eat
literally anything they can fit in their mouth, including smaller goblins.
The only thing that can make them shape up for a short amount of
time is the promise of glorious click-clack math rocks.

Feral Goblins have the urges to eat something they shouldn’t, or bite
things that they feel strongly about (whether it is frustrated by, angry
with, or extremely fond of).

Mathy Rocks!
aka, the rules to this silly game
You roll your dice hoard when you want to do something, the Gobmaster
will tell you the roll’s difficulty and which skill applies. You need to roll
at least enough successes to match the roll’s difficulty. Roll your entire
dice hoard that isn’t in dice jail. You are trying to roll at or below your skill
rating - the number next to that skill. Every die you roll at or below your
skill’s rating equals one success.

More than one goblin can work together on a roll if they are in the
same place. They just roll all their dice hoard together and add all the
successes in all hoards up to reach the difficulty.

If a roll fails, every player who rolled puts one of their dice in dice jail.
They can get them out by various gobliney ways.

If two characters want to oppose each other, both goblins make a roll
against the appropriate skill. One with the most successes wins and the
gobmaster says what happens.

Skillllls
GOBBIN’
The refined art of being a friggin’ goblin. GOBBIN’ activities include sneaking around, running away, cleaning
your toenails with your teeth, and playing badminton. If something isn’t clearly PEEPLIN’ or TRENCHCOAT!, it is a
GOBBIN’ roll.

PEEPLIN’
The impressive skill of acting like a human at least a little for a short time. PEEPLIN’ activities include being
persuasive, reading things, stringing more than three coherent words together, and having ridiculously strong
opinions about children’s cartoon franchises.

TRENCHCOAT!
The ancient and mysterious goblin art of disguise, dating back to… at least the Thursday before last. Whenever
you want not to look like a friggin’ goblin, you need to find some materials, probably gather up some friends,
and roll TRENCHCOAT! to disguise yourself for one scene.

If you roll TRENCHCOAT! as a team effort, all the goblins involved stuffed themselves into a costume. Choose who
is the Head, the Feet and the Hands. All PEEPLIN’ rolls are made by the Head, while all GOBBIN’ rolls are made
by the Hands or Feet, depending on the gobmaster’s ruling.
 EXAMPLE DIFFICULTIES
Difficulty Gobbin’ Peeplin’ Trenchcoat!
Be not immediately
recognizable as a
Sneakpast an Have a conversation goblin in a dark alley at
1 unattended 5 year old with a five year old night by someone who
hasn’t even ever heard
of a goblin

Steal from a distracted

Gatekeep a hobby (it’s Pose as a weird-looking
2 gamer on a Mountain
not hard or impressive) five year old
Dew high

Pose as a teenager
Eat in public without who looks like they’ll
3 Hiding from con eating the paper explain how the manga
security plate (no matter how is better than the anime
delicious and greasy) to anyone who will
listen

Pose as a totally
5 Stealing from a con Bluff your way to the normal adult human
vendor front of the Will Call line that is not three goblins
in a trenchcoat

Convince con security

that you are that weird- Disguise yourselves
Pick-pocketing a wary as a specific member
8 adult looking 5 year old’s
father and you can take of the convention or
care of him vendor staff

Slip past Matthew Convince Matthew Successfully pose

13 Mercer’s private Mercer that you are as Matthew Mercer
security detail here to interview him through an entire panel
for your podcast discussion
TAlkin' GOB
Goblin talk fun! But to talk like a human, you have to Dice Jail
try really hard.
Whenever you fail a roll, take one of your dice out
When talking as your goblin, you can only use three of your hoard and put it in dice jail. That’s unless it’s
words per sentence, and only one or two syllable your only die left in your hoard. You always get to
words. If your goblin wants to say a complex keep one die in your hoard. Your gob is getting very
sentence, you must make a PEEPLIN’ roll. Every frustrated at all this talkin’, sneakin’ and other stuff
success point allows you to add one more word to a they have to do for precious click-clacks!
sentence, or use one more complex word.
You can get dice out of dice jail but indulging one of
There’s a bright side to this! Once you manage to your goblin type’s urges once per scene. Or, you can
say a more complex sentence, you can repeat that get them all out and score big by GOIN’ GOBBO! on a
sentence exactly as much as you want for the rest GOBBIN’ roll.
of the game!

Grabbin' Click-Clacks goin' gobbo!

Every scene you manage to steal dice, add one d6 When your goblin GOES GOBBO on a GOBBIN’ roll, your
to your hoard. You only get one d6 per scene you goblin blows their top and acts like a total goblin.
manage to steal dice. It is the highest crime among Disguises are ripped up, con security is bitten, things that
the goblins to steal dice from another goblin. You should not be eaten are eaten, and they are unmistakably
cannot lose dice or have them taken away from you. revealed to be a complete and utter goblin before having
to flee the scene.

Roll normally. But every dice in your dice jaIl counts as

an automatic success without rolling. After this roll, all
your jailed dice go back into your dice pool. Goblins can
coordinate like any other roll, but all of them must GO
GOBBO for that roll.

Thump 'em!
It’s not really combat. It’s just a good ol’ thumpin’. When the goblins
want to get someone completely out of the way, they can try to
thump ‘em. Being thumped can be anything that takes a character
out for just one scene. Possibilities are being locked in a closet,
running away in embarrassment with their pants seat ripped open,
running off in a panic, or being buried under a pile of merch and
board games.

If the goblins want to thump someone, it is a GOBBIN’ roll. The

difficulties are based on who you are trying to thump. Here’s the
kicker - if the goblins fail to thump someone, they get thumped. They
are the ones running off or locked in Matthew Mercer’s luggage. But
whatever happens, they should be able to escape by or during the
next scene.

Goblins don’t really thump each other. It’s just not a gobbo thing to
do. But gobbos that are caught sneakin’ around without a disguise
can be forced to make a Thump roll by the Gobmaster or run away.
 Thumpin' difficulties

3 Eight year old trying to cut in line

Distracted gamer arguing about rules changes they

4 could totally ignore at their own table if they wanted to

The con’s guest of honor trying their best but still

5 overwhelmed despite years of experience and a
successful Twitch career

6 Con security, bless their hearts

7 Balanced attentive adult (rare encounter)

8 Energy drink fueled con vendor with a bad attitude

9 Fit cosplayer out of costume

Fit cosplayer in costume (have you tried breathing in

3 those things?!)

You lose! Me win!

The goblins win the game when the combined dice hoards of all players contain (5 x the number of
players) dice. Having gotten their hoard, they skitter back to the Goblin Place. Obviously, the goblin
with the most mathy rocks is the Best Goblin. Make sure the player feels appropriate shame over
this.

The goblins lose if they have not collected enough dice by the end of the three day convention. This
is a very sad moment for the goblins.
 Gobmasterin'
aka, running this silly game

So, you got suckered into running this thing, huh? Well, don’t fret, it’s pretty simple. The convention
is three days long. Make sure to keep the pace of time moving, but let the goblins be the chaos
disasters they are meant to be.

Remember, cartoon mischief is the tone of this game. The most violent thing that should happen is
a table gets knocked over or someone is pushed into a garbage bin. The convention staff are not a
crack elite squad of goblin hunters. They are at best dedicated volunteers running on complimentary
energy drinks. The goblins should be a combination of greed and low impulse control, with
occasional moments of glorious triumph balanced by chaotic incompetence.

The consequences of failure or being outed as goblins should be kept low, and should rarely last
more than a few scenes. People will generally convince themselves that the characters were just a
particularly rowdy set of gaming geeks after a little bit, despite all evidence.

Random Encounter Table

When in doubt of what to do next, try this handy random encounter table. Roll a d20. Don’t act like
you don’t have one.

“My god, what a great cosplay! You must 11 Bored partner is holding their SO’s prized
1 dice bag. Partner is not going to be bored for
be…” You must now bluff your way through
this without knowing anything about a fandom much longer.
you are unintentionally cosplaying as.
12 Six year old girl decides that you are “kitty”.
2 Those aren’t elephants! Limited release toys
cause stampedes of sweat and body funk. That “emotional support” animal apparently
Run!
13
skipped “Don’t Chase Goblins” day.

3 Stumble into the live-streamed cosplay

competition. Lights! Camera! Action! 14 The food court presents you with an ancient
conundrum - butter-soaked pretzels or
The LARPers have found you. They don’t use unattended bags?
4
dice. But they do want to beat you with pool
noodles. 15 Hey, the celebrity swag bags at check-in have
SPECIAL DICE in them.
5 Not for sale! You’re mistaken for a rare plushy
toy by a rabid collector. Man carrying twenty board games stacked as
16
high as ten goblins punts you into next week
6 Apparently you are in a game demo now. in his blind march through the floor.

Wait, is that Danny Trejo? 17 Someone makes a statement so asinine

7 about a fandom even you have to argue with
them.
8 There’s about thirty thousand dollars of
wargaming minis on the tournament tables 18 The cosplayer with the fixed wings lost their
between you and a big bag of dice. Have at it. handler. The destruction will be glorious, but
they are swinging just at goblin head level.
9 A giant foam d20 makes an appearance.
19 That’s not water, that’s vodka.

10 You have faced dire rats and giant trolls, but

the caffeinated vendor who is surviving on 20 Oh, look. Matthew Mercer is in the green
pure spite and coffee? Now that’s terrifying. room.