Quote from: Tantavalist on August 22, 2021, 07:25:24 AM
This has come up on another site and it seems like the key points are also relevant here.


The first point-

I'm a fan of the Goblin Slayer anime. My initial reaction to the news of this RPG was that I'd probably never buy it and that I didn't see the need for it to exist. The setting is explicitly a generic D&D-style fantasy world where every trope and cliche is dialled up to 11- the idea is, this could be your D&D world. Or any generic fantasy CRPG with levels and classes.

The theme of the anime is that of a clash between the light-hearted heroic escapism of modern fantasy games and the brutal reality that going down into a dark cave for a desperate life or death struggle against inhuman monsters is a horror story not a romantic adventure.

And this is why I saw no need for the game. Because it's so explicitly a generic fantasy world you could run the episodes of the anime as adventures for any OSR retroclone and have a reasonable expectation that things would work out the same. Not 5e or Pathfinder because even at first level a TPK is harder to achieve in those and Goblin Slayer is all about OSR lethality and danger. But I assume that everyone reading this already owns their D&D-like ruleset of choice (Worlds Without Number for me) and it's not like even the most inexperienced GM would struggle to adapt the setting.


Which brings us to the second point-

The reason that anyone would want to buy Goblin Slayer is the rules. (Explaining this in full is going require a bit of a history lesson that a lot of the grognards here might be familiar with already, so apologies if you lnow this already.)

When the D&D craze was first hitting its peak way back when, Japan was obviously a target. But there was a big problem- no access to all the funny dice that D&D requires. Japan had no miniature wargames scene like the English-speaking world did and so no matter how hard it was to get hold of polyhedral dice for gamers who didn't live near a specialty store, in Japan it was harder to the point of impossibility. But a lot of Japanese still wanted to play this new game that was the latest worldwide fad.

Enter a game called Sword World. This was written by Japanese gamers explicitly to use nothing but the standard and easily available d6. It was also published by a company that printed collected volumes of Manga, in the same size as those and with Manga-style illustrations. It was also distributed to the same stores as the Mangas they were already publishing. Anyone with even the vaguest knowledge of how RPGs work as a business won't be surprised to learn that this was very successful to the point that Sword World occupies the same dominant role in Japanese TTRPGs that D&D does in the west.

That whole anime genre where you get anime-fied versions of D&D? That started with Sword World. Record of the Lodoss War was in fact set in the official setting of the Sword World RPG and others (Rune Soldier Louie) have been inspired by campaigns of SW that the writers played in.

So I've been very curious about what the Sword World game is like since first hearing about it in the 90s. Unfortunately there's never been an English translation of the rules. Until now, because Goblin Slayer is a licensed adaption of the Sword World system in the same way that you got all of those settings slapped onto the D&D 3.5e rules in the 00s. They've apparently done this with sufficiently popular anime/manga in the past, it's just that Goblin Slayer is the first one someone has looked to do an English translation for.


TL;DR is that nobody- not even fans of the anime like myself- needs to buy a Goblin Slayer RPG for the setting. There are, however, some people who aren't necessarily fans of the anime at all who might be interested in finally seeing what the Sword World rules actually look like.

Interesting stuff, thanks.
Hm, might be worth considering, as much for the rules as for the JRPG-feel setting. I always have a 'no raping the PCs' rule IMCs, not sure how that would work with Goblin Slayer though - maybe just fade to black if the bad stuff happens.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on August 21, 2021, 05:57:03 PM

Quote from: Omega on August 21, 2021, 05:40:52 PMI'd say its more in the same vein as Warhammer.

Warhammer has more style, and it plagarized from better sources. This is more akin to an isekai, except the protagonist isn't from a different dimension. But considering how faceless he is, he could as well be.

Quote from: Hakdov on August 21, 2021, 05:17:48 PMOne small series of light novels

.

Is it more isekai-like stuff? Dungeon meshi has the theme of food through the whole story, but the worldbuilding, ecology, and party dynamics Id say are second to none.

In terms of a 'logical' dungeon, Dungeon Meshi does it the best.

1: The main character is pretty much what you get when you have a higher level character dealing with a lower level dungeon as it were. They are going to pretty much pulverize alot of starter monsters. Which goblins tend to be.

2: Dungeon Meshi has a suprisingly well thought out background with everything more or less interlocking fairly well with the economy and ecology of dungeons. And it gets that all across in a fairly simple manner too without alot of needless complexity.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on August 21, 2021, 10:42:38 PM

Quote from: Valatar on August 21, 2021, 10:31:15 PMThe difference here is that Goblin Slayer isn't a political product.

Im not talking about the product. Im talking about the reaction. Multiple people have stated they will support GARBAGE if it means 'Ownin da SJWs'. I think thats a stupid thing to do.

Agreed. Is it a good RPG? Or like alot of older anime based RPGs of the 80s and 90s, a good sourcebook. Macross, Votoms, Dominion, and some others all made for interesting little sourcebooks AND were good RPGs too.

No matter how much you do or don't like the story, there is barely anything there to interact with that makes it worth making a full game.  You get a couple of nation names, a landmark or two, and some bog standard fantasy tropes that you can find in anything else ever.  The big draw is the edgy goblin menace, sort of a Tucker's Kobold thing with extra edgelord.

And this coming from somebody who enjoys the damn thing!  Rapey stuff aside, the idea of an adventurer culture that doesn't take goblins seriously and almost gets wiped out by a green horde is worth a look.  But...  this can happen in any setting.  It is an adventure hook, not a full game.  Nothing else there is particularly interesting.

Sort of like the Princess Bride RPG, I guess.  I love the movie, sure, but two country names and a fire swamp does not a game setting make.

The only thing I understand that makes this at all special is that Sword World is attached to it.  If you like or want Sword World, I hope that it has enough of the rules to satisfy your curiosity! 

The setting then is nearly the same as BX's Karameikos setting. You get a map, some place names and a sentence or two on some kingdoms. X expanded on this with... a tiny paragraph on a few kingdoms. heh.

But it feels like someones going to have to do alot of creation from whole cloth to flesh out Goblin Slayer.

I'm playing just japanese TTRPGs the whole time.
In japanese TTRPG you mostly do one shots or very short campaigns, and the focus is about recreating the reference tone, there's not much simulative space for players (there will be way more "immersion"). One should forget about D&D long lasting freeform campaigns.  The rules of SRS engine aren't even so good for levelling up consistently.

Quote from: Manic Modron on August 23, 2021, 01:24:45 PM
No matter how much you do or don't like the story, there is barely anything there to interact with that makes it worth making a full game.  You get a couple of nation names, a landmark or two, and some bog standard fantasy tropes that you can find in anything else ever.  The big draw is the edgy goblin menace, sort of a Tucker's Kobold thing with extra edgelord.

And this coming from somebody who enjoys the damn thing!  Rapey stuff aside, the idea of an adventurer culture that doesn't take goblins seriously and almost gets wiped out by a green horde is worth a look.  But...  this can happen in any setting.  It is an adventure hook, not a full game.  Nothing else there is particularly interesting.

Sort of like the Princess Bride RPG, I guess.  I love the movie, sure, but two country names and a fire swamp does not a game setting make.

The only thing I understand that makes this at all special is that Sword World is attached to it.  If you like or want Sword World, I hope that it has enough of the rules to satisfy your curiosity!

To me it stands out as a black comedy setting - light heroic JRPG tropes meets simulationist horror, with a bit of fan service. As a 'straight' setting I agree there's not much there. As a setting where eg the low level PCs get eaten or worse while the high level PCs ignore the world-shaking threat to focus on farming goblins, it seems great for a short campaign.

Quote from: S'mon on August 24, 2021, 08:48:12 AM
As a setting where eg the low level PCs get eaten or worse while the high level PCs ignore the world-shaking threat to focus on farming goblins, it seems great for a short campaign.

My point before was that you don't need a sourcebook for that. I mean, my experience with Old School D&D and similar systems is that this is what happens in those games anyway. Or has your experience with these shown different? 

Quote from: Tantavalist on August 24, 2021, 09:07:44 AM
My point before was that you don't need a sourcebook for that. I mean, my experience with Old School D&D and similar systems is that this is what happens in those games anyway. Or has your experience with these shown different? 

No, running open world OSR (or 5e) obviously neither is uncommon, and my Faerun Adventures 1359 DR campaign already does a few things reminiscent of Goblin Slayer (though afaicr I've not had rape goblins in a campaign since ca 1996). In particular the lowbie PCs fighting goblins, skeletons & orcs while offstage Gareth Dragonsbane & the Tiamat-killing Heroes of Bloodstone save the world for the umpteenth time.

I think for an explicitly comedy game, having a dedicated ruleset (with art) might work well. But yes I can imagine taking a day with eg Swords & Wizardry or OSRIC and doing a decent GS adaptation.

Quote from: Tantavalist on August 22, 2021, 07:25:24 AM
TL;DR is that nobody- not even fans of the anime like myself- needs to buy a Goblin Slayer RPG for the setting. There are, however, some people who aren't necessarily fans of the anime at all who might be interested in finally seeing what the Sword World rules actually look like.

This right here is another reason I am hugely anticipating this release, and I hope it leads to YenPress getting the rights to officially translate more Sword World material into English.

There are so many things about DnD that annoy me: Vancian Casting, Baked in cosmological assumptions, Clerics as spellcasters ETC.  As a result of that, and getting into RPGs during the OGL era has really given me a soft spot for Fantasy Heartbreakers.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on August 21, 2021, 04:04:54 PM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 21, 2021, 01:31:46 PMThat said, I couldn't give a fig if it's good or a pile 'o poo. I'm buying this instantly, so I can bath is SJW tears.

Thats a very sjw mindset. Spite consumerism is always dumb.

Eeh, I would like to support people who don't cave to the SJWs.

FATAL called, it wants its edginess back.

After watching the anime series, most of it seems to hinge on two things: evil goblins and a protagonist who keeps his full-face helmet on at all times.

The monsters are right bastards and use hapless adventurers as playthings and food.  This I like, as I'm tired of some major trends in the RPG industry turning monster cultures into nothing more than a sack of HP to bop out of existence: the monsters in Goblinslayer seem to be downright evil, with no argument as to their motives being anything but abhorrent.  While people may not like this aspect, it makes sense for evil creatures.  It also makes sense why the protagonist also is a 'Goblin slayer'.  I'm sure people can guess the rest of the reasons at this point.

The only thing controversial about this is the monsters act like the evil creatures they are.  Suck it up people.  No one has to play-act the scenes, and a fade to black can easily solve this issue at a table.  Even something like 'They now have captured your character, who is now lost forever' would work for tables who seem to suffer from that paradoxical idea of killing ok, other things not.  No one is being forced to participate in roleplaying everything, so I don't get why other forums auto-banned it, as the very concept of monsters being evil must be too hard to deal with.  Whatever...

The helmet thing seems to be a running joke for our typical few words protagonist.  I'm guessing the helmet thing may be so viewers can picture themselves in the role of the main character more easily: actually a pretty clever idea turned into a decent plot hook in the series.

All hinges around a classic tavern city idea, hired adventurers for bulletin adventure board jobs to clear out dungeons, etc. with an overarching main event with demons that I'm sure will become more apparent as I think they got a green light for Season 2.  I like this sort of classic RPG trope of microcosm player involved and macrocosm events out of their scope, so while repetitive dungeon crawling, still fun to watch.

Look forward to trying out the system mechanics and getting my character to silver status (another clever idea with the dog tags idea).

We should support initiatives like this from other countries as it seems so rare it happens.  It might lead to others seeing success and deciding to do it too and we all benefit from seeing other perspectives on the RPG scene.  It worked well for countries like Germany, so why not Japan?

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies on August 27, 2021, 11:38:34 AM
After watching the anime series, most of it seems to hinge on two things: evil goblins and a protagonist who keeps his full-face helmet on at all times.

The monsters are right bastards and use hapless adventurers as playthings and food.

We should support initiatives like this from other countries as it seems so rare it happens.

Pretty much sums it up for me. Although, I've not seen the anime yet. But I like the sound of monsters being 'evil', just as it should be. Trying to explain why 'not all monsters are evil' for the sake of someone's feefees is pathetic. They can fuck off. Orcs and Goblins are freakin' evil, get over you bunch of sjw dweebs.

And I'm also happy to support non-mainstream work and its creators.

A lot of the most controversial stuff happened in the first episode/story/chapter/whatever it was before anime.

I think this was probably a deliberate move. So many people have "Subverted the Trope" of the Evil Races by making them sympathetic that by this point it's becoming more like the standard option. Inevitably the first thing that would come up if the idea of something like Goblin Slayer came out was someone asking "But who is really the villain here?" and questioning if evil was just down to point of view.

I've heard of a lot of reactions to the first episode of Goblin Slayer. The only thing I've not heard of is anyone who saw it not feeling that the Goblins needed to be exterminated. Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned.