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Saturday, June 18th is Free RPG Day ‘11 and with it comes a slew of new and interesting little releases. They can usually be divided between tasters for new games that will be released at Gen Con this forthcoming August and support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera. In general, the tasters for the new, “hot” games are highly anticipated and on the day itself, in high demand, but come the day, it would be remiss of us to ignore the less-in-demand titles. Many of these it should be made clear, are worth your time and effort to make it to your friendly, local gaming store to get hold of a copy. One such title is We Be Goblins!, provided by a stalwart supporter of the event, Paizo Publishing, for its very popular Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

A one-short adventure designed for four players, We Be Goblins! takes the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game back to the region of Golarion first seen back in 2007 in the award winning Pathfinder Adventure Path #1: Burnt Offerings – and yes, as the title suggests the player characters in this adventure are the grubby, grabby, gobby little gits known as goblins! To get the fullest use of We Be Goblins!, the GM needs access to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Player’s Guide, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bestiary, and if he wants to wait, can use the forthcoming Pathfinder Player Companion: Goblins of Golarion to let the players create their own characters. In addition to being designed to be used with Pathfinder Player Companion: Goblins of Golarion, the events of the scenario are designed to serve as a prequel to the Jade Regent Adventure Path.

The situation is this. The Licktoad Goblins of Brinestump Marsh have discovered that one of their number has been writing, a horrible crime which every Goblin knows steals words from your noggin. After beating the berk up and kicking him out of the tribe, the remaining Goblins discover that the twerp had fireworks – and fireworks is good. Not only that, but he also happened to know where there are more fireworks – and more fireworks is gooder. So the tribe’s bravest Goblins must brave the other dangers of Brinestump Marsh – that is, other than themselves – to get to an abandoned boat that happens to be home to the The Licktoad Goblins big bad, Vorka the cannibal Gobliness. Before that though, the player characters need to prove their bravery before the rest of the tribe in a series of dares at a big feast. Can the Goblins swallow a bag full of slugs? Dance with Squealy Nord?

Playable in a single session, We Be Goblins! is all about the detail and the depth. Whether it is the description of each location; the different song chant for each character; or the daft little gewgaws carried by each character – including a half drunk bottle of Human perfume, a cowbell, a jar of pickled fish heads (actually, these are useful, being dinner), and skull face mask – these details add so much flavour to the adventure. And that in addition to the fact that the whole thing is very silly.

The four player characters are all first level Goblins. They include a dog-loving, reckless, and shouty Fighter; a spot-encrusted pyromaniac Rogue; an overconfident dog-killing Cleric; and a mad, bomb-loving Alchemist. All are quite detailed, and all come with pet toads.

We Be Goblins! is a slim book, but is done in full colour throughout with lots of suitably murky though artwork. It is well written with an eye for detail and for the daft nature of the adventure. There is a well-trod path of creating daft scenarios and games that focus upon the adventures of fantasy roleplaying’s much put upon Humanoid races, most notably with Kobolds Ate My Baby!, but over the years, the Trolkin from Glorantha and the Kobolds, Goblins, and Orcs of Dungeons & Dragon have been treated just as entreatingly absurd a fashion.

We Be Goblins! grabs you right out of the gate with title alone, and then never lets up until the last page. Everything about We Be Goblins! screams fun.

Can we have a sequel, please?