D&D General Goblin Campaign Ideas

[Ancalagon]

Since goblins don't have easy access to human town's marketplaces like in a typical campaign, trade will be conducted via barter, trading various previous metal, objects, weapons and armors for other needed materials.

So maybe there is a human petty merchant who's selling supplies to the goblins - they have an understanding - he gets to unload subpar or stolen goods for a good price, the goblins get access to things they need.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Its a possibility but dealing with human merchants won't be the norm, i really want to emphase the monster aspect of the campaign and highlight differences with more traditional campaign. They will obtain most of their gear and treasures through pillaging and will barter with other tribe of humanoids for things they look to acquire or get rid of.

 

[Tonguez]

Goblins are scavengers, often bullied by others, who use wits and dexterity to survive and find a place of their own.

so make it a sandbox with the goblins finding themselves in the middle of a whole lot of competing demands which they need to negotiate eg Winter is coming and the goblins of bog hill need to go and gather in food stores before they get hit by snow, problem is that - human colonist have arrived and want to clear the Bog hill to build a town, the ogre mountain king is demanding more tribute, the elfs have put a bounty on goblin ears, orcs keep raiding the gobbo lair for slaves, a dread necromancer is building an army and there are owlbears in the hunting grounds. How do the PCs respond?

 

[Plaguescarred]

The Goblin campaign will definitly be sandboxy and the tribe will have to constantly manage basic ressources like food and water to survive since they don't earn coins and buy from food market.

They could rely on mushroom gardening, game hunting, fruit gathering and humanoid slavery for food ressources. And a stream for source of fresh water. Alcool could be either seized through pillaging or they could produce wine with fermented fungi.

 

[Ancalagon]

Its a possibility but dealing with human merchants won't be the norm, i really want to emphase the monster aspect of the campaign and highlight differences with more traditional campaign. They will obtain most of their gear and treasures through pillaging and will barter with other tribe of humanoids for things they look to acquire or get rid of.

the way I see it, the vast majority of merchants would not do it because of the dangers, but also because it's a "betrayal" to be arming goblins - from the human perspective, this merchant is a minor villain, and would be in a lot of trouble if he got caught.

 

[jgsugden]

What is important about the scenario? Goblinoids, or bandits? Could you get the same benefit from having it be a group of humans, elves, goliaths, orcs, kenu or other heritages that launch raids on nearby roads and settlements, explore nearby notable features of the land such as caverns and ruins and often get raided by NPC adventuring parties? What is the unique feature of goblinoids that make this scenario best suited to them? If there is no clean cut answer that you like, is the focus too restrictive?

When we tell the players, "you get to pick from amongst these few options for your PC", it tends to shift the game from being a group game to a game that you're dictating to them. This can happen to different degrees, and is rarely a 'black and white' situation, but when I want to run a scenario campaign, I find it better to keep the scenario loose and then let the players help shape it with their PC choices. Here, you could say the group will start as a group living in a cave lair near a settlement/road that is trying to survive, and their group has historically had to resort to raiding others to do so. Then, let the players figure out how the PCs they want to make fit into the roots of a storyline and where they want to go with the story.

 

[Plaguescarred]

What is important about the scenario? Goblinoids, or bandits? Could you get the same benefit from having it be a group of humans, elves, goliaths, orcs, kenu or other heritages that launch raids on nearby roads and settlements, explore nearby notable features of the land such as caverns and ruins and often get raided by NPC adventuring parties? What is the unique feature of goblinoids that make this scenario best suited to them? If there is no clean cut answer that you like, is the focus too restrictive?

When we tell the players, "you get to pick from amongst these few options for your PC", it tends to shift the game from being a group game to a game that you're dictating to them. This can happen to different degrees, and is rarely a 'black and white' situation, but when I want to run a scenario campaign, I find it better to keep the scenario loose and then let the players help shape it with their PC choices. Here, you could say the group will start as a group living in a cave lair near a settlement/road that is trying to survive, and their group has historically had to resort to raiding others to do so. Then, let the players figure out how the PCs they want to make fit into the roots of a storyline and where they want to go with the story.

The important part is an all goblinoid campaign. I once ran a orcish campaign back in the 90"s with AD&D 2nd edition that was also a different vibe and i feel a group of human, elves or goliath would not be the same, as they're not viewed as monsters that humans tend to distrust and often even attack at first sight! Interactions are not the same with evil races.

I hear what you say but the whole purpose of racial campaign is part unity and its not for everyone, but for those that don't mind or even embrace it, its fun and different. I've run some dwarven campaign before as well. There's something about being all part of the same race or ethnic group that you don't necessarily have when you run a campaign with a group of mixed races, which i tend to run most of the time. I am currently running a GREYHAWK campaign that is mixed, so my goal for this next campaign is to try something different despite being a bit more restrictive.

I will also use Tasha's any ASI +2/+1 to give more freedom to build PCs. Perhaps even Custom Lineage.

 

[Plaguescarred]

the way I see it, the vast majority of merchants would not do it because of the dangers, but also because it's a "betrayal" to be arming goblins - from the human perspective, this merchant is a minor villain, and would be in a lot of trouble if he got caught.

Totally, there could be evil merchants or even power groups such as the Zentharim and Red Wizards of Thay in FR that may trade with evil humanoids. But i will definitly have trading that we are most often used to in typical D&D campaign that involve bying or selling things with coins from merchants be something unusual and rare occurence. Barter with other humanoids will be the norm to goblins.

 

[Void27dev]

I will soon start a campaign where the characters are all goblins and look for ideas for it to stand out from more traditional campaign.

So far their homebase will be a goblin lair where they launch raids on nearby roads and settlements, explore nearby notable features of the land such as caverns and ruins and often get raided by NPC adventuring parties.

What else would you look for in a goblinoid campaign?

I made a bunch of goblin stls
https://cults3d.com/en/users/void27dev/3d-models

 

[Quickleaf]

Horse robbery... where one or more of the horses can talk (e.g. polymorph victim, awaken spell, wildshaped druid, etc).