Murder of Crows vs ShenaniGoblins

Compare Murder of Crows and ShenaniGoblins side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Murder of Crows	ShenaniGoblins
Genre	Horror	Fantasy
Tags	Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Comedy, Mission-Based, Character-Driven, Random Tables, Low-Prep, Freeform Magic, Fast-Paced, Theater of the Mind	Comedy, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Beginner-Friendly, Low-Prep, Tag-Based, Player-Only Rolls, Freeform Magic, Character-Driven, CC-Licensed Rules
Core Mechanic	Roll 1d6 against the relevant Aspect (Beast, Omen or Trickster, rated 2 to 5): a roll below the Aspect succeeds, a roll equal to it succeeds and earns a Portent, and a roll above it fails. A helping Crow counts the Aspect as 1 higher, to a maximum of 5. When a Crow acts in accordance with its Augury, the player may roll two dice and use either; when it contradicts its Augury, or an Affliction affects the roll, the player rolls two dice and Fate (the GM) chooses which counts. A human may roll 1d6 to resist; if the human's roll matches or is lower than the Crow's, the Crow fails even on a success.	To Do The Thing, roll one d6 for each Trait the Goblin Master agrees would help. Add one die for a helpful item in the goblin's Pockets, two when the goblin often does this task as part of its Job, and one per helper, then remove one die per character trying to stop the goblin. Each 5 or 6 is a Hit, and the goblin succeeds when the Hits equal or exceed the Goblin Master's difficulty of 1 to 5. Dice hit on 4+ when the action directly serves the goblin's Dream or the player spends 2 Sparks, and only on 6 when the player takes 1 XP for a hindering Trait. Two or more dice showing the same number also trigger Chaos Magic, adding Something Bad on a match of 1–3 or Something Good on a match of 4–6 on top of the roll's result.
Dice	d6	d6 dice pool
Complexity	Very Low	Very Low
Availability	Free core rules	Free core rules
Runnability	Book tools not listed	Book tools not listed
License	Proprietary	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Noncommercial only — Open license
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Jon Pessin	Jon Pessin
Year	2026	2025
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want a darkly comic one-shot as a flock of crows plotting a human's death, with tables that set up the hunt at the table.	Groups who want a silly, low-prep fantasy one-shot about incompetent minions, where arguing a goblin's quirks into the dice pool is part of the fun.
Highlights	Rolling exactly the Aspect's value earns a Portent, letting the player ask Fate one question answered by a brief, obscure vision. Acting in accordance with a Crow's Augury lets the player pick between two dice, while contradicting it hands that choice to Fate. Fate rolls or chooses with the Crows from d6 tables to set the hunt's victim, motive and complications.	Matching dice add a Chaos Magic event on top of the roll's result, so even a successful roll can bring Something Bad. Damage marks off Traits that cannot be rolled until they recover, so an injured goblin loses dice instead of hit points. Fulfilling a goblin's Dream grants an immediate Level and a new Trait, and the player then sets an even more grandiose Dream.
Considerations	The premise is the flock plotting a human's death, which will not suit groups uncomfortable with murder as the goal. The rules include no death for Crows: a Crow that takes a fourth Affliction leaves the scene or goes unconscious instead. There are no experience, advancement or campaign rules.	Spark-powered magic has no spell list or cost table, so the Goblin Master judges how many Sparks each change costs. Any pool of seven or more dice is certain to contain a matching pair, which guarantees a Chaos Magic event. The rules include no character death: a goblin with every Trait marked is Out until one recovers.