ShenaniGoblins vs TSRPG

Compare ShenaniGoblins and TSRPG side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	ShenaniGoblins	TSRPG
Genre	Fantasy	Universal
Tags	Comedy, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Beginner-Friendly, Low-Prep, Tag-Based, Player-Only Rolls, Freeform Magic, Character-Driven, CC-Licensed Rules	Rules-Light, Diceless, Theater of the Mind, Tag-Based, Beginner-Friendly, Fast-Paced, Low-Prep, Solo-Friendly, Freeform Magic, Modular
Core Mechanic	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.	The storyteller sets a Challenge Rating (CR) and secretly picks a target number from 1 to the CR, by choice or at random. The leading character adds one attribute, every relevant trait and one piece of special equipment. Helpers add their traits and one piece of equipment each, capped in total at the leader's bonus. The target plus or minus the total bonus, wrapping around the range, is the span of success. The lead player then guesses a number. An exact guess is a critical success, and a guess one away is a near critical. A guess on either end of the span is a near miss, which succeeds with a complication. A guess outside the span fails. With a total bonus below +3, the only results are success and failure. Failure can impose penalties on participating characters' traits or attributes, weakening their later attempts.
Dice	d6 dice pool	Diceless
Complexity	Very Low	Low
Availability	Free core rules	Free quickstart
Runnability	Book tools not listed	3 of 5 book tools
License	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Noncommercial only — Open license	No verified route found
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Jon Pessin	Skirmisher Publishing
Year	2025	2026
Languages	English	English
Best For	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.	Groups who want one simple guessing procedure for risky actions, usable across fantasy and other genres without needing dice, maps or stat blocks.
Highlights	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.	The distance between a player's guess and the hidden target sets up to five outcome grades, so one guess decides both whether and how well a Challenge succeeds. Injuries are penalties on the same traits and attributes that build the bonus, and reducing every one of them to zero kills the character. Sacrificing a durable item or weapon after the guess turns a near miss into a full success and empties that slot until the next session.
Considerations	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.	Adventure opponents are written as Challenge Ratings rather than statistics, so the storyteller judges a rating for each approach to any new fight or obstacle. Fights resolve as one or a few group Challenges rather than individual turns, with fictional positioning in place of a tactical movement system. The storyteller calculates a fresh span of success from the group bonus for each guessed Challenge, and spans can wrap past the ends of the range.