Goblins (webcomic)

Goblins is a "Dungeons & Dragons"-based webcomic by Ellipsis Stephens. Running since 2005, the world of the comic follows role-playing style rules which the characters can take advantage of. Spin-offs such as a card game, a video game, and an animated series have been announced but have not been produced.
Premise.
"Goblins" is set in a world where the laws of reality are based by Dungeons & Dragons-style rules, and its inhabitants are aware of these rules and can take advantage of it. It is a parody of D&D, though references to the gaming system are more common in the earlier books and become less common as "Goblins" goes on. The story follows a group of goblins with names such as Chief, Big Ears, Fumbles, Thaco and Complains-of-Names. The goblins are seeking to avoid death and protect their village from the menace of adventurers. They break with traditional tactics used by monsters in role-playing games, such as using the treasured items instead of just guarding them, and so end up on a path few goblins have trodden before. The comic also follows two adventurers; the “unstoppable” warrior Minmax and the dwarf Forgath, who initially have standard player character motivations of killing monsters, collecting loot, and leveling up. But they too deviate from the standard role-playing game tropes. A reviewer described the tone as a mix of "comedy & violence, followed by some more emotional, character driven content" and that it "portrays the often brutal and extremely violent world that a game of D&D depicts."
Plot.
Book 1.
Most of the characters and parties are all introduced. Minmax and Forgath are in league with The Drow Party, and they attack The Goblin War Camp. Chief, Big-ears, Thaco, Complains-of-Names and Fumbles must fight to protect their fellow warriors and a poorly locked treasure chest.
Book 2.
The Goblin Adventuring Party (GAP) is officially formed. Before returning to their village, the GAP intend to adventure and gain experience so that they can better protect their people. But on their way, Fumbles makes a tragic mistake, and his rash attempt to fix it leads GAP to Brassmoon City, the last place on earth any monster wants to be. Meanwhile, the powerful Dwarf paladin, Kore, whose only aim is to eliminate monsters, has his crossbow set on GAP's village. Dies Horribly meets and is enslaved by The White Terror, whose excavation of a valuable artifact draws a Hobgoblin attack. New friends are found and old enemies cross.
Book 3.
As GAP invades Brassmoon City, Captain Dellyn Goblinslayer believes an entire army of goblins is about to attack. When he announces a captured goblin is to be publicly executed in the town square, GAP is forced to take drastic action. Thaco confronts his nemesis. The White Terror gets closer to her goal, and Dies Horribly must venture with a specially selected team into a dungeon crawl. Some new alliances are born, while old ones are cut short by death. The Brassmoon City arc comes to a conclusion by the end of the book.
Book 4.
In the dungeon crawl, Well of Darkness, Dies Horribly's team discover and struggle with their ability to handle danger. The artificial arm Klik gave Dies makes some disturbing development. In Brassmoon City which has been left crippled after the incident with the goblins, Forgath and Minmax arrive looking for a ranger to help them track down GAP. Their recruiting effort does not go as planned. Meanwhile, together again and already at Level 4, GAP continue their journey home, but the dwarven paladin Kore intercepts. Great loss is suffered and The Blue Orb of Bloodlight arc comes to an epic conclusion at the end of this book.
Book 5.
After the climax of Book 4, the ex-Drow team is back, only to be slaughtered by a powerful, newborn force of evil. Meanwhile, Minmax, Forgath and Kin traverse the pocket-dimension dungeon crawl, The Maze of Many. The trio is locked in a deadly race against over two hundred alternate versions of themselves, ultimately confronting a Psion alternate of Minmax who is sabotaging the Maze. After defeating him, Minmax and Forgath teleport back to their home world to do a long-awaited battle with GAP. However the two teams must unexpectedly side with each other to deal with Kore.
Production.
The comic started in June 2005. The art began as black and white and later switched to colored pages. the webcomic has 276 pages across seven "books", meaning there have been around 17 pages per year. The comic started being hosted by Comic Genesis, then later Keenspot and Blindferret, and as of 2021 is hosted by Hiveworks Comics.
In October 2008, Stephens made "Goblins" her full-time occupation.
Reception.
In 2011, the Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association awarded "Goblins" its "Aurora Award" in the Best English Graphic Novel category. In 2012 it also awarded "Goblins" an Aurora Award in the Best Graphic Novel category. In September 2006 it won Dragon Con's "Most Outstanding New Webcartoonist" award.
"Sequential Tart" reviewed the comic in 2008. Giving it an 8 out of 10, reviewer Donielle Ficca said, "This comic starts out extremely light and I would have classified it as a comedy. As it progresses it becomes much more serious and somewhat gruesome... Beyond the great storytelling that occurs the artwork goes from a rough pencil piece to a computer enhanced colorized comic of goodness." Reviewing the comic in 2015, Robert Hogan said that a reader probably wouldn't "get" "Goblins ""without having played either D&D or at least a RPG style game". They felt that the parody side of the comic was "funny enough but ultimately that sort of thing is limited", but enjoyed the comic for the story. They felt the comic tackled issues such as bigotry, loss, love, loyalty, sacrifice and the nature of evil. They said that the art started as very basic pencil sketches, then "improves to a reasonable level, if still on the more simplistic side". They also noted the slow update rate, and estimated it would take another ten years from 2015 to finish the story.
Spin-offs.
Proposed animated series.
An animated spinoff called "Goblins Animated" was proposed in 2017 first through Kickstarter then Indieogo. According to the Indiegogo campaign and website, voice actors such as Billy West, Jennifer Hale, Jim Cummings, Matthew Mercer, and Maurice LaMarche are involved. , the Indiegogo campaign reports that production is still ongoing, but that nothing has yet been released.
Proposed card game.
In 2013 a Kickstarter was launched to create a card game called "Goblins: Alternate Realities", which sought $30,000 of funding and received over $177,000. , the game has not been made and there is no signs that it will be produced. The latest information on the "Goblins" website is dated 2017 and says that the project is "at the stage where we're working on making sure that we have up-to-date info on all the backers."
Tempts Fate side-comics and proposed video game.
In order to encourage donations, Stephens created a side comic featuring a goblin character named Tempts Fate, who is not connected with the main story. At the beginning of each donation drive, Tempts Fate faced a series of obstacles and dangers; whether or not he survived, and how skillfully he did so, was directly correlated with how much money the donation drive makes. Stephens promised that if the donation goal was not met, Tempts Fate would die and would never be brought back again. The most recent Tempts Fate drive, Tempts Fate 11, raised $37,151, but Stephens never completed the comic that the donations were raised for.
In 2008, Ellipsis started a donation drive to create an interactive game with Tempts Fate. This was called Tempts Fate 9. Fans could create their own goblin character and she would help each one through an adventure that would be a mass co-operative experience. Afterwards, she decided to postpone the idea until it could be re-launched as a self-contained game. This job of doing this was given to a programmer. This decision to postpone and retool the game was made after the donation drive started. The money gained was not refunded. Instead, it was rolled over into Tempts Fate 8.5. By the time that the program needed to play the self contained Tempts Fate 9 game were completed, Ellipsis was no longer interested in running it, so the game was quietly canceled without an official announcement. Eventually, a new Tempts Fate 9 game was created, and all references to the original version were deleted from the website.
Phone game.
There is an app called "Goblins Pixel Dungeon"; it is a game featuring characters, lore and items from "Goblins". This may be a fanmade game not created by or supported by Stephens.
Author.
"Goblins" is created by In Ellipsis Hana Stephens. in 2019, Stephens announced that she was transgender, as well as announcing a name change. On October 17, 2019, Stephens launched a fundraiser, using GoFundMe, to help cover costs of her transition. After raising over $21,000 ($6,000 above the original goal), and having the surgery done, she deleted all mentions of the donation drive on her blog.