A game about weapons and other junk.

You are Loot Goons. You live in weird underground places

filled with junk that came from the Uplands. Some of Words / Artwork / Layout: Chris Bissette
it is magical. Most of it is dangerous. You don’t really Character Sheets: Ryan Hennessey at
know where it came from, who put it here, or why. Whipstache Designs

There are monsters and other things in the Downlands Loot Goons is a hack of / love letter to Tunnel
with you. Sometimes they’re guarding new junk. Do with Goons by Nate Treme and also Tetris.
that information what you will.
Loot Goons is released under Creative Commons
4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0)

Illustrations and logo © 2020 Chris Bissette.

All rights reserved.

loottheroom.itch.io
loottheroom.uk
twitter.com/pangalactic
doing Dangerous Stuff Death
If an action has a risk of danger, the difference When a character’s Health Points reach zero, they die.

stuff in the between the roll and the Difficulty Score is the amount
of damage inflicted (if relevant).

downlands Dangerous Example #1

As an action, Esmerelda fights a Tunnel Bear with a
Advancement
Level up every 1d4 game sessions. Each level, raise
When an action’s success is in question a Goon rolls DS of 12. Esmerelda rolls 4d4 and adds 1 from their an Ability Score by 1 and raise either Health Points or
4d4 and adds the score from their relevant ability, Brawn ability and 1 from their sword’s Stabby tag. Junk Score by 1d4. Every fourth level, you can re-roll
plus anything from their loot that might be useful. The total is 13. The difference between 13 and 12 is the Tags on any item in your Inventory.
If the total is greater than or equal to the action’s 1, so the Tunnel Bear takes 1 damage and its DS and
Difficulty Score (DS) then the Goon succeeds at Health Points are reduced to 11. If the roll was 10 then
what they were trying to do. Esmerelda would have lost 2 health.

Difficulty Score Guidelines Dangerous Example #2 Healing

Easy: 10 After fighting the Tunnel Bear, Esmerelda comes to a Regain lost Health Points by spending the night in a
Moderate: 12 gorge that they think they might be able to jump over. safe place.
Hard: 14 The referee sets the Difficulty Score at 14. They roll
4d4 and add 1 from their Bravado ability. The result is
A non-player character’s DS is also their Health 15, so Esmerelda succeeds. You can’t damage a gorge,
Points. Every time they take damage their health is so there is no effect from rolling over the DS. If the
lowered, and their Difficulty Score is also reduced. roll had been 13, Esmerelda would have lost 1 health
and would need to find a new way to cross the gorge.
Most mundane items - lockpicks, pitons, grappling
hooks, rope, bedrolls - are abstracted. Each character
Special Items
Some items are special - like magic weapons, loot and the
has a Junk Score. Any time you want to use a mundane
item to influence the result of a roll, subtract 1 from
your Junk Score and add 1 to your roll. You can do
spellbooks, and pocket-sized holes that you can fold
up and carry with you. These items take up space in
your Inventory, which is on your character sheet and
inventory
this after you have rolled the dice and failed, if you like. has 16 slots.

Your Junk Score resets when you spend time in a place When you find an item that is unusual or special in some
where you could realistically restock. way, roll 1d4. The result is how many Tags the item has.
Generate these from the Tag Tables (see Tables after
Using Junk Example Character Creation).
Esmerelda tries to leap across the gorge, but they
only rolled a 13 - one shy of the Difficulty Score of 14. Then, add the item to your Inventory. It takes up one
They have a Junk Score of 3 and they really want to space for each Tag. If there isn’t enough free space
make it across on this try, and don’t want to take the in your Inventory, you must discard something before
damage from failing. you can carry the new item.

Esmeralda narrates how they grab a heavy pickaxe

that was slung across thier shoulder, digging it into
the rock at the top of the gorge and using it to pull
themselves up. Their Junk Score becomes 2, and the
result of their roll is now 14 - equal to the Difficulty 3
Score, and enough to make the roll succeed.
character Ability Scores Choose an option at random from each of the Character
Every player character has a score of zero or more Creation tables. Each table has 8 options, so a smart

creation for these abilities. person would simply roll 1d8. However, this game
uses d4s and was designed by someone too stubborn
Brains: Good at thinking, scheming, identifying things, to suggest you use more than one dice-size, so the
Name yourself and pick some pronouns. perception. recommended solution is to use 2d4 to generate a
number between 1 and 8 by treating the first d4 as
Write on the character sheets at the back of this book, Brawn: Good at smacking things, feats of strength, a d2 and reading the d2 as a Tens result and the d4
photocopy them, or print them out from resisting poison. as Units.
loottheroom.itch.io/loot-goons.
Bravado: Good at swaggering, pretending to be brave, Yes. I know. Please don’t email me about this paragraph
Health Points start at 8. intimidating, looking like you’re meant to be here. of dense rules text that could have been replaced with
the words “Roll 1d8 on each Character Creation table”.
Your Junk Score starts at 4. Banter: Good at speaking, convincing, calming, lying,
persuading, haggling. Roll Loot Tags for any Special Items you start with
and add them to your Inventory.
physique
1-1 Ooze Beast (1 Brawn)
Your Fixation Is…
1-1 Downlands History (1 Banter) character
1-2 Fungus Folk (1 Brains)
1-3 Tunnel Bear (1 Brawn)
1-2 Bears (1 Bravado)
1-3 Heavy Things (1 Brawn) creation
1-4 Lost Uplander (1 Brains)
2-1 Spider Kin (1 Brains)
2-2 Stalag Knight (1 Brawn)
1-4 Bioluminescence (1 Brains)
2-1 Rituals and Declarations (1 Banter)
2-2 Naturally Occurring Breakfast Foods (1 Brains)
tables
2-3 Centi Scrambler (1 Brains) 2-3 Rock Boxing (1 Brawn)
2-4 Stone Hulk (1 Brawn) 2-4 Folk Tales (1 Banter)

You Trained As… Why Aren’t You At

1-1 Sigil Scribe (1 Brains, Chalk & Paint) Home In Bed?
1-2 Tub Thumper (1 Brawn, Dusted Knuckles) 1-1 Ran away (Something Stolen From Home)
1-3 Tunnel Goon (1 Bravado, Pickaxe) 1-2 Banished for your crimes (A Bullet With Your
1-4 Lore Thief (1 Banter, Crowbar) Name On It)
2-1 Vellum Merchant (1 Brains, Endless Scrolls) 1-3 Got lost in a tunnel (Shovel)
2-2 Bear Wrangler (1 Brawn, Spiked Shoulders) 1-4 Hunting Uplanders (Catchpole)
2-3 Cliff Crawler (1 Bravado, Pitons & Mallet) 2-1 There’s treasure in these caverns (Big Sword)
2-4 Screech Weaver (1 Banter, Trumpet) 2-2 Searching for the source of magic (Dowsing
Rod)
2-3 On a mission from the Queen of the bears
(Butterfly Net)
2-4 You dropped something and can’t find it
(Magnifying Glass)
loot tags
To roll a d44, roll a d4 twice in order.
1-1 Exploding. Damage is doubled when using this
item - even damage to you.
1-2 Lucky. Reroll any result of 1 when using this item.
1-3 Scary. It’s scary.
E.g. Titanya rolls a 1 then a 4, thus making a roll of 1-4. 1-4 Blinding. Emits bright, dazzling light at all times.
2-1 Overpowering. Roll an extra 1d4 when using this
item.
2-2 Aggressive. You’re compelled to start fights.
2-3 Shifting. Negate a damaging result, then lose
this tag.
2-4 Unpredictable. Every time you use this item, roll
on the Loot Tags and apply the result to that use.
3-1 Returning. Always comes back to you when you
throw it away. Can’t be discarded.
3-2 Sentient. It’s awake, and it wants to talk to you.
3-3 Thirsty. It thirsts - but for what?
3-4 Bestial. Each time you use it, your form changes
slightly towards the monstrous.
4-1 Wandering. Can be used as a compass to point
to where you want to go.
4-2 Sundering. When you hit with it, it breaks
weapons. When you miss with it, it breaks.
4-3 Blinking. When you roll as high as you can, you
teleport randomly to somewhere nearby.
4-4 Grisly. Summons a bear, who appears beside you.
(Draw 16 square boxes connected to each other. THese are your
inventory. Don’t be boring and make one big swuare, that’s no fun.)
LootTheRoom.io