Attacked by Groups

Over in this thread: http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=2370.0, my group ended the session by indicating their desire to enter the tunnel that the two goblins were guarding at the beginning of the fight.  (From the Bloodstone Idol module in the Basic rules.)

Now, this tunnel leads down into the goblin warrens, where I fully expect the characters to run into large groups (if not ONE HUGE group) of goblins.

My question is this:  How would you run an encounter with 20 to 30 goblins against a party of 4 adventurers, assuming it leads to combat? (Darn bloodthirsty dwarven cleric!)

In my mind, this is like a swarm.  I am considering giving the entire swarm a number of hit points (and narrating individual deaths as each 5 points of damage is done to the swarm).  But this would probably mean that the swarm should have a grossly high damage rating. 

Or maybe the swarm has a lower damage rating but does damage (or moves) versus ALL the characters involved in the encounter.

But this would mean that when Merton (the Paladin) rolls 6- on his Hack and Slash, every character in the group would take damage (or a hard move).  This seems slightly unfair and definitely not part of being a fan of the characters.

So, does anyone have any advice for a DW Newbie?

I would think of the goblin-filled room as an environment, one you can make moves with and such, but not a monster per se. The individual golbins that get up in the character's grills, those are monsters.

This points the characters at some interesting choices. It might happen like this:

GM: "Every beedy eye in the room turns on you and you loudly exit the tunnel. What do you do?"

Fighter: "I Hack and Slash the goblins!"

GM: "How? There are a couple of dozen goblins here, are you just picking one at random and cutting him down?"

The interesting thing thins brings up is that if you choose to fight fight fight you're going to be facing goblin after goblin. The GM could be making moves with the goblin camp as a whole, like "separate them" by having a crowd of goblins drag off the wizard. By thinking of every goblin that hasn't done something as an individual as collectively an environment the room gets much easier to run.

When they wound a goblin and then it comes to you to make a move, you could always say "another one steps up to take the place of his wounded comrade," and heal it back up.

Sage:  Thanks!  That's a great way to run it, and I think I get it, but I still have concerns.

Mostly, I fear that my players will insist on the fight, fight, fight routine.  If this happens I can see combat dragging on for a long time as the thief and the paladin get into it with the goblins, the cleric makes many healing attempts and the wizard pelts the goblins with magic missiles from the background.

Heck, the dwarf might even taunt the goblins into attacking the party (or just him).  It would be helpful to be able to treat the entire "swarm" of goblins as one entity/monster in such an instance.  Or even just groups of the goblins as swarms.  (The warriors, mostly.  I can see the mothers, elders and children packing up and running for cover when the homicidal maniacs enter the area.)

This might also be an interesting way to make low-level monsters a significant threat for higher-level characters later in the game.

I guess what i'm thinking is something like this (not sure how to post an image, so here's a link to a classic Conan image):
http://celluloidpopculturejunkie.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/conan_killer_gremlins.jpg

mease19: I'm hoping to avoid the goblin-by-goblin route.  Going through 30 goblins in that fashion would really eat up a gaming session.

With a swarm-overlay on the goblins, the heroes could take out several at a time.  How satisfying would that be?  :)

I'm not saying that you go through all the goblins.  If they only become a monster when they get in your face, a hard move could be replacing the wounded goblin with a full-strength goblin.  You wouldn't go through all of them though, are you mad?

If the players are all '4e style' trying to kill 'em all. Waaaarrrrrrgh! Gently remind them with a soft move on a near hit or missed roll of the impending doom that awaits them if they try to plough through the WHOLE TRIBE. Dangle hints of other things to do or that are more important in front of them.

If the player's go with the strategic plan you outlined they may try, think fictionally of a threat to this, don't worry about the individual HP / Dam of the goblins.

Perhaps your move on a miss is to 'overwhelm with superior numbers', pinning one of the characters down.

Use up their resources other than HP. Take away their stuff (light, weapons, armour, dungeon gear, spell books) on a miss. Give them hard choices on a near miss, or state the consequences and ask them. 'Sure you can perform a sweeping arc attack and slay dozens of gobbos with a whirlwind of death, but you will most certainly sperate yopurself from the others as you dissapear into the mass clot of the melee, leaving yourself cut-off, alone and without the back-up of your party. What do you do?'

Use environmental effects, have the wizard's magic missle set fire to tents, sending billowing, choking smoke into the warrens,

As the Dwarf slices the head off a goblin, have it sail through the air and land at the feet of a terrified child goblin or mother, bawling in fear. The next nearest target is the mother, what do you do?

If say the wizard is casting magic missile and rolls a 7-9 and chooses 'expose myself to danger' then have him sorrounded by a rear guard and threatened with capture (he is a wizard after all!).

Have a wandering band of Icescales stumble into the warren maybe?

Maybe the cleric recieves a vision from their god hinting at the party's deaths at the hands of the goblins / lizardmen, or the awakening of the idol.

You could have a cut scene with a hint of Grundloch up to no good, or the demon pacing his room or the Guaraax swimming about below.

Just remember that although the 'scene' is the encounter of the players with the goblins, there are 'ripples' that spread if they choose to overcome the obstacle with combat. Not the least of which is the reduction of their 'mistake margin' (HP) resource.

Are the group rules coming back, or are they gone for good?

We don't plan on bringing back groups as modifiers for monster stats. The realization we came to was that was AW cruft: in AW the only way for something to be much scarier than you is to have more people, maybe a lot more. In DW that's not the case: monsters get tougher. The idea is at higher levels you get to deal with demons instead of huge crowds of goblins.

We'll include a section on dealing with groups I think, but it will break down to what I posted up thread: stats are for individuals, groups are just ways of making moves. Goblins surround you, what now? The goblins between here and the door are so thick you can't charge through them, what now? That one goblin you killed is instantly replaced, what now?

Yeah, it seems like something GMs can easily do for themselves with the existing monster creation guidelines.

A Mob of Goblins
Dangerous to a small town
lives in settled areas,
skilled with weapons
Moves:

• Wash over someone like a tide... as stabby tide.
• Drag down even the strongest fighter

etc...

Can I just say Hamish, that is EXACTLY how I think a Monster 'stat block' should look! The HP / Damage are not even mentioned, though if you wanted to specify that 'hard data', just put it in at the bottom. Fictional Moves and Tags first! Yay!

I have to admit, I would put the numbers right under the name. I personally look for balanced opponents, then weave the fiction around that. In this case I was simply too lazy to look up the thread where the new values are. :D

Sorry to disappoint!

I find the numbers being clearly called out to be a matter of ease of use. That said, I'm tinkering.

Yeah, this is really important in a monster list, IMO. One of the best things about 4e was how easy the monster stat blocks were to use.