‘Kobolds Ate My Baby: The Orange Book’ Makes Kobolds Better, Faster, Stronger With New Edition
Kobolds Ate My Baby: The Orange Book updates the game to run on the Polymorph rules system, making it fast, frenetic, and deadly. As it should be.
Kobolds Ate My Baby is a blast from the past, here with a fresh new book, The Orange Book, which updates the game while still clinging to its inestimable truths: kobolds die horribly, and it is fun to be a kobold. The game was originally released back in the halcyon days of the last millennia (don’t think too hard about it).
But when Kobolds Ate My Baby was first released, everyone was literally partying like it was 1999 because it was. With illustrations by the inestimable John Kovalic and a focus on playing fast and loose for a sort of “beer and pretzels” RPG, the game quickly caught on. This was largely because the game revolved around making players laugh as their characters died horrible, horrible deaths while trying to eat babies, and it featured a rule that made everyone shout something out in unison at the table.
Perfect fodder for playing with friends, strangers, and everything in between. This lighthearted RPG of furry kobolds rushing enthusiastically towards a horrible death in the service of their one true rule, King Torg (ALL HAIL KING TORG!) has been through a lot over the years. But the latest book makes it play even faster with absolutely no math required. Perfect for Kobolds.
Kobolds Ate My Baby: The Orange Book – The Review
For kobolds in the service of King Torg (ALL HAIL KING TORG!) their life will undoubtedly be silly, brutal, and short. They may be crushed by cows falling from the sky. They may be obliterated by meteorites, betrayed by friends, or brained by frying pans. They may cheerily march to their death upon the beaks of chickens or from the tentacles of eldritch magicks. If they are really lucky, they may survive long enough to bring back a tasty treat to the Kobold Caves and avoid becoming lunch themselves.
The Orange Book takes Kobolds Ate My Baby and bases it in the Polymorph RPG system. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Polymorph powers the OSR dungeon crawler, Mazes and The Excellents, a magical princess RPG.
It works perfectly for Kobolds Ate My Baby: The Orange Book because you only ever have to worry about rolling a single d6. Which is about the same size and shape as the average Kobold’s thoughts. You’ll roll the die, consult the “resolver” chart on the character sheet, and see if you succeeded.
Then, of course, there’s the Kobold Horrible Death Check, which you’ll hopefully be making frequently to find out how your Kobold dies so you can make a soliloquy and play a new one. That’s part of the rules. You have to stand up and soliloquize your absurd life and death and then jump right back into it.
It really is beer and pretzels. It’s just a good, quick, fun time that you can play with very little prep or experience. All you really need is a sense of impending doom and a lust for blood (your own or others).
If you’re looking for a game you can play over the course of a long campaign, where you build a carefully crafted narrative and fall in love with your character and their found family, this game isn’t for you. This game is for the gremlins out there. The people who want to watch the world burn, preferably while in pursuit of delicious snacks.
