The Goose of Grillner Grove
A downloadable game
A tabletop roleplaying game for 3 players for 15 minutes.
Play townsfolk attempting to warn a newcomer about the goose that's lived in the area for 20 years, and plagued each of you personally.
Take turns telling stories about that time when you saw the goose doing something outrageous, but don't violate the two truths of the game- the goose isn't supernatural, and the goose doesn't die- lest you be honked at by the other players.
At the end, decide if the newcomer heeds your warnings...
Emoji Update
In honor of Unicode 15.0 finally giving us the goose emoji we need, I've added an additional prompts sheet made up entirely of emoji.
What does 🐐 🚩 ⛸ mean? Up to you! That goose is capable of anything.
Audiobook
Want to listen to The Goose of Grillner Grove? You can hear the rules and prompts, read by Aaron Catano-Saez
You'll get separate mp3 files for the rules and each of the 13 prompts,
Translations
Korean translation by Sangjun Park included with game downloads
French translation by Nicolas "Gulix" Ronvel (available for purchase here)
Cover photo by Paul Codling on Unsplash
The Goose of Grillner Grove by Jennifer Martin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $3 USD. You will get access to the following files:
HONK
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copies
Want The Goose of Grillner Grove but don't have the funds?
Grab a community copy here for free, no questions asked. If you want to play my game, I want you to be able to!
Learn more about Community Copies from @DeePennyway here!
Full Color Print Edition
Get a gorgeous color edition of the game, including prompts and emojis!
📫 Make sure to fill out the Name & Address and Country fields after the payment screen! 📫
Please add $1 for international shipping.
Download demo
Development log
- Korean Translation & Color Edition AvailableOct 04, 2020
- The Goose Flies at... right now!Sep 21, 2019
Comments
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What an absolutely iconic game. I work with small groups of students and they have a ball with it--my board game group was doubled over in laughter from this game too. I really love how there's no prep and no stats, just pure story. Sometimes I have my participants expand on their relationships with their friends and rivals. With one player being the newcomer and two other players who tell two stories each, the game lasts 15-20 minutes. With a group of four to five, it takes 20-25 minutes if they all say one story each.
If you're looking for a way to encourage students to speak or if you just want to bust a gut laughing, this game is perfect for that :)
I'm so glad you've had such a good time with it! HONK 🪿
This might be the perfect bite-sized game.
It's about fifteen minutes, and the mechanics are basically storytelling and egging other people on. If you're looking for a warmup before diving into something longer form, this is a great choice.
It's also balanced by the group honking at rulebreakers, which is something I think more games should use.
Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone who likes storytelling games, simple mechanics, and quick runtimes. It's probably a little bit better played in person than remotely, but it's perfectly viable with an online group, and besides: everyone has a goose story.
Thanks for this great short and sweet game! Perfect for these crazy pandemic days when many of us are isolated in our individual homes.
I handpicked this for our usually live story game meetup. Last night an hour before our 1st attempt to online game, I started figuring out how to sequence game play and my hubby Tomes and I created a google doc. People enjoyed being able to write in their names and info as well as see story basics right there and then.
Our Canadian goose for the most part terrorized our modern day town. It robbed a bank of a bag of nickels, leading to one dear citizen to lose their job. It crashed an outdoor movie night and chased away customers from our local theatre. Kids walked around scared. But for a few, the goose's presence led to some positives. A bully denied. Family members bonded as they invented contraptions to deal with the aviary nightmare.
Online story gaming is helping keep us connected, and games like this one is a gift.
Played this with a few friends this weekend and had a blast for an hour.
The doctor-barber claimed it laid poisonous eggs. The seamstress said it stole some special order fabrics and ran her out of town. The postman said it chased him onto the church roof and then fought off a wild wolf from the woods, leaving him in the freezing cold to eventually lose a finger to frostbite. The gravekeeper saw the goose perch on the recently deceased and mimic sucking out souls... Once its nest was found in an abandoned shed, full of sheets and mail, the postman swore to purchase a rifle and put it down.
They warned him: run. If you see it, RUN. The visitor took this all with a grain of salt, but said he'd look out for it. The townsfolk argued among themselves about who was really at fault for some of these stories; the doctor-barber wasn't that great a doctor after all, and the seamstress shouldn't have left out her fancy fabric outside anyway. And who's to say the postman wasn't in cahoots with the goose after all?! How else would the goose gather so much mail...!
In the end, one foggy night, the visitor crossed paths with the goose and froze, uncertain, unable to see what the fuss was all about. It was then, the postman made his daring shot and --because of his missing finger-- missed the goose entirely and caught the unfortunate visitor in the crossfire... As the visitor shuffled off this mortal coil, all he could think was, "Damn... they were right..."
(a title card I threw together to set the mood!)
Aaaaaahhhhh that's so good! And the title card, wow! Thank you for sharing! ❤️