Grots & Gretchens

A Lasers & Feelings Hack · While Da Waaagh Rages · Many Dice · Few Answers

YER GROT OR GRETCHEN

Name your Grot or Gretchen. There is no reason for this. Do not ask.

Pick a Trait. This is how you endure.

Trait	How It Helps	What It Costs
Bitter	Rallies other Grots around shared grievance	Makes you visible as an instigator
Invisible	Someone else absorbs the attention and consequences	You can never claim credit. Ever.
Lucky	Outcomes bend slightly your way, somehow	Nobody trusts it, including you
Stubborn	Keeps going when smarter Grots have quit	Cannot read when quitting is correct
Suspicious	Sees it coming before it arrives	Paralysis, and nobody likes you
Useful	Actually gets things done	Becomes someone's property
Crafty	Controls your perceived value	Gets called at the worst moment

Pick a Gang. This is what you do, more or less, when things are normal, which they aren't.

Gang	Style
Squig Herders	You understand things that bite
Cannon Fodder (Veterans)	You have survived something like this before. Somehow.
Mek Underlings	You know which wires not to touch
Painboy Assistants	You know things about bodies. You don't talk about it.
Runtherd Dodgers	Collective action, distributed blame
Scroungers	Property is just location and timing

Pick your number, from 2 to 5.

2 PROPER SCHEMIN' · 3 SCHEMIN' · 4 SNEAKY · 5 DEAD SNEAKY

A low number means you're better at Scheme — social maneuvering, setup, information, making something happen without being seen doing it. A high number means you're better at Sneak — staying out of sight, physical evasion, ambush, not being the one who gets noticed.

DA ROLL

When you do something risky, roll 1d6. Normal Grot behavior — hiding, scavenging, muttering — just happens. No roll needed.

Before you roll, say whether you're relying on SNEAK or SCHEME. If it's unclear, the GM says which one applies, or asks what you're actually doing.

If you're relying on SNEAK: roll equal to or under your number. You weren't seen. You weren't there. Whatever happened, it wasn't you. Gain 1 Gubbin.

If you're relying on SCHEME: roll equal to or over your number. You set it up. It worked. You knew it would. Gain 1 Gubbin.

Roll exactly your number → RED GOBBO. This counts as success regardless of which you declared. You succeed, and you do it with unexpected dignity and narrative weight. Something briefly transcends. Gain 1 Gubbin, and every other Grot owes you 1 Gubbin.

Failure: The GM says how things get worse. You get noticed, lose your hiding spot, owe someone something, or find yourself briefly inside something large and biological. You do not lose Gubbins. You lose everything else.

YER GANG BONUS

When you invoke your Gang affiliation to claim a bonus die, describe how it's relevant. The connection can be convoluted. It should be convoluted. The more implausible the chain of reasoning, the better — as long as the table follows the logic.

A Runtherd Dodger can claim they know how to evade an Astra Militarum patrol because they've shirked the Boss before. Authority is authority. It counts.

If the table laughs, Mork and/or Gork gives you a Gubbin. This is theology. Do not question it.

If the table accepts the justification, roll 2d6 keep best.

GUBBINS

Gubbins are bits. Accumulated resourcefulness. Not money — Teef are Ork money. Gubbins are autonomy, stored in your pockets in the form of whatever you've picked up.

Earn Gubbins by:

• Succeeding on a roll (1 Gubbin)
• Rolling Red Gobbo (1 Gubbin from every other Grot)
• Making the table laugh (1 Gubbin from Mork and/or Gork)

Spend Gubbins by:

• Crafting a Gizmo (all your Gubbins, between scenes)
• Losing 1 on a failed craft roll
• Giving 1 to a Grot who helped you (see Helping)

HELPIN' AND BEING 'ELPED

If another Grot helps you, they describe how and roll. If they succeed, you roll an extra die.

Accepting help costs the helpee 1 Gubbin. Needing help is an admission. Admissions cost something. The Gubbin doesn't go to the helper — it just goes. Into the general economy of debt and obligation that Grots swim in.

You don't have to accept help. You can roll alone, protect your Gubbins, and live with the odds.

GIZMOS

Between scenes, if you have Gubbins, you can try to bash something together.

Describe what you're crafting and connect it to your Gang or Trait. A Squig Herder might craft a shock prod or jury-rigged spurs. A Runtherd Dodger might produce a shiny badge of offority that grants an extra die when ordering around another Grot or BSing a Nob. A Painboy Assistant produces things the table probably shouldn't ask about.

If the connection makes sense — or the table laughs — roll.

Roll equal to or under your Gubbin count → Gizmo exists. Spend all your Gubbins. The Gizmo grants one extra die on one roll. One time. Then it's gone, possibly in several directions.

Fail → lose 1 Gubbin. The thing didn't come together. Try again when you have enough.

Red Gobbo does not apply to crafting. Inspiration strikes in the moment, not the workshop.

If you roll Red Gobbo while using a Gizmo, the extra die succeeds and something adjacent to the intended function also occurs. The GM describes what. The more specific and weird your Gizmo concept, the more interesting this gets.

If you just rolled Red Gobbo and you don't have a Gizmo made, the table may ask why.

"'Cos I carn't think of what to bash together!"

"Wot kind of Grot are ya?!!!"

SABOTAGE

Petty Sabotage: Before another Grot rolls, you can declare Sabotage. This is a bet, not interference — no mechanical effect on their dice. The first Grot to call Sabotage gets the Gubbin from Mork and/or Gork if the target fails. If they succeed, nothing happens to you. Grot B keeps all their Gubbins either way.

You didn't trip them. You just didn't warn them about the step.

Righteous Sabotage: Once per session, the Grots can act collectively against the food chain above them — the Nob, the Runtherd, the demand itself. Everyone who participates adds a die to the pool.

• Success: The pressure briefly releases. Everyone gets 1 Gubbin from Mork and Gork. The story remembers this happened.
• Failure: Total Party Krump. The following scene opens with everyone poking out of the wreckage.

They come back from the wreckage the same as always. No explanation. Nothing happened.

GETTIN' SPLATTED

If something goes very wrong — consumed by a Squiggoth, caught in a Mek experiment, briefly occupying the same space as an incoming shell casing — you are removed from the current scene.

Next scene, you're back. Same Grot. Same Gubbins. Same Gizmos if any remain.

No explanation is offered or required. You're just here now.

The other Grots do not comment.

WHERE'S DA BOSS? AND WHO'S MAKIN' DEMANDS?

At the start of the session, establish the pressure. Roll or choose.

DA ORKS ARE CURRENTLY FIGHTING...

d6	Wot's Da Waaagh Pointed At
1	Beakies (Space Marines)
2	Humies (Astra Militarum — more bodies, more debris)
3	Warped Gits (Chaos — unpredictable and wrong)
4	Space Bugs (Tyranids — terrifying even to Orks)
5	Pointy Gits (Aeldari — someone's definitely getting blamed for something)
6	Each Other (the worst — no front line, no safe direction)

WHICH MEANS FOR US...

d6	Wot's Comin' Down Da Food Chain
1	Someone needs more bolts pulled out of someone else. Now.
2	The Meks need more scrap and we're the ones getting it
3	Something came back with the Boyz that shouldn't have. It's our problem.
4	Everything that was stored is being eaten. Find more.
5	Someone important got krumped. Power vacuum forming. Pick a side or don't.
6	Nobody knows where anything is anymore. Including us.

WHERE'S DA BOSS?

d6	Why Local Authority Is Temporarily Unavailable
1	Got blessed by a bolt round. Temporary. Probably.
2	Leading the charge personally. Forgot we exist.
3	Went somewhere wrong and hasn't come back right.
4	Being digested. This takes a while, apparently.
5	Is the other side. Pick a direction.
6	Can't find him. Neither can he. Neither can anyone.

WHO'S MAKIN' DEMANDS?

Something always moves into the vacuum. Immediately.

d6	Da Stand-In
1	A Nob who's wanted this moment for a long time and is overplaying it
2	A Mek who's technically not in charge but has leverage nobody wants to test
3	A Weirdboy whose demands make sense to him specifically
4	The Runtherd — which means everything is about headcount and he's counting
5	Another Grot who got elevated temporarily and is absolutely insufferable about it
6	Nobody officially, which somehow feels more dangerous

The Boss being absent is not a mystery to solve. The Grots are not going to rescue him. They're going to manage the fallout until he comes back or doesn't.

RUNNIN' DA GAME

The big war is weather. The Nob breathing down someone's neck is the actual problem.

Show evidence of the pressure before it lands. Before something bad happens to the Grots, show signs it's coming, then ask what they do. "Da Runtherd's coming down the corridor counting heads. You're two short. What do you do?"

Don't plan outcomes. Let the dice fall. Use failures to make things worse in interesting ways.

Accept convoluted Gang justifications if the table does. Award Gubbins from Mork and/or Gork when the table laughs. Let the Grots sort out the rest among themselves — they will.

The session ends when Da Boss returns, or when his absence stops mattering because something bigger has changed. Not a bell. Just the Waaagh reshuffling itself, the same as always.

TONE RULE

PLAY EVERYTHING LIKE IT'S FINE. IT IS NOT FINE. IT HAS NEVER BEEN FINE. EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS AND NOBODY SAYS IT.

These are normal activities. The Squiggoth is just part of the landscape. The shell casing was going to land somewhere. Nothing unusual happened in the last scene. Nothing unusual is happening now.

Keep yer hed down. Grab what you can. Don't get eaten.

And if your mate just rolled Red Gobbo and can't think of what to bash together — tell them exactly what kind of Grot they are.

Grots & Gretchens is inspired by Lasers & Feelings by John Harper (johnharper.itch.io) and by Jacob Moore (Warhammer AI Art Facebook Group)· The game format is open for hacking and remixing under CC BY 4.0 · Setting riffs on a universe owned by Games Workshop · This is unofficial fan content · Not approved or endorsed by anyone with a legal department · Waaagh.