Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.
Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.
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Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide is the quick-start for Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG, the alternative history roleplaying game inspired by, and set five years before, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. The Player Characters are members of peasanty, barely recovering from the disastrously disruptive effects of the Great Mortality, who want to challenge the powerful, the greedy, and the tyrannical, and build a new version of England, one known as ‘The Anarchy’, where they would be free of bondage and have the liberty to live in peace.
It is a ninety page, 65.57 MB full colour PDF.
‘A Spark Takes Hold’, the introductory adventure is a thirty page, 15.48 MB full colour PDF.
It is decently written and the artwork really is very good.
How long will it take to play?
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide together with the scenario, ‘A Spark Takes Hold’, is designed to be played through in two sessions.
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide together with the scenario, ‘A Spark Takes Hold’, is designed to be played through in two sessions.
What else do you need to play?
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide requires three each of four-sided, six-sided, and twelve-sided dice, which should be of a different colour.
Who do you play?
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide does not include any pre-generated Player Characters. Players are expected to create their own using the included rules, but the process is quick and easy.
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide does not include any pre-generated Player Characters. Players are expected to create their own using the included rules, but the process is quick and easy.
How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character in Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is a peasant who has a
name and description, a Trade and a Job, as well as Experience, represented by three Traits which are Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual. Trade, Job, and the three Traits are each represented by a die. Six Trades and their associated Jobs are given. The Trades are Soldier, Herbalist, Barber-Surgeon, Pickpocket, Smith, and Scribe. Each has four Jobs. For example, the Scribe has ‘Teacher’, ‘Trusted Confidant’, ‘A Comfortable Life’, and ‘Local News’, whilst the Barber-Surgeon has ‘Setting a Bone’, ‘Bite down on this’, ‘Leeches’, and ‘Pain Artist’. Trade, Job, and two of the Traits have a six-sided die assigned to them, whilst the third has an eight-sided die assigned to it. These dice can change and grow in number over the course of a campaign.
How do the mechanics work?
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide—and thus Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG—advises that a player relies upon his own abilities as much as those of his character, since he will be more aware of the world rather than the character, that collaboration is the key to success, death is likely and combat to be avoided—most of the time, and that they should embrace failure.
The roleplaying game uses a dice pool system. It advises that a player relies upon his own abilities as much as those of his character, since he will be more aware of the world rather than the character, that collaboration is the key to success, death is likely and combat to be avoided—most of the time, and that they should embrace failure. When a player wants his character to act and pass a Test, he forms a dice pool formed of his character’s Experience dice, Trade dice, and Job dice. A result of five or more is counted as a success, four or less a failure, and only singled success required for the peasant to succeed. The rules tell the player to advocate for as many dice as he can to form the pool, but ideally, a player and his character should rely upon roleplaying and Skills rather than attempting Tests. A Skill represents something that a Player Character can automatically do.
The players as a group can also spend ‘Opportunities’ to alter the world around or give an order to member of their Retinue. This might be to send a member of their retinue to scout out a village, to wait in ambush ready to strike at an enemy, or to gather resources or craftsmen to reinforce their camp or improve their community, but they can also be spent to allow a player to bring their character’s Job into play once again.
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is played out over a series of Seasons, Scenes, and Clocks, the latter being used to track something that the Player Characters are struggling against, such as being hunted by a local Sherrif’s soldiery, attempting to erect fortifications in a hurry, and so on. They are attempting garner ‘Influence’, a combination of their fame and notoriety that enables them to do greater and bigger things as it grows. Primarily, it allows them to recruit a Retinue, but as it goes from ‘Unknown’ up through ‘Spoken Of’, ‘Recognisable’, ‘Well Known’, and ‘Notorious’ to ‘Famous’, they will be able to more, granting Benefits and Detriments that can be used once per Season. Their overall Collective Influence is measured against ‘Control’, which represents the power and domination that the state—the crown, the nobility, and the church—hold over the immediate county and over all England. By undertaking acts of liberation and challenging the power of the state such as writing and spreading mocking songs, disrupting the activities of tax collectors, and even burning the manors of the landed classes, the Player Characters can reduce the ‘Control’ value for the county. If the ‘Control’ value is reduced to under the Player Characters’ ‘Collective Influence’, a Showdown can be staged.
How does combat work?
Combat is quick and deadly. It is played out as a series of opposed Physical Experience rolls, each combatant attempting to reduce his opponent’s condition from ‘Standing’ to ‘Knocked Back’ to ‘Down’, and then ‘Retreating’. This also applies an increasing penalty to the roll. The victor always chooses the outcome, but can also improve his own condition, offer assistance to an ally, kill or capture an enemy, and so on.
What do you play?
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide does include some background on the counties north of London, a short adventure, ‘At the Centre of the World: A Stirbitch Adventure’ that could be dropped into a campaign and is really a set-up for a freeform, some NPC details, and various tables of events. These can be developed into fuller situations, but do suggest the consequence of success and failure. The main scenario in Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide is ‘A Spark Takes Hold’ which opens with the Player Characters having been captured by the militia after agreeing to help a woman, Blackwater Maggie, a wanted outlaw, some hours earlier at a midsummer’s eve celebration the previous night. The bulk of the scenario is spent attempting to persuade the river port of Maldon and its most notable inhabitants to their cause, and working to reduce the ‘Control’ value the state has over the town, ultimately to force a Showdown. Effectively, this showcases the play of Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG in just a single location which can then be scaled up to a whole county and the creation of The Anarchy.
No. Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide does not include the ‘Pointcrawl’ mechanics of the full game, instead focusing upon the core game play of ‘Influence’ versus ‘Control’.
Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide is easy to prepare, but there is a lot to read through. Ultimately, the rules are straightforward and easy to understand.
Is it worth it?
Yes. Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide is a very good looking product that is somewhat overwritten for what is effectively a quick-start. That is, it does give a more than sound introduction to the rules of the roleplaying game and how it is played, but not all of it is pertinent to the playthrough of the included scenario. The combination though, of the rules and the scenario, ‘A Spark Takes Hold’ superbly showcases Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG and gives a good taster of what is to come in the full RPG.
does a good job of introducing both the future that is Planet of the Apes and the rules to the roleplaying game, along with a solid adventure that gives the Player Characters more agency than most quick-start adventures and is thus more complex to run.
Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG Prerelease Guide is published by Three Sails Studios and is available to download here.
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