Some role-playing games may also serve to deal with important social issues and Red Rook Revolt is one of them.
It will also be due to the fact that the author Magnus T. Hansen is a scholar of philosophy with clear political ideas, but all his enthusiasm can be found in the spirit behind this work. Both he and the rest of the development team are fairly novice in role-playing game creations, but this seems to have given a good initial boost to the project. To be precise, Magnus had already created another Kickstarter project in the past: Titan Hunt.
The progress of the Kickstarter campaign
This aspect seems to me a bit clumsy. The presentation page is precise and full of explanatory material about the game, but some details in my opinion could have been done with more care.
Let’s start with the pledges: they are few, but not uninteresting. The most convenient one seems to be the €10 one; it is a really good price for the full version of the manual of 90-100 pages in PDF format. Even the more expensive ones are interesting, providing the possibility of having the printed manual or a bundle also containing Titan Hunt.
However, this choice probably weighed on the low interest generated by the stretch goals. The first is the character sheet (with some pre-made characters): why not include it in the basic manual? It would have been quite important. Subsequent stretch goals are payments for the development team. This is not to be understood as an amoral attempt to get rich; the low pledge prices probably almost wiped out the creators’ initial earnings. In any case, seeing stretch goals that, in fact, do not offer anything, not even symbolic, is not too much pleasure.
The Red Rook Revolt scenario
But let’s get to the point: what is the proposed product actually?
Red Rook Revolt tells the story of the commune of Red Rook fighting for its freedom, fed up with the tyranny of the central empire of Alarum. The latter, also known as the Empire of the Wings, usually annexes territories to “free” them, but then begins to punctually exploit them for resources and for the workforce.
Thanks to the importance of the community and the help among companions, players will be able to use more or less conventional means to escape the grip of an apparently much more powerful and organized force. Among the tools available there are also magic and demonic powers, but their use should not be taken lightly. The first represents a precious legacy of the ancestral spirits of the sky and can be manifested in various forms; demons, on the other hand, are tied to arms, but their mental influence risks clouding the user’s will.
The means of the rebels
The author created a very simple game system which however seems to embody the spirit of the whole work. All the tests are carried out with the launch of a single d6; collaborations take place by giving your d6 to your adventure companions, giving a special value to your personal dice, a brotherhood value.
The combat wants to be dynamic and is based on some main mechanics. Melee attacks always hit and serve to “charge” demonic powers. Instead they manifest themselves through the use of firearms, each with its own particularities; be careful though: reckless use could lead to isolation or to the impossibility to distinguish companions. Finally the magical talismans allow you to give dynamism and freshness to the fight, thanks to skills such as teleportation and projectile deflection.
Great importance is then given to both the individual and the community. Some mechanics demonstrate how union is strength and how fighting for one’s mates is never a bad choice. The Red Rook commune as a whole serves as a safe “lair” in which to heal physical injuries as well as frictions between companions. But be careful: failing your missions will remove this opportunity and impose the need to fight to repel the invasion!