Running Qithout the Rebellion System


Hell's Rebels


1 person marked this as a favorite.

What is the effect? Any negative effects or narrative issues that one should be aware of?


Honestly... Not really.

Mechanically, the PCs will miss out on a few rewards (bonus skill ranks, bonus feats, bonus XP, magic items), but those aren't really world-shaking and are easy to compensate for as a GM.

Narratively, as long as you take the time to stress that the rebellion isn't just the PCs busting heads, but a movement they are spearheading (e.g. By using the given NPCs as the face of the rebellion), the actual rebellion mechanics don't really add much that I can see. It is easy enough to adjust events in the AP that refer to the rebellion mechanics.


Actually in hindsight I wish I would have run HR without the rebellion rules, as the rebellion rules messed up the balance of many encounters in the later stages of the AP. Too many free feats and skills made those encounters much easier for the PCs.

Silver Crusade

Gratz wrote:
Actually in hindsight I wish I would have run HR without the rebellion rules, as the rebellion rules messed up the balance of many encounters in the later stages of the AP. Too many free feats and skills made those encounters much easier for the PCs.

I second this. My players didn't really feel like the rebellion rules added to the story in a significant way, and I really feel like the extra feats did unbalance the encounters.


Thanks everybody.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I'm leaning towards downplaying the rebellion myself, though I think I'm going to stick with the bonuses. I don't find it difficult to adjust, if necessary, to the power shift, though I'm still not sold eit her way.


Some of the best moments in my game so far have come from having actual RP or combat based on the random events during rebellion weeks. I think the system works fine for players who don't min-max. But if your players are into optimization, then I can definitely see how the rebellion rules could push them towards some pretty high power levels. Most of the extra feats only affect skill-based stuff, and late in the adventure the party will desperately need those skills.

I am going to most likely run Hell's Rebels again in a couple years for a group that's played Kingmaker, and that group definitely optimized the kingdom building, so it will be interesting to see if most of the concerns here come to bear.

I think if I were to remove it I would still keep the benefits from allies, like the favors from Sargaeta, or Vandalfek being able to do some recon for them. Shensen obviously needs to exist if there's no PC bard.


So. I would fall myself into the camp that, given a chance to do everything over again, would drop Rebellion Actions.

It ends up feeling awkward - why would you have others do Rescue Actions when you could go out to do it yourself? Why aren't you doing these things during the week on your volition anyway? How does this all factor together again? Every time, it ends up feeling more like an exercise in bookkeeping than anything exciting.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

That's my concern. My players will get to decide, but it's complicated enough, and the kingmaking rules were a bit of a bummer for them (granted, we tried that one with 13 players, OMG stupid).

Shadow Lodge

Asurie wrote:

So. I would fall myself into the camp that, given a chance to do everything over again, would drop Rebellion Actions.

It ends up feeling awkward - why would you have others do Rescue Actions when you could go out to do it yourself? Why aren't you doing these things during the week on your volition anyway? How does this all factor together again? Every time, it ends up feeling more like an exercise in bookkeeping than anything exciting.

I find the Rebellion rules, and systems like them, useful for de-centering the PCs and creating something different from the ordinary sort of power fantasy that is Pathfinder. Why aren't the PCs doing all the rebellion actions? Because the world doesn't revolve around them and because it'd be absurd to have four guys revolutionize a city. Even Blanqui on his worst day would admit as much. The Rebellion system, to me, represents a chance to emphasize that what the PCs are leveragine isn't their personal power, but the collective power of the dispossessed and despised.

It's also useful if you're looking to simulate the experience of being a revolutionary. The swashbuckling vision that the AP tries to sell is a lie; most of what goes on in a revolutionary group is stuff that would find in an ordinary office. Organizing depends to a great deal on data entry. Agitation consists mostly of meetings. And education consists mostly of running meetings. Outside the crisis points, it's not terribly exciting.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

As an organizer myself, I've found this to be a useful simulation in some ways along zimmerwald1915's lines. You can't do everything yourself: indeed, it's harmful for a leader to do that and impossible after a certain number of people are involved. When leadership does everything, the rank and file end up being third parties in their own movement--someone else will always do things for them so it's less and less their movement where they learn to act collectively with agency. Having a mechanic that abstractly suggests how the organization is doing is the next best thing to actively having the PCs periodically RP a wide variety of members.

I'll also give the designers credit for focusing on recruiting as a core dynamic, rather than focusing on communications. You wouldn't believe the number of people who think that all you need to do is put the right message out there and everything else will magically fall into place.

I'd have liked for the treasury to have more of a connection to member services than simply recruiting teams and have had collective actions be more central to Organization actions.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Hell's Rebels / Running Qithout the Rebellion System All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Hell's Rebels