Project: Gallows

Summary:  A beginner's tabletop roleplaying game set within a western fantasy universe.

Year Completed: 2008
Game Genre: Tabletop RPG
Design Role(s): Mechanics Design, System Design, Copy Writer, GM for Testing
Software Used:   Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word

Game Overview: In 2008 I was inspired by products released during the 2008 “Free RPG Day” to design a tabletop game. Project: Gallows was created as an effort to design a simple tabletop RPG with two purposes.  The first was to introduce new players to the experience of traditional roleplaying games.  The second was to design a simple mechanics system that could also be adapted to other more popular systems, such as D20 or the White Wolf system.

To design the game for new players I decided to first pick a popular, but not completely overdone aesthetic, universe for the game.  To this end, I decided to stick with a wild west and steampunk fusion that would appeal to traditional RPG fans and also non-gamers who were familiar with the western aesthetic.  Furthermore I strove to fit the majority of the game’s rules onto one page, settling with a simple percentage based system that wouldn’t seem abstract or odd to non-gamers.  To help avoid the necessity of referring back and forth from the rules, the game was written with the intent of allowing the game master to apply quick modification to test difficulties, as opposed to making specific rules for a situation requiring reference.

Finally, multiple highly distinguishable characters had to be designed for the players.  These characters needed to be designed with different play styles and tastes in mind.  To this end the characters were based off stereotypical western characters while at the same time considering character classes often seen in games like Dungeons and Dragons or Shadowrun.   To keep a lighthearted, less imposing feeling for the game the characters were also chosen with a certain level of humor in mind.  The ‘wench’ class is an example of this mentality.   By taking the stereotypical charismatic rogue and looking at the western motif the concept of the less combat oriented ‘wench’ came into fruition.  The name, it should be pointed out, was picked due to an overwhelming number of play testers (male and female) choosing it as the ideal and most entertaining choice for a name.