D&D 5E Peasant Revolts in 5e

[Yora]

Sorcerers, Bards, Warlocks, Druids, Rangers, are all magic users that aren’t likely going to school, and are just as likely to be born regular folk as anything else, not to mention the fact that Wizard school assumes common wizardry. Common enough to have infrastructure around it.

Why on earth would Wizard not be a trade with a guild and apprenticeships?

I think a good number of revilts were led by priests. So you could throw in clerics as well.

 

[Argyle King]

Even with "bounded accuracy," I feel that the structure of D&D is heavily against a peasant uprising being much of a challenge. I would venture say that the chances of victory are even less than they were in real-world history.

While, yes, there are rules for swarms of creatures being more dangerous; there are still large disparities in HP, abilities, and damage.

Sure, that's also true in both real-world scenarios and more "simulationist" games, there are options/tactics in those which aren't particularly effective in D&D. For example, even a heavily-armored knight is in trouble when surrounded because there are attacks coming from blindspots and there's the possibility of a swarm of people grappling the knight to the ground and being stabbed in a vulnerable spot.

In contrast, D&D facing doesn't matter and even a fighter of low level likely has the skill and ability to win grapple checks against NPCs.

How many HP does a random peasant have? Many people run them as "minions," so 1HP? If so, that means that even a 1st-level Sleep spell knocks out somewhere between 5-40 people.

It's certainly possible to write up a stat block for CR-appropriate Peasants. In that case, the "issue" is being solved by essentially turning the idea of a peasant into a monster. There's not anything wrong with that. In fact, that's likely what I would do. But I still think that's a different scenario than what is envisioned by the OP.

 

[Argyle King]

Sorry for the double-post, but additional thoughts:

I could see building a group of peasants as one Gargantuan "monster."

As HP is lost, the size of the "monster" would shrink because HP loss would represent some of the monsters being killed.

Offensive capabilities might change too because there are things that a group of people can do more effectively than one person.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think a good number of revilts were led by priests. So you could throw in clerics as well.

Absolutely. I see no reason to assume clerics would all be part of the establishment, so even if the most powerful church is upholding an oppressive status quo, there would likely be “rebel” clerics who support revolution and the end of the tyrannical rule.

Also lesser knights (many of whom may be paladins), may well support rebellion. Some for genuine reasons, others opportunistically.

 

[MGibster]

I don't know if any edition of D&D has really done a great job plugging in character classes into the setting in some concrete way. Oh, I suppose we've had strongholds going as far back as 1st edition (maybe farther?) AD&D, think about your sociology classes and the creations of institutions. An institution isn't necessarily an organization, it's more of a "complex integrated set of social norms organized around the preservation of a basic societal value." The more common institutions include family, education, government, economy, and religion. How does a D&D character fit into these institutions? Do they?

In my experience, the answer is they usually don't. Sure, sometimes the PC is working with the government when they're clearing out a threat, but this is more akin to contract work than having any direct connection with the government. We jokingly (or not jokingly) refer to PCs as murder hobos and what's a hobo? A tramp, vagrant, transient, drifter, bum, or vagabond. These are people who don't have strong ties to any institutions and we kind of like it that way in seems. Getting PCs to respect any authority other than themselves is often like pulling teeth. One of the worst thing you can do to a PC is to rob them of their autonomy by having a social superior give them orders or for their peers (as if they have peers) to put social pressure on them. (Of course I write all this while playing in an Eberron game where we're directly tied to the government as agents of the crown, so, uh, exception to the rule?)

So I made the longwinded statements above to set this up. To understand the odds of a peasant's revolution succeeding you kind of need to understand all the players (institutions, important NPCs, organizations, etc., etc.), what their roles are, and what they want. And I feel as though most D&D adventures and settings, we really don't think about those kinds of things very much. @doctorbadwolf is right, you could have clerics, paladins, wizards, or other PC type classes supporting the peasants for a variety of reasons. Americans in particular are rather sympathetic to rebel causes, in no small part because of our own national founding myths and history, so in most campaigns the rebels will likely be the good guys.

 

[AtomicPope]

Sorcerers, BARDS, Warlocks, Druids, Rangers, are all magic users that aren’t likely going to school...

Bards literally go to college.

College of Lore is a university.
College of Valor is a community college.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Bards literally go to college.

College of Lore is a university.
College of Valor is a community college.

And whispers got their degree from a prestigious non-accreditated institution that contacted them through e-mail ?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One of the worst thing you can do to a PC is to rob them of their autonomy by having a social superior give them orders or for their peers (as if they have peers) to put social pressure on them.

I really dislike this mentality. Of course they have peers. And betters. They aren’t gods. They’re people.

Edit: I know you aren’t positing it as a good thing. I just wish D&D would Calm Down on the whole “the PCs are the great legends of thier day and just inherently better than everyone around them” mentality.

And whispers got their degree from a prestigious non-accreditated institution that contacted them through e-mail ?

Opposite way. They have degrees from the most prestigious schools in the world, and signets with coded esoteric symbolism identifying them as members of secret societies, and got in on a legacy scholarship. “Oh, I’ve got a room to myself because grandfather paid for this dorm 40 years ago.”

Bards literally go to college.

College of Lore is a university.
College of Valor is a community college.

Valor, like community college, is underrated.

 

[MGibster]

I really dislike this mentality. Of course they have peers. And betters. They aren’t gods. They’re people.

Edit: I know you aren’t positing it as a good thing. I just wish D&D would Calm Down on the whole “the PCs are the great legends of thier day and just inherently better than everyone around them” mentality.

I've always kind of viewed D&D as an adolescent fantasy. A chance for the players to tell the DM, "You're not my real dad!"

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've always kind of viewed D&D as an adolescent fantasy. A chance for the players to tell the DM, "You're not my real dad!"

Huh. I’ve always seen it as primarily a way to explore things that are true, but not real.