A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Barter Alleys 01: Grady Crossing

Barter Alleys 01: Grady Crossing by Dave Woodrum is a generic role playing game supplement published by Fishwife Games.

The supplement is available as a 12-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $2.49 but was purchased at a reduced price during a sale. Two pages are the front and rear covers and one the front matter.

The Introduction explains that the series is intended to be used with most cyberpunk games. Each entry describes an alley, side street or similar, with a variety of buildings, including stalls, vending machines and other buildings. They are intended to be compatible with most games in the genre and are inspired by the real world and genre media’ costs are given in “credits” rather than a specific currency. It then explains that this entry covers a location where two passages cross and some history of the area, which is named after the, now gone, Grady Textile Plant.

Locations then covers 18 different locations in the alley. Each is described and there are details on who, or what, is there, what is sold, if anything, and various connections to NPCs in other parts of the city.

Random Alleyway Encounters and Events is a d12 list of random events of different kinds that can happen.

The final two pages of content have colour maps of the alley, one labelled for the GM and one unlabelled for players. Both have spaces to make notes.

Barter Alleys 01: Grady Crossing in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation is adequate. The text maintains a single column format and appeared to be free of errors. As well as the maps and covers, there is a single piece of colour stock art. Presentation is adequate.

This supplement describes a small location that should be easy enough to drop into an urban cyberpunk city, given that it’s an alley. It will need some adjusting for different systems, and may well need some alterations to make it work with a setting, but it shouldn’t be too hard to use with any cyberpunk, or even futuristic, game. Each location is described in a decent level of detail, and there are a number of potential adventure hooks. Barter Alleys 01: Grady Crossing is a useful little supplement and it can be found by clicking here.