D&D 5E Nations and Cannons: The American Crisis for DND 5E

[GuyBoy]

Stating that the Seven Years War was a world war is not without merit, but to argue that it was a world war “started” by the American colonists is historically questionable.
Certainly the power projection capabilities of Britain and France by the 1750s made combat in multiple theatres possible, but “started” by a bunch of colonists? That carries as much truth as arguing that Princip caused WW1. He may have lit the fuse, but he didn’t create the barrel of gunpowder.
The 7 years war had significant roots in the War of Spanish Succession from around 1701 and of Austrian Succession in around 1740, as Habsburg and Spanish power declined and Britain and France competed to fill the power (and money) vacuum in Europe (and, increasingly, beyond). The colonists were the Princips of the 1750s.
It’s certainly possible to argue that the Seven Years War was “Major C18th Conflict, Episode 3” in the same way that WW2 was “WW1, Part 2 but nastier and with added Fascism”, at least in terms of causation.

But, equally, I’m conscious that I may be participating in a digression beyond the game in question.......

 

[Neonchameleon]

This view requires that French and British Territorial Governors, who ordered the actions that led to the war, be primarily considered "colonists" instead of primarily viewed as agents of their respective crowns. I reject that characterization.

There are two people who were primarily responsible on the British/American side that ordered the actions that lead to that war. The first was the Governor was explicitly acting without the knowledge of the government (which casts its own light on the reasonableness of George III). The second was a young officer who then found an opportunity to ambush French troops and then got his force captured.

While I accept the governor might have been acting against British interests it's legitimate to see him as British responsibility I find it much harder to say the same about the young and ambitious officer who actively used his own initiative and ordered the ambush that started the war and then got captured for it. He was, after all, George Washington.

And I find it a bad case of double standards to blame Britain for a governor that ordered the actions that lead to the war and refuse to accept responsibility for the person who made the decisions and ordered the actions that actively started the war - or to refuse to accept that George Washington himself should primarily be considered a colonist.

Further, as you were talking about the reasonableness of George III I don't find it an unreasonable position either that taxes for defence are legitimate or that when a war was started by a colonist and a governor acting against instructions for the crown to consider that it was dragged into the war.

There is a lot to be said here, of course, about how people shouldn't be governors and have strong financial interests; Dinwiddie was acting not as a colonial governor so much as he was an agent of the Ohio Company founded by two of George Washington's half brothers and Robert E Lee's grandfather. This is very much corruption - and the Ohio Company was very much a colonist enterprise. So even though I fully accept Dinwiddie as being not a colonist the reason he acted the way he did was that he had been corrupted by influential and wealthy colonists and was acting in their interests.

Blaming the Americans for starting the war when of the two people who gave the orders one was George Washington himself and the other was following the interests of the colonists over that of the British crown is not something I consider remotely unreasonable.

And while on the subject given that the war was started in significant part by a governor in the pay of wealthy colonists trying to ensure that being a governor was a paid position is a relatively reasonable way to try to prevent that happening again. And yet it's something you pick out as objectionable.

 

[Flagbearer Games]

Hey, folks. I'm just finding this thread now, I'm the lead designer of Nations & Cannons. I've been meaning to post here but, as someone who doesn't often frequent EnWorld... I didn't wanna kick in the doors and start shilling my product? Outreach is hard, y'all.

We do have a Quickstart available on DriveThru that does a good job of explaining what Nations & Cannons is. It's pretty substantive at a 70 page PDF (covering everything but the GM section of our Core Rules publication), and will always be available for free as part of our educational mission.

I've seen some of the comments here wondering about how we handle sensitive topics in this subject matter. Our approach is very much 1) to approach history from an inclusive perspective and try to highlight diverse voices wherever possible, and 2) to let the historical record speak for itself. We don't produce revisionist history from a contemporary lens; but neither is this a jingoistic product that tries to whitewash problematic areas in the Patriot story, or present the British and their allies as mustache-twirling caricatures. Here's a link to our mission statement.

Don't take my word for it though—we tackle a lot of this head-on in at the very beginning of the Quickstart. Happy to answer any questions you guys might have!

 

[Weiley31]

No lie: I REALLY like the Firebrand class symbol.

 

[Flagbearer Games]

No lie: I REALLY like the Firebrand class symbol.

Thank you! It's one of those small details that we really wanted to get right when introducing a new class. Here's a high res version:

I feel like a lot of players completely miss the class icons in the PHB, because they're inset in a way which is pretty subtle. It's a shame; they generally do a great job conveying the feel and flavor of a class.

 

[Sparky McDibben]

Awesome! Aside from updating the tech, what's new and exciting with this project? What do you think sets you apart from your peers?

Are we getting sweet monsters, like black powder demons and headless Hessians? Awesome factional intrigue, with National Treasure-style secret conspiracies? Dope new ways to run dungeons, a la Assassin's Creed III forts?

C'mon! Stop trying to hit me and HIT ME!!!!

 

[Starfox]

Oh, you are all talking about the Pomeranian, war, the main point of which was that Sweden lost much of the province of Pommern to Prussia!

History can be a very subjective topic.

 

[Flagbearer Games]

Awesome! Aside from updating the tech, what's new and exciting with this project? What do you think sets you apart from your peers?

Are we getting sweet monsters, like black powder demons and headless Hessians? Awesome factional intrigue, with National Treasure-style secret conspiracies? Dope new ways to run dungeons, a la Assassin's Creed III forts?

C'mon! Stop trying to hit me and HIT ME!!!!

I'ma hit you with something different.

The American Crisis is, to the best of our knowledge, the first D&D campaign guide built to be 100% historically accurate. Think of it like D20 modern (or Everyday Heroes); we give you the tools to strip out elves and wizards and replace them with redcoats and muskets. We've added a new Firebrand class to unleash your inner rabble-rouser and replaced spells with "gambits," or mundane casting that creates extraordinary effects through courtly intrigue, inspirational speeches, spycraft, humoral medicine, etc. Ranger gambits draw from guile, gumption, and guerilla warfare to create traps and misdirect enemies, and as someone posted in an earlier comment, it's a great spell-less Ranger option that still has a lot of tricks up their sleeve.

We use black powder to fill in the rest of the mechanical gaps where supernatural effects are removed from the 5e chassis, leaning on the properties of single-shot flintlock muzzle-loaders to create potent rules for firearms that still have strategic limitations. Firearms are threaded throughout all of the gambits, subclasses, feats, and equipment design (including a loadout system called Wargear) in Nations & Cannons, and they're built to be a holistic system that has meaningful depth and build options—which allows for significant player expression even when limited to historically appropriate classes of Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Rogue, and Firebrand. We think it's the most robust black powder system anyone's published yet for 5e.

While Nations & Cannons is not a wargame, it shares a lot of the same DNA. It was very important to us that our enemies were not "bullet sponges,” given how devastating a .70 caliber musket ball could be! In order to challenge players, encounters are generally asymmetric skirmishes with players battling significantly larger groups of British Regulars. The idea is to capture the heroic fantasy of folk heroes like Daniel Boone, Nancy Hart, or Peter Francisco ambushing a patrol of Redcoats in the forest.

Many enemy types have triggered abilities, which allow these asymmetric battles to operate smoothly even with dozens of enemies on the field. Artillery crews act in unison to take special crew actions to operate field pieces, and groups of British footmen can execute a volley fire when a Sergeant gives the order. If a Field Officer is nearby, they can steady the line and further improve the effectiveness of a volley. Cavalry units and infantry equipped with bayonets can charge en masse on the same initiative order, allowing the Gamemaster to bring considerable pain to bear on a player who’s caught out of position. Damage values are high all around, and movement, cover, and choosing when to reload become important tactical considerations.

Of course, I'm cheating a little. While all of the adventures in The American Crisis are set against the backdrop of real historical events, a 100% accurate simulation would involve a lot more ditch digging, smallpox, and worthless continental dollars. While we cover a lot of that material in our narratives—that's a big part of the embedded civics lessons in Nations & Cannons, which is currently used by educators in 25+ states—players are also heroic characters that are a cut above the average soldier, and members of a fictitious espionage outfit similar to the Culper Ring. We've tried to strike a thoughtful balance between modeling historical details and verisimilitude.

So, if you're looking for secret societies, Colonial Gothic is right there (they're actually coming out with a new book this year, and we hope they do well)! The Core Rules of Nations & Cannons are built intentionally to be a foundation for historical real-world adventures that shine a spotlight on important moments in the Age of Revolutions and in particular, heroic resistance to colonialism.

Everything is balanced around baseline 5e, so you can take our black powder system and drop it straight into your fantasy game; a lot of our players already use Nations & Cannons to run flintlock fantasy games. Our stretch goal for Benjamin Franklin, Banshee Slayer is our first formal experiment in that space, and it's something we might iterate on in a future product line. But our core proposition is to let you run games set in the heroic past—to give player characters agency, no matter their race, creed, or color—and to create a roleplaying space that allows you to both experience exciting adventures and grapple with historic injustices.

Btw, AC III forts were rad, that's a great idea. I gotta think on that one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Politics aside, I have to question the use of 5e as the system for a game about an 18th century war. 5e doesn't handle mass combat out of the box, and none of the rules attempts I've seen for large battles have been any good. 5e also doesn't capture the flavor of blackpowder combat; guns are supposed to be threathening, but in 5e usually have so much HP that getting shot a few times before you close to melee isn't something to worry about.

I expect they'll make their own mass combat system. About time, really. And the HP issue can be worked around with the right combat rules. It won't be WotC 5e, but it really, really doesn't have to be, and 3pp shouldn't feel beholden to follow WotC's lead.

Edit: ninja'd by the designer! Nice!

 

[Weiley31]

Awesome! Aside from updating the tech, what's new and exciting with this project? What do you think sets you apart from your peers?

Are we getting sweet monsters, like black powder demons and headless Hessians? Awesome factional intrigue, with National Treasure-style secret conspiracies? Dope new ways to run dungeons, a la Assassin's Creed III forts?

C'mon! Stop trying to hit me and HIT ME!!!!

They have you covered via this Stretch Goal that was unlocked:

Meanwhile, the Quickstart (and the main book I'm assuming) has a Side Bar in regard to "Flintlock Fantasy."

Flintlock Fantasy: The Nations & Cannons rules are compatible with more magical settings, such as a historical setting with witchcraft and supernatural elements, or custom fantasy worlds where musketeers fight arm in arm with mages. Whether battling dragons with artillery or playing a Benjamin Franklin, Banshee Slayer narrative, a player should consult with their GM about which new gambits classes other than firebrand and ranger should get access to.

The start of Chapter 2 in the Quickstart begins with this nice little nugget:

In Colonial America, mages and divine prophets are the things of legend and fantasy.

And then finally in the Side Bar on the very same page:

Subclass Options The subclasses in this book aren’t the only subclasses that can be used in the Nations & Cannons setting. Work with your GM to come up with ways to explain the more magical abilities of the subclass you want to play.
Below is a list of recommended subclasses:
• Barbarian: Berserker or Totem Warrior
• Fighter: Champion or Battlemaster
• Ranger: Hunter or Beast Master
• Rogue: Thief or Assassin

So, options for that stuff IS THERE in some compacity or can be expanded upon by compatible 5E stuff. (Such as using the Headless Horseman stat block from the current 5E Ravensloft book).

The MAIN draw of Nations and Cannons is its historical aspect/nature. No other 5E related product out there is focused on the Revolutionary War OR touches upon this moment in History. At least, none that I've seen so far.

It can be pretty much used as is as a setting, an interesting one-shot campaign, or even as a Toolkit for DM's. Both fun and educational as well. And that seems to be a primary mission statement. To the point where even the PDF is listed at a VERY generous price from what I saw. ($4.99!).