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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flagbearer Games" data-source="post: 9000457" data-attributes="member: 6668249">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.</blockquote>

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