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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9628616" data-attributes="member: 7041430">Alright, let's get into the next couple of chapters! Chapter 5 is titled Gamemaster's Tools and it does what it says on the tin. It's a great chapter, and one of the most-valuable chapters in the book, for my money. It starts with outlining a few basic requisitions packages that the PCs can ask for at the start of their missions - these are a frequent source of pain for me when I run any kind of game centered around a large faction. "Do they have any neat stuff for us?" is an often-asked question, and a solid logical point for the PCs. Now, since the Continentals are basically operating on a shoestring, you'd be justified in saying, "No," but this book gives you options for "Yes," that won't break game balance and won't make your life difficult. That kind of forethought is very useful! From there, we get rules for what happens to gunpowder when you get it wet (don't), freezing water, some alternative morale rules, and a somewhat complicated system for determining the value of the Continental dollar by year. Now, my degrees are in finance and economics (which makes current events just absolutely infuriating), so I love stuff like this! You can see the effect of hyperinflation on a currency's buying power along with a plot hook for countering British counterfeiting (one of the first instances of economic warfare in the Early Modern Era)! If you're a sad person and this doesn't excite you, you can entirely skip this - it's about half a page. I'll feel bad for you, but it's OK. Past that, we get some Campaign Mechanics. These include the Trappings system (optional treasure parcels embedded in the game for meeting certain actions), group checks, and Crescendo Challenges. I really like crescendoes, as I found them novel - I assume they've been done somewhere else and I just haven't seen them - but they're basically a twist on the group check. If you have something that requires more weight than a group check, but doesn't require a whole adventure, you can use a crescendo. Basically, everyone rolls a check pertinent to the goal, and the GM adds them all up. Then, you roll in the open a d100 - if you roll under the sum of the group's checks, they pass! Simple, elegant, effective. Brilliantly done, and the adjustments for group size are a well-thought-out addition. No notes!After that, we get the Alert System. This is somewhat overwritten - it takes up 2 1/2 pages - but it's good advice for mechanizing an enemy response. Basically, it breaks up the enemy response into three sections, and gives the GM triggers for when to deploy those sections. It's a good example of how to take video game design (it feels very Assassin's Creed) and translate it into RPGs. I genuinely might steal this for my Cyberpunk games. Past that, we get three key campaign NPCs, including Benjamin Tallmadge and Carl von Donop, and then we get a few pages on how to run the War In The North campaign. This includes a paragraph on each adventure, where it fits in the timeline, and what the adventure is about. It has advice for handling key NPCs while maintain player agency (always good), and reminds you that if your players do weird naughty word and throw history into the trash, you can still use the information presented in the first half of the book to make your own adventures. This advice is elevated in the section on "Failure & Consequences," where it literally advises the GM that the Declaration of Independence doesn't have to happen. Oh man. Can you imagine screwing up an adventure so badly that the 4th of July doesn't go off? That's a real kick in the nuts for your players, and I love it. It also gives advice that most historical figures are probably replaceable (including George Washington), but still offers a "here's what happens if the Brits win" scenario. [ATTACH=full]401546[/ATTACH] Pictured: Literal art from the book (public domain, yo!)And now we get into the action! Chapter 6 is the first adventure in the book. It's titled The Spy & The Hill, and deals with the players handling some odd jobs in the wake of Concord and Lexington, before taking center stage at the Battle of Bunker Hill. It's designed for an average party level of 2. The PCs get recruited by Dr. Joseph Warren, a Boston-based activist, but first....It's time to bag these turkeys!Yes, there's a small scene to that lets you get new players accustomed to making an attack roll by letting them hunt some wild turkeys. Afterwards, they get a quick intro to Dr. Warren. Warren's an interesting character. The chapter opens with one of his more famous quotations, "These fellows say we won't fight! By Heaven, I hope I shall die up to my knees in blood!" See Nathaniel Philbrick's A City, A Siege, A Revolution for more on him, but the point is that Warren is portrayed here as someone who is a diehard believer in the Patriot cause, and a flashy, over-the-top character. In my head I'm definitely using my "Macho Man" Savage impression:[ATTACH=full]401544[/ATTACH] His Britannic Majesty can suck on deez nuts! - Dr. Joseph Warren (probably) Warren recruits the PCs to help him burn down a British supply depot. The adventure gives some decent advice about plot hooks to pull the PCs into this, but it's a simple premise. "Hey, y'all wanna shoot some redcoats?" The encounter shows off a few new things about the Nations & Cannons opposition design (I can't legally call the Brits monsters, despite the fact that they came up with blood pudding), like volley firing, the importance of cover, etc. It's a good introduction, and lets the players "touch the stove" as it were by screwing up in an encounter unlikely to TPK the party. As they escape, they are chased by a British ship that ultimately runs aground. Warren asks for the PCs' help in getting aboard and recovering the vessel's cannons. After some downtime to heal up, the PCs are again approached by Warren for the next mission: keep a rebel spy safe by disrupting a British counterintelligence effort. See, the wife of General Gage is spying for the Patriots, but the Brits are closing in on her. She doesn't want to defect, she just needs to lay low for a while. Unfortunately, the Brits are sending a search party out to discover her with damning correspondence, and she's going to get sent home to England in disgrace! My biggest problem with this setup is that Warren won't tell the PCs who the spy is they're being sent to keep safe, which rather hampers their efforts to keep the spy safe! Now, the scene is set up in such a way that the PCs don't actually need to know that; they just need to create a disturbance among the searchers and let Gage slip away. But damn, that is maddening. It's going to raise the hackles of your PCs unnecessarily, too. "Dude, we just shot up a bunch of redcoats, and now you don't trust us?" You can always come back with, "You can't reveal what you don't know," but it's still kind of a jerk move. The actual encounter is admirably free-form, and advises the GM to be flexible when allowing PC plans to disrupt the search party. However, it does raise one question about character knowledge: if they don't know who the spy is, how will they know when the spy successfully escapes? The GM is sort-of advised to let the players know, "OK, you're good now," but I find that to be a weak-sauce solution. Finally, the PCs get to fight it out at Bunker Hill! There's no time for a long rest after rescuing a spy, because the Brits are preparing to storm Bunker Hill*, where the Patriots have set up some defenses. They get snagged by a nearby Continental major named Andrew McClary, and immediately have to shore up the defenses at the base of the hill. These are mostly group checks, but I want to draw attention to this little vignette: "While few on the hill wear uniforms, Warren is especially oddly-dressed: a short white wig, a satin waistcoat, and a fine banyan bed robe all in white. Sword and pistol are buckled to his waist." I'm sorry, but I cannot find it in me to criticize a man who upgrades the dress code for a war. The PCs can jump in and man a cannon (one of the ones they stole from that ship they ran aground), and then ultimately they have to fall back. In one final act of derring-do, they watch as Joseph Warren is cut down, and they have the option of going back and retrieving his body. Alright, so there's a lot going on in this adventure. Let's talk pitfalls. I've already noted the issue with the spy mission, and the raid on the British storehouses is fine as-is. But assuming the players are going to charge the British army to recover the body of the plot hook NPC? That's a stretch. It would be helpful if the adventure did more to make Warren a more sympathetic character. My biggest problem with this adventure is that it feels disconnected from itself. I think it really just needs time to breathe, for the players to feel how insane this all is. The other problem is linear the adventure is:[ATTACH=full]401545[/ATTACH] I get we are dealing with space constraints, but if your adventure is a line, you can probably do better. Fortunately, this expands drastically in later adventures. So, how would I run it?Well, I'd probably do something similar to Dragon of Icespire Peak, where the PCs got to choose which side missions they went on for Warren. I'd also expand the timeline from two days to a week.. I'd keep the rebel raid as the intro, but strip out the bit with seizing the guns from the ship that chases you. I'd have a roster of three missions, and the PCs have to choose which ones they go on. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cracking the Diana - Recover the cannon from a British ship that ran aground (we're just moving this out and making it its' own mission). If the players don't take this one, they don't have any cannons to use at Bunker Hill. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Miss Direction - Save a pair of Patriot spies from British counterintelligence. If the players don't take this one, the Patriots don't get a warning in time about the British counterattack on Bunker Hill, reducing the number of Patriots manning it. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">These Men Need Help! - Warren is still a physician, and he's doing his best to tend wounded soldiers, but he's running out of medicine; he needs the PCs to raid one of three doctors' offices around Boston and retrieve some supplies. If the players don't take this one, there are no sources of healing available outside of resting or character abilities for the rest of the adventure. </li> </ul>I would then add some downtime scenes, especially focusing on Warren. Have the PCs meet him when he's tending the wounded (especially if the PCs are wounded). Have him invite the PCs to meet him and his kids for dinner. Have him confide privately in the PCs that he fears his courage will fail him when war finally breaks out, and that he would not be able to live with the shame of it. I'd also include at least one scene where someone points out how utterly batcrap crazy this whole thing is: Guys, are we really about to start shooting each other over taxes? JFC!Finally, I'd rework the Battle of Bunker Hill in the same way. Give the PCs more toys to play with. Literally. Give them a bunch of equipment, and a time limit, and see where creativity gets them. Let them go full Ewok on the redcoats, complete with homemade incendiaries, punji sticks, and more. Let them roll flaming debris down on the British, etc. This breaks the first British advance. The PCs watch the second British advance nearly break through the American line, and give them a chance for a desperate countercharge to repel them. That finishes off the second British advance. But as the Brits form up, word goes around: there's little ammunition. They've got enough to maybe - maybe - break the British attack again. But it'll take courage. Warren orders the wounded evacuated, and has the PCs handle it. He won't leave. As the PCs finish evacuating the wounded, they look back at the redoubt. The British are upon it! They see Warren and any other friends they've made battling bravely - do they just leave their companions to die?If they return, Warren thanks them (while bleeding out) for their bravery. He asks them to take his ring to his eldest boy, braces himself against a tree, and gives them one final request: help him delay the British advance and buy time for the other troops to retreat. The PCs need to last three rounds while you throw the book at them, and on the last one, Warren orders them to withdraw. Leave the rest of the adventure's conclusion alone, but cut out McClary. As written, this is a great example of a period-appropriate adventure. It contains some interesting ideas and some solid execution, but I think misses the thing that would really elevate this to excellent work: player choices. I'd give The Spy & The Hill a 6.5/10 if you take it as-written. If you do some light editing as described above, I think this goes up to a strong 7.5 or even an 8.0. If 6.5/10 sounds harsh, just know that 90% of the adventures I read don't crack 5.0 on my scale. This is a cut above the rest.Next time, we're going to come back for Henry "Hard" Knox to make the world's greatest Sneak Attack check...with cannons!*It actually wasn't Bunker Hill, but that's a long story, and we're not going to get into it.</blockquote>

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