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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9644328" data-attributes="member: 7041430">Hey friends! I'm so sorry that I haven't done much with this thread over the last few weeks - there was some illness, a birthday, and a Comic-Con in there, and I got a little derailed. This week, I'd like to take a look at the next adventure in this book, Guns of Dorchester. So, right after Bunker Hill, the Continentals settled in to siege Boston. But without artillery, they had limited effectiveness. Once Fort Ticonderoga fell, they suddenly had a bunch of artillery...but it was on the wrong side of several rivers and mountain ranges. Some poor schmucks had to drag all that iron 300 miles from upstate New York all the way to the Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston. Also, those poor schmucks are your players, led by Henry Knox. The intro here nicely establishes the stakes - the PCs are about halfway through the return leg, and Knox is getting desperate. He's running low on oxen (which you need to pull the wagons carrying the artillery, gunpowder, and shot), and his men are demoralized, and he's running out of options. This problem is fairly open-ended, with several suggestions for the GM so that the action doesn't stall out. In addition, the more the PCs do to help out the wagon train, the fewer checks they need to make to avoid exhaustion, thus linking their efforts to tangible consequences. The next scene, however, involves the PCs surveying a frozen river, which is suddenly interrupted by a pack of wolves chasing a huge moose (and her moose baby) onto said frozen river. This can crack the ice and make it impossible for the artillery to get through...but also presents the PCs with the option to bag moose meat for dinner! Or, y'know, freeze to death in a Massachusetts river in winter. My only complaint here (and this will be a theme) is the lack of cartography - a small map with the surveying setup already drawn there would have dramatically helped my ability to grok this situation. The next section happens after the PCs are back at Boston, having arrived with the guns and Knox in tow. There is a small bonus scene where the PCs can run an optional side quest to bring Lucy Knox to visit her husband back at the siege HQ. She needs an escort because there are some Tories who will absolutely kidnap her and use her for leverage. However, because Lucy's 19, she tends to avoid thinking things through. I actually like how Lucy's written in this - she comes across as determined but not overbearing, and passionate without being completely naïve. After a couple days to rest up and get some hot chow, Washington's spymaster (Alexander Clough) pulls them aside and asks for their help. See, if the Continentals try to get those guns in place, the Brits will see it and launch a sortie to stop them. So they've come up with a plan - they need a diversion...helpfully provided by the PCs. Are they up for it? Basically, Clough wants them to keep Boston on high alert for an entire night. They can't just slip in, start a fire, and withdraw. Oh no. They need to keep poking the bear at least once an hour for eight hours to keep the Brits distracted. The PCs have some meaningful choices to make about how they provision themselves, and how they try to slip into Boston. The supplies are abstracted in a Blades In The Dark sort of style, though neatly avoiding the problem with flashbacks in D&D (the authors actually credit a Robin D. Laws game, Esoterrorists, as inspiring their design). All this means that the infiltrate Boston / cause a ruckus / leave Boston scenes only take up about 6 pages, which is not bad for 5E books, though horribly overwritten by OSR standards. There's a great little "Escape From Boston" scene where the PCs can steal a ship and try to run it upriver to the Continental camp while dodging cannon fire. Good stuff. This has several suggested targets with some great suggestions on how the PCs could infiltrate them and start a ruckus. These are all great as far as they go...but again, a lack of cartography means that the GM is going to have to improv a lot of maps during this hullabaloo (old words are great).Overall, it's got decent stakes, relatively tight writing, and a lot of character choices. I really like this adventure, but the lack of cartography puts it at an 8.5 / 10 for me.</blockquote>

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