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Old 07-13-2020, 08:34 AM   #117
jason taylor
 
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
Default Re: American Revolution

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
Age of Napoleon comes closest and could probably stand on its own as a single sourcebook for a American Revolution campaign.

If you want to go back a bit further into history and GURPSology, Scarlet Pimpernel covers much the same area but focuses on 1790s Revolutionary France. It might be valuable, however, because it focuses more on Ancien Regime France and the attitudes of both the revolutionaries and the 'aristos'. It would be a good sourcebook for Rev War spy or covert ops campaigns.

Swashbucklers would be a good sourcebook for naval actions, period swordplay, and the sort of "court intrigue" you might encounter in pre-revolution France and UK. The only real differences are that there were significant advances in business, science, philosophy, and technology between 1650 and 1790.

While religious prejudices were still entrenched and vicious, much of the 18th century social history was a reaction against the bloody Wars of Religion that gutted Europe. With some exceptions, most Europeans decided that it wasn't worth killing people based on their religious beliefs. Instead, they went back to killing each other for the time honored reasons of money and political power.

High Tech doesn't do as good a job as it could with early TL5 weapons. There was a huge amount of change during the TL5 period, a vast variety of firearms, and a number of technological dead ends as inventors tried to improve small arms performance. TL4 and early TL5 firearms really demand their own book. Even so, HT has got the basics right and it's got stats for the important weapons of the day like the "Brown Bess" and Charleville muskets, various types of single-shot pistols, and cannons.

If your ARW campaign includes Indians and frontiersmen, a final addition would be Old West. You'd need to tweak the info on Native Americans to model the "Eastern Woodlands" natives, but the info about the "Mountain Men" would be more or less accurate for 18th c. fur trappers and "long hunters." The Buffalo Hunter, Detective, Gunslinger, and Indian Police archetypes didn't really exist, although there were limited 18th century equivalents. Other archetypes would need a few tweaks to make them pertinent to the period.
One difference between Swashbucklers and Age of Napoleon is that things are less freewheeling at least in Europe. There are fewer "romantic" bandits and more professional military and naval officers.

One type of character that is fascinating is the Voyageur. They tended the rivers of Canada under the British and French regimes.
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