American Revolution

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Good news. Oh, and books on the ACW and WWI would be wonderful. Tossing in the ARW, the English Civil Wars (17th Century) and the Thirty Years War, would be wonderful. As would a book on English colonial wars 1815-1960 and a British Raj book.

Significant parts of GURPS WWII are useful for a WWI campaign, as well as the Spanish Civil War and Korean War.

[ericthered]

If I was running an game set during or nearby the american revolution...

I'd probably use high-tech as the primary gear book, calling on low-tech or more likely a low-tech compendium occasionally.

There is a fairly high likelihood I'd eventually need stats for a sailing ship.

I'd want to make sure that the players understood the way warfare of the time worked, if we were going to do anything beyond skirmishing (and perhaps even then). There are some common misconceptions/disagreements there.

I'd probably stay away from famous events that players would be able to complain about errors in (unless intentionally running alternate history of some sort).

The choice of state operating in would be HUGE. New england is not mid-atlantic sea-board is not the south, is not the wooded interior, especially in the revolution.

I would need a theme beyond "American Revolution". Are the players scouts? spies? commanders? political activists? Assistants to a diplomat? Privateers? Smugglers?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Agreed, but it's so useful to know that Vicksburg's guns couldn't aim low enough to hit boats sailing close to the Vicksburg side of the river.

Not as helpful as you might think if you're imagining a river running straight past a city off to one side. One thing I didn't realize until I visited the place was that the Mississippi takes a big loop (map) at Vicksburg. There's a long hairpin turn where blockade runners would be sailing straight toward the city's guns (with most of their own pointing rather uselessly at the riverbanks); then a tight bend under the guns, leaving the ships sailing away down that hairpin while being raked from behind. The bluffs are unusually high for that region, so I can believe guns up top couldn't hit a ship down below. But the problem area is really when sailing three miles toward the city and three miles away again, not just the mile when you're at the closest range to the batteries.

[Kymage]

An earlier thread discussing a possible GURPS campaign involving the American War of Independence/American Revolution.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=26645

Two other threads on the subject

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...can+Revolution

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...rge+washington

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Many consider the Napoleonic Wars a "world war" as they engaged most of the world powers at the time and was fought not just in Europe but also in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, among other places.

They were just fought well before the term "World War" came into usage.

As has been noted, the American Revolution had France entering the war on the side of the Americans. The big "world powers" of the time in the world were Britain and France, who had previously fought four wars (at least part of the reason the American colonies were in revolt was because of new taxes imposed by the British Crown to refill the treasury following what we Americans call the French-and-Indian War*). These four prior wars were fought in part in the Americas over ownership of Canada and in the fourth war the Ohio River valley.

The British-French portion of the war continued for a bit after the Treaty of Paris was signed. As a result, several naval skirmishes in the American Revolution were fought in the Caribbean between British and French ships without any American ships getting involved.


* Known in Europe as the Seven Years War.




(Apologies if anyone takes offense to anything here; I am trying to maintain a neutral stance. Real life is messy.)

Including India. Just remember Wellington won a "land war in Asia."

Overlapping wars might be a better term. There has in a sense never been a such thing as a World War. What really happens is different polities take advantage of a war somewhere else to do dirt on the guys they have bad blood with.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Including India. Just remember Wellington won a "land war in Asia."

If you include naval engagements, you can count the South China sea in as well - IIRC the French sent a fleet to engage the China convoy somewhere around there.

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Good news. Oh, and books on the ACW and WWI would be wonderful. Tossing in the ARW, the English Civil Wars (17th Century) and the Thirty Years War, would be wonderful. As would a book on English colonial wars 1815-1960 and a British Raj book.

The Thirty Years war would certainly be an interesting setting … interesting times at the very least. Actually, I'd settle for someone doing a good splatbook on the HRE, which is a goldmine very rarely tapped in English...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

If you include naval engagements, you can count the South China sea in as well - IIRC the French sent a fleet to engage the China convoy somewhere around there.


The Thirty Years war would certainly be an interesting setting … interesting times at the very least. Actually, I'd settle for someone doing a good splatbook on the HRE, which is a goldmine very rarely tapped in English...

The Holy Roman Empire (niether holy, Roman, nor an empire. Voltaire) would be wonderful.

And it's beginning to look like the Seven Years War would be massively juicy RPG territory too.

[Polydamas]

I like the idea of South Asia during the transition from the Mughals to the Raj as a game setting. Weird cultures mixing together, lots of people who switch sides several times or change careers, devious plots and mad mystics, magic and cult and piles of gold and gems. But SJ Games does not seem to be in the business of full-sized historical suppliments any more, Hotspots: Silk Road and Renaissance Florence are more booklets.

I think creating models for the type of campaign you want to run is important. Most of us learned dungeon fantasy by doing, Ken Hite uses thrillers and mystery novels to model Gumshoe campaigns, what are the models for a campaign in 1770s Pennsylvania with the necessary player agency and fantastic elements?

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

(SNIP)

I think creating models for the type of campaign you want to run is important. Most of us learned dungeon fantasy by doing, Ken Hite uses thrillers and mystery novels to model Gumshoe campaigns, what are the models for a campaign in 1770s Pennsylvania with the necessary player agency and fantastic elements?

James Fenimore Cooper's characters were two-dimensional cardboard cutouts who never experienced growth or change during the course of the stories, but the stories do have a lot of ideas to mine -- as well as a solid sense of time and place.

A lot of early American literature consists of diaries. I'd definitely look through those -- especially those written by secular people with more interest in daily life, as opposed to Cotton Mather's sermons and suchlike.

Definitely read Benjamin Franklin's early stuff, written for common consumption. It's fun and accessible, even today.

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason introduces the most radical, progressive political thinking of the time. Paine popularized a lot of the ideas being kicked around in mid-1700s, being looked at in more depth by Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and others.

Modern writers who do a good job in the era are Tim Powers (On Stranger Tides); Neal Stephenson (yes, I know, The Baroque Cycle takes a long, long time to get moving, but it has a lot of ideas to steal); and Gregory Keyes' The Age of Unreason is a play on Paine's work.

Keyes includes a lot of magic and Abrahamic myth, which I don't particularly like, but it has some ideas to steal.

For an offbeat source of ideas, see if you can dig up an old comic from the 1980s, Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine McAlistaire. It follows a trapper in the Old Northwest region around the Great Lakes, in the early 19th Century, but some of those stories could easily be set 50-75 years earlier.

Also, check out Jason Momoa's 2016 TV series, Frontier. It's set in Canada in the 18th Century, and conflict revolves around the fur trade, and its impact on both settlers and First Nation people.

[safisher]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Also, check out Jason Momoa's 2016 TV series, Frontier. It's set in Canada in the 18th Century, and conflict revolves around the fur trade, and its impact on both settlers and First Nation people.

I'd add to the above, 2015's The Revenant. The movie is based on the experiences of a far west trapper named Hugh Glass, but the movie embellishes the story considerably. Nevertheless, it is a powerful and haunting movie. The basic plot could ported to the Revolutionary War or French and Indian War period very easily.

Has anyone checked out the series Barkskins created by National Geographic? I've not watched it, but the trailer looks interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM-C7U3-veI

In terms of cinema, I think the best representation of the era is Michael Mann's Last of the Mohicans (1992). It gives a very clear, and I think a nuanced treatment of all sides. Perhaps only the French are not fully developed, but it does a good job of showing motivations of the colonial powers and the colonists and the Native Americans. Best of all it has a good handle on material culture, and the gun handling is solid, too. It's a brutal and beautiful film.

I have gamed the era with GURPS several times. I provide some support here:
https://sfisher221.wixsite.com/darkj...intlock-gun-fu
https://sfisher221.wixsite.com/darkj...he-blunderbuss