RPGPundit Reviews: Colonial Record: America's Fight For Liberty

Colonial Record is a Genre Division i Game by Precis Intermedia; technically, it has been designed as a sourcebook for Coyote Trail, but it can also be theoretically used with other GDi games.  It is not, however, a complete RPG book in itself.  If you're not familiar with Coyote Trail, please check out my review.

Colonial Record is basically a 50-page sourcebook for roleplaying during America's Revolutionary War. You've probably heard me rave by now about the Coyote Trail RPG (and most of Precis' other games), and Colonial Record as a sourcebook is no exception. What's more, it fits a niche way less approached than either the wild west or pulp or any of Precis' other games: as far as I can recall, there's never been an RPG about the American Revolution.

The Colonial Record book begins by detailing the changes to the system of character creation.  In this part, the book pretty much assumes that you have Coyote Trail, and does not reproduce any of the material from Coyote Trail, only providing the supplementary material new to this setting.  I almost think that is a mistake; its not really, not for a game of this size, but I would certainly wish Precis would produce a full blown 100-200 independent RPG in this setting, with lots of juicy historical details and adventure hooks.

Anyways, In the colonial era, characters have "roles" instead of "vocations" from Coyote Trail.You can play a Frontiersman, an Instigator (a usually rich urbanite who is instigating his fellow colonials to rebellion, aka Thomas Paine or the brothers from the Boston Tea Party), a Militiaman (irregular armed civilians, ie. the Swamp Fox), an Officer, a Politician, a Soldier or an Indian Warrior.

Backgrounds have also changed from Coyote Trail (except for Indian characters which can choose to use the same backgrounds). New backgrounds are Tradesman, Merchant, Clergyman, Smith, Laborer, or Slave.

I should note that in these two sections (roles and backgrounds) the author goes to good lengths to give very detailed explanations of each entry, complete with examples of how each role or background fits into revolutionary history, and some examples of individuals from that era who would have belonged to a given role or background.

Next there is a brief section that details the changes in skills; "roping" and "western lore" are out, and six new skills (including Printing, Religion and Masonry--but the stoneworking masonry, not the cool Masonry) are in.

Come to think of it, that's something that's really missing here. How can you have a game about the American Revolution and not include a shitload of stuff about the roles Freemasonry played in it?

Seriously, what a bad move. Not only is there no skill, but none of the new gimmicks (including things like "elite", which multiplies your wealth; or Representative to the continental congress; or Wordsmith, for someone who is very talented at writing) include anything about freemasonry either. Shit. Bad form, sir.

Chapter two goes into detail about colonial forts and their abilities; wherein forts get stats for perspective (how well you can see from them on each side), frame, force and function (those last three detailing how strong the fort is physically, how many troops it has inside, and the level of quality of those troops). Rules are given for besieging and improving forts.

Chapter 3 is only a page long, and it just details the very few differences between Coyote Trail's combat system and the Colonial combat system; mainly that guns take way longer to reload, and the damages for firearms (and some new weapons) are different.

Chapter 4 is about siege combat in general, and includes some very thorough rules to play out colonial-era sieges; detailing things like cannon damage, ranges, and reload times.  It looks very well researched.

Chapter 5 gets to the meat of the setting; detailing what life and culture was like in the colonies. This section includes state-by-state descriptions of what each of the 13 colonies were like at this time. A very good, detailed, year by year timeline is given not just of the revolutionary war, but of the indian wars that preceeded it.  Some details are given about the foreign powers involved in the war (France and Spain), and about the loyalist colonies (Canada).
Interspersed with all this are some really awesome black and white maps of the eastern united states.

A good list of the equipment and goods, with prices in pounds and shillings, are provided in this chapter as well (8 pence for a pound of tobacco... bastards).

Chapter 6, "The War at Home" is an introductory adventure, detailing how the war wreaks political and military chaos on a little (I suspect, fictional?) town of Abbotsford. The PCs must interact with the townspeople, who are on the verge of revolt against the local British forces, and are hired to escort a wagon that may or may not contain contraband weapons being sent to the rebels. Along the way they must contend with both British and rebel forces that want to get their hands on the wagon. Afterwards, the PCs must help a local rebel agitator, acting as his bodyguards as he tries to use his way with words to raise up an armed revolt. Finally, they participate in armed action against the British.  Its a pretty straightforward sort of adventure, and doesn't take on any possible complications that may arise from players being unorthodox; and it basically assumes that the PCs will want to be on the side of the revolutionaries; but in all it does seem like a good introduction to the setting; covering three of the basic kinds of adventure one can have in this setting.

The final chapter details stats for many of the famous historical figures of this era (Washington, Franklin, Adams, the Marquis de Lafayette, etc. etc.).  Then you get the reference tables and blank character sheets.

In all, the author manages to stuff a lot into 50 pages. That said, there'd certainly be room for a lot more to be said and shown and statted out for a Revolutionary War RPG.  The lack of Masonry is a particular annoyance to me... that, and the lack of info on secret societies, clubs, and agitator groups in particular.

In any case, I don't think you can go astray with this book. I look forward hopefully to the possibility of a larger, full-blown game coming out of this, but for the moment Colonial Record is a truly worthwhile starting point for running colonial era adventures in any time period from the French & Indian Wars until the War of 1812; and especially, of course, the Revolutionary War.

RPGPundit

Excellent point about Masons, Pundit! Freemasonry was so vital to the American Founding Fathers that masonic imagery and symbols litter the colonial intellectual andscape. Look at a dollar bill for proof! A great many of the FFs were Freemasons, and the ideals they embraced were masonic ideals. Strange that it wasn't included.

Other than that, CR is a terrific setting book.

-clash

Good point about the Freemasonry.  Does it look at the actual politics at all, I wonder?  Does it take an historical approach, or more of a Star Wars/The Patriot rebel heroes vs Nazi Brits approach?

It does take an historical approach, but it could certainly do with much more space to detail this approach. It definitely does NOT simply present jingoistic historical fantasy.

RPGpundit