The Gaming Den

Alright guys, we're designing Hamilton: The Musical: the RPG. And to reference a sillier and lesser musical, when I say "we're", what I mean is you and me (but mostly me).

If at any point after Step 4, anyone wants to ask me "what part of WORDS, NOT NUMBERS DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND" I can only respond that Frank Trollman is not the boss of me.

GAME DESIGN FLOW - SONS OF LIBERTY

STEP 1: NAME THE PARTY

During Phase 1 ("Guns and Ships") party in Sons of Liberty is (are?) called "(The?) Minutemen", as in the Continental Army. I considered and rejected "Regiment", but a quick google told me that a Regiment included thousands of dudes, and was therefore completely inappropriate. I considered and rejected "Squad"--not late 18th century enough, too generic.

The party name changes to "The Delegates" in Phase 2 ("Nation Building" or "The Room Where It Happens").

STEP 2: DESIGN A SIX FOUR MAN PARTY WITH WORDS, NOT NUMBERS

• Musketeer: The Musketeer fires his musket faster and more accurately than the other party members. This is important, because this is 18th century infantry combat, and rate-of-fire was a big deal. His ability to improve his rate-of-fire from terrible to not that bad is relevant and substantial.
• Patriot: The Patriot runs behind enemy lines and murders them with a tomahawk, preferably at night. Think the Mel Gibson movie of the same name as that's what the class is named after. Melee monster, with stealth, mobility, aggression, and intimidation. He also gets the equivalent of "sneak attack".
• Medic: The medic keeps the party from dying to musket and bayonet wounds from the redcoats, and the secondary infections that those cause. Don't dismiss him as a "healbot". At a time when medical science was basically retarded, he's the best the Continental Army has got. He's pretty good with a musket too.
• Spy: I haven't actually seen that show about spies during the American Revolution, but I'd imagine a lot like that. When he is not infiltrating the Lobsterbacks and stealing their plans on solo missions, he also gets the equivalent of sneak attack and improved uncanny dodge.

STEP 3: OUTLINE AN ADVENTURE (FOR PHASE 1)

Adventure: Outgunned, Outmanned, Outnumbered, Outplanned
(or: "Hearts of Oak")

[COMPANY]
British Admiral Howe’s got troops on the water
Thirty-two thousand troops in New York harbor

[HAMILTON]
As a kid in the Caribbean I wished for a war
I knew that I was poor
I knew it was the only way to—

Rise up!

[HAMILTON]
If they tell my story
I am either gonna die on the battlefield in glory or—

Rise up!

George Washington is withdrawing the Continental Army to Brooklyn Heights as British forces lead by Admiral Howe close in. The British take Brooklyn ("Knight takes rook, but look"). The Minutemen (the PCs) need to provide cover for Washington's general retreat, and enact a desperate plan:

Alexander Hamilton...sort of. wrote:Let’s take a stand with the stamina God has granted us
Hamilton won’t abandon ship
Yo, let’s steal their cannons—

The Minutemen and whatever ragtag cohorts they have with them must steal as many as they can of the 24 cannons of the battery on Manhattan’s southern tip and drag them up to City Hall Park, a distance of just under a mile. British troops on boats just offshore will fire on the Minutemen the entire time.

The Minutemen must drag the cannons just under a mile to City Hall Park. There they will fire on the British position there with the raided cannons, inflicting maximum casualties on the Redcoats positioned there, and rescue as many of the Continental Army prisoners held there as possible.

STEP 3A: OUTLINE AN ADVENTURE (FOR PHASE 2)

Adventure: Cabinet Battle #1

The first Constitutional Convention is convening in Philadelphia. The Delegate From New York (the Marksman from Stage 1) and one of his allies (another PC) wants to push through his plan to assume state debt and establish a national bank.

The Delegate From Virginia (the Spy from Stage 1) and one of his allies (another PC) wants none of these things.

Jefferson in Hamilton wrote: Ooh, if the shoe fits, wear it
If New York’s in debt—
Why should Virginia bear it? Uh! Our debts are paid, I’m afraid
Don’t tax the South cuz we got it made in the shade
In Virginia, we plant seeds in the ground
We create. You just wanna move our money around
This financial plan is an outrageous demand
And it’s too many damn pages for any man to understand
Stand with me in the land of the free
And pray to God we never see Hamilton’s candidacy
Look, when Britain taxed our tea, we got frisky
Imagine what gon’ happen when you try to tax our whisky

If a non-zero-sum solution (a compromise, Great or otherwise) can be reached through roleplaying (or otherwise), great. Otherwise the DM decides (perhaps based on who ultimately got a better Diplomacy check) how the other delegates vote.

Hamilton The Musical wrote:[JEFFERSON/MADISON]
You’re gonna need congressional approval and you don’t have the votes.

If things are inconclusive in this adventure, great. The building of a nation is not accomplished over one meeting.

Phase 2 adventures could use some more robust, d20 compatible rules for social combat.

STEP 4: Write out a campaign how campaigns in general will work.

Sons of Liberty is a d20 system game with two phases.

The First Phase (called 'Guns and Ships') is about winning (against all odds) a colonial revolution against a global superpower and comprises level 1-10 (see below) and the PCs are assumed to be cooperating.

The Second Phase (called "The Room Where It Happens") comprises levels 11-20 and the PCs are assumed to be adversarial (but not violently so) towards each other with conflicting goals.

P.S.

The Real Hercules Mulligan wrote:I was engaged in hauling off one of the cannons, when Mister Hamilton came up and gave me his musket to hold and he took hold of the rope… . Hamilton [got] away with the cannon. I left his musket in the Battery and retreated. As he was returning, I met him and he asked for his piece. I told him where I had left it and he went for it, notwithstanding the firing continued, with as much concern as if the [Asia] had not been there.

How's that for not throwing away your shot?

I have spent a borderline embarassing amount of time trying to figure out what is fucking up the BB Code on this post so catastrophically, and I'm just not seeing it. The 'Close Tags' button is definitely not working either.

I'll hold up on posting more until I figure out how to fix this shit or someone such as fbmf is nice and does it for me.

Fix your quote tags.

I have been trying for like two hours!

Because of the problem we have with quote tags, Zherog made it so that loose tags automatically close at the end of a post so that least only one post would get screwed up. Check the very end of your post or an extra /quote

Finally got it fixed. Four ten level d20 classes coming up when I recover from a six hour battle with the Den's BB-code lol.

Neurosis wrote:The Minutemen and whatever ragtag cohorts they have with them must steal as many as they can of the 24 cannons of the battery on Manhattan’s southern tip and drag them up to City Hall Park, a distance of just under a mile. British troops on boats just offshore will fire on the Minutemen the entire time.

Based on your description of the phase 1 adventure, I think your party needs to be redesigned; 24 cannon would have at least 100 men manning them, not including infantry for protection. In a battle between two companies of soldiers, one guy being able to shoot his musket faster than other guys is not relevant. Have you read any of the Sharpe novels? While they take place in the Napoleonic wars, they're a pretty popular fictional representation of black powder warfare. In the novels the effects of musketry are pretty binary, it either causes a casualty or misses. Sharpe gets into lots of different kinds of scrapes and uses his size, charm, brawling, tactical acumen and daring to win. He would be a good basis for a member of a blackpowder party (Class: Officer, Background: The Gutters.)

Between the Sharpe series, the Aubrey and Maturin novels, and Hamilton's life story, the era doesn't seem like it should track individuals trading fire for more than one exchange. You fire once, kill a guy or not, then either decide your honor is satisfied or come to grips in melee.

The reason you design a six person party and not a four person party is not because you want a six person party as the default, it's to show how the party can expand above that default level.

Even if you only have four classes, you have to say which classes people are going to double up on.