This would have been a 3.5 if the system allowed it.
I'll break my review down into three parts:
Firstly, the excessive, almost belligerent 'woke' declarations throughout the first third of the book. I have to say, as a gamer of color, it was off-putting; frankly, anyone who feels the need to say they're not a bigot that many times is, IMO, harboring deeply bigoted views. The authors kept touting their devotion to history, while urging, almost demanding, that PCs be run with hyper-sensitive modern opinions. Frankly, I felt they did a very grave injustice to my peoples' suffering during this period. But this is easily ignored, and I'm sure I won't even notice it when checking for rules. I'll run the setting as I see fit. This modern outlook, however, does greatly obscure a lot of the 'grim and perilous' tone of the game, and wrecks the historic credibility.
Second, the bold claims of devotion to history while the book is saddled with historic errors. The authors confused the issuance of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 as the start of the Revolution, a very basic error that is in the core description of the product, although corrected later within. Fact is, the Revolution started in 1775. It goes on from there. Most errors are silly and easily corrected with a simple house rule; an example is the authors confused a plug bayonet with a socket bayonet; they state that you cannot fire a musket with a socket bayonet affixed, and that the bayonet was new and gradually coming into British use, when the fact is that the socket bayonet does not obstruct firing the weapon, and had been in general use for 70+ years by 1776. Still, they made an effort to provide a detailed history, which counts for something. The quality of their 'research' is generally poor, but I give them credit for the effort, if not the results.
Third, FoF brought an overhaul to the Zweihander system. It did away with a lot of the unnecessary steps in PC creation, which was good. One bit it removed that I had made good use of, was the height & weight chart, but I expect the chart they replaced it with will be sufficient for most campaigns. They changed the titles of the Fate and Fortune points, which was good. They cleaned up the description of profession advancement, and re-did the layout of the skills & advances, which cleared up issues new players have had with thinking the old system was a single chart. They did away with Expert professions, which I won't miss. The period professions are plentiful, and they detailed iconic trappings, which was handy. They ported over the Zweihander cash system, which was useful and also the British system of the period. I would have liked to see some attention paid to the Continental Dollar and French currency, but that is not a big issue. The price list is well done, with the possible exception of field provisions containing milk. I wonder how those grizzled frontiersmen kept it from curdling?
The section on weapons is so-so. The writers have obviously never shot black powder, and have weapons exploding willy-nilly despite two centuries of massed use by the Revolution. They also went back to 'one size fits all' damage, which was a terrible retrograde decision. I do give them credit for a fairly comprehensive period weapon list. It really didn't take long, using MS Paint, to adjust their charts to something useful.
They treated armor sensibly (which in a period of gunpowder, means there is no effective armor).
The combat system got a lot of much-needed clarifications; however, it pulled in different directions, some parts increasing the deadliness of the combat, which was already good; other parts, however, pushed the system in the direction of narrative and story-telling, which is completely at odds with a damage system as brutal as Zwei's.
They added a Chase mechanic, Overland Travel mechanic, both of which I feel are pointless since I use Roll20, and a Social interaction system which looks rather clumsy, but definitely has some useful bits.
The remaining sections were solid, equal to, or improving upon, the Zwei standard. It looks as if they are trying to implement something akin to CoC's sanity system, which could be useful.
Overall, with a bit of house-ruling FoF could work for any setting from the French and Indians War through the Napoleonic era.
EDIT: I had to add this: this is the first RPG I have seen that actually has a reason for tobacco use, whic given the habitual consumption of this (and many other) periods, is a welcome first. And kudos for includeing lawyers in the monster list!
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