[JRM]

Nice review, and the game looks interesting. I've long had an interest in the more adventurous elements of history, and the 18-19th century is a great era for adventuring.

The card mechanism looks good, and it seems very appropriate for the period. I imagine that if RPG games had been invented back in Napoleonic times, they'd be played by dilettante gentleman sitting around a leather-covered table in their clubhouse, with cards and maybe a six-sider or two.

I did a rough calculation to figure out the distribution of success/failure levels, and came up with the following:

One card
Failure (36/53) 67.92%
Success (12/53) 22.64%
Critical (3/53) 5.66%
Perfect Success (1/53) 1.88%
Joker (1/53) 1.88%

Two cards
Failure (36/53) 46.14%
Success (12/53) 40.16%
Critical (3/53) 11.00%
Perfect Success (1/53) 3.74%
Joker (1/53) 3.74%

Three cards
Failure (36/53) 31.34%
Success (12/53) 50.98%
Critical (3/53) 16.04%
Perfect Success (1/53) 5.55%
Joker (1/53) 5.55%

Four cards
Failure (36/53) 21.29%
Success (12/53) 64.19%
Critical (3/53) 20.79%
Perfect Success (1/53) 7.34%
Joker (1/53) 7.34%

Five cards
Failure (36/53) 14.46%
Success (12/53) 72.30%
Critical (3/53) 25.27%
Perfect Success (1/53) 9.08%
Joker (1/53) 9.08%

The above doesn't allow for multiple results (i.e. drawing a Success on one card and a Critical on another), which would slightly skew the actual results in play.

That's not a bad thing, maybe in a more swashbuckling campaign you can use multiple results to represent that Errol Flynn thing when the hero sword-fights three or four rascals simultaneously.

If I was playing a game like this I'd think about houseruling the Joker. At the moment "pick the result" will end up with a lot of Perfect Successes, unless the player wants to fail for role-playing reasons. I'd prefer that with a joker the player can pick a result, but both parties suffer the consequences - so they could Perfect Success a joker to run the villainous colonel through the heart, but their PC is seriously wounded in the process.