We did another show. I have to say, too, this is easily my best performance yet. There has not been a shakeup this big since my appearance on Inappropriate Characters! If you have been hiding under a rock this past week, go pop some popcorn and fire this baby up right now!
There are a lot of people that are less than excited about this. I am here even more of a monster than I have ever been. People actually enjoy hating me– if they can bear to speak of me at all.
This doesn’t bother me. My big debate with RpgPundit had a very similar vibe when it came out. At the time that it aired, everyone thought I was a moron. In the years since, however, there has been a significant shift. Guys that were heckling me in the chat ultimately changed sides as all parties involved began to show their true colors. Heck, one of them would end up doing thoughtful videos about Appendix N, endorse both Zero Prep gaming and a more RAW-oriented ethos, and even publish a retroclone that explicitly incorporated the time rule that nearly anyone else would have omitted before.
Some people walking into the middle of this conversation have no idea what we are talking about, though. I would normally be inclined to dunk on them, but I am feeling magnanimous as I experience this seismic shift in the rpg culture that is entirely in my favor. For the ten or twenty people that would like to know more of what I am alluding to in this conversation, please see the following:
That’s all old news, though. If you want to see some really exciting stuff, look at the people that have decided to apply these incredible ideas to their own campaigns.
Of course, I can see how you might not want to tune in to the sort of rpg hipsters that tend to run with me. I get it. We’re imposing. We come off as arrogant. People think we’re rude and insufferable. I know! We’re terrible people. Our only virtue is that we are having more fun than everybody else!
I laugh, but this really is a real problem. It would be nice if someone tried to experiment with some of these ideas but then did it all with people that haven’t been brainwashed by the Jeffro cult. It would be great if the that people did it were familiar with more recent game systems than the weird esoteric texts the bros regularly pick through. It would be great if the people that did it were more representative of contemporary gaming culture with more conventional tastes, normal senses of humor, normal types of banter, and much less of a chip on their shoulders.
And hey, y’all. I’ve got news for you. We finally have you covered:
What happens when a seasoned referee drops cutting edge “bro” innovations like Braunstein play and 1:1 time into more of a straight ahead 5e game that incorporates much more player autonomy than typical story type tables would think to do?
Well, see for yourself.
There’s some good stuff here. Although personally, I like it when the guy attempts to succinctly explain what playing 1:1 time is like and ends up rambling incoherently without saying anything that comes to a point or that makes any sense. Welcome to the club, man! You’re just like me, for real for real!
Seriously, though. I couldn’t be happier that some of my detractors showed up in the chat to ask what things about 1:1 time DIDN’T work and what things about this experimental campaign they liked the LEAST.
The players, who evidently are unaware of my utterly noxious internet persona really had to struggle to come up with something here. They have not drunk the Kool-Aid. They were not going to bombastically declare that 1:1 time is a panacea like I would. So, they kind of hemmed and hawed on this. I feel like they were forced to almost make up a non-problem in their efforts come off as fair and considerate and evenhanded. Either way, the sort of Achilles Heel that guys in the peanut gallery were clamoring for never really manifested.
As to the other question, no one else will notice this but they actually came right out and gave the most Jeffro answer that they could. The thing that they dislike most about their campaign is… they just haven’t had enough time to develop all of the parts of the world that they are most excited to play with. The biggest problem with their campaign is that they haven’t spent enough time playing in it yet!
That right there is funny, y’all.
At the end of the day, it’s all there: the comradery on display in this group, the level of engagement these people can now take for granted in their game, the excitement they share over the subtle shift from “my” campaign to “our” campaign that these ideas naturally engender…. It’s all there. If you know what to look for, it’s all there! There is no doubt that people that honestly want to run the campaign of their dreams cannot help but want to get in on this once they finally see it.
Braunstein has been framed as being an intermediary form in the evolution of wargame to roleplaying game. I have demonstrated that Braunstein play is integral to OD&D and AD&D and that its concepts are in fact fundamental rather than vestigial.
Consider that the Braunstein has been called “the first rpg” by some. This is not entirely true, yet there is clearly a connection between Braunstein and rpgs. Consider as well that Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign was billed as a Braunstein. Braunstein has a deep and significant relationship not just to the genesis of D&D in particular and rpgs in general. But what is the precise nature of that relationship?
Only one person has been able to divine the real truth of this matter and that person is me. Anybody else weighing in on this topic has little more to say than, “yeah, the Braunsteins happened and then D&D happened and wow that is really cool.” This is safe. It’s even interesting. But it necessarily steers clear of the question of what the D&D game was really about and how to get better results from your own rpg campaigns today.
If you use 1:1 time, then your campaign becomes a type of Braunstein that is spread out over time. It becomes possible to easily integrate the activities of multiple tables, independent name-level characters, even the events of large-scale wargames. Powerful! Thrilling! Amazing! However, the original Braunstein was great fun in and of itself. Wesely had to wing it because the idea was half-baked. But if you set up a Braunstein session, you can just use your AD&D manuals to adjudicate everything.
AD&D is a toolkit for managing Braunstein interactions.
Conventional play ignores this entirely. Most D&D campaigns focus on the antics of a single party. When they reach a sufficiently high level, both those characters and the “campaign” itself are retired. This approach is a dead end because it has lost the concept of Braunstein.
What is the core element of a Braunstein? Multiple independent actors operating against each other’s interests under a fog of war. Meanwhile, conventional play lost player autonomy almost entirely when it gave up Braunstein play. This is the root cause of why it’s not fun. Everyone that picked up a TSR D&D manual had dreams of what they would do when their fighter reached name-level. Yet most people never met a DM that could pay off that promise. The reason they couldn’t do it is because they had a limited and incorrect notion of what D&D was.
D&D never stopped being a Braunstein. It never evolved beyond the Braunstein. It just spread out. Grew larger. It expanded out into the fantasy equivalent of the world-spanning Twin Cities Napoleonics campaign. The AD&D rules describe a sort of “monster” Braunstein. “Monster” Braunsteins are amazing, and I am privileged to have been part of a group that could put one together. Honestly, most people just don’t have the mettle to pull them off anymore. But these ideas are too awesome to leave to the past.
That is why in November I conceived of the idea to return to the “pure” Braunstein concept of David Wesely and drop it into a continuing D&D campaign as if were just any other session. Braunstein can be just one of many play modes you use in your campaign as you see fit. Sometimes your D&D session focuses on a dungeon delve. Other times it’s a wilderness journey. Sometimes you resolve a titanic miniatures battle that will change the face of your game world. You move between these play modes without thinking about it. Braunstein deserves the same type of treatment.
Braunstein deserves to be a first-class element of a continuing campaign.
Many people have taken up this idea and I think it’s clear: this is a REALLY good idea. It allows more people to fulfill the promise of the old D&D manuals with the kind of attention and resources that are available to the typical D&D group. This is a very big deal. You wouldn’t have the option of doing this if it wasn’t for some guy that figured out that the old 1:1 time rule was actually really important. You wouldn’t have this option if it wasn’t for some guy that could see that Braunstein was the key fundamental principle of D&D gameplay.
This is what I care about. The cavalry charge. I imagine countless people playing D&D for decades and never running a real charge. This creates a black pit within my soul.
Charging gets a great deal of attention within the fatigue rules. Positioning your troops properly and then determining whether to wait or not is suddenly a nontrivial decision. D&D rules universally lack this bit of modeling.
When I played this before, the charge rule resulted in the cavalry unit being out of play once it was committed. My question now is… was this rule intended to create a situation where cavalry repeatedly melees fatigued infantry within a single turn? I have to know!
And lo, the rules are explicit. If the morale difference is 0-19, the charge ends AND melee continues. If it’s 20-99, there is a good chance that there will be more melee as the cavalry completes its charge. Yeah, this is really cool.
AD&D ought to adjudicate charges in a similar manner. With that rule set, check morale. If the target falls back, and additional charge movement remains, allow a follow-melee round with the now panicked figures.
But note that AD&D is complicated by the presence of the rules for overbearing.
The exact order of events in an AD&D charge would probably be something like this:
Weapon length will determine first attack. This will probably be the charging cavalry’s lances.
Figures are removed for the kills resulting in #1. The remaining defenders may attempt to fend off the overbear attack of the cavalry.
The cavalry that were not fended off now make their overbear attacks.
The defenders now make their spear (or whatever) attacks.
Morale is checked here… and if the defenders fall back and also the cavalry has sufficient charge movement remaining, then an additional set of attacks is made.
If the defenders made their morale check, then the two groups remain in contact for the following combat round with the horses making kick and bite attacks then.
Other scenarios are possible and this is just to illustrate the general idea.
This causes rpg Twitter to return to the Chainmail rules, actually read them, and begin to discern the difference between “turn” and “round” within those pages:
The question now is… are we playing AD&D combat wrong given that we have always played Chainmail wrong?
A cursory glance at Swords & Spells indicates that D&D combat makes a conscious departure from Chainmail melee.
However…
Swords & Spells introduces increased rates of fire for missile weapons with a rule that is immediately familiar to anyone that has picked up an AD&D Players Handbook.
Everyone plays this rule and has no problem with multiple attacks in a regular D&D combat round already.
While we’re here, I have to say… it really sucks that Gary omitted this particular rule from AD&D on how to adjudicate missile fire rates with movement. It’s a good rule.
Swords & Spells does in fact follow Chainmail in allowing multiple Melee rounds per turn, however. In light of the missile fire rules that WE ALREADY USE in AD&D… it’s POSSIBLE that this rule was incorrectly omitted from AD&D due to Gary being high on cocaine.
Q: So Sword&Spells is a necessary part of the AD&D system?
A: There’s a guy playing OD&D raw that consults AD&D in places where OD&D is silent or inscrutable in order to get an idea of what Gary might have intended.
I suggest that– in the same spirit– Swords & Spells should be consulted in order to clear up AD&D combat questions.
More questions in the mail bag today! This one is suspiciously similar to a previous one, but whatever. Let’s go!
How does 1:1 time account for things that genuinely take months or years? I understand that we can simply take busy PCs out of play for the duration, but this seems unsatisfying.
It’s up to the player. If you play the wizard Frobozz, you have to choose between adventuring with your frens, participating in Sir Homer’s epic mass combat campaign, and researching a powerful new spell for three months. There are tradeoffs for each option.
What’s unsatisfying is never getting to do spell research at all because 12 months of real time only explores two weeks of game time, never getting to operate independently because your assumptions about rpgs preclude it entirely, and campaigns that blow up after six sessions. Bah!
Playing your other PCs for the duration is fun because playing D&D is fun. You don’t believe this, but if you play this way not only will Frobozz’s choice shape the campaign, but it will still be going when he finishes working up his all-new spell. That’s satisfaction.
Playing this way is also more resilient and anti-fragile. Maybe Frobozz is not the most interesting thing you could be doing in the campaign given what all everyone else is putting into it. Maybe you will try out playing a thief or a ranger and find out that it’s actually way more fun. Maybe after three months, you will be really excited to get back to you favorite character. Maybe some days it will be more fun to play one of these characters and not the others. YOU DON’T KNOW. But if you don’t invest in other play options, you will not have them available in the event of your main character getting killed.
So, think ahead. And get used to everyone in your group opting to not put all their rpg eggs in one basket. It’s an objectively better way to run a campaign. Not only is it sure to last beyond today’s norm of six measly sessions, but time and again this format has proven it can GROW your gaming group.
Note: Your question basically boils down to “why should my campaign be meaningful?” Gygax answered this in the DMG. Read it!
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