Gygax Took Braunstein Play as Axiomatic in 1979

Jon Miller writes in with a great question:

Why did almost no one who read OD&D or AD&D figure out how to run a Blackmoor or a Braunstein?

Did the books just leave out crucial information about how to set up and run a Braunstein-style session or campaign?

Looking back at both OD&D and AD&D 1e, neither explained faction play or patron play. The focus was on dungeon and wilderness exploration. With a tiny amount of domain play, seemingly as an afterthought.

Well, let’s see if we can nail down what Gygax knew and when he knew it. Or rather, when he took for granted that people would play role-playing games in the manner with which he had received them from Arneson, rather than as how people would very quickly assume that they worked. I suggest we step away from D&D as well to look into this. After all, people will never forgive you if you suggest that they are playing D&D wrong. Something like Boot Hill, though? Basically no one would take umbrage if you told them they didn’t really “get” that game.

First up, note the definition of roleplaying game invoked here. It’s pretty straightforward. If you are playing the role of an individual character, then you are playing a role-playing game. Note that by this definition, David Wesely’s Braunstein really was the first role-playing game because it departed from players running entire armies to the guys each playing a singular role.

BUT NOTE THE DESCRIPTION OF THE GAMEPLAY DYNAMICS THAT FOLLOWS THIS DEFINITION. It is something that we have talked about quite a bit lately. Gygax is talking about an approach to play that will spontaneously generate conflict, drama, and action organically. This is a view of role-playing games that is fundamentally at odds with how the vast majority of people view them after 1980 or so. Most game modules take it for granted that a narrative is imposed on the game top-down by a module designer or by referee fiat. But Gygax is talking about something completely different here. He is talking about a game where not even the referee will know how things will ultimately turn out. A Boot Hill campaign does not end in six sessions with the players miraculously defeating the Big Bad Evil Guy when they are all down to their very last hit point.

How do you run a game any other way? Well, I can tell you… most people that are committed to a Narrativist approach to rpgs CANNOT IMAGINE DOING THEM ANY OTHER WAY. Lucky for you, not only have other people managed to replicate the approach to the game that I have rediscovered, but also Gygax explains it all right here in this crusty old game book.

A Boot Hill campaign not only places the player characters at different position on the map, but it also gives them differing objectives.

Note that this is not only completely different from how nearly everyone today runs role-playing games, but it is also the key to the creating the dynamic, spontaneously generated stories that Gygax promises the game will give you. Note as well that Gygax tells you to only attempt this sort of campaign play AFTER the players have become familiar with the rules. That’s amazing! I was saying much the same thing just the other day!

But how does the referee run this sort of game?

Wow, this is even more amazing! Gygax describes here the referee meeting with each player individually, apprising them of what they know and also the results of their various efforts and stratagems. Further, the players are secretly conspiring together to hatch SECRET PLANS that none of the other players will know about.

This is of course the same method of adjudication that David Wesely used in his 1968 Braunstein game and it is fundamentally different from how everyone plays role-playing games today where player-characters are practically joined at the hip during game sessions and also strongly encouraged to play cooperatively. These two types of playstyles are so different and behave so differently at the table, I would suggest that the Boot Hill’s campaign game would be more properly termed as being a type of Braunstein rather than actually being a type of role-playing game. A subtle point to be sure, but a vital one if you wish to be able to communicate about this subject clearly and effectively!

But wait, there is more!

Gygax describes how this approach to role-playing allows one player to play multiple roles within the same campaign. He very carefully outlines how the two roles should be separate enough that they have no reason to either cooperate or enter into conflict against each other. This is very good advice, in my opinion– something I only came to after seeing what happens when players did not do things this way in my justifiably infamous Trollopulous campaign.

But also note that this property of Braunstein play also allows multiple referees to work together in running the same campaign. Further, it allows referees in such happy circumstances to get to play in their own campaigns as well. As we have seen of late, this is something that Narrativist referees not only can’t do in their own games, they can’t even imagine how other people can pull this off. Their assumptions about how these games work are that far removed from those of the people that founded the hobby!

So, there it is.

If it’s hard for you to understand why you should particularly be beholden for your fun time to what nerds in Wisconsin five decades ago thought was fun about role-playing games, then just look at what people are saying about games they are running in the manner described here.

It really is amazing, it really does work, and this approach to role-playing games really has been lost for a good four decades.

But it can work for you TODAY.