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!
More answers for you today! This time, the question comes in from Brown Wizard Winston.
I was watching your post braunstein report on DunderMoose’s channel. How do you determine what each force has, especially with factions like giants?
In one case we had somebody playing a longstanding NPC. In another case, we had somebody running their usual PC. The forces at the various small towns were set when the region was first sketched out– including the leveled characters available. We had a new guy show up and I just gave him 200 orcs that didn’t exist. (Just like when David Weseley did it, you can always add more and not break a Braunstein!) Doucheland had to be made up with its player as it wasn’t nailed down yet. Dunder went nuts mapping his city. 90% of that Braunstein was already in our imaginations just from playing in that region for many sessions. I tweaked the numbers of OOB’s the players suggested and rejected some ideas, but mostly you can just look at your existing campaign and pretty well just turn it on.
What about opening with a Battle Braunstein? Any tips there?
Man, I set up my Braunsteins in already existing campaigns, so that is not my forte. Brovenloft and Broriental adventures BOTH went bigger than what could reasonably be managed. Decembork was much more formal, but maybe planned just a little too well. Based on past efforts, you’d want faction sizes to be no more than a few hundred normal men, say. 500 tops. Also watch out for god-like characters. 11th level wizards are plenty awesome as we have seen. Multiple uneasy alliances will always produce great player interactions.
Don’t run a Braunstein if you and your players haven’t mastered the relevant rules systems yet. This is, in my opinion, the biggest reason not to run a Braunstein outside of an already mature well-played campaign: you all don’t know how the easy stuff works yet! Braunstein play is predicated on not only the referee but also many of the players being completely fluent in the rules. Further, the referee needs to be seasoned enough that he does not panic when he ceases to know what is happening.
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