Introduction
As I discussed in my last blog post, the summer of 2024 has been a celebration of the success of the Battle Braunstein concept. Jeffro Johnson (of "Appendix N", "How to Win at D&D" and the amazing 1e Advanced Dungeons and Dragons "Trollopulous" campaign) defines a Braunstein as an approach to tabletop roleplay gaming where "multiple independent actors [operate] under a fog of war".
 |
Can DM Dubs run a whole session from 3
paragraphs from an unreleased KS module? |
Dubzaron, with
1:1 Jeffrogaxian timekeeping, is an "Always On" campaign. But sometimes there is too much diffusion between human controlled players (PCs, Patrons, etc) and not enough convergence. The former is where players take their character off to do solitaire play in downtime (usually to acquire cash and prizes) and the latter is where players find a way to involve each other in scenes and events within the game world.
Due to this frequent issue I forced a Battle Braunstein which I dubbed the Fishstein back in 2023. There were many hanging elements in that part of the game world at that space/time that I knew, had I not ran a Battle Braunstein, the players would simply run from those elements out of fear or an attempt to "get the ruby" in a less dangerous part of the world.
The Fishstein was a great success for the Dubzaron campaign but this session, which I am dubbing the #Shuckstein may be my greatest DMing triumph.
The Fishstein proved you can take the big armies your players are building and give them a wargame scenario they are actually excited to fight out. Credit where it's due again, Jeffro says this nearly verbatim all the time about the Braunstein.
I told him a few weeks back in private messaging that, the next time I DM, I was going to force the Dubzaron PCs to play in a Battle Braunstein against their will; with very little warning or planning. But this Battle Braunstein session would be based around the PCs issues with one another.
Essentially, I was jealous of all the success Jeffro was having as a referee of his fantastic Traveller campaigns and sessions. He was using my Total Nonstop Braunstein concept to great success and I wanted Dubzaron to enjoy the fun the concept could provide.
Total Nonstop Braunstein
I define this concept vaguely and more in terms of gameplay. So, this session report itself will give an example of the TNB more than a definition. The main idea behind it is that somewhere in 1e AD&D Core Books (I'm not a gaming anthropologist like Jeffro so I can't find you the page or exact quote) Gygax states matter-of-factly that PCs will begin to be at odds with their armies and various resources once they achieve mid to high (name) level.
Dubzaron and most of the BROSR campaigns are NOT seeing this sort of PVP happen so it's clear we're missing something. A proper gaming culture clubhouse? An improper understanding of Appendix N concepts? An improper understanding of D&D as a slow-motion co-operative videogame?
In any case, the Total Nonstop Braunstein looks to fix this by various means. One way, which I'll demonstrate in this session, is to force the PCs into a scenario where they have very few ways to co-operate as a single fellowship "get along gang" and many more ways to screw one another over as "factions of one".
The Shucked Oyster
The Shucked Oyster is a wildly popular modular RPG product currently being crowdfunded at Kickstarter. If you're reading this before the campaign ends on 09/05/2024 you really should get over there and give money to your friends and mine, the writers of "The Shucked Oyster": Black Lodge Games.
Prior to reading the Kickstarter launch page for the Shucked Oyster, I didn't know what scenario I wanted to place the PCs into which would potentially put them at odds with one another. After reading the opening page concept of The Shucked Oyster, wherein the titular bawdyhouse burns down and PCs are (potentially, based on a random d8 chart) blamed, I knew THIS was the scenario that could work. I could put The Shucked Oyster location into my campaign worlds barbarian city of Claymore Crossing with no issue.
The material available to the public about The Shucked Oyster, on the Kickstarter right now, is the above starting point and two courtesan NPCs. Upon listening to the Black Lodge Games fellas on various podcasts, most especially The Rollin' Bones podcast with the seminal Ryan Howard, I was struck by their OSR era commentary that NPCs should be simply interesting people in the world that have their own drives, feelings, wants etc.
Well, my own opinion on NPCs in a D&D style game is that all players hate all of them and that they bore me to DM; no matter how interesting they are. When I run NPCs I feel like I'm playing amateur theater with myself while PCs roll their eyes in boredom. Perhaps, being theater kids (not an insult, I love theater kids!) they are simply better at NPCs and NPC story webs than me.
But Jeffro's Traveller game gave me the idea on how to bridge this gap and turn The Shucked Oyster into, perhaps, the best Battle Braunstein that's ever been ran!
The Antagonists
My concept for the Total Nonstop Braunstein has always been that PCs should be potential antagonists to each other. Not necessarily in throw-down arena style battles, but in working at cross purposes in downtime (for sure!) and with Total Nonstop Braunstein, in session. Not to sabotage their own goals (when you're in the dungeon you assure your boys live so you don't die) but to sabotage bigger goals.
Some examples might be the thief using treasure from the delving to build his syndicate and the paladin setting up troops to root out crime. Or the two PC fighters building armies to try and capture the same land; whoever gets there first wins. Stuff like that; but in the dungeon or when there is wetwork, PCs will generally have each other's back.
Sadly, I've found BROSR PCs overall have been unable or unwilling to bridge this mental gap. I've heard a million excuses why: "the rules push co-operation", "it's just how players are", "I've never read Appendix N" etc.
I argued against these excuses, I begged mine friends to follow me into the new frontier of Total Nonstop Braunstein, I've tried to show the way as a PC in their various games. No dice. Little success. BDubs dark night of the rpg soul. Cue "Laura's Theme" and picture me pondering my ACKS Core book.
Jeffro, in his usual kinetic way, found a simpler solution in his Traveller campaign. Just force session players to be NPC antagonists. Brilliant!
He probably thought this is what I meant by Total Nonstop Braunstein. Well, it is now!
I quizzed PCs in the back channels on which other PCs that had issue with and why I found that very few of them thought very deeply about any of this. There was little (although some!) in the way of Appendix N pulp thinking or pop psychology. They were not posed to be great antagonists to each other in a Battle Braunstein Session.
So, like Jeffro in his Traveller game, I put out a call online for new players to come on and play antagonists in a Battle Braunstein for an evening. I used two NPCs from the KS materials for The Shucked Oyster but twisted them to my needs. And added a third antagonist based off of a patron's vassal. I will describe them here.
Madam Svetlana: This is a character from The Shucked Oyster module that is described in the Kickstarter materials. I took the barebones of the idea which is: she's beautiful, a madam of the titular bawdyhouse, and is a true believer cultist in some megademon. Also, she's actually a hag in disguise. Lastly, she has a boyfriend (another NPC in the module) who is a high priest of the cult and she intends to sacrifice him at some point (sorry, honey!).
I changed the character in a few small ways. Firstly, because the Fishstein had a cultist leader trying to raise a demon (CThaylor!); I didn't want to repeat myself.
I made her Big Goal different in that she needed to sacrifice 10 Levels worth of human controlled players on an altar in the basement of the Shucked Oyster. If she did so, Stormbringer (the evil artifact sword of "Elric Saga" and various BROSR campaign events fame) would appear on the altar. She wanted it for reasons unknown.
Making her a hag was easy, I just generated one in ACKS, chose spells that made the most sense, and handed that to the player.
Jalaan: In The Shucked Oyster module entry for Svetlana it mentions her boyfriend is "Peter" and he's a high priest or something. That, and the fact that Svetlana might betray her boyfriend, was all I had to go on for this other character. I changed his name from Peter to Jalaan to make him more mysterious and changed him from a cultist high priest to... Slenderman!
 |
| Jalaan was lookin' good, jack! |
The Dubzaron PCs spent months trying to find and kill Slenderman in the Queens Rest Mountain dungeon. From some no-prep random rolling I did during those sessions, I resolved some various things about how Slenderman escaped the dungeon before it erupted and how he was using the Black Lodge "Twin Peaks" curtains in the dungeon to travel to Jotenheim to speak with Surtur the King of the Fire giants.
This is all Norse myth stuff and I've had a long term goal of bringing the Norse pantheon to Dubzaron if player action could do it. This idea was always focused on convergence.
Bottom line is Jalaan was not allied with Surtur but he wanted to be for various reasons. And he learned of the evil altar in the The Shucked Oyster basement which he had reason to believe, if it was physically carried to the Black Lodge "Twin Peaks" curtains at the rubble of Queens Rest Mountain (a recently erupted volcano which didn't destroy the curtains because they're super-magic) he could open the curtains to Jotenheim and let Surtur into Dubzaron world.
I chose "carry the altar" for a few reasons. I didn't want two antagonists trying to kill people on the altar. And I figured this would twist Jalaan's goals to be more about making allies so he'd have manpower to carry the altar. Could maybe get caught in the street doing so etc. This is all very easy game design type ideas that come to you when you're running a Battle Braunstein.
Lastly, Slenderman/Jalaan had 4 vampire dames from past sessions but I didn't want to have him with that much power so I determined he introduced them to Warlord Kyle OConner, a patron I didn't want players running to for help during the event. Perhaps Kyle could also be saved? Oh, and I took away Slenderman's level drain effect for the event because I thought it would make things too easy and cheap.
Mayor Lambert: In solitaire patron play Kyle generated a war focused Fighter to hold the Foward Operating Base at Queens Rest Mountain for like a year. At some point in the spring of 2024 PC Barbarian Einar convinced Patron Kyle O'Conner to give him the land instead. Then Kyle's city grew too much and, being full of barbarians, was wild and disordered. Officially in his solitaire notes, Lambert was put in charge of using his hundreds of troops with "upholding the peace" in town.
So, Lambert's design goal in this event was to have tons of troops to use for patrols and such and to try and figure out who burned down The Shucked Oyster (a highly respected establishment) and calm tensions down. Also, a military bunkhouse on the same block was destroyed by the fire. I added this to explain why he might be more antagonistic during the event. The player could then in an emergent story way determine if he liked his new job, hated it, was angry with Einar or happy with him for the past, etc.
The Protagonists (PCs)
I will try and keep this part short since this blog is running extremely long and regular readers probably know who most of these PCs are from past session reports.
Einar: He's a level six barbarian who held the clanhold around Queens Rest Mountain until said volcano exploded like two weeks ago. He's currently in town with a few companies parked outside deciding what his next steps should be. He also turned Chaotic due to events inside the dungeon a long while back and made oaths to the evil Norse King of the Fire Giants: Surtur. Most of his party members do NOT know that and only found out at the end of the Shuckstein due to Events.
Standing Mountain: He's a mid level Elven Spellword (same as a BX elf). He's Neutral and is lately seeking to change the negative perception of elves around the city of Claymore Crossing (where the session takes place) by bringing evil elves to Kyle Oconner's justice. He has a few powerful hench, many good magic items, and some flying mounts.
Xanthos: He's a higher level Lawful Cleric of the Empyrean; which is the Roman style ACKS civilization. He's respected by Kyle but the Lawful cults are not followed in this city of Claymore Crossing. He has some good martial henchmen and access to terrific divine magic power.
Tuck: He's a level 6 barbarian with a very good fighter hench and bard hench. Tuck has been around the world of Dubzaron doing many things. He was once the Mayor of Fishton before CThaylor took over. Who would he throw in with in this event?
Doc: Doc is a level 4 Lawful thief. He's made oaths to the Empyrean (Roman) gods of Law and has studied medicine. He's been in the city of Claymore Crossing for some weeks enjoying the Shucked Oyster's many wares. He's Lawful, not dead.
Scoring
The scoring system was none at all. I made it clear to them I would simply look at their play and decide who "won" based on what seemed to make the most sense. Winning could be killing PCs they didn't like, bringing Surtur to Dubzaron, summoning Stormbringer, framing their pals for the fire, or proving their innocence of same.
What I failed to say at the beginning is that one of the human controlled players DID in fact set the fire at The Shucked Oyster. I determined who randomly with a 1d10 roll for all human controlled players modifed by their Wisdom. Lowest roll was the culprit. I private messaged the culprit and demanded he provide me with the how and why it happened and that might inform the story. I added this to game design "This is DunderMoose"s murder mystery party idea he always uses as an example when he talks about Braunstein play. Solving this could be a win condition!
Reward
First Place: 12,000 xp and training costs paid in ANY BROSR campaign. I let the players know I was prepared to bully a different DM into honoring this.
Second Place: 5,000 xp and training costs etc.
Third Place: A golf clap and "attaboy" from DM Dubs.
Fourth or Lower: Not worth discussing.
The Introduction
The session started with everyone in the barbarian ran city of Claymore Crossing either enjoying "The Shucked Oyster" or just walking up to the building when the fire started and the place burned down. I took this directly from the module itself as it appears to be the intro to get things going. It's a brilliant and deceptively simple starting point for a city adventure. No matter what players think about it, they're forced to make a choice one way or another. Well done, Black Lodge Games!
I considered having the PCs make Save Vs Blast (Breath) checks to see if they were caught inside but thought it would be dumb to kill or disable players at the intro.
I did, however, want to have less hench involved in the session since they are very cumbersome to adjudicate in combat and almost never add anything interesting to a story part of a session scenario. They're usually just force multipliers not story ones.
I had players make Loyalty checks to see if their hench were too busy partying in the Shucked Oyster when the fire started and they didn't obey their liege to get out of the place.
Two Venturer hench were caught in the fire and injured. I don't think they died thanks to ACKS "Mortal Wounds" rules but I didn't care as much about that I mostly wanted henchmen out of the session not the campaign. Sadly, like 80% of the many many henchmen in the game stayed involved. This would make the bit of combat later kind of cumbersome. Sad.
As the bawdyhouse burned down I used a bunch of purple prose to describe it falling, the venturer henchman collapsing in the street in front of their PCs, and I did NPC control of Jalaan and Svetlana that they saw some guards approach from the nearby bunkhouse and point at PCs and say "they did it!"
I then ruled Jalaan and Svetlana took off into some alleyways to get them out of the combat which then commenced. Players later realized that Lieutenant of this group of about 20 guards was under magic control from Svetlana to try and apprehend the PCs without Parley.
This was a game design decision to assure that the PCs either: let themselves be apprehended and were in custody, or would be on the run for certainly killing some guards. Lambert was not present for this battle but would hear about it later and need to determine if a few dead guards bothered him or not. Making these sort of thing a Player decision helps with convergence and is more interesting than me doing a reaction check.
The PCs made short work of the guards, killing 4 of them and running off the rest with Xanthos casting Summon Swarm to hit them with a bunch of angry mosquitos. Standing Mountain used magic on the NPC LT Reigns and said LT was unconscious by the end of the fight.
With this quick battle resolved I then went to the meat of the Battle Braunstein situation and the gameplay that is actually interesting.
Approach to Play
The Battle Braunstein is, essentially, a party game. DMs must needs accept this and try to emphasize it. For this session I made a handful of private voice channels to place characters in who were local to each other. They could talk all they want. Discussing plans and schemes and trying to get one over on one another is the crux of the Braunstein gameplay. It's like "Diplomacy".
In the Fishstein I made a macguffin reason that Players could all talk to each other through their minds thanks to a "Twin Peaks" radio a magic elf put in their head for a few weeks. This time I decided not to add anything like that. If you wanted to talk with another player you had to agree you were in the same physical space in the city.
I controlled this aspect early on as I went to various voice chats to ask the Antagonist PCs what they wanted to do, and the PCs what they wanted to do. I was looking for an action item from each and then I would put all that together and see where the convergence was.
Later into the night I stopped trying to control which players would move themselves to other voice channels and trusted they would be fair about it and tag me for help if they needed to resolve a hostile situation. Which they did.
I also titled one voice chat "The Shucked Oyster" which I let everyone know was the ruin of the brothel. If you went to the scene of the fire it would get around town quickly you were present there (or most recently seen there) so you could jump to that voice channel with it meaning your Character went there to confront someone, to investigate or whatever. The other voice chats could represent anywhere in town and could be "lying low" or hiding or whatever.
This decision allowed me to do a fantastic convergence for ALL PARTIES later and even have an "icing on the cake". Stay tuned!
Initial Actions
Let's start with the PCs. Firstly, after the combat Einar tied up Lieutenant Reigns and carried him out of town to where his (Einar's) troops were bivouacked. He suspected foul play against himself and wanted to question the Lieutenant with enhanced interrogation. Notably, Einar didn't invite or wait for ANY PCs to join him.
Standing Mountain tried to save his nearby pawn shop from the spreading fire.
Lambert put out word via his troops that he wanted Einar and Xanthos to come in and talk to him. A good start but I can't recall if I acted on it since I was mostly avoiding NPC stuff. But this did let all players know where they could meet with Lambert at his garrison or whatever if they asked and wanted to. Convergence!
Doc the thief chased Svetlana and Jalaan down the alleyway they escaped to. Tuck followed a few rounds later. This was the initial slower part of the session and I allowed the other PCs to discuss their plan in their own voice chat while I adjudicated this. It was the most interesting initial action.
I did some sneak checks for Doc to see if Svetlana or Jalaan knew he was there. They did (sorry, thief!) so Svetlana and Jalaan decided to try and rope Doc in close where the courtesan would attempt to Charm him. Their plan was Jalaan run off and hide and Svetlana appear to be lost and confused like she'd been abandoned by her man. Jalaan (really Slenderman) actually turned invisible but he was hiding this ability from Svetlana (even though it turns out she has Witch Sight and knew he was invisible; wheels within wheels!).
The thief decided to approach like "how you doin' girl" and Svetlana cast Charm with just her look thanks to an ACKS class proficiency she had. Thanks to this proficiency combat wasn't triggered by her indicating casting the spell. It was the first (but not last) time Doc would be charmed tonight.
Tuck ran up at this point and I described the scene to him. He decided to be a cool wingman and let Doc shoot his shot. I left the voice chat the 3 of them were in at this point so I don't know why but eventually Doc and Tuck let Svetlana go and they later told me they'd try and tail her in hiding. Doc explained he was worried Jalaan was a bad guy and he wanted to keep an eye on Svetlana and it's totally not a stalkery thing to do ok.
Timekeeping
It was at this point I realized something amazing about the Shuckstein. Thanks to this all being contained within a city, the time it was taking for me to get back to players about their actions and how long it would take their characters to do said actions; seemed to align almost perfectly with the REAL CLOCK.
If I figured it would take a guy about 10 minutes to finish a declared action I would usually be back in his voice chat in about 10 minutes. If it took me 15, then his action took 15.
As such, the Shuckstein was the first actual 1:1 minute to minute BROSR session to ever be played. "The Shucked Oyster" burned down at session start time of 08/07/2024 8:30 PM EST and the city part of the event was resolved around 12:10 am EST on 08/08/2024.
The icing on the cake was some game days later...
Second Phase
I don't remember every action around the middle part of the session so I'm going to drop the hits.
Svetlana and Jalaan found a flophouse to flop and try and lay low for a while. Doc and Tuck tailed them there and were not seen at this point. Svetlana eventually got bored of this and went off to find Lambert and plead her innocence. When Doc tailed her down the street Jalaan saw Doc and decided he would try and come out of invisibility right in front of Doc walking down the street and use his vampire "Enslave" ability which requires he be seen and look in Doc's eyes. Jalaan didn't see that Tuck was tailing Doc about 60 yards down the street.
I ran the initial round of this little mini combat between 3 players, including surprise etc but then I realized something really cool about BROSR play. Jalaan was being played by one of my co-DMs. I asked all involved if they were comfortable adjudicating the combat on their own so I could get back to the real meat of the Battle Braunstein which was going around the digital table with other players to see if they needed rulings. They were cool with it.
The BROSR is the best.
I came back later to find that Tuck and Doc were both magically Enslaved to Jalaan. Sorry guys.
Svetlana had talks with Lambert which I wasn't present for. They summed up for me that she was going to help him figure out the mystery and to watch out for Xanthos (the cleric, really?) and Standing Mountain (elf? checks out) since they were clearly at fault here.
At this point I was reminding players that, while interesting and entertaining, I wasn't really concerned with the agreements, emotions, or psychology of their characters: I just needed their actions. The mental part of the play was on their side. I will ponder the mental state of all these amazing characters likely for months and months but in the heat of DMing a Battle Braunstein I simply did not have time to worry about WHY they did things. I just needed to know WHAT they were doing.
Svetlanta went back to The Shucked Oyster and Lambert went out with a platoon of troops to try and meet with Einar.
Einar had by now interrogated Lieutenant Reigns and learned what he already knew: someone used magic to make him attack the party without Parley. At this point Lambert showed up and I had to be present to see if Einar and Lambert would throw down outside town with their armies. They both assured me they were not presenting a hostile appearance and would be happy to parley. I left them to it. When I came back I found out the conclusions they came to from this talk... you won't believe it.
Third Phase
I may have this timeline all wrong.
What you need to understand about a Battle Braunstein is no one is privy to ALL the information. This is like a group of eight people finding an elephant in the dark. Someone will find the tail and think "this is all about this tail" someone will feel the trunk and think "no no, the trunk is the thing". There is no way to put it together as an elephant without hearing from all sides. I hope the players will comment and add their own thoughts and "session reports" to this. Players are playing by talking when the DM isn't present!
The biggest action of the third phase was Svetlana going to the ruin of "The Shucked Oyster" and having two of her assassin courtesans hide in the rubble to attack any players who approached her. Her plan was to paralyze some PCs who did so then take them down to the basement of the place to sacrifice them. Get Stormbringer, win the Shuckstein. Simple as.
Standing Mountain and Xanthos were the first who came to her spider web. The assassins jumped out and one hit Standing Mountain but he made his Save Vs Paralysis and the fight was on. This turned into a pretty interesting duel between spellcasters as Svetlana was trying to first use "Curse of Swine" which turns a bunch of targets into pigs if they fail to Save Vs Spells (some of Standing Mountain and Xanthos hench failed and were pigified) and then Svetlana turned invisible to escape only to have Standing Mountain cast Glitterdust on her and essentially ruin her invisibility. Cool!
This combat was a bit of a slog with all the henchmen and Svetlana's player (Robert the Heel Stephens!) was brand new to ACKS; meaning we had to slow down to adjudicate spells and distances a great deal. One cool part, however, was that I was jumping back and forth out of the combat to the other voice chats to see if anyone was taking ACTIONS (not ideas or plans) and where I could find a convergence.
Einar private messaged me that divination spells could ruin the mystery aspect and I told him that's fine since you'd still need to prove who did it or get them apprehended or something to constitute a win. Just knowing whodunit didn't really mean much. I decided it would be fair for his shaman to have a vision of his deity Surtur from this Commune cast to say "Jalaan knows how to get me to the world of Dubzaron!"
As such, when Jalaan showed up at Einar's camp, Einar talked with him rather than attacked. I was shocked to jump back into their private voice chat and Einar said "ok so fyi I know Jalaan is Slenderman and I know he wants to bring Surtur and I'm going to help him we're going to frame the elf and cleric for the fire and I convinced Lambert to arrest them".
WHAT?!
I got with Lambert and asked for his actions and he confirmed most of this that his next action was to march down to The Shucked Oyster to apprehend Svetlana, Standing Mountain and Xanthos. The three people who were currently in a D&D style combat!
The Final Convergence
When you DM a Battle Braunstein you are looking for how the actions of the players are going to converge into a scenario worth playing. If you run things well you will always have at least one big blow-off between players before the end of the Battle Braunstein end of the session.
At this point it was obvious to me what was happening. Lambert and Einar wanted to come in force with troops in the street to apprehend three player controlled characters. Said characters were kind of reaching the end of their D&D style battle so I just decided the cavalry (literally and metaphorically) showed up.
Svetlana, thanks to spells and some luck of the dice, actually extricated herself from the ruins of The Shucked Oyster and her combat with Standing Mountain, Xanthos and their various hench. I allowed the possibility that any of those parties would refuse to surrender when Lambert showed up demanding it.
Standing Mountain and Xanthos did not resist arrest. This surprised me a little bit but we were getting late in the night and both players may have not wanted to have us run too late and/or they were worn out of running round to round D&D combat. They also probably assume they'd be found innocent by Lambert in downtime (where things are less dangerous) or Patron Kyle OConner would just shrug and let them free.
We'll see about all the above. I occurs to me things should be a bit harder than that.
Svetlana, meanwhile, had no intention of surrendering. She ran out the back of the husk of the brothel and tried to escape to a back alley. Unfortunately for her Einar sent me a private message before the scene commenced that, as per his martial personality baked into his ACKS template, he was approaching the scene from "an oblique angle". I ruled this meant a back alley so Svetlana ran right into him.
She used her Wand of Cone of Fear to scare off Einar with magic for one round before Einar's mage cast Dispel Magic to get him back in the fight; but Einar's hench downed her. She was at exactly zero hit points when Einar dragged her back to the brothel and presented her to Lambert. In a fun display Doc, the thief with many ranks in Healing, asked Lambert if he could tend to her but (secretly in private message) just stabbed her in the stomach to kill her instead. Oops.
Everyone agreed this was probably for the best and Lambert took two PCs into custody and told everyone else standing around "you don't have to go home but you can't stay here". The 1:1 minute clock was done. We had done something really special. This was a D&D session for the ages.
The Icing on the Cake
But wait, there's more.
I said basically all this to all players present, to great cursing and shock at the various revelations. Why hide anything at this point? Fog of war is boring if there's never anything learned at all!
After everyone left the scene of the battle and arrest, Jalaan (Slenderman) and Einar came back to the ruined brothel and went into the basement. Slenderman ordered Doc and Tuck to help carry the evil altar from beneath the tunnels below The Shucked Oyster and up into a waiting wagon in the street.
For some days this party, along with Einar's soldiers, traveled back to volcano of Queens Rest Mountain which erupted some weeks back. They traveled only at night since Slenderman, being a vampire, needed to stay out of the sunlight. They had Einar's troops and Doc and Tuck, with some humiliation and not a little bit of pain, dig into the hot lava rocks of the erupted volcano.
Eventually they found the Black Lodge "Twin Peaks" curtains standing on a wall; seemingly completely unaffected by the volcano eruption. They heave-ho pushed the big stone altar from beneath The Shucked Oyster into the curtain to a great flash of black light.
Surtur, the king of the fire giants of Jotenheim, and his massive host of Ragnarok ready giants, came screaming from the curtains. The evil portion of the Norse pantheon erupted into the world of Dubzaron and all Lawful divine casters in the world went unconscious with pain of it all for 3 days.
Surtur and his host climbed the Dark Wall with ease but seemed to float into the clouds. Are they material or merely of divine manifestation? It's uncertain but it is certain that new cults to them will pop up all over the Borderlands.
Einar heard the thanks of Surtur in his mind; "you have served me well. You will be rewarded."
Einar's player asked "wait doesn't Slenderman go back to Barsoom? He told me Surtur promised to send him there..? I helped him partially because I wanted Slenderman out of Dubzaron! I hate him."
"Did Slenderman promise you that," I asked innocently, "sounds like that's between you and him."
Einar exclaimed angrily in one last moment of clarity about the wheels with wheels of double-crossing in a Battle Braunstein, "Slenderman... you lying son of a..."
Conclusion
Dungeons and Dragons is a Braunstein. If you are running it without Braunstein elements you are running D&D wrong: sometimes called Conventional Play.
Jeffro defines Conventional play as "players generally operating cooperatively and mostly staying together in a single group and very rarely operating secretly, independently, or in conflict with the other players". I do not claim that playing in a Conventional way can never be fun. I've had hundreds of hours of fun playing in a conventional manner; particularly when using 1:1 time and patron play.
But I've also seen the best BROSR D&D campaigns of my generation destroyed by getalong gang madness.
The BROSR used to believe that a campaign would never die if you used 1:1 Jeffrogaxian time and played RAW. We now know better. To assure your campaign stays engaging and immersive, you need stop playing in a conventional manner. You need to run D&D as a Braunstein.
I dream of a day when the Total Nonstop Braunstein is the norm among long running D&D Campaigns. I dream of a day when I don't need to introduce explicit one-shot style antagonist player controlled NPCs to a campaign. I dream of a day when players will look for the PVP (and otherwise) convergence within all the dozens of PCs they have in these campaigns.
I know we can get there. I believe in the Total Nonstop Braunstein!
Introducing antagonistic NPCs and running a session Battle Braunstein now and then like will help train your players to get there. I'm hopeful the minds of my players have been opened a bit. I'm hopeful they don't want to stop. I'm hopeful you read this session report as a call to arms for your own campaign.
Just say the name of the Total Nonstop Braunstein and it will appear. If you want it!
Oh, and Standing Mountain the elf was the one that burned down "The Shucked Oyster". Around elves, watch yourselves.
