Introduction
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| BROXT on the Charge! |
The AARs you are going to see celebrated below do just that. In an effort to highlight this need for REAL D&D I launched the BROmerican Championship Tournament. You can read all about my initial announcement and how I ranked these competitors on my last blog post here.
Are you making PC AARs? If not, why not? Your DM could learn alot about what you believe is working or not working about their campaign. If you're a DM and you're not making AARs then you disgust me. Do you even really run a game? Get it together!
Read below for some inspiration on how a good AAR is done. From the best in the business. The best division in gaming. The BROXT!
Matchups
Angry Steak (4) vs Raptor (13) DQ
Let's start with a sad situation. The BROXT contrarian, "Raptor Jesus", decided to not deliver an AAR this week. He quit! You hate to see it. I hate to see it! But we respect Raptor and hope he'll jump into the next BROXT event and go for the long haul.
With that said Angry Steak advances with his AAR "Expectations and Responsibilities: The Ebb and Flow of RealD&D".
The Bookers have some thoughts on this AAR so Mr. Steak doesn't advance to face his next opponent blind. Firstly, I love that he gently clowns on DM Brigadine with a screenshot of an Urf discord server exchange. Crom cracking that DM Brig is no fun was my favorite gaming moment of last week.
Steak also gives you fantastic advice on being an elite PC like him: "I pick a character or faction I like (for any reason) and attach myself to them." It's shocking how few D&D players consider attaching themselves to a faction!
Dunder Moose gushed that Steaks AAR "was insightful and poignant. How to handle the loss of a beloved character and how the joy of playing with top tier brothers is worth letting your favorite character die over". I greatly agree and my PC Paladin in the same campaign of Bloodfall will seriously miss adventuring with Angry Steak's cleric named Kirk. We defeated so much evil together and he will not be forgotten!
I'll leave you with Steak's fantastic wrap up for this must read AAR:
"While the Olds and OSRheads were gnashing their teeth (do they still have them?) about 1:1 time, and the theorycels were heavily breathing over the perfect brick placement on their homebrew castle in a campaign they'll never play, the Living Urf was gaming."
Quite a promo. At this rate Angry Steak may need to replace me or at least one of my Co-Bookers. (Moose)
Winner by DQ: Angry Steak
Hoot Owl (10) VS Bob (7)
Hoot Owl comes to round one of the tournament with an article titled "On Wargames Campaigns & Weekly Sessions" analyzing a wargame campaign thing he's playing in based off of Tony Bath's "Setting Up a Wargames Campaign". Now, I yawn and get drowsy the moment I hear or read the name "Tony Bath"so Hoot Owl was going to need to deliver in a big way to beat Bob's analysis of the classic Outdoor Survival Guide boardgame.
Bob's article, entitled "Before you run a campaign, you must CRAWL!" is a very clever title indeed. His argument is basically that "those who use the [Outdoor Survival Guide Map (like many of the original 0e and classic D&D DMs did in fact do)] should play the game once". It's a simple and pointed argument. Do these OSR dweebs who talk about OSG all the time even know how the game works? Considering how many of these guys have yards of unread gaming books slowly bending their bookshelves into a U shape; probably not. But Bob certainly does, as he proves it in his article. Well done!
Yet that's the entirety of the blog post! Meanwhile Hoot Owl powers through the extremely boring junk about Tony Bath's boring rules until he finds his way to the TOTAL NONSTOP BRAUNSTEIN! Behold!
Hoot says "this type of campaign (week/monthly/turns with adjudication by the referee) is a perfect backdrop for adventuring." And then he gives you some examples of how this game could be used for some real TNB D&D!
So, while I'd consider this battle between Hoot Owl and Bob to be a mid-card matchup that doesn't even approach "instant classic" stance; Hoot breaks out a sudden TNB RKO to upset higher ranked Bob for the 1-2-3.
Winner: Hoot Owl!
Scutifer Mike (5) VS Datsun (12)
I gave this matchup to Booker Dunder Moose to judge because I wanted to test if he could be objective. Moose is a BIG STAR on the youtubes along with Scutifer Mike. Both have BROSR themed channels you should check out; especially Moose since he has interviewed me. I know, it seems impossible he'd land such an incredible guest but it's true!
Sadly, Moose did just what I thought he'd do gave the WIN to his fellow YouTube star: Scutifer Mike. I was testing to see if Dunder Moose could be objective but you can CLEARLY see him playing favorites with his YouTube fellow traveler in the Twitter Thread he created for this matchup. I'll quote and summarize some of it below but you can read the entire thread here.
"Datsun came out engines revving! We start en media res on an epic siege [in his AAR entitled "Finders Keepers pt 2"] on an epic siege. [...] This blow-by-blow rundown of the battle featured parenthetical rules clarifications. We get the Pursuit and Evasion rules and we get a killer top down map of the castle with troop locations. So here's the good: Fun to read, Faction Play, 1e Rules, Castle Map, Mass Combat."
Such an incredible AAR that one must assume (as I have) that Dunder Moose is playing favorites giving the nod to Scutifer Mike and his AAR entitled "The Chad RPG Newbie vs Beta RPG Veterans". Sounds like an AAR article where Scuti will just be dumping on RPG Vets and celebrating playing RPGs with confused normies; where Scuti Mike wants to be as a big fish in a small pond lording over his gaming bonafides on his normie friends. Perhaps I'm judging an AAR too much by its title. Lets see what Dunder Moose had to say!
"Ole Scooty was not to be intimidated! His epic Mothership campaign [DubsNote: It is objectively impossible to have an epic campaign of something called Mothership... which I STILL don't even know what that is...] brought on a new player who wasn't even into TTRPGs! She [DubsNote: uh oh] didn't have no 40 years to unlearn, just kicked the door in like a boss! [DubsNote: But does she knit like a boss?] "
"[The Player] got them a huge payday, and in way more trouble with their patrons. [DubsNote: ok this is cool and TNB minded yes.] It felt like an episode of Firefly [DubsNote: gheeeeey] plus reaction roles, random loot, and strict timekeeping."
Ok I'm being too hard on Dunder Moose for once. I took a look at the session report from ScutiMike and I'd say he won this matchup with Rooke Datson with this one line:
"My conventional 'veteran' fought the newbie at every turn in an attempt to teach her terrible habits!"
We've all been there when we play D&D (not Mothership because nobody plays Mothership or knows what Mothership is) so this is extremely relatable and said in a pithy manner. The BROXT itself was started due to some element of BROSR "Veterans" stuck on bad habits; except on a more macro scale of what gaming ideas to push and celebrate. The BROXT celebrates rookies and new blood coming in to "kick the door in".
Datsun didn't quite top BROXT Vet Scutifer Mike this time. But I wouldn't bet against Datsun the next time he participates in a BROXT challenge! Congrats to both on a fine effort and to ScutiMike on grabbing the W.
Winner: Scutifer Mike
Not-Jey Tournville (11) vs DM Rump (6)
I gave this matchup to Booker Rober "the Heel" Stephens to judge. Unlike the surely paid off Booker Dunder Moose; he judged it fairly!
DM Rump's AAR is entitled "#DiplomacyByX AAR 7/12/25". Catchy, right? Booker The Heel liked this AAR for showing how "he was able to make the game more interesting to him and the other players and gave great examples of how this works". I agree with Mr The Heel and like that this blog leans on my initial call for AAR's from a Player's Perspective.
DM Rump says AAR's "help [players] grown their playing experiences". This one is based on a "Diplomacy" game Alchemic Raker has been running online for a while. You may have seen it on Twitter and, as DM Rump says "many people have spoken about the excitement around the legendary #BROSR crossover event #BROvenloft. Countless people were exposed to Bro ideas by seeing people post about the game on Twitter". I agree and celebrate Rump and Raker (and their other players) for doing yeoman's work here.
Not-Jey, meanwhile, writes up an AAR "Classic Traveller After Action Report, Sessions 4 &5". Another catchy title! While I'm getting burned out on reading AAR's that aren't the much superior AD&D 1e I do appreciate Not-Jey's comment that when you are doing worldbuilding without a dedicated referee you need "to let randomness fill in as many blacks [as] possible, and only generate them as your PC would discover them".
Not-Jey also goes into why the Get-Along-Gang reared its ugly head in these Traveller sessions: "ships are hard to come by and expensive to maintain, so once someone has secured one, they want to have other PCs helping to pay for it, and the other PCs want to be a part of something excititing". As the BROXT plays more Traveller (the best scifi game possible, throw "mothership" away, scuti) we will find more issues with real play that cause Diffussion and Convergence. Well said, Not-Jey!
Sadly Booker Robert "The Heel" Stephens did not agree! He considered the call to play RAW and avoid the Get-Along-Gang as "standard (bro) stuff; [feeling like] old hat to me". Whereas I think this AAR would have beat many others in the other matchups, Booker The Heel is correct that DM Rump was just on his game this week.
Winner: DM Rump
Merinus (9) vs Jey (8) [Jey DQ and replaced with Dragons_Beyond]
I was looking forward to this competition. The seeds closest to eachother was sure to be the closest call, right? But Jey Tourneu didn't make an AAR this week. He snubbed me. He snubbed you. He snubbed the BROXT! I apologize on behalf of Jey who I considered a frontrunner for the BROmerican Championship Title!
But your friend and mine "Dragons Beyond" recently dropped a tweet saying "this is my first AAR for the BROSR" so you know what, I drafted him in to compete against Merinus! No Bye week for this Superstar!
Merinus starts off as he usually does in his AAR with some fiction. I enjoyed his quick little Arthurian tale and advise all of you to read the entire AAR entitled "Brine Upon the Stones, Black Steel in the Road". I know I personally would not be able to deliver an Arthurian themed short story based on a session of 1e AD&D I was a PC in so I gave much kudos to Merinus for this fine work.
Later in the article he breaks down how he played his first BROXT 1e session, how character creation was challenging, how Dunder Moose's goofy pamphlet "saved" him from bad chargen. His breakdown of how he played his Magic User in Role as having "extreme lust for knowledge [but let his arrogance] smother any real engagement with the mystery." Merinus laments this approach but I find it's very good in session when a Magic User shows up. The martial PCs get a bit hyper focused on action and accomplishment and I consider the Magic User (along with the Thief, Druid, and Assassin) as sorts of "wild card" character classes to get the D&D BROSR vets off their fire-team-of-death approach to gaming. It breathes life into a campaign, in my experience.
Merinus says "a wizard isn't just a bookish artillery piece; he's a vessel for curiosity". As someone who has rates ACKS Mage PCs badly MANY times for failing to be curious; I agree completely!
Can Dragons_Beyond top an AAR from Merinus that reflected so much of my own theories of D&D roleplay?
Dragons_Beyond's AAR is entitled "Historical Bro-stein After Action Review" and its title alone indicates how far we've come with the BRAUNSTEIN since Jeffro was a voice crying out in the wilderness for TTRPG players to simply TRY the method. Now many people are, most notably the BROXT and those on the periphery of it.
DB goes into great detail about how his Braunstein session was ran. It uses some old wargame boardgame thing plus Chainmail. The detail gets a bit much for me to really outline so I advise you take a look and see how a more prep addicted gamer might run a Braunstein session. It's much more than I would have done!
The breakdown he had of what really went wrong was fantastic but I would have liked more detail on what went RIGHT. Among some of the problems he found running this was "Insufficient Orientation" and "Critical Roles Unfilled". This is why y'all should just play 1e AD&D. We all know the roles so need no orientation! We don't NEED any roles in particular (so none are "critical" like, apparently liquor stores being open was critical during the fake covid lockdowns whereas barber shops weren't).
I thus again call out ALL BROXT members to put the themed single session Braunstein's on the backburner and focus on delivering 1e Braunsteins based on your ONGOING campaigns. If you aren't running or playing in one; fix that!
This is why I considered Jey a frontrunner. All his Braunstein's lately are based on his years long campaign! He would have mopped the floor with both Merinus and Dragons_Beyond's AAR!
But who won this round between those two gentlemen? They both did!
Top Seed Joshua (of Spacestein fame) will face BOTH Merinus and Dragons_Beyond next round in TRIPLE THREAT MATCH! Good luck to all next week!
Winner: Merinus AND Dragons_Beyond
Conclusion
Thanks for reading and check this blog around this time next week to see who wins Round Two of the prestigious BROMERICAN TOURNAMENT.
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