Introduction
A Braunstein is a game mode in which “there are multiple independent actors operating in (potential) conflict under a fog of war” (Credit: Griff Morgan and Jeffro Johnson). The game mode itself was first tried by David Wesely back in the dark old days before his game inspired Gygax and Arneson to create D&D.
All of that, however, lies in the past. What concerns us here is the present and future of Real D&D play. More precisely, how you, yes you, may employ the Braunstein approach to run campaigns that keep your players engaged and playing actual games, including wargame battles, at your real or virtual tabletop.
The BROSR has been experimenting with the Braunstein form for about three or four years now. A great deal of real and digital ink has been spilled about the Braunstein form by the BROSR and by Jeffro Johnson, its chief architect and interpreter, that Jeffro, myself (BDubs1776), and Rule of Thule have written an entire book called "Winning Secrets" on the subject.
But this work is not concerned with the recent history of the BROSR. Even since the book was written, new ideas have arisen that carry Braunstein play to a still higher form.
The new concepts in question are called Docketing (originally created by myself [BDubs1776]), GOSS (originally created by Doomstone Crom), and SEEN (originally created by DM Serious). To understand these concepts you will need to completely change the way you imagine a D&D campaign.
Stop conceptualizing D&D in the conventional manner of four best friends getting together with their adventure party to tackle a series of challenges presented by their Forever DM pal. Start conceptualizing D&D as a Braunstein where those four Player Characters (PCs) may level into domains with competing and opposite interests. When the Paladin gains a Holy Empire and the Thief takes over a thieves guild, those characters will necessarily work at odds. Braunstein play helps you play and adjudicate this competition.
You may say “I don’t like PVP” or “my PC always cooperates with the other PCs”. But, if you refuse to pursue the interests of your PC simply because it will bring him into conflict with another PC, you are not Roleplaying.
Recently in my campaign of UMBROS, based on my free module set in the primeval world of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Hollow Earth” setting, there was a massive wargame that resulted directly from Real D&D (meaning Braunstein) play. You can download a FREE PDF COPY of UMBROS here. I will describe how that happened and how I adjudicated it, how co-DMs ran it, and how the Players played it. But first, I need to explain these esoteric terms. To initiate you into the greatness of BROSR thought.
Docketing
Let’s start with Docketing. When you run a Real Braunstein style D&D campaign, players will begin to work at odds. Sometimes this happens naturally. Other times the DM deliberately constructs the campaign world, as I did, with high level faction leaders run by real players who begin play already at odds.
They will often “send out armies, agents, or schemes that inevitably collide with one another in Convergence. Resolving these conflicts instantly at the main table (or over private message) often reduces them to a coin flip or a single die roll, draining away the very drama that makes Braunstein style play exciting. Docketing is the referee’s remedy: a way to log these clashes so they can be played out later as a full wargame, skirmish, or role-played confrontation. By docketing, the referee preserves momentum at the campaign level while ensuring that no faction’s or PC’s moves are trivialized.
To do this the Referee creates a sort of Scenario Sheet based on the Downtime Orders (or in Session results) he receives. It will list the Faction, the troops and officers involved, the date in the game world when the actual Wargame Battle is to happen, and any special stipulations for the Wargame Battle.
Then, not only can the Referee or a Co-Referee oversee the Wargame Battle; the Battle itself can have any person play any side of the conflict! The actual Players of those Factions or PCs or whatever do NOT need to be the one(s) who show up to play out the scenario.
The penalty to the original Players in this case could be you simply having their forces quagmired in some way until such time that the Battle is played out.
Lastly, you are not required to only Docket battles due to Downtime Orders. You, as the Referee, can choose to Docket a battle decided upon due to Session Play or actions during a [...] Session Braunstein. You also do not need to Docket wargame battles, only. You can Docket skirmish fights or even roleplay style meetings between PCs or Faction leaders. As you explore and use Docketing, more ways of using it than even I imagined will occur to you!” (UMBROS page 69)
If you are a tabletop gamer with red blood in your veins, this will all sound very exciting. But, real Braunstein Style D&D play had a major problem of the Fog of War part of the Braunstein being so thick that no one even knew enough of what was going on around the game world to react to it.
GOSS
To pierce the fog of war without drowning the game in complex subsystems, Doomstone Crom introduced a brilliant method called GOSS. I described it in UMBROS as follows:
“Rather than relying on difficult sub-systems like those found in other Fantasy Adventure Games
produced recently, GOSS focuses on a simple resolution method of one dice roll for each major
action taken. All the Referee needs to do is gather all the Downtime Orders or even in Session Orders the various PCs and Faction Leaders take then make a single check for each [action then create a campaign news report for that action].” (UMBROS page 72)
For the UMBROS approach to GOSS you roll an eight sided die for each action a PC or Faction Leader (or whatever) takes in your game world. Then report the actions into a news channel on your discord server (or verbally if you’re playing in person) for each game world turn. Here are the possible results which will inform the DM’s news report:
1 Public Knowledge
2 to 3 Target’s Secret
4 to 5 False Rumor
6 to 7 Hidden Action
8 Deception and Framing
“I need not elaborate on how every roll can create the possibility of exciting Convergences.
The Referee will need to use his best judgement to avoid absurdity with GOSS. A massive army
marching outside the city’s gates can’t be a Hidden Action. An assassination attempt which is played out and rolled with the best possible result for the assassin shouldn’t become Public Knowledge. And Players successfully Spying from the Rules as Written should be able to see through False Rumors or Deception and Framing. Yet, with GOSS, the Referee has a powerful tool to assure his Braunstein style campaign simmers with excitement and occasionally explodes with action; whether his players are trying to hide from each other or not!” (UMBROS page 73)
The GOSS method seemed revolutionary at the time I wrote UMBROS. But it has two problems which every real DM will contend with:
The DM will need to be very creative very frequently with his GOSS generated news reports.
There may be less player buy in since the DM will be creating much of the world and news.
Both of these problems are addressed with SEEN.
SEEN
Created by DM Serious for his Drakonheim campaign in 2025, SEEN is an incredible, and deceptively simple, evolution of GOSS. With SEEN you run GOSS as normal, but instead of the DM writing the news report, the Player is tasked with doing so. Additionally, to help prevent the Player from “turtling” to avoid conflict: the action the Player took does not truly occur until it is SEEN.
A small change, no? Yet this small change produces remarkable results.
First, the DM is no longer the sole arbiter of the world’s narrative when it comes to inventing engaging or “fair” news stories.
Second, players who are tasked with writing news reports about their own actions develop far greater investment in the game world. They begin to relish opportunities for psyops when they are given results such as “False Rumor” or “Deception and Framing.”
Soon players begin to consider their actions carefully, knowing that whatever they attempt may eventually be SEEN.
Most importantly, when GOSS and SEEN operate in tandem, the result is transformative. A game changer. A gameworld changer.
And I have a simple scenario from a real UMBROS Braunstein campaign to prove it.
The Battle of the Three Armies
I serve as the Referee who adjudicates the downtime orders in an ongoing UMBROS campaign.
Back in February, Ferigno the Green Dragon sent me a Downtime Order declaring that he would infiltrate the vault of Dwarf Lord Cointhrall and poison the dwarves’ water supply. GOSS determined that Ferigno did not get away with this without being SEEN. When I informed Ferigno that he had been discovered during his operation, he fled the vault, his Dragon Fear ability scattering nearly all of the dwarves present and preventing them from mounting a serious attack.
However, the GOSS roll for the event came up “False Rumor.” Because of this, I allowed Cointhrall to compose the SEEN post describing what the world would hear about the incident. He provided the following report which implied Ferigno had be severely injured:
“Ferigno was driven out of his surprise attack on Goldhall by the staunch dwarven defenders. Several witnesses attest that blood poured from a massive gash along the dragon’s flank. Three great cheers for Cointhrall as he addressed his sons, his enchanted blade still smoking with the green beast’s black blood. “Let it be known that once Ferigno drove us from our halls, but never again! The King has returned to his throne, and it’ll take more than that to remove him!” Many oaths of vengeance for the trespass into the dwarves’ hallowed halls follow, promising to finish off Ferigno once and for all!”
During the week of 03/10/2026, I received the following orders (paraphrased):
Ferigno the Green dragon ordered that he and his vineling horde would fly south towards the wizard tower owned by Tootch the Archmage. He would cross over the Dawnlands to get there.
Cointhrall the Dwarven Lord ordered he would be marching like 100 dwarves out into the center of the Dawnlands to meet up with Hibobu the Merchant’s army. They’d then proceed to Ferigno’s lair and attack Ferigno.
Hibobu the Merchant would take his thag riders and his elite guard to meet with Cointhrall in the center of the Dawnlands. He’d then march with Cointhrall on Ferigno’s lair and attack Ferigno.
I suspect Hibobu chose to join Cointhrall in this venture because he believed Ferigno had been badly wounded, thanks to the previous SEEN report.
When I reviewed the incoming orders it quickly became clear that a mass combat wargame battle was inevitable. Based on travel speeds, I determined that Ferigno would encounter the allied forces of Cointhrall and Hibobu in the center of the Dawnlands. That is where the battle would occur.
Accordingly, I created a Docket with the following summary:
“Ferigno, while flying south from the Glarewood towards the Purple Hills, came across a group of dwarves from Cointhrall's vault. They were mustering at this location with Hibobu and some of his contingent. Ferigno begins battle on ground being lazy as he was becoming bored and tired of waiting on his "infantry" who are so much slower than him. Ferigno should have limited time to prep 4 battle as, due to his frustration with his infantry's slow pace, he was pondering a nap. He's not fully surprised but he did not see the other army coming from far off.”
I provided Orders of Battle with one army being Ferigno and about 70 vinelings. The other army being Cointhrall, about 100 dwarves, 2 ballistae, Hibobu and his “Shiny Gaurd” of elite fighters and 10 Elite Thag Riders. Thags are like giant dinosaur bull things that are used as draft and war mounts in UMBROS.
I had the following Special Instructions: “Ferigno values his vinelings but he will not lose his life for them. Will flee if takes half HP damage. Hibobu is a Thief/Merchant so he will hide if he takes any damage or is targeted with missile attacks.”
I circulated the Docket among players in the UMBROS Discord server, as well as a few other servers, with the instruction that the wargame battle would require a Referee to run it. I did not volunteer for the role.
Around 03/08/26 the battle was played out. The players representing Ferigno, Cointhrall, and Hibobu recruited a Referee who goes by the Discord name Luko Lionheart. Keep in mind it is not necessary for the Players who sent the Downtime Orders (and normally play those faction leaders) to be the ones to play out the wargame battle itself. We can assume the threat of having their forces quagmired inspired them to move quickly to recruit Luko to Referee.
After the game, Luko sent me the results on 03/09/2026, including a round by round breakdown of orders and outcomes, along with the final troop losses.
I rolled GOSS to determine how news of the event would spread and received “Public Knowledge.” So I composed a report for the UMBROS News Network channel. I chose not to assign a SEEN post to any player in this case, since it made more sense for me to condense the lengthy battle report Luko provided.
The UMBROS News Network carried the following account:
“Across the domains of Umbros word spreads of a mighty clash in the Dawnlands. Ferigno the Green Dragon met Cointhrall, Dwarf Lord of Goldhold, in open battle and the field ran red before the day was done. Both rulers marched with large hosts. The Gem Sons of Goldhold came ready with engines and axes to bring down the ancient wyrm. Ferigno answered with ranks of vinelings eager to bind and crush their foes beneath living vines and brambles.
A third power was present as well. Hibbobu marched from the south with disciplined footmen, and powerful thag riders; joining his strength with the dwarves as their forces advanced north to meet the dragon.
Ferigno was the first to act. Though the dragon is often accused of indolence he moved with sudden purpose, twisting through the sky while dwarf ballistae hurled bolts toward him. His clumsy flight maneuverability did not allow him to essentially teleport across the field like so many lesser game systems. Thank you 1e! He instead picked up speed towards the Dwarven ranks.
On the ground the battle unfolded in violent strokes. Thag riders burst from cover and thundered toward the vineling left flank. Hibbobu's footmen pushed forward to strengthen the dwarven formation while the Stonegard prepared their charge.
When the thags crashed into the vinelings the slaughter was immediate. Tusks tore through vines and brambles and dozens of the plant creatures fell beneath the assault while the thags bellowed to the curved skies. At the same moment the Stonegard surged forward and smashed another host of vinelings into ruin.
For a brief moment the field rang with dwarf victory cries.
Then Ferigno arrived.
The dragon closed the distance in a single terrible rush and loosed a torrent of burning acid across the field. Lord Cointhrall and the warriors beside him were engulfed in the corrosive storm and fell where they stood. Shock rippled through the dwarven ranks as word spread that their lord had been slain. The line faltered and began a hard fighting withdrawal. Even the dwarf ballistae crews abandoned their engines in the chaos.
Seeing the field broken Ferigno turned his wings northward, content to leave the shattered vinelings to whatever fate awaited them. Yet before the dragon could escape the dwarf hero known as F4 seized Cointhrall's Dragonslayer sword. With grim resolve he bound the blade to a ballista bolt and drew back the great engine for one desperate shot.
The field fell silent.
F4 released the bolt.
It screamed through the air toward the retreating wyrm and missed its mark.
Ferigno's laughter echoed across the Dawnlands as he vanished into the northern sky, satisfied that at last his ancient enemy Lord Cointhrall lay dead upon the field. The survivors of the battle scattered, and the tale of the three armies now travels from hall to hall throughout Umbros.”
Conclusion
Whether their PCs were first level dungeon delvers venturing forth under DM Dunder Moose, faction leaders participating in the occasional Braunstein session with DM Gelatinous Rube, or simply men submitting downtime orders to me, the players were astonished and excited by what this event might mean for UMBROS.
None of it would have been possible without Docketing. It would not have come together without GOSS. And it would scarcely have mattered to anyone beyond the immediate participants without SEEN.
Together these methods of running a REAL D&D campaign have produced something rare: a Braunstein style fantasy world that lives, moves, and rewards those bold enough to adventure within it.
Will you try it or will you keep playing in conventional (meaning boring) D&D games?
