Moonstein VI: Why Classic Traveller Demands the Braunstein Treatment

Introduction 

I am not an expert on Classic Traveller. But it seems to me that playing it with conventional approaches to TTRPGs would fail miserably. 

Even if you were to run a BROSR style "open table" campaign with "two to four complete parties, each with their own starship", as Jeffro outlines on his "Running Classic Traveller in the Braunstein Style" blog; you're still ending up with "Wagon Train to the Stars" (as OG "Star Trek" was called). Slightly younger crowds could instead imagine this sort of Traveller campaign as episodes of "Firefly".

"Sounds great!" the millennials proclaim. But then they expect their poor bedraggled Referee to write them Whedon style plotlines where they get to be the special snowflake with the spotlight on them.  

Additionally, millennials and Gen X will expect their character to be written like a Whedon "Firefly" or MCU character wherein "sure my character has this crippling social problem but I'm the BEST character on screen at Guns [or Diplomacy with NPCs, or Thievery, or Hacking, etc etc]". Was Appendix N written this way? Was the Dumarest series written this way? Vancian scifi? I think not. It's unclear if Zoomers have this same demand for Whedon style PCs in their TTRPGs. Perhaps the sad state of economy, the Church, and the West as a whole has disabused them of some myth that each person is a secret savant at something or other. 

The Referee is then forced to look at each session as a scriptwriter for a normie tv show writing an A storyline for characters 1, 2, and 3 and a B storyline for characters 4 and 5 each session. This can lead to some good moments (most people of a certain age remember the "Friends" B storyline of Ross moving his couch and forgot what the A storyline was that week) but is this actually a game? Is it actually fun?

No.

At least not in the long term.

Meanwhile the Braunstein form is always fun. It's automatically fun even when it's simply thrown together. I threw "Moonstein Re-Stilled" together with no ideas or plans whatsoever. I just had Jeffro's old setting of  the planet of Moonshine which I added to as I went.

And guess what? I have SO much to work with just 2 turns into this thing that I didn't even know if I'd have time to write this blog. I'm having so much FUN with my halfbaked understanding of Classic Traveller that writing this blog for 120 people to read is chore. Not quite as much of a chore as playing conventional approaches to TTRPGs but enough that I put it off for days and days.

I'm giving you some information about below about what happened on turn 6 of the Moonstein ("A Classic Traveller Braunstein"tm) but I'm already getting in orders for Turn 8. I'm behind! There's simply too much game here! Since hardly anyone even played Classic Traveller since the BROSR came around, my guess is that can't be said about conventional approaches to playing it. That "Wagon Train to the Stars" broke an axel decades ago. 

Moonstein Turn VI

I requested at the beginning of that event that players email me their orders and include their Universal Personality Profile (UPP), current equipment, and link to their chargen blog in the body of the email. I did this because I intended to run most of the combat and skill checks and the like behind the screen. The biggest thing slowing down a Classic Traveller Referee's ability to do so is trying to find stats and skills everywhere. 

So orders came in and they were a bit better this turn after I bullied the players in my last blog about how they were turtling up and boring me. Bullying works, kids!

What you're looking for in a Classic Traveller run with the Method II approach to Braunstein play is the best convergences. What you're looking for is the moments you can set up that most align with a scene from EC Tubbs' "Dumarest" series. You're looking for moments that look like something out of Poul Anderson's "Sir Dominic Flandry" series or Vance's "Planet of Adventure". 

Last turn the players were kind of establishing their alliances. Drew (PC) ended up aligning with the Main Character of Moonstein, Roarke Garnett (PC). Roarke is famous on the planet for being quick on the trigger and bloodthirsty. I doubt Drew really wanted to align with the Bad Guy but, just like how Jeffro forced Roarke into being the Bad Guy due to Braunstein convergences, Drew ended up going along to get along.

In the previous Turn Count Zane (PC) had aligned with Baron Columbue (NPC) with some nefarious plan to take over Moonshine. Was Zane just leading the Evil Baron on? It's possible because he challenged the Baron to a show duel during the NIN concert the next day. Assuring the Baron it's all in good fun. 

Meanwhile Team Roarke had some convoluted plan to kidnap Baroness Luva (NPC) from the NIN concert. Their plan involved placing explosives on the steering wheel of her car and blowing it off after she ran out of the concern due to them sending my PC "Old Man" O'Gradey in on a spree shooting against the methhead tweakers that robbed him in chargen. Well O'Gradey loved the idea of the spree shooting but the "explode just the steering wheel" idea seemed very boring and frankly stupid to me.

So with all these orders I had:

-NIN concert at the "Twin Peaks" Roadhouse

-"duel for fun" between the Count and Evil Baron wherein the Count presses the advantage and forces the Evil Baron to publicly swear Fealty to the Count

-O'Gradey spree shooting at same.

-Roarke (who the player had essentially turned into "The Joker" [including exact quotes from every Batman film with the character]) and his dumb plan for a pinpoint explosion on the car.

-kidnap the Baroness during the confusion

I decided to make the whole event public facing by adjudicating it live on twitter in a thread with the #moonstein hashtag. You can read the whole thing here but I'll give you a quick rundown of what went down. 

Well the concert itself was just flavor. The duel went easily in Count Zane's way since he had 3 ranks in his sword skill and the Baron (though strong as an ox) had none. Round one of the Count Zane's combat lead to the Baron taking Strength damage which made his next round of melee combat worse. I like this aspect of Classic Traveller damaging ability scores in the UPP. It's an elegant and fast way to show combat wearing down a character's ability to fight on.

O'Gradey then ran into the concert hall blasting his SMG and beating up the NPC punks who robbed him in chargen. But this didn't last long before Team Roarke's explosives went off and blew the Baroness's pink cadillac to smithereens on the street in front of the Roadhouse.

The crowd fled the venue as one of its walls was collapsing from the nearby carbomb.

The PCs who have become the Good Guys of Moonstein Re-Stilled were nearby enough doing something I'll keep as fog of war for now to possibly hear the explosion. The dice decided they heard. Upon looking over at the problem they realized that their Paton's car had been blown up. At this point they've been too busy to even realize the Baroness intended to attend the concert so, worried about their payoff and/or being Big Damned Heroes, they shot over there in their Airboat.

Why airboat? It became obvious to myself and many of the players early on that, due to the planet being 90% water, it would be swampy and airboats would be needed for some longer distance traveling. 

Team Good (which included Blaine and Krieger in a sort of accidental echoing of "Winds of Gath"'s Dumarest and Megan) rode over and Blaine put down auto rifle shots on Roarke and Drew (the latter of which was firing into the crowd stampeding out of the venue). Drew wanted to off Baroness Luva's 3 guards who were carrying her out of the venue due to her injuries. Roarke took one guard down but Drew only manage to injure or kill civilians. 

can you really afford not to 
follow this?

All of this was done pretty quickly in 2 rounds of Classic Traveller combat. I just needed general distances and the weapons and armors of everyone. 

Team Roarke decided to cut their losses and flee in their ATV when Blaine got a clean shot on Roarke. Roarke's player was dealing with some IRL stuff so Drew had to make the call about fight or flight. He informed me, had he been able to focus more during the adjudication, he may have done some different actions.

This is one thing to keep in mind with the Method II approach. Players will need to hold onto their characters loosely and let the Referee do what needs done to get things adjudicated. Players can sometimes pick minute to minute actions but it will be rare. I believe having players send in orders via email helps establish that it's going to be more hands off for them.

O'Gradey showed up and took some shots (hitting Krieger) before running from Team Good back into the venue. It's unclear where he ended up since Team Good didn't take chase. 

Blaine and 2 of the Baroness's guards were the only good guys standing so they pulled the Baroness up into the airboat and zipped off into the swamp and towards the Baroness's estate. 

It was unclear to all at this time if she was still alive and that has become a story point for subsequent turns since the local news has reported her dead but Krieger made a public pronouncement she's alive. Who knows!

Conclusion to Turn VI

Besides the Baroness stuff, and most of the current players revealing their hand a bit about whose side their on, there are other story threads running through the game. I've based these on Vance, Tubbs, "Twin Peaks", Jeffro's previous game and pop culture I enjoy:

-Poisoned whiskey from the weird planet of Madriguera

-Baron Colombue seemingly in league with the Lord High Crab of Madriguera to import said poison. Poison implied to be Ad (or adren0chrome) from dark rituals happening on Madriguera. This ties in very well with "Twin Peaks" subtext and the evil Baron from "Dune" being a disgusting weirdo.

-Ivy Rae Tiller (NPC) as a plucky hillbilly reporter on the ground trying to find and report The Truth but held back by sponsors and the seeming ownership of her stations and affiliates by the Evil Baron

-Phung (a terrifying monster from Vance's "Planet of Adventure") in and around the planet which are a great threat in the swamp. 

-Archbishop Harold Holmes (NPC) of the Universal Brotherhood arrived to put on a snake (phungkin actually)  handling tent revival as penance for the townsfolk celebrating NIN's dark industrial metal music. Implying phung and phungkin have psionic power of some sort.

-and much much more!

If you want to keep up with all the news reports from Moonshine I have dubbed my twitter account the "Moonstein News Network" during the event. Following the #Moonstein hashtag would also be a great idea to keep up.

But what you'll see is the fact that this play is much more dynamic than being a "Wagon Train to the Stars". You won't have your lesser players whining that they didn't get in on the A plotline this episode. They will instead compete to be part of the best convergences. They will instead arm and equip themselves with the realization they might be throwing down any Turn with the other players in PVP. 

They will instead realize the Braunstein approach to Classic Traveller is simply better. Just as I did.

RIP?

Moonstein V: A Traveller Braunstein

Why did I decide to do this?

I need to read this. Do you?

Who knows. I probably have too much downtime on my hands. Perhaps it's because Dubzaron is on hiatus. But I truly think it's because I love Traveller and the worldbuilding it implies. I love that its world is one of characters whose most impactful actions and skills came from their character generation. There is no "get the ruby" style adventuring for Referee controlled locales or dungeons full of treasure and XP for the Players. They are forced to make their own goals and reasons for doing much of anything at all.

I love that characters can show up as super rich Counts and such from character generation. And it's not unbalancing to the other PCs because they're not adventuring together. There's no "balance" to speak of. Just the game. And considering the lethality of combat, even the weaker PCs have a chance to get lucky and shoot down an 8 Term Marine who retired at the top. 

So is that what happened in this Braunstein on Turn 5? 

The World

Moonshine: Starport C, Scout Base, 8,000-mile Diameter, Standard/Tainted atmosphere, Hydrographics 90%, Population in the thousands, NO GOVERNMENT, Law Level 1, Tech Level 6. Non-industrial.

Pop 2,499

This information implies a swampy world. The "no government" roll implies these Barons of Moonshine are vying for control with their own little militias of modern day (not futuristic) tech. Jeffro dreamed it up as a sort of Appalachia in space and I push that further as we move forward. 

The Characters

Let's discuss the characters who were available and sent in orders for Turn 5. 

Firstly there is Drew Montague a former Marine who is a master with a blade and knows big gunnery. In his chargen he had a bad random encounter with a Baron Columbue who had his men beat him up and leave him in the street.

Then we have Blaine Cooper a former Marine Captain who also mastered the cutlass but loves laser rifles. A real tyrannosaurus of a man. His chargen backstory was much more positive than Drew's and acquired an NPC Patron in Baroness Luva who hired him on as security for an upcoming soirée. 

The main character of the first Moonstein even in 2024, Roare Garnett, is back! He's an ex-marine force commander who is brutal with and quick to pull his revolver. His backstory since last summer is he's been "hiding in the swamp" and now "gives swamp tours". I'm sure it's fine the guy who offed like 4 PCs last year will be a great tour guide in the wilderness. Have fun!

Count Zane Valstrom is a PC who rolled insanely high on the social standing stat so founds himself with a very nice title indeed. A count! He didn't write a blog but told me he recently arrived on the planet intending to "lay low" (yeah right, enjoy your crazy convergences and forced PVP, Pal!) He's looking for ambitious Barons who might find mutual benefit in his big fancy title and the social connections he has off world. 

Lastly we have Malcolm Krieger. A former Army Lieutenant who was pushed out of the service after one term onto the backwater swamp planet of Moonshine. His chargen action included hearing rumors of poisoned whiskey. Being so lazy, Kreiger intends to try and sell the information somehow. 

Initial Orders

I had players send me their orders in email. I printed them out and made notes trying to find a way to Converge their ideas. Most of the orders I received were variations on "I try to look around and see what's happening" but I was able to find enough convergence to get the PCs together for stuff. 

One important thing to keep in mind for a Braunstein, including a Method II Braunstein, is to find ways to keep players from turtling up. To find ways to make them be on a team or at odds. To give them things they want that only one player can have. 

Blaine's new job with the Baroness keeping her estate safe during a big party worked well with Krieger's claim to want to look for "big parties to meet patrons at" (paraphrase) so I had him go to the party Blaine was guarding. Krieger wasn't presenting hostile particularly so I just informed both players of them both being on site and told them to talk out whatever they wanted. Blaine found Krieger's rumor interesting and they convinced the Baroness to let Krieger come on to work with Blaine to investigate the rumor directly for a prize should it turn out well for the Baroness.

Count Zane said he wanted to check out bars and stuff so I decided to have the Baron from Drew's backstory encounter be at a bar I dubbed The Roadhouse (after the bar in "Twin Peaks"). The Baron has a bunch of info to run by the Count but Count Zane's player was busy irl so all that is still up in the air. Big plans! If you want it...

Drew's orders were that "Count Zane interested him" so I ran an encounter to see if he learned anything about the Count. He learned some (or all?) of what the NPC Baron was telling and asking of the Count. But what could it be?!

Roarke is a big of a wild card. His orders were humorous in that he wanted to drive into town "to resupply" and "advertise jungle tours and safaris" into the jungle-swamp. He was weirdly famous on this lawless swamp-rock so him coming back into town became a rumor in and of itself. Some other players may or may not be acting on this information looking for a friend!

How I Abducted Them

I answered some of that above. The term "abductive reasoning" is from Alexander Macris's book "Arbiter of Worlds". It's kind of backwards reasoning wherein you take surprising or strange information then explain backwards why it must be so. This sort of reasoning is done ALL THE TIME in real TTRPG play. It is what running a Method II Braunstein is all about.

I've already done a ton of this. You can follow me doing it in real time on my Twitter account under the #Moonstein hashtag. 

I made up the concept of Garmonbozia brand whiskey based on Krieger's "poisoned whiskey" rumor. That implied "Bob's Bottle Shop". Both are "Twin Peaks" references that hint at weirding things to those who get the reference. It's also being "imported from Madriguera" which is another planet in the same solar system that Jeffro's original Traveler Braunstein 

I made up that the Count bought out "The Roadhouse" for the night to chat with the Baron Columbue(sp) because the player was too busy to get back to me. So he's just going to spend the Turn getting drunk and partying. This also means the other PCs kind of know where and in what situation one important NPC and PC are for at least part of Turn 6. Will it matter?

Knock On Effects and Plans

I actually can't tell you all the Second Order Effects and in Turn actions the players took. Because fog of war! Lets just say that a "sour mash facility" (whatever that is) got burned down. And there may or may not be a hit out on multiple NPCs or PCs.

You'll just have to wait a little longer!

Moonstein Re-Stilled: Planet of Adventure!

Have you heard the tale of Moonshine?

It's been called a Planet of Adventure or a Sargossa of Space. But I call it the purest example of Total NonStop Braunstein that has ever been ran. And, as per usual for the most impactful TTRPG moments since 2020, it was GMed by Jeffro Johnson. 

Jeffro succeeded in proving what the BROSR (in our incomparable work "BROZER: Island of War and Winter") now refers to as "The Method 2" approach to running a Braunstein. Essentially that a GM requests players orders periodically and looks for the Braunstein "Convergence" for those orders then runs it for them or invites them to docket the action and run it later.

Method 2 rarely involved "session play" as we're all familiar with it in most TTRPGs so it's a good option when you have an idea or really want to test out a system with friends. The "Traveler" system is new well tested thanks to Jeffro's Moonstein event in the Summer of Stein (2024). He did his work. He proved his point. He ended the game. He's since road off into the sunset of swing dance and rock climbing. I miss him.

But I also miss Traveler and the Planet of Adventure Moonshine! It's like Appalachia in space. 

I'm bringing it back. 

This blog is an invitation for my gaming group the BROXT to jump into MY Moonstein which I will run with Method 2. The BROXT will get first dibs on running Traveler PCs in my event but anyone else who knows how to get ahold of me privately is invited to jump in as well. I'll lay out how, below.

Get in the Game

First you must generate a Traveler character in the original edition. It's free here. 

You must create a blog to explain how the character was generated similar to page 26 of Book 1. I will do so below for another example and to help set the planet and scene, similar to the way Jeffro originally created Moonshine which grabbed my interest enough for me to create a character and blog responding to it back in 2024. 

Create a blog similar to mine on how you will or intend your PC to approach Moonshine.

Keep the following in mind: 

-milieu is king: check out Dumarest or Vance's Planet of Adventure for inspiration

-no stupid names or overly gonzo themes

-focus on convergences

I will attempt to compile all these blogs onto the bottom of this blog through editing it so we'll have one place to go to know who all these dumb characters are.

If you have a Legacy PC from the old Moonstein games and want to get in the game, make a blog about what that dude has been up to while keeping my new worldbuilding in this blog below in mind.

How to Play

I will reach out to you with when I'm ready to accept orders. I will then process the orders. If you take too long to get orders in you will "Miss your turn".

I'll run the combats behind the curtain as much as I have energy to.

You will include your characters stats and equipment in the Universal Format (page 25 of book 1) each time you send an order. So, I don't have to go scouring for it all the time.

If your PC dies you can re-roll another one and introduce him 2 turns later. If that PC dies you can introduce another 3 turns later. And so on.

What's our Goal?

We are aiming to prove you can run Method 2 style for longer term. The Living Urf gaming club is proving, with the Boot Hill system and their Norazona setting in the town of Livingstone, that you can have a sort of Always On  cowboy town "slice of life" game run minute to minute for the eternally and tragically online. This is not that. 

Since Traveler has very little in the form of "leveling" or "getting the ruby" it's the perfect system for focusing on world (and galaxy) building and the ways in which player character schemes create great stories and events for all participants.

Unlike Livingstone this Braunstein will have DM oversight to assure interesting convergences and milieu. 

My New Moonshine Character

I rolled up a character for inspiration and because it's fun. This character may be an NPC or it may be one of the Inciting Incidents depending on what happens as I run one Solitaire round with him below.

My first character joined the Scouts and died in his first term. RIP. My second character rolled up as follows:

"Old Man" O'Gradey

Retired Merchant (4th Officer) 9B9829    Age 38   Six Terms CR 21,000

Blade CBT 1 (Dagger), Gun CBT 2 (SMG 2)      Dagger, SMG, Low Passage

His story:

John O'Gradey dropped out of "Broger de Broger High" at 15 and was a bit of a wastrel. At 18 he stumbled across some posters asking for merchants to join up when he was on hist last credits. He successfully enlisted (5+2=7 success) for a four year term. 

After his first term, in which he mostly worked out (+1 DEX and +1 STR for skills added) he receives his Commission and believes he's well on his way. But, on what becomes a theme in his life, he's not promoted. As a 4th officer he's given a nice dagger which he practices with night and day (Skill: CBT Dagger 1). He eagerly Re-Enlists and succeeds.

His second term is more drudgery with a merchant captain and officers who never even learn his name. Running about to send and receive orders is most of what he does (Skill: Dex +1). He's passed over for promotion again. He re-enlists hoping to catch a promotion in the future.

His third term sees pirates boarding the ship (Survival roll lowest possible without dying) and the Officers are able to fight them off. While O'Gradey is handed and uses a SMG during the fire fighting, he doesn't particularly distinguish himself and does not get promoted again! He begrudgingly re-enlists and succeeds.

During his fourth term he sees no action and spends most of his time practicing with his weapon. (Skill gained: CBT GUN (SMG)). He fails to get promoted yet again and watches as younger more intelligent men pass him over up the ladder. He re-enlists as now he sees nothing better he might accomplish in life. They take him back because who can toss out a good 4th officer?

During his fifth term he goes back to lifting to pass the time (Skill gained +1 STR). The younger and more promoted officers begin calling him "Old Man O'Gradey" as a crack on him getting passed over YET again. The results of age are starting to threaten him but he doesn't fail any of his age checks. He swears to give it one more shot at re-enlistment and "I'm out!" They take him back.

During his sixth and final term he is given degrading work helping out with directing the warehouse guys dealt with on each trade stop. He doesn't take to the work but is hands on with carrying heavy things (Skill Gain: Endurance +1) but at 38 age is getting to him and he loses 1 STR and 1 DEX. Being passed for promotion yet again and the young bucks continuing to use his insulting nickname he retires before he's court martialed for letting them have it! 

They kick him out on the planet Moonshine with 21k, a couple of SMGs and his old combat dagger. 24 years of service for that? They even had the gall to give him a Low Passage ticket to get off this backwater rock even though he knows the captain and service could have offered more. 

Annoyed with a life he sees as wasted he goes looking for a Patron on Moonshine. He's heard a bunch of Barons control the various counties on the planet. Always at odds with eachother and their machinations leading to some big space cotillion that turned violent last fall. Maybe a Baron could use a man who's decent with an SMG and can hold his own in a knife fight. If only O'Gradey was a bit more than a midwit he could have come out of the Merchants with some more marketable skills. Alas!

At this point I put on my GM hat and rolled up the chance O'Gradey found a Patron to align with. No. But in his search he did come across 4 Thugs. I decided these were tweakers looking to score some credits by shaking O'Gradey down just outside the makeshift spaceport (the real one was blown up almost a year ago).

Neither side is surprised (as per the rules one side must roll 3 better than the other on a d6). It is at Short range since I rolled 5 on a 2d6 -4 for it being in a "City". 1 = Short. O'Gradey uses his SMG which need 5+ after his DEX DM. At short range its another +2 so he basically can't miss. 3D damage (3d6) comes out to 11 on one of the thugs. It hits his STR with is 7 so he's unconscious. 

The 4 thugs attempt to beat O'Gradey about his person with clubs. Roll needed is 6+ at close range. 5, 4, 6, 5 so one hit. 2 dice for 6 damage. This his his STR so he's down to 3 STR.

Since one of them fell they make a Morale check needing a 7+. They succeed. They keep fighting!

O'Gradey hits again for 11 damage again on his endurance which is 11 on the dot. Unconscious. Thugs attack: 9 (hit), 9 (hit), 8 (hit). First hit does 10 damage to STR which knocks O'Gradey out.

They rob O'Gradey and run off with his weapons and ammo. Since Moonshine doesn't have an ATM system he had all his credits on his person which were taken as well. O'Gradey is relegated to begging for credits at the makeshift spaceport in the old holler swamp!

He will become an NPC that will hire on with new PCs as long as they promise him revenge on the tweakers that beat and robbed him! He just wants a dagger or SMG and fair pay to sign on. An old Merchant, never promoted, finding himself broke in a town full of scots-irish appalachian tweakers.

Will you hire him on? Or will you get rolled in a JEEP on the way into the forest?

How to Make Your Own Braunstein Domain Faction

The BROSR is the talk of the town again. 

This time because some lady who's wringing cash out of the OSR whales for her Kickstarter decided to mention the word "Braunstein". If you're among those who took out a second mortgage to purchase a bunch of her gaming books (let's call these fellas "shadowmarks") it's likely you've never actually played a long form D&D campaign. I'd wager most shadowmarks have never had a PC reach Domain level or, if they were forever DMs scratching and scrounging for gaming friends at the B.O. Palace of their Friendly Local Gaming Store (BO-FLGS) then they've likely never DMed anything with Domains.

I invite such shadowmarks to check out BROZER: Island of War and Winter for more information on running Domain scale. While I know it's difficult for such marks to read, download a PDF that doesn't cost 100+, or enjoy the writing of men (as it's written by the men of the BROSR) I think they could learn a great deal. And it's free! 

If you play BROZER for even a single shot tournament style session you will have all you need to know to run Domain play in real D&D. Take BROZER down to your BO-FLGS and find guys to play it with you. Surely, they can take a four-hour respite from drooling over their newest foil pikachu card to give it a shot.

But what BROZER doesn't have is rules or precise advice on how to CREATE domain leaders. That's where this blog comes in.

How We Did It In BROZER

BROZER was simple. The Factions were ideas most of the men of the BROSR had for a long time, or tested in real BROSR campaigns. For the resources the Faction Leaders had, we simply used the 1e Advanced Dungeons and Dragons "Monster Manual" (MM). If you're creating a monster faction you simply go to the entry for the monster in the MM and start rolling up the Lair numbers. Rolling up the Lair Treasure will determine if the faction and/or its leader has magic items to use.

If you want a human faction you simply choose one of the Men entries from the MM that best fit your theme or needs. "Beserkers" for a Viking style faction, "Pilgrims" for a village led by a cleric, etc. In wisdom I gained through over a hundred sessions of running my ACKS campaign, I realized the "Hobgoblin" entry was the best one to use to roll up a standard human town garrison. 

Simple.

This will give you a Faction that's about level 9 of power and resources. But what if you want a lower or higher level faction? 

Lower or Higher Level Factions

You can use a version of the Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) "Creating Advanced Characters" (found on page 253 of ACKS1). ACKS2 changed some things which make it a bit too complicated for this blog. If you're running ACKS, however, I highly recommend it. (ACKS2 has these rules on Page 388 of the "Judge's Journal"). This blog will focus on making a Faction for 1e Advanced D&D.

This blog will also focus on creating LOWER level factions as I'm going to challenge my BROXT friends to do so today for a special gaming event.

Step By Step

As the DM you will give yourself or your PCs an XP pool to use to level the leader of the Faction. You do this rather than determine a level for the leader since all classes in old school gaming level at different rates. A Level 5 BX Elf is much more powerful than a level 5 thief, for instance. 

As far as ability scores, one cannot doubt that AD&D Method III is best in ALL cases of playing AD&D but most especially if you want to create a faction ruler of note.

Then you determine a pool of gold pieces to purchase keeps/castles, troops, henchmen, magic items, and equipment. As per ACKS you will need to pay troops SIX MONTHS worth of wages (to indicate them being in your employ for a while). 

Don't forget that Cleric sorts pay HALF for the cost of their Keeps and Castles.

For your henchmen you will need to pay GP in the amount of the XP for the level you want them.

For instance, if you want a Level 2 Fighter henchmen you'll need to pay 2,000 GP since it takes a fighter 2,000 XP to get to Level 2. 

Deciding on Magic Items is a bit trickier. ACKS1 uses a sort of lottery system where you pay X amount of GP to roll on the possibility of this or that type of item. I will remake that here for use with 1e AD&D. Remember these are Magic Items you can equip your Faction Leader with our outfit his people with. These charts all start in the Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) page 121.

Roll for any randomly determined magic item (Table III): 2,000 GP 

Fighters can choose to roll on Swords (Table G): 2,000 GP

Fighters can choose to roll on Armor & Shields (Table F.) or Miscellaneous Weapons (Table H.): 3,000 GP

Magic Users can choose to roll on Scrolls (Table B.): 1,000 GP

Magic Users can choose to roll on Rods, Staves & Wands (Table D.): 4,000 GP

Clerics can choose re-roll one time any edged weapon they get or any arcane scroll or rod etc they get.

Thieves/Assassins can choose re-roll one time any item they get.

This is probably broken but it will give you a good baseline to work with and adjust as needed for your campaign and/or Braunstein.

Conclusion

If you do all of the above you should end up with a Faction leader who controls a domain and leads an army or cohort of sorts. You might get some crazy magic item which will flip the Braunstein session or your long running campaign upside down. This is a good thing!

You don't want to be a shadowmark you want to be a gamer! 

BROXT Create a Faction Challenge

Most of the superstars in the BROXT were not known to the BROSR when BROZER was written. Thus, they did not supply a faction for that Ennie Nominated work. It's time for them to prove they can do the work!

As of 04/01/2025 (this is not an April Fool's Joke) I challenge all members of the BROXT to create a Braunstein Faction for 1e AD&D using the above rules. The faction leader will have 20,000 XP and 20,000 GP to purchase troops, henchmen, magic items, castles and the like. Structures will cost 1/2 of normal for this challenge (which is 1/4 if you are a cleric sort).

The BROXT CHAMPION "Foolish Intanius" will have 30,000 gp to work with. All those who took part in "BROXT BATTLEGROUND" will have 25,000 gp to work with.

We want something of a bit lower power since I'm going to bully a Living Urf DM (or DMs) into letting us use these Factions in real ongoing campaign(s) for a future challenge where said Factions are to compete in some way.

They are challenged to blog about it to give a breakdown of the Faction's resources, alignment, motivations and MOST IMPORTANTLY the Appendix N story which inspired the Faction. I challenge the BROXT Superstar to directly rip off a character from an Appendix N story. Against my better judgement, however, I will accept Factions and Domain Rulers who are from other works that are NOT from Appendix N. 

It seems necessary since many of the best Appendix N Domain ideas were alright ripped off for BROZER! Be warned that most of the BROXT Bookers have a bias in favor of Appendix N...

The BROXT Superstars will have about a week to accomplish this challenge. I will reveal the winner(s) during my April 6th appearance on the "ACKS TO GRIND" podcast. The best entry or entries will have a chance to contend for the BROXT Championship Belt at a later date. They will be judged on clarity, usefulness/playability in a real campaign or Braunstein, following the rules, and coolness factor.

Good luck!

D&D is NOT a Wargame... but can it be?

D&D is not a Wargame

"D&D is a wargame!" You hear it all the time. 

Usually from guys who tell you that D&D combat, as such, is boring in and of itself because it's not detailed enough. They will tell you that abstract ways of resolving big battles in your actual ongoing D&D campaign is very boring indeed; despite you having a half dozen or more men on the edge of their seat about the results of said battle abstraction. 

The Siege of Fort Fenrir (Trollopulous campaign)

They'll theorycraft online all day showing you how they do this or that wargame in solitaire play to test how good it is. They'll use the word "Kriegspiel" or "Chainmail" at you over and over like a bludgeon, hoping you'll submit to their self-evident mental superiority.

They will scour the charts in 1e or 0e "Dungeons and Dragons" and show you how this or that dice rule is the same as this or that dice roll mechanic in this or that Wargame from the 70s you've never heard of.

But one wonders if, instead of doing all of the above, their time might be better spent finding at least one other person interested in wargaming with them?

D&D is not a wargame because it's about play, not theory. 

Wargaming Can Be Part of D&D

D&D is a Braunstein. Jeffro proved this in 2024 with me coming in to spike the football a few times on the Dunder Moose podcast. In doing so I made a challenge for all listeners to run a Braunstein which, to my shock, many actually took up! 

It made me realize that theories need real play testing. And gaming needs players. The wargamers seem to understand the former and not really comprehend the latter. But I can help them! With Real D&D!

"Drakon Vs The Void" (Dubzaron campaign)

All real D&D campaigns have content being generated every session which interests the DM and/or the Players. The party will discover a Goblintown they run away from, they will meet the King who rolls a positive reaction and is always happy to see them, they'll come across a weird altar they know druids use for sacrifice on a new moon. These concepts start to pile up. 

The good BROSR DM will take the concepts he like, if the players don't address them or choose to run away and focus on Getting The Ruby on the other side of the map, and can make up a session Braunstein. 

Check out my many posts on the subject to see how easy and fun this can be. Or, if you're illiterate, you can watch this show I did about my Shuckstein!

Braunsteins are generally about the intrigue and reasoning and alliances or broken alliances etc behind an event or, sometimes, a war. Wargamers like to say their "campaigns" do all this. But they don't. Because no one cares and they can't find players.

But for a WARGAME BATTLE? You just need two players! 

This may be too much to ask your average wargamer to gather but for me? It's a snap!

BROXT BATTLEGROUND

2025 is the year of BROXT. BROXT are the newer members of the BROSR who still have alot to learn about running real D&D. I am teaching them as their Booker and friend. 

I started BROXT with having them create a full Braunstein scenario in the space of a tweet. It was awesome.

Then, in January, I had them read a short story from "Appendix N" and write a short essay about how the story could or did apply to D&D. They killed it.

The BROXT have proven able to handle any challenge. So, I figured they could tackle the greatest challenge in gaming: make a wargame battle fun!

They have been provided four wargame scenarios which 8 BROXT members will play out in a wargame battle in February. The scenario will NOT involve marching or gathering troops or intrigue (like a Braunstein) it is the moment when two armies come together and FIGHT. 

I will post about the results over time but you should also follow #BROXT on twitter if you're not a chump. We're doing in 2025 the amazing things that #BROSR was doing in 2020-2023 but without all the egos (sans mine).

Real Campaign Results and Why BROXT Might Just Save Wargaming

No one cares about wargaming. But they do care about their ongoing D&D campaigns. So, the scenarios I chose are from REAL ONGOING BROSR D&D CAMPAIGNS. The results will be applied BACK to the REAL ONGOING BROSR D&D CAMPAIGN. 

The results of the battle will determine big things that really matter to the DM and Players of those games because:

-the players home base might be destroyed

-a major NPC might become a werewolf for good

-the most powerful Lawful ruler might get lost in the void

-space pirates might defeat holy dervishes then come for the PCS!

I worked with the DMs of the campaigns of Dubzaron (that's me), Trollopulous (DM Dorrinal), Mighty Urf (DM RDubs [what a rip off name]), and Sojenka (DM Purple Druid) to assure that these Battles matter. You can find the list of battles and their setups here.

You might say (and some BROXT members have said) "but BDubs, can't you just run some abstract numbers real quick to determine the results of the battle. Wouldn't that be enough information to apply to a campaign and you and your players would have your answer?" 

"The Wolves of Versquel" (Mighty Urf campaign)

Yes!

But I feel bad for the wargamers. 

I've theorized about this being the way to get them in the game for years now with no luck. My only success story of having a wargamer add something to my Dubzaron campaign was when Mr Wargaming agreed to run a cosmic battle on his yurturb channel whose results applied to Dubzaron and all the BROSR campaigns at that time. It may be the greatest moment in D&D gaming so it's only right we try and replicate it with BROXT BATTLEGROUND.

The other wargamers? Not so much. They have reliably informed me that abstract resolution is very boring and wargame resolution would be more fun. Perhaps if I have complete newb and non-wargamers like the lads in the BROXT do this, the grognard wargamers will be shamed into offering their expert wargaming services to ongoing campaigns like this in the future?

Who knows! But as a very personable and amiable D&D micro-celeb and booker, I must try! 

Stay tuned to see if this is a great success or a grand failure. D&D may not be a wargame but we can finally determine, once and for all, if wargamers can be part of a D&D campaign.

A Wargame Battle worth playing!

Why ACKS is Not the Answer

     The "Adventurer Conqueror King System" (ACKS) is not the answer to all your D&D dreams. 

    Sure, it is an incredible retro-clone of BX and/or a re-imagining of the "Rules Cyclopedia" with all killer no filler. ACKS 2 is a Herculean achievement by its writer Alexander Macris. I am a member of the #PoplarCrowd and look forward to receiving my physical books from the ACKS 2 Kickstarter as soon as possible. I have nearly 200 sessions under my belt DMing my quintessential ACKS campaign "Dubzaron". Over 100 of the session reports for it can be found on this blog.

    So why did I title this post "ACKS is not the answer"?  

Recent History

How can you need more?

    Recently I was on the controversial Nerdcognito podcast. During this the bombastic host Ryan David, when hearing about the BROSR's spectacular Braunstein module "BROZER: Island of War and Winter" cut in "can't you just play ACKS?" While I gave a very fine answer to the question during the podcast (you really should listen to it) my time and ability to expound was limited by various factors; namely an unfortunate need to let the other gentlemen present talk. What a shame!

    But here, dear reader, mine voice is all that echoes in your troubled mind. And your questions. Your own voice (if you can visualize an apple at least) says "but I love ACKS. I play ACKS all the time. I love solitaire play. Worldbuilding is fun! I have spreadsheets in my spreadsheets so I can spreadsheet when I spreadsheet. No one wants to session play with me :(". Perhaps not all of those... but fear not for I am here!

    ACKS itself is well geared to an implication in Appendix N pulp fantasy like Conan. From Adventurer, to Conqueror, to King (natch). Conan did this. John Carter did this. So, ACKS wants PCs to do this. A lofty and laudable goal indeed. But, is it fun?

    With Braunstein play and BROSR approaches, the answer is yes. With ACKS and its conventional approach to playing D&D the answer will often be no. "That's mean, Dubs! I have alot of fun playing ACKS!"

    Yes you do because ACKS is the GREATEST EXAMPLE OF A CONVENTIONAL STYLE FANTASY RPG EVER CREATED. It mastered it. Focused it. Perfected it. Most D&D players have played weaker versions of a conventional fantasy RPG so the greatest one ever made is a big step up for them.

    But even the GREATEST EXAMPLE OF A CONVENTIONAL STYLE FANTASY RPG EVER CREATED is not as fun as the dumbest and most shoddily ran Braunstein session and Braunstein focused campaign.  To make my point, let's define conventional play. 

Conventional Play

    As Jeffro, in his blog post "Braunstein Play is Fundamental to D&D" he states "Conventional play ignores [Braunstein Play] entirely [and focuses] on the antics of a single party. When they reach a sufficiently high level, both those characters and the 'campaign' itself are retired." 

    ACKS players (and certainly its writer) would say "no we keep playing ACKS at high levels". Yes, you do. But in a Conventional way. Thus the campaigns themselves are still a dead end because ACKS "has lost the concept of the Braunstein entirely".

    ACKS still keeps its focus on a single party, a fellowship of the Getalong Gang. Of course, a D&D player characters can have ALOT of fun in the Getalong gang. The original ACKS Borderlands campaign ran by Macris had over 200 sessions. I'm sure there was fun being had. But it was Conventional Play Fun. It wasn't BROSR. So, it wasn't Braunstein. So, it was less dynamic. 

    We know ACKS game design focuses on a single party. Here are a couple proofs:

    -the much celebrated ACKS economy system assumes a single party. Many readers thought "well the rules state there are only 10 warhorses for sale in this town" but ACKS 2 clarifies "there are only 10 warhorses for sale in this town that the adventuring party can find". If there are 2 parties then party A can find 10 warhorses and party B cand find 10 warhorses. The amount doubles! ACKS 1 saw no need to even clarify the concept of multiple parties in the economic rules because Conventional Play of a Single Getalong Gang party was so foundational to ACKS' Conventional D&D design. I'd argue Dubzaron's success and our MANY parties made it impossible for ACKS 2 to ignore the multi-party campaign.

    -ACKS allows PCs to waste GP into a carousing type mechanic in town. This "wasted" treasure becomes XP for the Players next PC should his PC die. This rule makes no sense in a BROSR style campaign with multiple PCs per player. Such that I removed it in Dubzaron. If your PC 1 dies but had 100k paid into his replacement you'd prefer to make a new PC with that 100k XP rather than play your 20k XP PC 2. But in Real D&D, your PC 2 is actually more interesting and dynamic. Little sucks worse than bringing an extremely high level PC into an ongoing campaign that no one cares about because he just showed up.

    What we gather from this is ACKS is designed for the Getalong Gang of a single fellowship to level through the various tiers of adventurer, conqueror, and king together. If one of the fellowship is lost along the way, the player can replace him with another PC with about 80 to 90 percent of the XP his previous character had, and be the new Getalong Gang member. This is not what the BROSR is doing, this is not Braunstein play.

Braunstein Play

    Why are multiple partes so important to Real D&D (thus Braunstein) approach to D&D?

    -Braunstein play requires Convergences. The BROSR defines this as when the players' actions come together for interesting scenarios that are worth playing. The more PCs a player has the more personality and worldbuilding elements he will bring to the table in REAL PLAY that might create convergences.

    -Having multiple PCs teaches a Player to put his PC on the proper D&D hierarchy. Which is rules over campaign over party over PCs over story. Most Conventional D&D players put their PCs and sToRy over all! I shouldn't need to prove this to anyone who has read most online D&D discussion. When you put the Campaign as a whole over the story/PCs then it's easier to really dive into a Braunstein scenario. You're not as worried your PC will die because you know the Campaign will live on and the Scenario itself is the thing; your interaction with it. Conventional Players can never truly accept this. 

Convergence and Diffusion

Convergence is what makes a campaign fun and real. If an army falls in the Borderlands but no players are around to see it, did it really happen? Perhaps. But no one cares. It's not really part of the Campaign. It's part of Diffusion. Diffusion is when Players, PCs, or Campaign elements are off on their own. Sometimes necessary, never as fun as Convergence.

Conventional High Level Play

    If you run ACKS with Conventional Play approaches you will reach mid to high level and want to do something with your army or thieves guild or College of Mages or Temple or whatever. You have three options for this:

    1. Solitaire Play: If you're running 1:1 time or your Conventional DM has found some other way to keep the campaign on track timewise, you can play a solitaire game of D&D alone. You can take your army into the wilderness and smash NPCs alone. You can flog your spreadsheets and create magic items alone. You can add sheets to the Excel form with your Domain info and recruit troops, alone. This is bad because there is no Convergence. There is only Diffusion. ACKS 2 leans very hard on this and has the best rules for Solitaire campaign play ever created. This indicates ACKS considers this a good answer to High Level Play.

    2. Solitaire Play with DM Adjudication: You can do your Solitaire Play with a DM making some notes to essentially do 1 on 1 session play. This can be done face to face or with discord or whatever. This is superior to true Solitaire Play and has some precedent with the Lake Geneva OGs. I recall a story of Gygax DMing 1 on 1 for a new player who rolled up a level 1 thief. Said thief decided to delve deep into his Castle Greyhawk alone to find where all the treasure was located but not engaging in combat. A fun night for both men, for sure. But it is Diffusion. What made it TRULY FUN, we can be certain, is when this Thief PC brought back his maps to the Legacy Party to tell them where they could find the best stuff. Did he sell it to them? Go along? Exaggerate? Lie? Who knows. But that would be Convergence and that is self evidently more fun than the Diffusion of the 1 on 1 session lost in its own bubble not impacting anyone else.

    3. Session Play PVE: PVE is a video game term that stands for Player Vs Enemy. In this case it would involve the Getalong Gang of PCs pooling their resources to take on the DMs NPC bad guys. This is standard D&D stuff with which we're all familiar. It's the essence of a dungeon delve. But when you get to mid to high level it gets very lame indeed. For one, the number of resources a Party has at mid to high levels is going to overwhelm a DM and he will not have any fun at all. A DM will be expected to control an NPC domain, its armies and dozens of spellcasters, and come out on top in a mass combat with 3 to 5 players on the other side with MUCH MORE character resources and 3 to 5 more ideas and schemes on how to win. It's possible for a DM to win this, but it's not fun. I analyze the problems with this approach in detail here. Sure; you can say "well Dubs you're just a bad DM, I'm better than you". Maybe. But as I said at the jump, the weakest Braunstein is better than the best Conventional Play. The weakest Braunstein DM is the better than you. And you know it.

These three approaches are worse than running a Braunstein Campaign or even a Braunstein session. Imagine that instead of pooling all your resources to wreck your poor bedraggled DM's NPCs yet again, you take your army vs another PCs army and another PC with an Assassin's guild is cutting deals on who he's going to spy for and the PC mage college is doing a massive ritual or wish spell to turn one of the armies into atomic supermen because the PC cleric angered the PC mage months back by saying "science is lame lol". 

    This stupid scenario that I just laid out with zero thought and a run on sentence is better than any high level play you've had with Conventional D&D or ACKS. 

    Imagine that instead of my dumb scenario, you had a bespoke PVP Braunstein scenario with all your best mid to high level PCs Braunsteining eachother in just the same way. The schemes, the triple crossing, the dynamic PVP. It would be a session and/or scenario for the ages and your players would never stop talking about it.

The Solution

    The bad news for you, and ACKS played in conventional style (as written) is the Braunstein is the solution. The good news is the BROSR Braunstein approach can be overlaid on ANY RPG game. Heck, we did it with Traveler!

A true revolution.

    First Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons does it naturally. The Braunstein is foundational to its design. Jeffro and Trollopulous proved this. All other TTRPGs have, for decades, tried to pull away from the Braunstein. Tried to perfect the "folk game" of Conventional D&D, of the Getalong Gang. ACKS perfected it. ACKS should be celebrated for this incredible feat. 

    But the Braunstein is better. And you can run it with ACKS. I did. And now, with BROZER, you can do the same. Jeffro and I tell you exactly how to do it. 

    BROZER is free to download on DTRPG because, while it would be incredible to make a living wage as a TTRPG designer, the call of the BROSR is deeper than this. We don't want your money. We want what's best for you, to love you as Christ loves His Church.

    We're thankful for the opportunity to help improve the RPG hobby. We're thankful for you. 

    Merry Christmas and God bless you.

How to Create a Truly Mythic Overworld

Introduction

Jeffro has done it again. A few days ago on his blog he put up a post called "Rethinking the AD&D Overworld Some More" which analyzed Appendix B from the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (heretofore "1e") DMG. This is the appendix for rolling up random wilderness terrain and contents of same. 

While I am no expert on 1e as compared to Jeffro, Mandalf, or Fluid; I celebrate Appendix B for what I always imagined it to be for: filling out a section of wilderness the DM has not already created with prep (BOO!) or with previous session Real Play (YAY!). This "filling out", I've always seen and used, for a single session to get an idea what's off the edge of the current DM's map. Just for a session!

Jeffro seems to generally agree with my thoughts on this as his blog post says in all caps:

AD&D IS OPTIMIZED FR RUNNING SESSIONS BY THE SEAT OF YOUR PANTS. IT IS NOT ENGINEERED FOR TOP DOWN WORLD BUILDING AT ALL.

Big agree! #ThankYouJeffro

I used Appendix B for some Seat of Your Pants (SEYP) DMing when my Dubzaron PCs were exploring Barsoom. I found it to be insanely fun and was ready to switch the entire setting of my campaign to Barsoom. But my players were less pumped for such an idea. If I'd have understood the TOTAL NONSTOP BRAUNSTEIN back then, we might still be having amazing Barsoomian sessions in Dubzaron. Read below and judge for yourself.

After Jeffro dropped this blog post, and another one here, the BROSR twittersphere blew up with discussion about statistics on Appendix B, if the castle sub-chart should be used for wilderness or inhabited, if Jeffro was an illiterate meanie or just a meanie. And my eyes glazed over with boredom.

This blog post is NOT an analysis of the statistical breakdown of Appendix B or anomalies within it. I don't care. I have never cared. I will never care.

In this blog post I will use the 1e overworld that Jeffro rolled up, the big pile of nonsense numbers and encounters, and I will turn it into a MYTHIC OVERWORLD for real TOTAL NONSTOP BRAUNSTEIN play. Just like I did with Jeffro's Traveller poasts, I will show you why TTRPGs are meant to be played and not game theoried about for hours on end.

The Scourge of Solitaire Play

Check out the hex map. No really, look at it. Very simple, yes? Jeffro rolled it up randomly. It bored him. Guess why? Because Solitaire Play is boring. Full stop. 

I know some of you get big followers in yurturb by doing "Actual Plays" of Solitaire Play. That's great. I'm happy for you. But that's not real D&D. And it's not as boring as real Solitaire Play because you have followers (superchatters?) giving you ideas in your chat about how to turn this or that hex into this or that mythic concept. Solitaire players don't.

When a PC reaches name level in a BROSR 1:1 time campaign in the past, they'd be shuffled into the boring scourge of Solitaire Play. It's fun for a while, sure. It was a novelty since most of the BROSR players had never been in a D&D campaign where they could: clear land, build a castle, run trade routes, assassinate rivals, make magic items, etc. 

But when the novelty of doing all that in Solitaire Play wore off, the best BROSR players realized something. This sort of real D&D campaign play was fun because of Braunstein Convergence. Not the Diffusion of Solitaire Play. Diffusion created EZ MODE farmdweeb lair smashing. Diffusion inflated entire campaign markets with free money so PCs would never adventure without tens of thousands of GP reward guaranteed from Name Level PCs and Patrons for doing (often) extremely easy and safe tasks. Lame! 

Convergence with Braunstein Play is why 1:1 time was fun. Convergence saved campaigns!

You'll need to check out Jeffro's blog about Braunstein play or my analysis of my Battle Braunstein (Shuckstein) here if you need these terms defined but the bottom line is Convergence means a GROUP EXPERIENCE. Or, even better DOWNLOAD BROZER TODAY. It's the talk of the town, and it's free.

You didn't want to build a keep in your D&D world and keep that info to yourself. If no one else knows about your big army or fights it, does it even exist? 

And if Jeffro rolls up a small region of an overworld and no one engages with it in actual play, it never existed. But, in the process of me playing with this world (even in this blog post) the world will come to life. D&D is a group endeavor. It is TOTAL NONSTOP BRAUNSTEIN with Convergence. So let's converge!

Jeffro's Overworld and Dubs' Abductive Reasoning

I don't care about every item Jeffro rolled up when populating his region. I will drop below the ones I'm going to riff on starting with his concepts first. I've highlighted most of these in yellow on the picture of the map I put above. And added my own notes. I will describe what Jeffro had and in some cases do some Abductive Reasoning with why it's there. 

0201 City (40,000): They "have bird heads [...] and antlers! Their skin is wrinkled and seamed as if they had been sewn together [and] crazy large ears like an elephant. [They] have hypnotic orange-red eyes." Crablike bodies of purplish color.

Sounds great. I have deemed this city Raptorton 

0303 Ruins (Tomb): Jeffro gives this no real detail. If my PCs found it I would deem it the Tomb of Wings. It's so close to Raptorton it must be related to them somehow. Millenia ago the Crab-Raptors of Raptorton were deep into a mad cult which deemed that flight was heresy. All wings were removed and put into the Tomb of Wings for generations until somehow the Crab-Raptors stopped being born with them. One quest might be given by a Crab-Raptor heretic to go to the tomb and bring back his ancestor's wings for study etc etc.

0309: Medium Castle: 14th Level Assassin. Jeffro waxes philosophic about how BROSR players won't care about this guy. That (paraphrasing) John Wick was already the best Patron player assassin. I agree to a point. Making up too much about him as part of world creation is boring. I would use him if and when the players come upon him in REAL PLAY. That is the secret to using Appendix B and the TOTAL NONSTOP BRAUNSTEIN

Pretend Session with MORE Abductive Reasoning

Ok enough of that. Jeffro rolled up some encounter checks and noted their location. As if a party trekked across this land. I will place a red line on the map to indicate the travel of the party. Note it will assume they started on the edge of THIS map since the purpose of Appendix B was they walked off the edge of their previously known map. I will note the encounters below and how to Abductive Reason some NoPrep ideas in session regarding the encounters and then regarding my pretend party interacts with them.

Encounter at 0196: Shambling Mound; The players enter this new region and immediately come across a shambling mound. I decide this is a giant mound of the decrepit wings from the Tomb of Wings. Evil magic in the tomb sometimes animates the Crab-Raptor parts there and they scour the countryside. I tell the players "the mound is made all of feathers and chiton". They will likely run away. If they fight and kill it I drop more clues as to what it's made of. I tell the cleric these parts are ancient and almost undead. Seeding future hooks.

Encounter at 0307: Bear, Brown: This bear rolls up a Friendly Reaction check so it is not hostile; I decide it is tamed. The druid pets it and sees it has a collar of sorts with a tag showing an arrow and serrated dagger crossed. The dagger imagine shows drip as if poisoned. The players may theorize it's the pet of another druid but the party's druid would confirm "we don't collar our animal friends". Intrigue. In my mind I know it's probably the Assassin's bear. Due to abductive reasoning I've decided the assassin works with animals. Seems strange no? But this helps me begin to imagine who this guy might be.

Encounter at 0509: Giant Lizard: I've rolled it is hostile and attacks. I've already decided many animals near the Assassins keep at 0309 are Tame. So this creature being hostile could be a former pet gone mad due to Hostile. I deem it so and it fights the party. They see it is impacted by magical anger and realize, upon killing it, it has the same collar as the Bear. The druid finds this odd "why is this not tame too?" 

End Session at 0309: Keep of the Assassin: The players, after their battle and with session time nearing, realize they need a place to stay and be safe between sessions. The druid and ranger, by now, have been tracking and realize many animal tracks go in the direction of 0309. These are the numerous pets of the Assassin. So, the party easily finds the Assassins Castle. It has flags with the same arrow/dagger symbol on the collars. I deem this guy is an Elf (due to all the animal stuff) and name him Deadleaf. I think we have a brosr PC named that? Perhaps this is where he's graduated to name level play.

The party has no choice but to approach the castle for rest between sessions. They meet Deadleaf and his reaction is neutral. He is cold hearted and has a magic crown artifact which gives him full control of all animals within 12 miles of him or something. His keep is full of animals as his servants serving him wine and cleaning his carpets and such. This castle now sticks in the party's mind. They have run out of session time sleep at Deadleaf's castle between sessions.

Downtime Play and Session 2 Hooks

Now is where the magic of other players' ideas come into play. In session the players will have been debating among themselves about Deadleaf. Should they work for him, trust him, etc?

An "Always On" DM can take their suggestions about what Deadleaf's deal is and run with it. Or due it at the start of Session 2. Players will always ask "what work does this guy have?" The druid and ranger PC will ask alot of questions about the animal. About the mad lizard and why it went mad. 

Abductive Reasoning might tell us that Raptorton is the problem. And the Tomb of Wings. Deadleaf reveals the empty castle at 0502 that Jeffro rolled up is the site of a great battle his people had with the Crab-Raptors some 200 years ago. That a mad cult in Raptorton is working to bring back their power of flight but it's created necrotic magic across the realm and maddened his animals. 

Players might help the decidedly untrustworthy Deadleaf or want to go to Raptorton to see for themselves. Who knows! But you may notice we've already seeded two members of a future Battle Braunstein; Deadleaf and Raptorton. Three if you count the made wizard Crab-Raptor in Raptorton who is pushing this new necrotic magic. 

Give this region a few more sessions and you have a Battle Branstein ready to go. Simple as.

Conclusion

This is a lot, what's the point? The point is what I said above. The ideas Jeffro rolled up with Appendix B were boring to him but fun to me. Not because I personally find the ideas fun to roll in my mind but because I have an audience of my other players. I know Jeffro will read this. Will he elaborate? Will this become a Total Nonstop Braunstein test case just like we did with Traveller? I don't know, but there's excitement there. 

In a real D&D campaign you know people will PLAY this stuff. It's not theoretical. It's not rolling on charts to test percentages; it's real play. And the magic comes from the GROUP ENGAGEMENT with an eye towards Braunstein Convergence. 

Appendix B works great for this. It is for Seat of Your Pants play which the DM and his players can use Abductive Reasoning to fill in the blanks. Session 2 should NOT be players running off of THIS map in search of easy scores; it should be players engaging with the elements they found in session 1 with an eye towards a Braunstein. This is different from Prep Addiction because you use it only when you need it and you engage with it only for the purpose of play. Doing abductive reasoning with your fellow players is play! Filling out giant maps of things you pray your players come across is not play; it's arts and crafts.

Do this three or four times in a row of playing like this you will be in a Total Nonstop Braunstein without even knowing it. Do you believe?