The Culture: We Need More Priest Classes

The following video came across my feed and hit something I've been talking about for years.

Set aside the conclusion. Focus on Tabletop applicability, both in terms of worldbuilding and in rules/content design. We, like the video presenter, shall take the perspective of an engineer here.

Remember Runequest? What's its big deal? That religion, in its full complexity, is made playable in a manner that players can comprehend in a manner analogus to the way that non-Christian religion actually works. Call of Cthulhu does something similar with how it presents Lovecraft's nihilistic cosmos via its rules.

This video explains how and why the human practice of religion works as it does, and it is far more applicable to non-Christian practice (something that is how things are in most Fantastic Adventure gaming play, at least in theory) than to Christianity due to specific elements of Christianity that make it the outlier in religions.

It also, without even addressing the hobby, shows why the Cleric (a) is not a generic priest and (b) why implicit cosmologies hard-coded into a game limit the scope of practical religion capable of being modelled in a game. There's a reason for why you can't have a proper representation of Christianity in Legend of the Five Rings/Legend of the Burning Sands: the rules regarding how the supernatural and sacred work get shattered by implementing Christianity into its setting.

The obvious conclusion is that this justifies other priest classes.

The obvious follow-on is that games will get the priest classes that the rules support via their mechanics and procedures.

The catch is that people will do this poorly and get shit results that don't deliver on the expectations; to do that you have to know the game you're designing for, which means you need to read the fucking manuals and then draw out the second and third-order effects of their rules and procedures. With that mastery in hand, your design will leverage those structural elements and emergent effects to fulfill the expectations that users will have.

There's a reason that I've made a draft adaptation of Palladium's Warlock O.C.C. to AD&D1e; it is to illustrate this very thing, because AD&D1e can support the concept, but those who don't read and study the game's manuals will fail to achieve the desired result. Shaman adaptations are likewise not just a variant Cleric.

The same applies to other games. Your priests need to reflect the mythos and cosmology that comprises their religious practices, and that needs to be coded into the rules so it is part of the experience of play.

The Culture: More Mecha By Hobbyists By Hobbyists

The Game Formerly Known as "BattleYolk" has a new Jon Mollison video.

The game gets attention from The Last Redoubt in a recent article also.

"With the first set of turns done, we’re taking a pause. The broom managed to completely screw up shooting at the red ‘roo, and lost all of its chaingun ammo. The ‘roo in the meantime badly dinged up the jalapeno. Also, after chatting with the creator of the TTS module, they intend to provide an example terrain key, and also moved/shot chits that were overlooked. One feature of AESMAG is that there are not a lot of rules in place for terrain, but the basic language of rough terrain, and partial and full blocking of LOS allows for a lot of flexibility out of whatever is crafted. They also hope to have tiles and or more options / models available to place terrain on the table."

I'm pointing this out for a reason.

The origins of this hobby was that hobbyists made games, wrote up rulesets, played them, got feedback, and then revised them until the game hit that Good Enough mark to lock it down and go to print.

This was the 1970s. You couldn't outsource things to a bot, or even have any word-processing software, so it was hand-written notes rewritten into something to reference before you sat at a desk, put a sheet of paper and a fresh ribbon into a typewriter, and transformed those hand-written notes into a manuscript that could be mimieographed or (later) photocopied (back when that was a big deal) and the better ones formatted into two column standard layouts. Any illustrations or other graphics had to be done by hand, often by the author or by one of a few collaborators; if you see anything by Palladium Books made originally in the 1980s, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Today? That's easily done by one man by himself with free tools. Need a wordprocessor that can format? LibreOffice. Illustrations? Pick a LLM-based bot and learn how to use it. Flowcharts or similar tech manual graphics? MS Paint is part of Windows, if you want to do it by hand; you can also use free online resources for that- like you can for assembling a cover for Print On Demand printing (instead of mimiegraphed/photocopied copying, or paying for print runs). You can save in PDF or EPub in LibreOffice, and then use another free tool (Calibre) to convert to MOBI for those Kindle users out there.

In short, the tools are now free to make stuff by hobbyists for hobbyists. You don't need to beg on Kickstarter. You don't need to get loans from a bank, or to save your pennies to pay others for things/services, either. Get it made, formatted properly, put into PDF (and, if demand is there, Epub/MOBI) and put it up at DriveThru/Itch/Wherever and (if you have one) on your Patreon/Subscribestar/Whatever page.

In the ongoing collapse, there will be no commercial viability in product production outside The Only Game That Matters within a few years- just a lot of people mainlining copium like they're terminal patients needing to be doped to the gills to dull the pain. Distribution will follow, now that Diamond's gone under as that will destroy most of what retail is left out there, leaving only the largest options to weather that storm. (Yes, Amazon will be fine; WOTC's storefront will be fine, maybe DriveThru, but others? Doubt.)

That will flush out those out only for the money, especially as making a living will again be refocused to the real economy and not the bullshit service economy due to rebuilding of industrial capacity and relocalization of supply chains accordingly coupled with remigation of unwanted aliens and foreigners and the imprisonment/execution of the 5th columnists bringing them in.

Wizards of the Coast--and thus Current Edition D&D also--will remain on top, but everything else is vulnerable to destruction due to economic collapse wrecking their business models. The Clubhouse will thrive as it is not based on that model. Non-commercial games will thrive because they don't need to do anything but fund themselves; non-commercial games that are Real Games, using Clubhouses for organizing and play, will beat those that do not- so optimize for the Clubhouse going forward if you want to be someone after the changes have done their damage and the collapse concludes.

The Culture: More Ready-To-Go Braunstein Later This Year

Recently, after reviewing BROZER and UMBROS, I started sketching out my own scenario.

The former pair are "Fantasy" scenarios, so I decided to square the circle by making a "Science Fiction" scenario to show the following:

• The Real Hobby is Braunstein, and that means the entire hobby.
• Real Games are those that are built on Braunstein bones.
• "Fantasy" and "Science Fiction" are fake-and-gay non-genres imposed by editorial diktat; they are the same thing, differing only by trappings and set dressing.
• It's not just a party trick; this is how you launch and run campaigns to conclusion.

The working title is "BRODUM: My Braunstein Is The Sea Of Stars". Below is some of the cover candidates I've generated to impart the vibe.

What I will include is the launch scenario, campaign map starting positions- the rest requires being filled out in play, faction briefs, and notes on how Braunstein works to drive campaigns and why it works better than the alternative. This will include notes on logistics, doing Research & Development to gain competitive advantage, the necessity of using a complete game with rules and procedures to generate playable content on the fly, and on how PVP at both the individual and faction level is superior to Narrative logic in delivering on the promise of the hobby.

Like the other two, when it's ready it will be made available free in PDF and at-cost in print. This is by hobbyists for hobbyists, as it should be.

New Year's Day 2026

Time for the annual U2 Post.

May your hangovers be merciful, and your first day of the new year be cozy and pleasant because they're not everywhere.

This year we're starting a bit on a down note. Tenkar's video gets the news across: Tim Kask, TSR's first employee, has died.

Rest in peace.

The Culture: Tex Talks The Black Knight

At long last, we have a new Tex Talks BattleTech video.

Now, at the end of 2025, we get to send off the year with a new BattleTech video from one of the best around. Tonight at 7pm Central Time.

I could not have asked for a better send off, or a better set up for what I have to announce for this weekend.

The Culture: One By One The Old Priors Fail To Hold Up

This, like the Professor's videon on Homlett, has the wrong premise.

The wrong premise here is Get Along Gang doing everything together vs. a Referee who does all the work.

You can make the biggest sandbox ever. Players will only go where they perceive either advantage or (more often these days) where the frustrated novelist in the big chair wants them to go- even if this is not intended, this is what happens every single time.

The issue is that this model does not dispense with the Conventional Play norms of being You & The Boys in the basement. The Real Game avoids this because players, especially those not at the table, can and do act in manners that disrupt the flow of events on the map intentionally and to a specific effect.

Total Non-Stop Braunstein fixes all of this. Everyone of these people will be catching up in the next few years as they are dragged, kicking and screaming, to admit that the Bros are right for no other reason than doing what we've been doing and seeing the results for themselves.

The Culture: Hobbyist Making Things By Hobbyists For Hobbyists Is The Way To Go

It's the middle of that time between Christmas and New Year's.

Not a lot of attention to be spared, as most people will be going about holiday affairs one way or the other--parties, returns, stockups, etc.--but here's something for folks to note. Because of the Tower Campaign and the Clubhouse, I have drafts going on the following adaptations:

• Red Mage
• Blue Mage
• Chocobos
• Tattoo Magic
• Skaven
• Palladium's very misnamed Warlock
• Multiple unique magic items

These are drafts, to be tested until broken, and only members of the Tower Campaign or paid subscribers at the Clubhouse get access. In due course, when they are finished, they will--like BROZER and UMBROS--be released free in PDF.

And I will be able to provide good illustrations when I do so, thanks to what is now available. Behold.

That's a sample. I can do a hell of a lot more than that for free, and I'm learning more about how to do so by the day. This, combined with a clean technical document, is more than sufficient for my needs- and for yours. Giving these away is not a burden for me; it's just how this hobby should be, and should always have been.

There's more of that coming next year.