The Culture: You Fix This Problem By Letting Players Wargame From The Top Down

Another Conventional Play guy doesn't get it.

By now you should have figured out the problem: players give no fucks about your retarded lore bullshit.

Why?

They have no skin in the game. Not their mans- them, specifically. Want to know why the old, original form of campaign play is superior? They have skin in the game. They have a vested interest in seeing someone win, or someone lose, or both because they're the people who made the domains happen by way of running the factions (and their ruling mans) who made it so, not some Forever Referee who's really some form of Frustrated Novelist or Wannabee Showrunner.

It's no long Loredump McSnorefest. Now it's Bob's Wizard Empire because Bob created the Wizard Empire through playing his Wizard man up into someone who pursued magics that bound others to his will and enforces his decrees. Folks who want to trash the Wizard Empire will roll up mans who want to trash the Wizard Empire, and those who want to expand or usurp it will roll mans to do that. By their actions--REVEALED PREFERENCES BEING REVEALED--you get these things to happen.

All the Referees need to do is sit back, munch on the popcorn, and ensure that the rules of the game are obeyed and the integrity of the campaign is maintained- wins and loses must be earned by the book.

Conventional Play can't do this without breaking their own cult dogma, which is why the #BROSR is now driving the bus.

The Culture: Grifting Beast Bullshits About Running The Game

Grifting Beast must be low on people to steal from for content if this is what he's doing.

You have to be a Conventional Play Cargo Cultist to even think that this is something to discuss.

Meanwhile, back in the Normiesphere, it's this simple: READ THE FUCKING MANUAL! DO WHAT IT SAYS EXACTLY AS IT SAYS!

The Hobbyist, being on the other end of the bellcurve, is the same. Thus we have the meme.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

The only thing left to conclude is that most Tabletop designers are dogshit at their job, both as designers and as technical writers. Properly written technical manuals kill all ambiguity in how to use the widget, and properly designed widgets always produce the intended outcome when used as directed.

What Grifting Beast is really talking about is how to cope with the dogshit quality of most Tabletop products on the shelf, past and present. In the real world, the solution to dealing with this problem is this simple: don't use dogshit products, you collosal retards!

Play a game that is competently made, and competently documented, exactly as you are told to use it. That's the solution. That's why you can toss over 90% of the product on the shelves into the incinator, and those who made them, because-

Nothing Of Value Was Lost The Critic GIFfrom Nothing Of Value Was Lost GIFs

The Business: Games Workshop Confirms Brand-Focus Pivot

G-Dubs admitted in its internal documents that it is now a Brand-focused business, and "Warhammer" is that Brand.

The real news here is that G-Dubs' recent videogame adaptations have been very good for them according to their own metrics. This means more such IP farming will continue. That's fine so long as the tie-in products are good, like Space Marine 2; when they are dogshit, it's bad, and so is the tendancy to ignore the core business segment that made this pivot to being a Brand-focused company possible. That's been happening for a while now.

A lot of the past few years speculation is now confirmed in the hardest form possible: their own words, in print, in legal documentation where there are penalties for lying.

The recent announcements, such as the change of logo, also now makes sense. G-Dubs is going for the Wider Audience because they want Hello Kitty levels of Brand visibility and recognition. In corpo eyes, that means making it bland and inoffensive, lest loudmouth Karens (or worse) get pissy.

This games workshop rebrand is one of the worst I've seen. I'm not understanding this trend of stripping all fun and originality out of logo design? @warhammer pic.twitter.com/PH1IgnBrFF

— Daniel Tiller (@SirTiller) July 27, 2025

Expect the enshittification to continue. On the other hand, the present mood also means that it is possible--maybe even probable--that the pozzing will be paused until 2028 in the hopes that the post-Trump US Administration is not a continuation of his agenda (they will be disappointed; it will) because that will fuck with the money. I have to remind folks that between the two, the Mammon Mob outranks the Death Cult; the latter only wins when the Mob allows it, and right now they can't afford to do that.

The Culture: Dunder Talks The Dungeon Delver With CROM!

"AD&D Evangelist @thedungeondelver makes his This Is Dunder Moose debut to talk about why AD&D 1e is so awesome and his 1e digital character creator: CROM!!! Should I throw out my trifold brochure???"

Come for the 411 on the AD&D1e character generator. Stay for the long diversionary tangents on gaming life through the decades.

You have to hit Delver up directly if you want CROM.

Need a kick-ass, easy-to-use but feature-rich utility for quick character generation for 1e AD&D?

CROM* IS HERE!

*Character Record Organizational Manager

- Create characters using all features available in the Players Handbook!

- All four methods of character stat… pic.twitter.com/5KspEpqHNu

— TheDungeonDelver (@A_DungeonDelver) June 3, 2025

DM him on Twitter or email him (bsilvey@gmail.com) if you want it. $25, Windows only (for now).

The Culture: Dunder Moose Talks BarrowStein

Last night, Dunder had a panel discussion on Barrowstein.

Like others featured by Dunder Moose, this Braunstein scenario was a one-night session where a Convergence of actors occured and needed to be resolved. In this case, this was a matter within the elite caste of a campaign's major polity--a Magocracy--within which came opportunities for others to advance their own agendas.

By the time it was over, you had demons in the palace, aliens bursting from victims bodies, a tactical nuclear weapon detonated, magic and firepower being used, and some rather weird familial dynamics being revealed. This could have leaped out of the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine or a Michael Moorcock novel.

We also see that the #BROSR is getting very good at refining the structure laid down by Dave Weaseley all those years ago now. The Bros have incorporated Braunstein play into the full structure of Fantastic Adventure Wargame campaigning, both in this specific format and in the more long-term format commonly referred to as Play By Post.

You can get in on this too. The Bros put all the #WinningSecrets down in BROZER, which--again--is free in PDF and at-cost in print.

The consequences of this Braunstein event will now be carried forward back into regular play at the table, as the surviving actors either exploit their win or cope with their loss in a manner that demands Diffusion away from each other for a time before pursuit of their objectives inevitably force another Convergence at a future point in time.

After Action Reports like this continue to show how superior this is for creating and sustaining a campaign over time over Conventional Play. Now everyone else just needs to catch up, again.

The Culture: Macris Talks Intuitive Simulationism in RPGs

Last night, Macris had on game designer and Youtuber Daniel Jones of Primaeval Fantasy.

Let's make it clear: this is a Me & The Boys doing the Get Along Gang product, and thus it is not intended to be run as a proper Fantastic Adventure Game in a Clubhouse environment.

The style of play described here has a High Trust and Low Time Preference environment as a necessary pre-requistive, both of which were always in short supply and fast fading away by the day, and the irony of it is that this is exactly one step away from Actor School/Writer's Room exercises that I've witnessed or heard testimony about by industry pros over the years.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work. If you have that necessary environment, it does. That, as I just described, it is one step off professional Narrative media practices in the more competent training and working environments is proof that yes this can and does work- both for the stated aim, and for the Narrative aim that is right next door.

Ultimately, however, this is not viable beyond You & The Boys. It is not viable for a wider hobby; if it were, it would already be the norm.

The divide between the casual gamer and the dedicated hobbyist is subtle at a glance, but wide on inspection.

— Alan MacCrae | Firmatus (@WorldofFirmatus) August 5, 2025

This matters for one big reason: people move around.

A hobby's standardization matters when it is beyond You & The Boys. Gygax, ultimately, had to bow to that necessity and people still gainsay that to this day.

That's why, as much as I appreciate the sentiment, this entire position is a non-starter and a dead-end. It doesn't look like a game to Normies, and it doesn't look like a game to Hobbyists; it sure doesn't play like one either, but instead feels too close to Mother May I for comfort for the majority. It is the mirror image of the clout-chasing Tourist darlings like Daggerheart; it will have its small cult appeal (like Mork Borg or Burning Wheel), so if you like that sort of cultural cul-de-sac, have at it. I'll still to the think that's proven to work at scale, and so will 90% of the hobby.

On the other hand, when it's time to look for a Writer's Toolbox addition, this gets added to it right away.

The Business: Temu VOTOMS Getting Big In Them Britches Again

Perhaps you saw this late last week.

That's right, Temu VOTOMS has a third Vidya adaptation in the works now.

Good question.

I posit this as an answer: Those Quebecoi Andys actually did the smart thing with the post-3rd Edition collapse and refocused on a Brand that could be salvaged. This lead to a refocus on the origins of the Brand as a skirmish-scale wargame (Blitz) which led to a spinoff (Arena) while keeping old material available as PDFs and POD offerings. This decision satisfied two of Dream Pod 9's desires: the desire to rebuild the Brand back to something that breeches the Normiesphere (and it did; there were PC games and a TV series) and compete with BattleTech (which it does), and the desire to use Gaming as a backdoor into the more popular and profitable Narrative media industry.

What you see is exactly that happening. That's why there was big hype for the 4th edition of the Tabletop adventure game two years ago, and now this new Vidya adaptation.

What you don't see is Dream Pod 9 learning why that collapse happened: using the wrong medium for the job. You also don't see Dream Pod 9 realizing that they, like FASA and its successors, are going to run into problems if they get too big for their britches because the owners of Armored Trooper VOTOMS want a Western audience.

Dream Pod 9 is going to have a bad time in court if the owners or desigated agents thereof decide on lawfare. This won't be like G-Dubs going after MCA Hoegarth over "Space Marine"; Prior Art is not on DP9's side, and the resemblace is brick-to-face obvious to casual observors--the Reasonable Man standard--so they're relying on the hope that they are sufficiently Legally Distinct to not get bent over in a courtroom, and that presumes an American or Canadian court. Japanese? Nope; they're fucked. Somehow I doubt that DP9's corporate structure is sufficiently robust to make such events irrelevant. (That's a hint, you Temu Frogs; you have enough to make it worthwhile so do it already, and he does take Canucks like you lot as clients.)

Over at the Clubhouse I'll talk about how Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Gear Krieg,, and CORE Command should be used- and thus should be developed, published, and supported.