The Culture: The Tribal Chief In His Own Words

Jon Mollison put up this video featuring Jeffro Johnson today at 4:15am Central Time.

Back Winning Secrets.

Jeffro made the Pulps cool to talk about again.

Jeffro forced the authors of Appendix N--all of them, not just just a few world-famous ones--back from the Memory Hole, such that they had to make a sham Appendix N book.

Jeffro, with the Bros, brought back the justification for Tabletop to exist AT ALL when Conventional Play is always done better as a Videogame.

Jeffro matters. Winning Secrets, following on from How To Win, finishes his work in fixing what the Boomers broke. Back it.

None of the ankle-biters have done more than Jeffro to unfuck what got fucked up around 1980, both in Literature and in Tabletop. Many, instead, WANT TO MAKE IT WORSE! They profit from the problem.

Fuck them. I DISAVOW ALL OF YOU!

You need Winning Secrets, you need Braunstein, you need to play the Real Game- and you need to throw the Product Merchants into the Memory Hole.

No more fencesitting. This is what Tabletop Adventure Games are and have to be to justify their existence. Everything else cannot, so it does not, and it should not exist- and soon enough, it will not because The Collapse Comes For Them All.

The Culture: The Tribal Chief & Friends On With The Women's Champion

On Sunday, Jeffro and his collaborators appeared with Women's Division Champion Harmony Ginger to talk Winning Secrets.

Winning Secrets not only funded, but hit its first Stretch Goal. You are safe to back this now.

Note something that a lot of detractors omit: Jeffro mentioned that the Bros got to where they are BY ITERATION VIA TRIAL AND ERROR. Step by step the Bros pulled all of what the Boomers tossed down the Memory Hole back, figured out how it worked, and (as of now) not only got each part working but successfully reconstructed the real machine that those Boomers originally published and got it operational again.

"The rules were not incomplete for Braunstein play."

The Real Game was complete. People played it wrong and the Boomers did sweet fuck all about it. They just willfully lobotomized the game. That should have led to outright seizure of the company instead of what went down, but that would have inconvenienced Boomers so no- and that's before the Blumes and the Buck Rogers heiress did their damage.

The Bros recovered the Real Game, and restored the Real Hobby. The machine is spreading in its use; all that remains is the organization that needs that machine, which is why the Clubhouse is now ready to return.

The Culture: The Tribal Chief Faces The Soup Aisle On Dunder Moose

On Wednesday of last week, Dunder Moose not only had Jeffro back on but also several ankle-biters.

This was Rhetorical Combat. Get popcorn. Enjoy the show.

And if you haven't, back Winning Secrets- we are well past the goal, so it's Stretch Goal Time!

Yeah, Jeffro has this effect on his ankle-biters.

The Business: Roll For Combat Isn't Stupid

This past week, Roll For Combat talked OGL Scandal.

Derik remains the Voice Of Sanity: WOTC Cannot Lose.

Yes, a pile of irrelevant nobodies got ephemeral attention, but--as Josh Strife Hayes explained for MMOs--everyone came back to The Game That Matters as soon as Objective Data told them to do so. As noted, Indie Darling Shadowdark benefited from a Black Swan event that cannot be repeated and several others released at that time have either fizzled or retreated into their own ghetto and thus Do Not Matter.

But the real consequence is the ending of the promise that Ryan Dancey made with the OGL: the ability for Everyone to benefit from Everyone Else publishing material with no friction.

Smug fuck as he is, Derik consistently is correct about everything: Only D&D Matters. Not-D&Ds are not played; they are bought, they are read, they are talked about, but No One Plays Them. D&D--all editions--gets played, gets played everywhere, and gets played consistently. This is why Derik can afford to be a smug prick; he's right, and he brings the receipts.

Derik talks in terms of Network Effects. He explains why D&D matters and nothing else does in those terms. He will also find that Delulu Soup Aisle Suckers will not listen especially when those folks have a monetary incentive to not listen (as Mark does).

And this is why nothing within Tabletop can unseat WOTC. Only something outside of Tabletop, and only if it's bigger than Tabletop. Only a bigger Network Effect can defeat a Network Effect.

The Culture: Remember That Being From The Modern World Is Allowed

This is your periodic reminder that this is a viable 1st Level Human Fighter in AD&D1e.

Hank had no idea how he got here, but he wasn't afraid. Between what his father and grandfather taught him, what he read and saw, and what he learned in Scouting, he dreamed of such as this. Hank was not afraid; Hank, true to the Law, was Prepared. pic.twitter.com/xv0zqQRyco

— Bradford C. Walker (@MrBCWalker) February 22, 2026

Minimum Starting Age for a Human Fighter is 16. That is, typically, a mid-to-high ranking Boy Scout; perfect for a Fighter or (at 18) a Paladin.

Thanks to Appendix N, we know that "Lost Worlds" and "Transported to another world" is A-OK for Play!

And yes, speaking from experience, being a Boy Scout with access to older men who have experience in woodcraft, let boys be boys, and taught the habits that the manuals do not that make being like this practical, this is not at all unbelievable.

And yes, in case you forgot:

• Burroughs, Edgar Rice, "Pellucidar" series: Hollow Earth adventures with dinosaurs and primitive tribes; a cornerstone of the Lost World subgenre; "Mars" series: John Carter astral-projects from Earth to dying Mars (Barsoom); "Venus" series: Astronaut Carson Napier reaches Venus's fantasy world.
• Merritt, A., The Moon Pool: Arctic explorers enter an underground realm with advanced ancient civilization and monsters; Dwellers In The Mirage: Explorer uncovers a hidden Arctic valley with Norse-inspired peoples and dark gods.
• Anderson, Poul, Three Hearts And Three Lions: WWII engineer transported to Carolingian fantasy Europe with elves and trolls.
• de Camp, L. Sprague, Lest Darkness Fall: Archaeologist time-travels to 6th-century Rome, averts Dark Ages.
• de Camp & Pratt, "Harold Shea" series: Psychologist projects to mythical worlds (e.g., Norse) via symbolic logic; The Carnelian Cube: Archaeologist's cube enables travel to parallel fantasy universes.
• Farmer, P. J., "The World of the Tiers" series: Earth professor uses horn-gate to enter artificial god-made universes.

This is what the #BROSR's UMBROS celebrates and makes readily playable, focusing on Pellucidar. Get a copy today- it's free!

The Culture: Network Effects Explains This Also

Last weekend, Iassc Young explained again why the Critical Drinkers, Geeks & Gamers, Doomcocks, etc. are worse than useless.

To be clear, I am well past the point of arguing YouTube critics should stop doing what they’re doing. It’s weak moral scolding that also sucks oxygen out of the room for independent creation. Also, the opportunity for boycotting Hollywood has long passed—had it ever been real to… https://t.co/cusUgYokaZ pic.twitter.com/Hl8wTZzuVo

— Isaac Young (@HariSel57511397) February 22, 2026

This is Network Effects in action.

You can't beat one from the outside, so you have to fight from within it; you also can't offer non-Brand alternatives so long as the Brand that generates the effect is active and functional.

Only Alt-Trek (e.g. The Orville and fanfilms & Old Trek (past series) threatens Current Trek.

Only Alt-D&D and Old D&D threatens Current D&D.

Only Alt-WOW (private servers) and Old D&D (Classic) threatens Current WOW.

The only one who's figured out how to make it work at all is Jon Del Arroz. He pitches in-category alternatives after catching attention by leveraging the Network Effect of a Brand Cult to get eyeballs and use that dissatisfaction to pitch his indie substitution. The least you can do is copy that formula; complain about Brand, then offer alternative to Brand.

The Culture: WINNING SECRETS CAN BE YOURS!

Jeffro Johnson, by way of Cirsova Publishing, brings you Winning Secrets now on Kickstarter!

Naturally, the publisher has some words to say about it:

Longtime game blogger Jeffro Johnson earned Hugo nods for his in-depth analysis of AD&D’s Appendix N, in his book Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as for the work he did as the editor-in-chief for the Castalia House blog.

During the COVID shutdowns of 2020, Jeffro and a group of friends gathered to explore a unique objective: explore the early D&D rulesets as thoroughly as possible. This was the birth of the nascent BrOSR movement, an effort that would take the implied goal of the Old School Revival (OSR) seriously.

The BrOSR coalesced as a group of Christian men who, through hearty ribbing and memes, encouraged one another to become better at playing Dungeons & Dragons and produce a better experience at the table.

The group’s principles included playing the game Rules As Written, eschewing homebrewing or house ruling, in an attempt to uncover what the game was truly like when taking author Gary Gygax’s prescriptions seriously. The game contained in the rules contrasts starkly with the “folk game” that D&D had become. While the OSR movement had largely been a vibe-based focus on the aesthetics of the older games, sometimes trying to rebuild them from the ground up, the Bros took an approach that centered on gathering a deep understanding and mastery of the foundational games of the hobby.

Members of this group radically changed the online discussion surrounding D&D, with a focus on RAW, use of 1:1 time, and re-incorporation of David Wesely’s Braunstein as seen in D&D co-creator Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor Campaign. In to providing extensive public-facing campaign reports, the Bros created Brozer: Island of War and Winter (out now through Cirsova Publishing), a Braunstein adventure product designed to teach other groups how to incorporate these elements, and offered it for free digitally and at-cost in print, moving nearly 2000 copies.

Cirsova Publishing is proud to present Winning Secrets, by Jeffro Johnson, RuleOfThule, and Bdubs1776. Originally conceived as the follow-up to Jeffro’s monograph, How to Win at D&D, published by Pilum Press in 2023, Winning Secrets collects the receipts for the style of play that Jeffro and the BrOSR championed. The book chronicles the sessions of Jeffro’s Trollopulous campaign, the first campaign of the BrOSR, and contains essays and commentaries offering insightful examinations of the definitive pillars of BrOSR-style play as well as illuminating the guiding values they champion.

In Winning Secrets, you will join the Bros in their journey, uncovering the brilliant lost secrets of great campaigns which gave birth to the D&D game rules. You will see the complete story play out of how this arcane lore was won through Jeffro’s paradigm-shattering Trollopulous campaign.

What does Winning Secrets offer, specifically?

In this landmark work, you will find:

• A persuasive case for why contemporary approaches to RPGs cannot deliver on the game that was promised by the early D&D rule sets.
• A thorough breakdown of the four pillars of Real D&D, lore from the dawn of RPGs that will elevate the excitement and engagement at YOUR table!
• A detailed history of how Jeffro discovered these secrets and how he and his friends developed solutions to the challenges offered by high level play.
• An explanation of why only Christian brotherhood could break down the barriers that were preventing all of us from experiencing the RPG campaign of our dreams.
• The recreation of a lost artform and an entire world of gaming knowhow that Jeffro pulled out of complete oblivion.

This book will change the way you think about D&D forever. More importantly, it will show you how the game was intended to be played.

Back this NOW!

"But why?"

Let's let them tell you.

Praise for Jeffro Johnson’s How to Win at D&D:

"These 30 or so pages of text in this book are the most impactful and important 30 pages I have ever read when it comes to tabletop roleplaying games and wargaming. It has changed the way I approach these games. This book put everything into focus for me, why I wasn’t having fun and didn’t feel good about the games I was running and how to run better games. I've bought five or six copies and have given them to each of my players and I recommend it to anyone I know who plays or wants to play D&D" -- Jon Asharan

"For the scholarly reader interested in the history of RPGs, this book is indispensable. It is thoroughly researched and, in my academic opinion, convincing."-- Gabe Mamola

Praise for Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons:

"This book may be the most important thing to happen to science fiction, fantasy, and even horror in the past three decades."-- Jim Fear

"An absolute must-read for anyone wanting to rediscover the forgotten literary roots of fantasy in general, and role playing games in particular. I have already been blown away by some of the authors mentioned here, and look forward to a great deal more excitement as I progress."--Sam Hart

You can back Winning Secrets at Kickstarter here.