The Culture: A Worthwhile Zine By The Purple One

This was worth it.

PDF is here.

Worth having on hand in concert with Winning Secrets and How To Win At D&D.

The Business: This Is What Fighting A Dominant Network Effect Looks Like

Remember what I said about the private server scene being the MMO equivalent of Tabletop's Retroclone movement?

Well, we just saw yet another expression of that being the case. Yesterday, Project Ascension launched their latest game mode: Conquest of Azeroth.

Since a lot of you are neither current nor former World of Warcraft players, I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that I'm playing Ranger and Witch Hunter right now and enjoying it. I tried Barbarian during the pre-launch Stress Test, which took a bit to figure out but also turned out fine. Trying the new Support role with the Ranger class. Can't say about the rest.

What I want to explain to you is this:

1. There are Vidya analogies to Tabletop issues.
2. World of Warcraft is the D&D of MMOs.
3. Due to long-running antagonism to its legacy audience, there's been splintering that lead to cloning of past editions; this would lead to official Classic realms, but that was not enough, and neither did the recent Remix limited-time servers do that either, but rather a "Classic Plus" (Vanilla with different decisions implemented, and more content added) is what folks want.
4. Private servers fulfill this demand- as retroclones do for people who want their specific flavor of B/X (etc.) put into a single plug-and-play product. This is mostly a WOW thing, but private servers are also how dead MMOs carry on (e.g. Star Wars Galaxies).
5. Blizzard has become more hostile to this over time, and operators are becoming more savvy about protecting their operations- and not just in immediately rebranding and relaunching after a shutdown (as Turtle WOW did, twice). Other corpos are no friendlier.
6. Network Effects dominate MMOs harder than they do Tabletop, as Josh Strife Hayes proved a while back, so the only viable way to compete is to fight WITHIN the Network Effect.
7. Therefore, only WOW can kill WOW- and thus a superior private server is a threat to Blizzard.

Due to the nature of the medium, and the specific game, something like the Bros happening is going to take a different form than it did in Tabletop.

Instead you're seeing OSR, not BROSR, insurgencies; they're doing the retroclone thing because that's what works. Some wipe their asses with IP law (like Ascension), some pretend it's real and do the "legally distinct" thing, but both of them are doing clones of MMOs with proven audiences because the risk calculation of MMO launching for anyone that is not Le Big Corpo now is too high to be acceptable- and recently failures only doubled-down on that perception (Ashes of Creation also being outed as a scam).

That's why the real expansion is in competing with the dominant Networks from the inside, and as private servers have already proven to work they're going to keep working.

The next step will be to find a way to make a WOW server that finds a way to do Braunstein style play--which, in this context, means somewhere between EVE Online, Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot by way of Guild Wars and its sequels--as was done in many a MUD before that.

And the crazy thing is, I bet some guy--and it's going to be a guy--is going to be the one to take things like Winning Secrets and find a way to make that happen.

The Culture: One Move Showed The Superiority Of Braunstein

UMBROS upset in one move.

>Me as Ferigno vs 2 faction leaders and MU3 riding a bronze dragon (also a faction leader)
>win init, cast fireball on riders, 32 damage
>MU3 reacts quickly and absorbs spell into Staff of the Magi he held
>staff is already at full charge, explodes and does 204 damage to all https://t.co/3dVjdrbHUK

— Dungeoneer (@Dungeoneerhere) June 30, 2026

Go ahead, Conventional Play, try to reproduce this organic campaign-changing event by your own practices without resorting to Narrative Logic and thus to forcing results.

You can't. You cannot reproduce the occurance of three faction leaders attempting, and failing through their own incompetence, to kill one mutual enemy leader because you will not ever hand faction leaders over to players to play, and you will not let them engage in PVP combat, so you have to do your Theater Kid agency-nullifying moves to badly ape the result; Uwe Boll does this better than you.

You also can't comprehend this happening away from the table, or with someone else running things while you handle another group's actions, with the results having impact upon everyone else- if not right away, then shortly thereafter as consequences at the Second and Third Order manifest and fallout forces changes in the State of Play.

You Cargo Cultists cannot comprehend this being in players hands to determine. Meanwhile, we who deal in Braunstein do.

The Culture: The Bros Prove That They Know The Way Again

As if in answer to yesterday's post:

Just look at this. The game as it is played by millions of people simply does not have space for this type of thing to occur. Meanwhile, when you play the game as a Total Nonstop Braunstein, you have space for EVERY SINGLE type of game. https://t.co/HZCjeT1N4H pic.twitter.com/rqB8uvqc9m

— Rump (@RumpDM) June 16, 2026

You can see the rest of that thread here.

That's a direct and immediate refutation of claims that it can't be done because it's being done here and now.

The Bros prove their way correct again, and Conventional Play loses because it can't reproduce the results without cheating.

The Culture: It's A Lot Easier When You Play The Game Properly

He did the meme again.

To save you time, this summary:

In this video, RPGPundit argues against the common trend of prioritizing "story" or "narrative" in Tabletop Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs), particularly within the OSR (Old School Renaissance) movement. He posits that a campaign should function as a living, virtual world rather than a scripted story.

See, generative AI has its uses. And the meme, well you know it by now.

Braunstein fulfills this function. It does so far easier than any other approach, doesn't require DM Fuckery to do, or any other form of Narrative logic; running a proper wargame campaign--yes, that includes economic and political warfare, folks--will be more than capable of achieving the desired results with superior engagement and satifaction from the players while greatly reducing the workload from the Game Master.

Simple as. We've proven this by now through Actual Play.

The Business: WOTC Turning The Game Into A Solo Mobile Game Confirmed

Pat confirms that what I knew Wizards of the Coast would do next is being done.

Watch the video; Pat shows the job tenders proving it.

You can either enjoy pay your HOA fee to stay in the Walled Garden, or you can prove you're ready for the Clubhouse.

The Culture: A Frenly Man Sharing The Fun on Twitter

Most Bros post receipts on Substack. Some are on Twitter.

In the #Barrowmaze tonight, #FrenlyClubhouse hopefuls the Mernius with hirelings in tow go to delve the dungeon depths. Vermin were waylaid and starving Diabolists were tossed about the crypt & then forced to chew on grave dust before the Curate would absolve them of their sins! pic.twitter.com/9A21jrQVDH

— DM Raptor (@DMRaptorJesus) June 19, 2026

He runs three different groups on the map over a week, so you'll see his reports every couple of days.

So far, he doesn't have any Halfling Death Squads committing war crimes for fun and profit.