My Life As A Gamer: #BROvenloft Begins

It began as a goof.

Over on Twitter, folks in the #BROSR started talking about Ravenloft and how so much of that classic module is torturous and tedious bitchwork because you need to put and keep the players on the narrative railroad from start to finish. Instead, it would be simpler and easier to just hand control of the Dark Lords and several similar Patron-level NPCs to the players and let them go at it in a Braunstein campaign.

In the typical irreverent manner, suddenly folks started making up personae and posting in their Kayfabe voices--Cirsova as Kangasta Wrapper, the rapping mummy, being the most obvious in ridiculousness--and Strahd reimagined as a Muppet being a runner-up. These people staked out territories, made initial moves, and set the stage for the game's launch.

That happened yesterday, not five minutes in this went down:

In the early hours of this morning, my father, the Elf King was assassinated, and his vaults plundered.

I and the elfin host now depart for Cyfaraun, the land of my mother's kin, to observe the customary mourning period before I am crowned Queen of Elfland.

Goodbye #BROVENLOFT pic.twitter.com/5UZnjaNBV6

— DER ERLBRÖNIG (DECEASED) (@DerErlbronig) October 1, 2022

That's right, one of the Patrons got assassinated right off the bat. Who did it was the talk of the #BROvenloft tag on Twitter that day.

That's also where you can keep up with what's going on, so even if you hate Twitter and refuse to have an account there, browse that tag. Geek Gab will talk about it on the weekends, but between those episodes you'll find it there and maybe at the blogs of their participants.

Now this is not going on in isolation. Jon Mollison is conducting a mass battle on the cosmic scale. Stormbringer--yes, Elric's sword--threatens to strike the star that is really the body of a sun god and if it does it will eat that god's soul and cause a cosmic cataclysm. If this battle is resolved, for good or ill, while Brovenloft is ongoing it will have an influence on affairs therein- especially if the Good Guys win and cast Stormbringer into the Dread Dimension to be forever sealed there.

Yes, Stormbringer on the loose where all sorts of supernatural power-players (most of whom are not good) are imprisoned. What can go wrong?

Jon explains it here. He hasn't put his play videos into a playlist yet--get on that--but you may enjoy watching him play out each turn per day.

And you will want to revisit his video on using AD&D 1st Edition as a mass battle ruleset in itself. (He'll have another out in a few days.) Due to events in New Model Colony, I'm looking at a big battle coming up later this month, so if you want to see someone do this as a solo experience stay tuned.