The Business: Fixed Timelines Solve The Tension Between Brand and Braunstein

Hey, you. Yeah, you, in the back, scribbling in a notebook.

Yeah, I'm talking to you Anon. You with the idea of selling RPG stuff. Pay attention, because this is for you.

You're curious about how to make stuff that takes advantage of the true Braunstein mode of play.

Let's start with something that is commonly done, and that's a publisher-created setting.

The idea, and the common explanation, is to give the user a ready-to-go setting to play in. The reality is that the setting is there for the publisher to justify turning the RPG into a Brand IP through the publication of fiction--novels and comics, initially--over time and thus greatly increase the profitability of the IP.

I will not argue for or against that common ambition here. Instead, I will lead up to a common error when executing that ambition- one that is easily avoided.

Your setting has to have a timeline; one is always implied, so making it explicit is commonplace and will be added down the road anyway if the aforementioned ambition actually goes anywhere.

To make your setting best suited for both gaming and brand IP purposes you never do one thing: ADVANCE THE TIMELINE!

Instead, what you do is put your gaming emphasis at the end of that timeline and all your novels/comics/other narrative media before that point.

The reason that you do this is to make the fullest of both entertainment media. Your gaming is at the end of the timeline for one reason: maximizing player autonomy. All of the toys, literal and otherwise, are there for the players to employ as they wargame to their hearts' content without concern for continuity- something that does turn a lot of propsects off and has for decades as anyone that's worked with IPs that don't avoid this problem learn the hard way.

This is why Harn did it right by fixing its timeline endpoint, why early Exalted did the same, and why every single RPG that fails to do so ends up having to deal with workarounds or flat-out shoots itself in the foot which ends up causing yet more unforced errors in trying to cope with the consequences of the initial one.

BattleTech has its problems in large part due to going past 3025. Several official D&D settings have fractured followings due to this error, and we all know about how Warhammer Fantasy fucked itself with its End of the World cockup.

All of this is entirely avoidable. Never advance the timeline.

Yes, stupid fuckwits will gainsay this. Smack them with a bat and point them to the ongoing plate-spinning madness of the IPs that fail to heed this simple lesson.

Now, one more step beyond.

Use the narrative media as advertising for the wargame. This is where all of these companies that branch out actually do right, though as often as not entirely by accident as they blunder into it. Hell, you can outsource this if you're that hard up on doing this.

You want to know why Tex of the Black Pants Legion has so many people clamoring for him to get recognized by Catalyst? His lore videos, which included some memes that have gone on to annoy the fuck out of some others (e.g. Steiner Scout Squad, a group of happy Space Bavareans in 100 ton Assault 'Mechs committing war crimes with all the ease of enjoying a beer.)

Once you get interest going on all this setting lore, they'll want to go about making their own marks. Now that fixed endpoint pays dividends. Never will you see players complain about being unable to do anything to change how the setting goes down because each and every player, solely through their own skills as a gamer, will have the means and opportunity to do just that.

If you're the sort to run Official Campaigns, you can still do this and keep your fixed endpoint in your published product- indeed, it's vital to do so because it opens up one more benefit: the ability to reset the game. Having fixed-duration Braunsteins is Seasonal Play in all but name, but it also means that you can get players into the game by being able to participate in a fresh campaign.

Now that you grok this, you can focus on having a core gameplay experience that isn't shit.

Which will be talked about tomorrow.