The Culture: More Proof That The #BROSR Is Right Comes Out Of The Memory Hole

Speaking of lessons from the past and how it contradicts the Cargo Cult's Just So mythology.

#ThankYouJeffro So @JohnsonJeffro remember how you constantly banged the drum about over relying on AD&D splatbooks and settings instead of just using it's tools (e.g. Dragonlance) for campaigns?

Well so did WoTC understand this once upon a time. From Slaying the Dragon Chap. 26 pic.twitter.com/6iCfi1PqnV

— Grames Barnaby (@overunderwriter) January 30, 2024

Let me blow those up for you.

This is a major argument that Dancey used to sell the Open Game License to the rest of the company first and then the wider hobby publishing scene almost 25 years ago.

It is the proof that Muh Campaign Setting is useless unless you're running a Consumerist Lifestyle Brand where the brand sells tie-in media like comics and novels, or you act as a parasite upon a much larger company (which is what Dancey got everyone and their uncle to do).

It is also the case that the non-Official" settings for Current Edition that sold over this time were actually formerly in-house brands that got licensed out to third parties or sold off entirely to the same, with very few exceptions- one of which left Current Edition behind for the retro-clone scene (Adventurer, Conqueror, King) and the other is now moribund (Scarred Lands).

"Settings are Very Important!" is a big part of Conventional Play. The data--the reality--proves them wrong, and did so a quarter-century ago.

But it gets worse for Conventional Play. Alchemic Razor referenced a thread he had a thread about AD&D1e in June of last year.

Besides, don't you want to start sessions with full HP?
Gygax just codified this natural intuition for overlapping time and communication into #dnd, they weren't Gygaxian magic. 1:1 was the baseline assumption in #ttrpgs. It was storygaming that killed it.https://t.co/qywNUPLt9a

— AlchemicRaker (@AlchemicRaker) January 30, 2024

You can find the full thread here.

We're getting more and more evidence that the #BROSR is right about what the hobby is, how it works, and why it works that way- especially so with AD&D1e.

And man, are we going to see more and more freakouts as the reality that #JeffroIsRight dawns on the rest of the hobby, and especially the business side of it.

Those Just So stories are like vampires in sunlight now, and dawn is breaking. Repent.