The Culture: The Best Article Explaining The Real Hobby To Date

Rule of Thule over at Primeval Patterns had a great article this past week. You should read it.

For several years now, the BROSR has envisioned and performed complex TTRPG experiments, beginning with their investigation of AD&D rules-as-written1. Ultimately, this led down a path of framing AD&D as a singular whole in a way that no one else has articulated. The unrelenting presumption that the AD&D rules make sense has led to an expanded perspective on TTRPG play.

Yeah, you know it's going to be good. Breaking down the Real Game vs. Conventional Play, you get this:

“Conventional play” is the important anchor in this discussion because it represents the mass-mind view of the degraded and fallen “D&D.” Its most important feature is that it does not exist as a deliberate approach. It is a local-minima trap that we fall into for lack of perspective.

That so clearly captures the problem that the Bros chip away at, and after listening to the OGs it is clear that they didn't grok what the hell they were doing; no wonder those Boomers failed to pass on what they knew- they didn't know themselves. In the absence of a clear communication from the Seniors to the Juniors as to what the machine is, how it works, and why it works that way it is no surprise that Know Nothings broke what they didn't comprehend and thus made Conventional Play a thing.

Rule goes on to explain how and why Real Games are what they are--and why there are so few Real Games among the reams of product available out there--because the Real Game is the Final Form of Braunstein. The campaign is, from one end of its existence to the other, one ongoing Braunstein with the rules there to formalize the process by which an interaction results in a Convergence around which a playable scenario arises.

(And yes, the vast majorty of product on the shelves IS NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE!.)

Go read that article. Subscribe to Rule's Substack feed. You'll be wanting to share that one around.