It's time to reconsider some games now that we have some practical experience in proper play that allows for Research & Development For Competitive Advantage to actually manifest on the table.
Those two posted above are examples. You can include Heavy Gear and BattleTech.
Because it is long past time to bust another myth- that this is exclusively the province of the publisher.
Jeffro noticed a thing:
While I don't know all of the parties, I can suss out some of them. Respectively:
Freezing out Jeffro, and by extension the #BROSR, is Narrative Warfare. This attempt to retroactively take credit for all of Jeffro's work, all of the Bros' work, means that the Cargo Cult can steer the hobby back into the Cult Compound- the same thing that got done to George Lucas, by the way, as the Fanatics never forgave him for shattering their hold on the Narrative.
We're seeing the same reaction in Tabletop. Jeffro and the Bros broke the Narrative, such that enough hobbyists can see it and apply it, and that's too much for the Cargo Cult since Wizards of the Coast is giving them the shaft from the other direction at the same time by rendering their entire business model defunct.
Fuck these OldFags. Sideways. With a shovel covered in shit and burs.
Today in Oldfags Trying To Steal From The Bros.
He completely ignores player-directed development.
Braunstein does this better, and because the receipts are being shown repeatedly the influence spreads without pause. Oldfags have to get out in front or get rolled over, and so we have channels like this trying to steer things back on to the reservation.
Fuck this guy. Fuck all the Oldfags.
Braunstein or death.
I said a long time ago that Normies don't work for their entertainment. They sure as fuck don't do homework.
This is not how it's done.
Normies have a toleration for two prior movies or series before they quit in big numbers; this is known to the Hellmouth, which is why Trilogies are a thing and long-running franchises have soft resets between them as well as recaps/reintroductions and why there are few exceptions to this rule.
Feige could easily sort all of this continuity stuff in the opening minutes of this movie--Bond films have used the opening credits sequence to do this, and Jackson did this with the LOTR films with the loredump as the sequence--but he's turned out to be a collosal retard so no we have to witness this incompetence in action.
This applies to Tabletop.
As Macris noted recently, most Tabletop products are bought to be read and not played; they are not real gameplay products, but instead disguised Setting Bibles and Adaptation Pitches with extraneous game shit attached.
This is why, in addition to the Cargo Cult, we have the majority of buyers being Lore Nerds and Worldbuilding Wankers who inhabit a space without engaging with it at all and get mad at anyone--publishers and players alike--that do.
Cargo Cultists that play hate being constrained by Lore as it gets in the way of their autonomy. Real Players, being The Man In Command with agency, make the lore their bitch by assuming the roles of those able to shape it and then doing so.
The reality is that players only care about what happens in play. Everything else does not exist. This is why making players run all actors with agency in Braunstein forms is the hobby that works, why Cargo Cultists keep crying about shit games, and why publishing publishes disguised Setting Bibles because the real hobby does not need or want what they find viable commercially.
No one wants to do homework for entertainment. Feige's just the latest to figure this one out the hard way.
The Bros published two Braunstein scenarios so far.
When I finish BRODUM, that will be three scenarios.
Notice that we're not doing this for the money. These are free in PDF and at-cost in print. No begging on Kickstarter. No shilling at the cons.
These are made to be played, not gawked at. They are made to be used, not read for entertainment. They are meant to be easily replaced if lost or damaged. They are not art books in disguise. They are not meant to pay the bills. They are not meant to be Setting Bibles in disguise, or pitch documents for videogame/TV/film/etc. adapatation.
They have just enough to start a campaign. No more. No less.
That's what the ethos has to be now- a return to form as it was in the beginning, but with better technical writing, editing, and layout.
You need a map, a scenario, and a ruleset. That's more than enough to play for years on end, and that's what Cargo Cultists and Corpofags hate and fear about this hobby.
Too bad they're retards that can't see the obvious business model, but that just means it's wide open for hobbyists to take up that space before they get the meme and move into that space themselves.
We've had two Braunstein scenarios published so far that serve as perfect campaign launch vehicles.
"But they only work for Muh Fantasy!" got defeated by UMBROS, which is based in Burroughs' Pellucidar (i.e. a Lost World, complete with guns).
Now the goalposts will shift to "You can't go big time with this."
That too is wrong.
I talked about this earlier this year at the Clubhouse.
Got delayed due to Government fuckery, but this past week I cleared that out and the outline I've got ready will start being used.
You can go big. Very big. Now being written.
Same deal when it's ready: Free in PDF, at-cost in POD. Aiming for something like BROZER in length: enough to get you going, but not enough to be a substitute for playing.
Jeffro comments on Dunder's running adventures in the BROXT's UMBROS campaign.
Don't think that the Bros don't criticize their own. That happens.
This is exactly that in action, and wiser heads will pick up what Jeffro laid down here.
"Wait. Why are we trying to do it all at once? Why didn't we secure the entrance to the Moon Pool first, set up a base camp there, and secure the road back to town? That would allow further pushes to start closer to the action, let parties react faster to developments, and allow for serendipitous opportunities to manifest that we could capitalize upon. Every time we get to another location like this, we move the base camp up and repeat the process until we're camped outside the target location and we have a secure logistics train all along the way."
Jeffro has a clear point here about seizing control of events: "Meffridus taught players to take control of the game. The way Oghma did when he visited Trollopulous."
What I wrote above is the most obvious form of doing just that.
At every point there is plenty of opportunity for player-driven action. Securing the route from town to the Moon Pool alone means beating a road down, clearing that route of bothers of all sorts, establishing and maintaining patrols, and then setting up the secure base camp--with supplies, Expert Hirelings, defenses, etc.--on the other end like any other serious expedition into dangerous territory.
Once that is done, action predictably goes two ways. One direction goes down into the Moon Pool as intended. The other goes out into the surrounding area, tracking down threats and resources- the former to kill, the latter to secure. Revenue from both forms of activity go into the maintenance of the camp and its garrison securing the route back to town.
Meanwhile, the Moon Pool needs to be swept and cleared of both threats and treasures while securing the route through it. Once secured, it must be occupied. The base camp slowly extends and expands into the Moon Pool in the wake of the expedition's sweeper teams. Meanwhile, the surface camp can now expand into a small armed town secured by a tower or motte as valuable resources extracted from below get used to build up the surface plant; maybe this becomes the seat of a rising adventurer's claim of dominion.
Does this slow the process? Sure.
Does this also make it something other than futile throwing of Polish mine detectors into the field? Also yes.
There is a considerable lack of a sense of agency at play here. A lack of currency does not mean a lack of economy; those prices become abstract Units of Account, used as a measure, but realized instead through non-coinage forms of exchange: oaths, contracts, in-kind barter, etc. as we see in a lot of tribal and clan-based societies.
This is a fantasy of agency- of being the Man in Command. Act like it.
I knew that others were similiarly dissatified with Cargo Cult norms.
Some of those others, with more experience with Vidya than Tabletop, used that Vidya experience to attempt to address the issue. This guy that gets paid to run Official Edition games went with that Vidya-informed approach and made a "MMO".
Project Aurora is literally the craziest undertaking I've done in my life. A Dungeons & Dragons online MMORPG the takes place on a VTT within a persistent living and breathing universe where its focus is not just the D&D game, but a full-fledged commitment to provide as much content inside the D&D game as well outside of the D&D game.
A Universe where the sheer number of people in a D&D game from where there is 6 players and 1 DM isn't just doubled or tripled, but significantly scaled more than 10 fold while keeping continuity, player agency, social interactions, professionalism, community, the ability to forge a legacy making a name for yourself being the forefront of everything that is Project Aurora.
Just, the Attempt alone to make something as vast in concept is mind-boggling to even think about as you've probably clicked on this video to learn more of what the heck this project is, what's it trying to accomplish, will it even succeed and is it worth getting invested in.
This is, for all intents and purposes, an Analog Private Official Edition Server. I took a look at the YT channel's catalog.
Yes, it runs out of a Discord server. Yes, it presumes Cargo Cult norms where it does not explicitly contradict them. Yes, it brushes up against concepts ajacent to--but surpassed by--Braunstein (specifically West Marches).
Yes, he's trying to get paid doing this. That's likely where he's going to run into problems once he gets big enough.
But he's got the incentive to come to where we are. Send that man a copy of Winning Secrets and direct him to BROZER and UMBROS. Then tell him about the Clubhouse.
You need to be on Substack.
This is where the receipts get posted.
This is where Jeffro can be found.
This is now where the real discourse exists.
Jeffro explains why the Bros lack visibility despite their paradigm-shaping work.
TLDR: The engineers did engineering things why the sales guys continued to shill shit no one needed.
He is right about the money. Implemented as we've done, all the money in Tabletop flushes out because no one need to buy anything but the rules themselves. The commercial side of the hobby is all about pushing product. They have no concept of supplying services, other than Wizards of the Coast (and they have their own solutions that are not what we want), so they have no incentive to promote the solution that actually works.
Observe Revealed Preferences: everyone who'se tried did the (very old) meme.
The same goes with the Clubhouse and all it entails. Once they grasp how it works, particularly by seeing it in action, THEY SIGN THE FUCK UP!
The plan is simple: show people how it's done. They will believe it when they see it in action.
The OPFOR plan is simple: suppress awareness.
This didn't work last time. It won't this time. People like free things. People like free things that enhance their autonomy and lives. The Bros offer that.
This is a flat-out lie.
Tenkar is lying to you.
You CAN run B/X (despite being inferior to AD&D) with wars front and center. It's not that hard; Bros, using AD&D, do this on a regular basis--I did this twice in as many months, and I expect more before the year is out, and that's just my campaign; UMBROS, etc. have battles and wage wars just as often or moreso--and you can have your standard adventuring stuff take place interlaced with the batles, logistics, and diplomacy. The warfare gives context to the adventuring, which in turn gives meaning to the warfare.
Tenkar is an Oldfag who is so deep into Sunk Cost Fallacies that he wouldn't know what not-drowning in them is to save his life. Such is the life of an Oldfag Cargo Cultist.
You can see the lack of skill at reading comprehension, his inability to draw inferences, to know how Order of Operations in use of material works (TLDR: if the rules don't say otherwise, it works as it does in reality so consult real world sources) as he drones on.
Don't believe the lies. Wage your wars. You don't need to invent new rules or use external addons; the trick is scaling.
It really is this simple.
The Cargo Cult and the Techno-Corpos at WOTC are doing the meme.
This is another "READ THE MANUAL, RETARD!" moment.
Let me save you the time: Run the game as written and you won't have this problem.
Why say this? Because the Bros are forcing the issue.
Chubby Funster dropped this video earlier this week.
To which Jeffro responded:
It is simpler and easier for all involved to just use Braunstein methods. Literally the meme here.
When Jeffro and BDubs shit on Cargo Cultists for willfully misrepresenting things, shit like this is what they're talking about.
Fuck off, retard.
This faggot knows that the Bros exist- I've flat-out TOLD him so.
He's been SHOWN BROZER and UMBROS. He knows about Winning Secrets. He's no different than the Oldfags who keep trying to steal #BROSR developments and try to reframe them in Cargo Cult non-game terms.
He is willfully avoiding the fact that this hobby runs off Braunstein, which means he's not an honest actor- and that applies to all of the Cargo Cultists, regardless of whatever flavor of shitsandwich they shill for. This is what "Gamers are terrible people" means when you hear people like Jeffro or BDubs shit on them.
The thing Oldfags say never happens happened.
Oldfag PRESUMED that a greeble did X, when the rules state that it did Y.
Why did Oldfag do this? Calvinball.
When you go "Rules LOL, do whatever, LOLSORANDOM ain't I hip and cool?" you end up making these kinds of fuckups because you never take the time to do the one thing that always prevents this fuckup from happening.
What would that be?
Lazy faggot got caught out and now he has a sad about it. Off to the Carousel for you, Oldfag. Time to Renew.
Play the game. Play as-written. Do not deviate. This means that you read the rules, study the rules, and master the rules as they are- not as you wish they were. This may involve exercising reading comprehension skills long rusted to due decades of disuse, but that's not my problem.
The Bros are right again.
Oh look another Oldfag having to pivot to softer targets after breaking his ego on the Bros.
Again, a summary:"This system shifts player motivation from "killing everything" to finding creative ways to secure loot. Because combat is highly lethal in older editions, players are incentivized to use traps, distractions, and clever negotiation to avoid direct fights"
Again, "Fucking duh." Again, too many Commies and retards in the hobby so this needs to be made brick-to-face obvious.
That's nice. Why are they after the treasure?
It's not for the XP. It's for what that treasure buys, which XP is symbolic of: power, prestige, property.
You need it to pay the Training costs. You need it to pay medical costs. You need it to pay Upkeep costs. You need it to do Spell Research. You need it to do Item Creation. You need it to hire/retain Henchmen and Hirelings. You need it to build our your man's power structure--the castle, the town, the farms, the mines, the manufactories, the housing, etc.--needed to seize and hold land, land in turn needed to be the base from which your man strides forth to achieve his objectives and win the campaign.
All of that needs metric fucktons of gold and gems to do, as it is the fuel and the lubrication that keeps the war machine that is your man going.
Doing all of that cannot help but to lead to acquiring the experience needed to accomplish the Objective; Gold For XP merely formalizes this into a playable useful abstraction.
Which would not need explaining if this OldFag actually played the game properly.
OSRfags confess their defeat by the Bros through studious avoiding of mentioning them while using their arguments is a theme for this week.
Case in point, below:
To save you the time, a summary: "This video features a discussion between Joe, Tim Shorts, and Paul Turner about why modern Dungeons & Dragons (5e) adventures—often written like long, novel-style modules—can detract from the creative joy of being a Dungeon Master. They argue that the best adventures should be defined by a dangerous location and a reason for players to explore it, rather than a rigid, predetermined plot."
To which anyone with the sense of a syphlitic surfer slut will say "Fucking duh" but NarrativeFags Are Not People so they lack this.
What is missing is WHY GO THERE?
Braunstein answers this by making that location be somewhere that either has something your man needs to achieve his Win Condition, has something an enemy needs for theirs, or otherwise is useful to control for strategic purposes. Yes, even the smashing of a random monster lair has uses to it; it provides a location that your side can control and thus operate from in turn.
Dungeons, once they're more than That Place To Jumpstart That First Wave Of Newb Mans, are ready-made defensible locations for ambitious actors to exploit for their own ends. Overworld lairs are the same way; they are no different than the castles, temples, guildhalls, etc. we see in other locations on a campaign map.
Which also means those in the dungeon should also be using them as bases to run their own operations from.
The result is that any serious move on a dungeon or lair should result in a Braunstein session, assuming you have enough players on hand to toss around playable actors like that- and in a proper Clubhouse, you will.
Last night Jeffro and BDubs1776 come back two years later to share with you the Triumph of the #BROSR and TTRPG's bright future!
No one comes at us anymore with any teeth.
They are all found out as fake-assed faggots, especially the Oldfags, so said ankle-biting assholes have pivoted to softer targets. They refuse to Git Gud; they sucked out just like the Theater Kids they whine about.
We have won, decisively, and as such we are moving on to fix problems that the Oldfags could not and cannot even comprehend.
We not only drive the bus, we designed and built the bus. It's our bus now; you're just riding in it and being a bitchy backseat bozo. Either step up or fuck off.
Not one untrue word said. NOT. ONE.
The Oldfags, too many of whom being Boomers, did what Boomers do and refused to pass on their patrimony.
The worse part is that what Jeffro describes here is something I've seen across the board from Boomers over the years. It's not just a Tabletop thing. They genuinely do not comprehend why they do (or did) what they did, only that it works/worked that way (at the time) so of course it always does so what's the problem? Why bother questioning a damned thing? It Just Works That Way.
This is why they get mad when you show the receipts. You are telling them, to their faces, with facts and evidence, that no It Does Not Work That Way You Fucking Retard and had you bothered to Read The Fucking Manual and properly comprehend--work through--what you read you'd be agreeing with us and not being an arthritic anklebiting asshole.
Now you know why I've come to call them "OldFags".
And those who echo them might as well be Oldfags, so they get the brush too.
