The Culture: The Bros Have Shown The Way

The Bros published two Braunstein scenarios so far.

• BROZER
  • PDF at DriveThru
  • Print at Amazon
• UMBROS:
  • PDF at DriveThru
  • Print at Lulu (Paperback, Hardcover)

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.

The Culture: Sole Play Tabletop Rises For A Reason

Jon Del Arroz made this observation.

Roleplaying Star Trek and not having to deal with any humans sounds fantastic. pic.twitter.com/iF4ZijRyrI

— Jon Del Arroz | Sci-Fi And Fantasy (@jondelarroz) August 9, 2026

He's been to, and thus has seen, what the common Cargo Cultist is like.

For those unable or unwilling to get admitted to the Clubhouse, this is their go-to option to get away from those losers while staying in Tabletop.

You can't get derailed (unless you're utterly dysfunctional) by some low-rent loser, get held up by the least invested player, get tyrannized by a power-tripping Dexter, or have any other Known Issue in Cargo Cult Tabletop gaming if you just play on your own.

Those who do this, and then want the social aspect, post to social media their receipts. Some do videos on YouTube. Some post to Twitter, Instragram, etc. They use the parasocial aspect to show people how they play the solo game, and in so doing advertise for it; the smart ones get affilate links and then link to the game's online storefront page to get some cut of the sales.

The move is to solve the Known Issues by changing the product to remove the risk factors; you can play when, where, how, and as long as you like if you're the only player- the same value proposition that you have for single-player Vidya, only without the need for electronics.

This is also a losing proposition long-term, unless you want to change how this hobby is defined into a solo pursuit. The only route that preserves the hobby is the Clubhouse.

The Culture: Hawaiian Man Schools You On Things Cargo Cultists Want You To Ignore

Jon Mollison dropped a couple of videos recently. You should see and share them.

He's doing the Good Cop part of the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine.

You can guess who the Bad Cop is.

The Business: The Private WOW Server Scene Keeps Showing Tabletop Cultists Up

This got announced on July 31st.

I keep telling you that WOW and D&D are analogous due to occupying the apex of their respective media and market niches.

We see these private servers keeping coming despite Blizzard going after them because ONLY WORLD OF WARCRAFT MATTERS (as much as FF14 wishes otherwise; they had their chance to usurp WOW and MISSED- that's never happening again).

Look at what they consistently offer: giving the target audience what they want, with superior convience- same as what WOTC did and does, but no Tabletop competitor even thinks to offer. Only that Project Aurora guy has even broached the question- that's how deep in the sauce Cargo Cultists are. If this Russian-based private server can deliver half of what it promises, it will CLOWN on Blizzard hard.

This is how competition within a Network Effect works. You only win if you can deliver what the target audience wants better than the big dog. This can be done in Vidya; Tabletop should be easier, but it's not because Oldfags are retards who can't think past their nose or they'd be doing this sort of thing to WOTC on a regular basis.

This is how Blizzard deals with it: shut them down, then steal their best ideas (and code) to incorporate (in a watered down manner) on Retail and/or Classic servers.

WOTC could have done the same thing; they will not need to going forward because there will be sweet fuck-all to steal.

The Business: Ryan Dancey Told You This Was Coming Nearly 30 Years Ago

Network Effects, motherfucker. You WILL grok this.

What did Dancey say?

TLDR: "Most people only ever played D&D. It's D&D or Nothing."

Then he explained why by introducing, for most of us back then for the first time, what a Network Effect is and how it works.

That's how the Open Gaming License, the d20 System, and the best time for Cargo Cultists to be around and making money came to pass before he got replaced at Wizards of the Coast and Yet Another Retarded MBA Faggot ruined the good thing.

Ryan, as he explained at the time, was being magnanimous. He wanted everyone to enjoy the prosperity that The Only Game That Ever Mattered brought, so he made it piss-easy to play nice; save for a few outliers, most Cargo Cultists did.

What Ryan downplayed, but did not omit, is that most of Tabletop, well past the 80/20 threshold, is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT.

Cargo Cultists did not believe him them. As most of them are Oldfags, they still don't; they think that somehow not being bankrupt and out of business means they are relevant.

Lex Luthor Wrong GIFfrom Lex Luthor GIFs

Relevant means "Can be found in Walmart or Target, and is readily played by everyone in a manner that doesn't invite mockery by mainstream media."

No one on Stranger Things played Theater Kid Fag Non-Game or Temu Oldfag Houserule Non-D&D. They played The Only Game That Mattered.

That understated fact, backed up by data at the time, was never contradicted after the fact. The one thing that has not been talked about, but plays a huge factor into the strength of a Network Effect, is control over friction.

The holder of an Effect controls competition within the network by controlling the friction generated by non-compliance.

Friction, in this context, is measured by inconvience. Tabletop is notoriously inconvient; if you're a commercial operation, solving that issue is your top priority, and nothing is more inconvient than getting people to play at all followed by deciding on what to play.

WOTC's new pivot solves BOTH. Going mobile-first solves the Schedule Your Fun part; you can play whenever, however. Going All You Can Eat Brand Crossover Buffet solves the what you play part by standardizing the form of play while increasing the options within it.

Going against this increases the friction, exponentially so now that WOTC will be mobile-first, which is detrimental to convincing people to go with your Temu Tabletop offering over Official D&D in commercial terms. Only non-commercial alternatives, which don't compete on the same level, are viable now- and no, that doesn't mean serial busking on Kickstarter. That means going with a different organizational model entirely, such as the Clubhouse, which solves the same problems differently.

Don't take my word for it.

This is, of course, terribly frustrating to those of us who release products intended to be played. But the reality of the network effects and switching costs of RPGs is inescapable. If people didn't buy for art and lore, there'd be almost no indie industry at all.

— Archon | Autarch Games (@archon) August 4, 2026

These people would be better off making this shit as glorified Coffee Table Art Books like Dinotopia, with playable notes as a separate PDF for download.

This is why I say that Tabletop is no longer commercially viable. There is only non-commercial alternatives and delusional Cargo Cultists.

The Business: Too Many Don't Grok How Normies Work And Thus Miss Why WOTC's Move Matters

At GenCon, Wizards of the Coast confirmed what I said was the play: the Fortnite strategy.

People do not grasp what this means.

All of the Brand collaboration releases for Magic are allowed in all formats. You want Aragorn and Optimus Prime and Y'stolha Rhul in your deck? You can.

This is exactly what WOTC's target audience--Normies, Casuals, Tourists--want: all together, all in one place, all under one ruleset, all Officially Sanctioned, in a mandatory crossover environment.

That is the Fortnite strategy. That target demo is a Low Agency Demographic. They do not trust Unapproved People. They only trust Brand because Brand is Approved. Brand is Authority.

The Big Deal here is granting permission to these Low Agency people to do what their Revealed Preferences say that they want: to have an All You Can Eat buffet of Approved Stuff that they like, priced cheaply, to play with in the Approved Sandbox.

They will not--have not, never have--just done it themselves. They do not accept the validity of homebrewing. They do not accept the premise of users just doing things. They show, again Revealed Preferences at work, that they need permission from someone they view as the authority on the matter- which in this case is the Brand. WOTC knows this. Hasbro knows this. Their Brand counterparts either know it or quickly catch on.

This goes well beyond HERO allowing Marvel vs. DC fights to be resolved.

As it is in books, so it is in games: NORMIES WANT "THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT" ALWAYS!

That means NETWORK EFFECTS! Who is the Big Dog in Tabletop? WOTC and D&D. What do Normies only play? Official D&D. What does this move do? Load up the only game that matters with all the stuff that Normies want in the only place they will ever look. This is a very full, and growing, Walled Garden. Couple that with the announcement of Official D&D going mobile-first and you can see the plan--the pivot--in action.

All the Cargo Cultists are still deep in denial.

So are a lot of others that ought to know better, but due to those influences still refuse to see reality for what it is.

This is not a Death Of Physical. This is a Death Of Schedule Your Fun. This is a move towards what Normies proved--and have proved for over a century, by Revealed Preference--that they reward: CONVENIENCE AND FRICTIONLESS ENGAGEMENT!

Being mobile-first means that they can and will play Official D&D at work on their breaks, between doomscrolling binges, on their commutes, etc. and they will happily drop a fiver on a new race, class, etc. if it means they get a leg up on everyone else at the table. All that remains are the AI-controlled bot players and Referees.

Yes, you will live to see Snake Eyes, Optimus Prime, Estiniam Wyrmblood, Cloud Strife, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Tirian Fordring team up against Abaloth the Devourer in an official D&D module and the Normies will eat that shit up, making WOTC and their partners BILLIONS.

And because of this, "RPGs" will be defined as "Officially Licensed Brand Crossover Let's Plays".

No one will ever look at your Temu D&D again.

Commercial viability outside of this is OVER. Yes, even for Palladium; they'll just be among the last to die.

There is this, and there is the Clubhouse.

The Collapse is not only here, it is Past Tense.

The Culture: The Real Hobby Incentives After-Action Review To Upgrade Their Performance

Jeffro comments on Dunder's running adventures in the BROXT's UMBROS campaign.

This whole scenario makes no sense. Like, I really don’t get how guys like Dunder can hang around the scene for as long as he has and then still do this off the wall stuff. Judging from the way this discussion has gone the past couple of days, it is likely because he lives in kind of a cloud of people that reflexively fight any attempt to elucidate matters. Why would you put a canned OSR product into a bro campaign? Why? We already know from Trollopulous 2020 that players like doing whatever they want whenever they want with no planning. We know from Trollopulous 2023 that a couple of pages of one-page dungeons is easily enough to sustain ten or twelve 4-hour sessions. How do you look at all of that play experience and say, “man… what these campaigns need is some dude’s product dropped into it”? And didn’t we see earlier this year Dunder was talking about how he had made up all of these Settlers of Catan boards to represent kingdoms and [blah blah blah blah zzzzz] huh?! dude! what?!! Seriously, what is wrong with you?! If you are running D&D, then you need just enough of a scenario so that the players can be delighted that they have successfully stymied and thwarted whatever it was that you were trying to do. Any more than that is wasted effort. But wait. You drop this megadungeon product into the campaign because you are so taken with it. AND THEN YOU MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO GET TO IT. Okay, this alone is just awesomely funny. The BrOSR I remember would have teased Dunder relentlessly for this. Personally, I love this image of the plucky survivors running this massive gauntlet, dying in droves, players baffled and exasparated, everyone wondering just what in the heck is wrong with this campaign, and then finally… desperately… after ten or twelve or twenty sessions the players have arrived at the ENTRANCE of the adventure location and… a gigantic wolf eats half of them while they are vulnerable from breaking through the ice. The two surviving dudes get to the entrance somehow and realize that they can’t get in because someone sold the key. And the DM says that, yeah… well if you had all kept it you would have died from it because it was radioactive. Guys. That is a freaking masterpiece of game mastering awesome. IT SHOULD BE IN A MUSEUM. I mean, that is just deep meta-commentary on the nature of life, art and gaming. This is all going on in a backdrop of exploding frogs, some kind of wheelchair goblin charity benefit, and then something to do with an entire solo session with some random guy just because Dunder felt bad that he died pointlessly in the first session. But no, seriously. Here is what is so stupid. Dunder puts Fun Adventure Product™ into the campaign. Yeah, okay. Fine. Stupid. But whatever…. He then makes it practically impossible to get to the Fun™. Sotto voce: everyone has fun anyway because playing D&D is fun and stupid stuff happens no matter what you do Dunder then at every opportunity beats his breast, talks about how challenging it is to run a bro game, confesses to all in Evangelical fashion that “he has not arrived” and that he is still learning, still growing, still making mistakes. Dunder… one of the best Braunstein players in the world. He is just a babe, see?. A novice. An initiate. He has not yet attained to even a tithe of the gaming brilliance of the worst player from Trollopulous 2020. And on and on and on. He is putting out these session reports of all kinds of weird and crazy stuff. But it’s all wrapped in the framing of “something is not working. SOMETHING IS WRONG.” He has run what to the entire rest of the world is a “campaign”. And theme of the campaign was: *the players never got to the campaign.* Man that is amazing. Like I mean seriously, this is the zen koan of D&D campaigns. That is just such a deep comment on the life prospects of Gen Z right now. Incredible. Art imitates life! And that flushes out the other thing that is completely off about all of this. Let’s say Dunder made an intrinsically unplayable scenario. Let’s just agree that happened, because everybody seems to think this is the case. Even Dunder. But here’s Dunder… he has this stupid idea for a campaign which will never work. And then… all the players just dutifully feed themselves into the meat grinder week after week because, after all… that’s just what you do. You go to the table and you just do whatever it is that the DM his hinting that you are supposed to do. Because, I mean, there is just no way that you could play D&D any other way. I mean, that’s what D&D is. It is a game of pretend. The people who sell it pretend that it is a game. The DM pretends to create an adventure. And the players pretend to play it. Then the DM pretends the players won. Except you didn’t. The key was radioactive and there was a wolf at the doorway to fun. How is it that nobody involved ever thought for a moment that maybe deciding in advance what the campaign was supposed to be about was never going to work? Don’t you know by now that you just lay a few things out and then something will happen and then piece by piece, everything develops and fits together somehow and then something wild happens that is colored by things that were developed across a dozen sessions and OH MY GOSH THAT WAS JUST THE MOST AMAZING GAME. The idea that the players even went along with Dunder’s stupid idea for even a second is what really gets me. “This game is stupid and unfair,” said at least one ungrateful and unimaginative player. Maybe they won’t own up to it now, but SOMEBODY said it. And yet somehow none of those players ever attempted to take control of the game. “This game is not about getting into the Game Module of Fun™. This game is about me. This game is about finding a Troglodyte that looks like Steve Buscemi. We are going to use funds from a Goblin Charity front to create a gang of mutated freaks to take over level three of a dungeon that doesn’t exist yet. And Troglodyte Steve will be my henchman.” Or whatever. This is Meffridus 101. And no, Meffridus did not teach people to play AD&D RAW even the weird and dumb rules that the gross nerds never figured out. Meffridus taught players to take control of the game. The way Oghma did when he visited Trollopulous. That’s the craziest thing. None of these people washing up into a bro game ever thought to do that? Really? I don’t get it. If none of you can walk into an unfair game and then just make up your own victory conditions, then I don’t know what to tell you. You failed Bro 101. You all don’t need any of this #SuperAdvanced Braunstein theory. You need to go back to body builder memes and ridiculous hashtags that are weirdly inspiring. At any rate… thank you for running the bro campaign that proves we need bro campaigns. I guess it had to happen to someone. And honestly… that is just about the most Dunder thing I can imagine.

- Jeffro Johnson

Read on Substack

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.

The Culture: You Want To Be There On Wednesday For This

You'll want to be there for this one.

If you don't have this book, and you can't get it via your county library, Amazon has you covered.

The Culture: There Are Others On The Road That The Bros Blazed

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.

The Culture: Substack Is Where The Receipts Are Now

You need to be on Substack.

Umbros Docket: The Second Battle of Firsthaven by Angry Steak

Run: July 14, 2026

Read on Substack

This is where the receipts get posted.

This is where Jeffro can be found.

This is now where the real discourse exists.

The Business: Wizards Confirms The Fortnite Strategy

Wizards of the Coast dropped their keynote at GenCon.

What I told you is on the cards is confirmed.

WOTC's taking Official D&D down the Fortnite route of All The Brand crossovers while outsourcing its own IP to aligned 3rd parties to make stuff and going mobile-centric with MXT. Time for the smug face. pic.twitter.com/bnQAF6U4SY

— Bradford C. Walker (@MrBCWalker) July 30, 2026

Major Announcements

Dark Sun returns (Season of Survival, 2027) as D&D’s first mature-rated fifth-edition setting. The harsh world of Athas features defiling magic, psionics, and sorcerer-kings. Releases include the gameplay expansion Dark Sun: Blood and Power, the adventure expansion Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion, a map pack, DM screen, and a limited-edition Player’s Handbook with alternate art. It introduces the Scion/Psion class and carries content warnings for violence and mature themes (shrink-wrapped with a warning). Localized editions (French, Italian, German, Spanish) follow later in 2027.

Universes Beyond launches as a new crossover initiative:

• D&D: World of Warcraft (Season of Champions, November 2026; early access ~Nov 3, full release Nov 17) brings Azeroth to the table with 13 classes (new/reimagined subclasses and specializations), 16 species (including Dracthyr, Vulpera, etc.), 60+ spells, monsters, dungeons (including reimagined iconic ones), factions with renown, mounts, and more. A map pack with Icecrown Citadel content and other accessories are planned.
• A Star Wars collaboration (Season of Rebellion, 2027) was teased, with more details to come.

D&D Icons (led by Joe Manganiello) pairs legendary creators with the studio:

• Dragonlance with Tracy Hickman.
• Greyhawk with Luke Gygax (drawing on Gary Gygax’s notes, partly through Melf’s perspective).
• Drizzt Do’Urden content with R.A. Salvatore.

Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen is a full-length adventure expanding on Drelnza (vampire daughter of Iggwilv/Tasha) from classic material.

Studio partnerships for more setting content: Ghostfire Gaming (Ravenloft, 2027), Visionary Productions (Eberron adventure featuring the Lord of Blades, 2028), and Kobold Press (Forgotten Realms content, 2028).

D&D Beyond

updates emphasize making the game easier to play together:

• Live Looking for Group tools (Event Finder for stores, rebuilt Discord LFG, limited-time cheap sessions via StartPlaying).
• Upcoming features: rebuilt search, DM prep tools (scene manager, map pins, etc.), mapless encounter tools.
• New mobile app (early 2027) powered by a new rules engine.

Other notes: The Warlock video game protagonist’s patron is the archfey Tasha (voiced by Maggie Robertson); full gameplay reveal at Gamescom Opening Night Live (Aug 25). The official actual-play series Dungeon Masters will visit Azeroth then return to the Forgotten Realms (Icewind Dale). Arcana Unleashed (Season of Magic) arrives in September 2026 with subclasses, backgrounds, feats, spells, and more.

The presentation positioned these as additive to core D&D worlds, with staffing increased to support both classic settings and crossovers, aiming to bring more players to the table across formats. Official details and the full roadmap are available on D&D Beyond and the Dungeons & Dragons site.

Told you so.

All that's missing is the AI bots to run games and fill out parties; those are still in the works, so we'll hear more about those down the road.

The Culture: Jeffro Explains The Suppression Efforts

Jeffro explains why the Bros lack visibility despite their paradigm-shaping work.

This is an interesting suggestion. I can tell you what has happened over the past few years. 1) The big brains of the BrOSR inner circle have been entirely eaten up with working out what rpgs really are and how to achieve the best results of them. This effort largely upends what even the progenitors would say about it all. 2) Meanwhile commentators, historians, and YouTube personalities have taken on a reading of rpg history that interpolates today’s BrOSR practices and framing and even terminology into the past. It is presumed that people in the bad old days did things the BrOSR way even though everyone else in communication with the BrOSR has been telling us that “no one played that way”, “not even Gygax played that way”, and “Jeffro does not play RAW”, etc. etc. 3) My own work, “How to Win at D&D”, which outlines elements BrOSR thinking that actually were extant in the actual game rules of rpgs produced in the 70s and which subsequently evaporated over the course of the 1980s as rpgs were redefined…? It is not cited by anyone at all even though it is the first work ever published to conclusively make the case that something is wildly off in how people have been describing rpg history over the past few decades. I don’t know what the next move in all of this should be, but I have gotten practically no requests at all for me to continue doing “anthropological” work of that sort. People that have attached themselves in a more or less parasitic manner to the BrOSR scene tend to speak of it not at all and betray little interest in the matter. Perhaps because there is no money in it or perhaps because someone bullied them and/or paid them to lay off.

- Jeffro Johnson

Read on Substack

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.

The Culture: Observe Cargo Cult Cognitive Dissonance In Action

While I have little respect for Glickner, and none for that goblin with the receding lairline that shits out copy for him, that Derek guy gets it right more than not and Glickner if he in his very narrow range of expertise tends to be right half the time.

Derek said that Hasbro would push WOTC to spread their Fortnite strategy in Magic: The Gathering to The Only Game That Matters. WOTC is doing exactly that.

This is going to work. It worked for Magic. It will work for Official D&D because WOTC's target audience--those hopelessly yoked to Beyond--are exactly the sort of Casuals, Tourists, and Normies that want to do The Current Thing and have no problems treating D&D like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

They want it all. They want it in one place. They want to pay one price to get all of it. They want one set of rules to play all of it. That is the Fortnite and Roblox model AND IT FUCKING WORKS! They know it works because they have the data showing that it works, and they have sufficient institutional knowledge of what Network Effects are, how they work, and why they work that way to prove that this is the smartest strategy for them, Commercial Corpo Tabletop.

For the hobby as a whole? That's a different question.

Being that RFC is made up of Cargo Cultists, they cannot fathom why despite acknowledging that this is going to work and work like gangbusters there is no viable form of competition within the commercial sphere- and that includes everyone that begs on Kickstarter for money.

To the extent that they are played at all, it is because they are within D&D's Network Effect and leverage that to their advantage. That said, they aren't played nearly as much as boosters and publishers want you to believe; none of them solve the Six Session Suckout, the dropoff of interest is akin to that between Normal and Savage raiding in FF14-

Not exaggerating; that sort of "Fuck This Shit I'm Out" has been consistent across the generations, as Ryan Dancey revealed over 25 years ago. The Brand matters, as it is the heart of the Network Effect.

This is why Only D&D--real D&D--Can Kill D&D.

So just play D&D--real D&D--and leave the poseurs selling Temu D&D behind.

The Culture: This Oldfag Is Lying To Your Face

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.

The Culture: The Bros Showed How Simpler And Easier This Way Is

It really is this simple.

14 people are better at entertaining each other than one guy that thinks of himself as a brilliant world builder, fantasist, author and stage manager.

- Jeffro Johnson

Read on Substack

The Cargo Cult and the Techno-Corpos at WOTC are doing the meme.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

The Culture: Reading The Manual Avoids The Issue, Go Figure

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.

The thing about Braunstein is that it solves the biggest problem in all of hobby gaming: getting players. No players exist to play the wargame on your shelf that you bought twenty years ago. No players exist to play in that obscure rpg that you have wondered about for your entire life. Every gamer I have ever met has entire shelves of unplayed games and practically zero opponents. Start thinking about everything through the lens of a Braunstein, and… suddenly everything works. Getting games on the table ceases to be a chore. Incorporating people that have no idea what is going on becomes not just feasible but also fun. While conventional rpg sessions seem to devolve into weird humiliation rituals, Braunstein events are more akin to a party. Play is simply happening in this decade in a way that was not happening previously. We know this is the case because BrOSR play generates new referees all the time whereas conventional “forever DMs” have nothing to show for their efforts.

- Jeffro Johnson

Read on Substack

The Culture: It's Not Just The H-1Bs Scamming You, Gamer

Witness three useless faggots try to justify their existence.

"So Professor, why did you make Yet Another B/X Retard Clone?"

"Because I am a Very Smart Boi who knows the Real Thing better than the creator so I made the game in my head and suckered you retards into giving me over a million for it."

"You are very smart."

Fuck fuck's sake, this is as Jeet as it can get without anyone actually being a Jeet. Sure, unlike the Scam Race, the Professor will actually deliver but we have Yet Another Fucking B/X Clone when the real B/X is right there and legally available; the only reason to buy a clone is to either do scummy shit with the money or because you're a retard that can't hack playing the real thing.

That is before accounting for B/X being inferior to the Real Game (AD&D1e).

You don't need this crap. You don't need to Consume Product. You need a real game and you need to Git Gud at it. 10K Hours playing the Real Game is superior to giving this waste of flesh, or anyone else making clones, a penny of your money or a second of your time- and yes, you can play for free if you have the hookup (i.e. dig through the Internet Archive or other online PDF archives).

Or you can play a fully functional game like AD&D.

The Culture: Witness The Cargo Cult Madness In Action

Chubby Funster dropped this video earlier this week.

To which Jeffro responded:

This is legitimately weird. 1) it demonstrates that playing in a conventional game is really about playing in a game world that nobody is playing in 2) it highlights how turning even a supposedly good campaign setting into a “living world” in this fashion requires you to ignore half or more of the adventure hooks outright. Who is actually going to do this? 3) to simulate the effects of braunstein play in a conventional game requires the referee to track all kinds of things and then present events and scenarios in such a particular way that neither the players nor the factions have any real autonomy 4) it would be far easier to actually run any kind of Braunstein game… But of course, this type of gaming content isn't for people that actually run games. It doesn't have to work. It doesn't have to produce replicable results. It just has to sound smart. That's it!

- Jeffro Johnson

Read on Substack

It is simpler and easier for all involved to just use Braunstein methods. Literally the meme here.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

The Business: Behold Grifting Beast Shilling Crap No One Needs For Games No One Plays, Again

When I say that most Cargo Cultists are Consumerist Product Pushers constantly shilling on the position of "Your game is shit. Buy this widget to fix it" this is it.

Civilized societies string these leeches up and hang them from lampposts.

You don't need this if you have a competent game. You make your own as you go, and as such you care about what happens because YOU HAVE SKIN THE GAME!

This? This is Frustrated Narrative Faggot Syndrome in action, the refuse shat out the anus of a frustrated fake writer and repackaged as a Tabletop supplement hoping to score some sucker's paycheck. Even the Pundit doesn't crap out this waste of wood pulp.

You need a real game (AD&D1e), a blank map, some dice, and about 15-30 minutes. This, at a leisurely pace, gets you what you need to get started.

Everything else is a waste of time, a waste of money, and a waste of attention. Everything. Else.

The Culture: They Keep Trying To Steer Things Back Into Their Cave Prison

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.