The Path to a Superior Hobby

A blueprint for escaping conventional play

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.

This holistic view of the game can be surprising—especially to those who have internalized what we now can see are mistaken or contradictory ideas. A misread here, a misunderstanding there, a false assumption—40 years of blind grasping has created an alien form of play called “D&D” whose fundamental elements are a confused facsimile of the original impetus and mindset that powered² AD&D.

But the formalization of this approach—summarized for brevity as “BROSR play”—has been a difficult subject for both its proponents and its detractors. It is easy to isolate an idea and reason about possible flaws, but this method of analysis misses the bigger picture and subtly invokes assumptions which do not apply across the whole. On the other hand, explaining BROSR play relies on this same analysis but in reverse: the individual elements must be justified beginning with assumptions and perspectives inaccessible to the uninitiated.

Understanding the heart of BROSR play is the key to getting more out of TTRPGs. The impetus for this body of knowledge comes to us from the past, but its revitalization and perfection will be what enables the future of TTRPG design. We will recover the ability to make worthy contenders!

Let’s attempt to escape the cycle of confusion and get the message across about the future of TTRPGs.

Conventional Play

A common misunderstanding is perceiving BROSR play, Old School Renaissance (OSR) play, and conventional play as a menu of stylistic options. Some even internalize the BROSR as an offshoot of OSR. The label³ “BROSR” is a weak portmanteau of “bro” and “OSR,” after all, so these sorts of confusions are understandable.

However, BROSR play is best understood and framed as a total departure from conventional play. While OSR play has noteworthy differences from the tone and implied goals of conventional play, BROSR play requires a complete transformation of approach and mindset.

“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.

Rather than pursue an ill-fated attempt to define “conventional play,” it is sufficient for our purposes to identify the patterns it routinely invokes:

• Priority: Players > Campaign > Rules

• Mono-party

• Pre-determined story or impetus for the mono-party to act

• Incidental, static gameworld

By contrast, BROSR play patterns are alien to these tables:

• Priority: Rules > Campaign > Players

• Parties of opportunity

• Total Player Autonomy

• Reactive, responsive gameworld at the center of all campaign activity

Let’s examine these in more detail to clarify the meaning and effects of these distinctions.

I. Priority

The referee must sometimes render a decision on matters not explicitly outlined in the rules. The optimal decision is one that enhances the game’s overall cohesiveness and success. Without a strict hierarchical ordering, the game’s rules, the campaign’s integrity⁴, and the sentiments of the players exist in natural tension, with each fighting for moment-to-moment priority.

In conventional play, it is overwhelmingly the case that a referee will choose to ignore a rule he deems incompatible with his vision for the campaign. Referees will also compromise their campaign integrity if it would spare ill feelings for the players; even referees who instinctively know this is wrong are sorely tempted towards it, as evidenced by the thousands of discussions on this topic.

But in BROSR play, the players come to the table having signed a waiver of sorts. Their sensibilities may circumstantially come under fire to maintain the campaign’s disinterested stance towards their characters’ existence. Similarly, a referee must occasionally sacrifice some notion or element present in the campaign if it is not correspondent with the patterns embedded in the game rules. Because the rules are held above the campaign, the players can be confident that gameworld interactions are judicious and consistent.

A level playing field of rules deference is the only way to make multi-party tables and multi-table campaigns possible. This is a tell that our gameworld can handle the consequences of total player autonomy.

II. Party Focus

The default conventional play assumption is that sessions will be played with the same lineup of players controlling the same lineup of characters. This assumption is so widespread and thorough that it has warped the common understanding of the term “party” and is largely responsible for the wider confusions about the nature and potential of TTRPGs⁵.

In conventional play, this mono-party is the de facto center of the universe. The gameworld becomes an amorphous fog, crystallizing into local solidity only at the mono-party’s presence. Eventually, anything that happens in the gameworld is connected to the mono-party. Any event must be related to the mono-party’s quest. An approach by an NPC must signal a line of progress through the mono-party’s plot. When news from afar reaches the mono-party’s ears, it is an indirect plea for them to intervene. Put plainly, the gameworld is not a world but merely a stage.

In stark contrast, BROSR play makes no presumptions about who will be present for any session because parties are “strike teams” assembled for purpose from the pool of characters accessible to whichever players show up. It is useful to illustrate this difference with an explicit example:

How real parties are assembled

The players Carl, Dale, and Eric have characters spread across the campaign map from previous adventures. The three players have decided that objectives around either the village of Lowtown or the city Maintown are the most pressing targets. Note that the referee does not decide where and why play happens—the players decide.

Carl has characters in both places, but Eric has nothing in Lowtown, while Dale has nothing in Maintown. No matter which area they choose to begin their adventure, at least one of the players must make a new character.

If a fourth player arrives at the session, he will add his available characters for consideration. Players may decide where to go based on the distribution of classes, for example; a ranger or druid may be particularly suited to tackle a local objective. The conditions near Maintown may be unfavorable for adventuring due to the weather, a standoff between kingdoms, or similar calendar-based issues.

There are a host of such considerations, none of which ever occur with mono-party conventional play.

III. Player Agency

In BROSR play, the way parties are assembled and objectives are achieved inherently acts as a supporting pillar for player agency. Players are making impactful decisions before a session even begins. The state of the campaign map—including the distribution of available characters—determines what objectives are within reach. The players decide which objectives they prefer and strategize about optimal parties and preparations. Notably, parties are assembled on a temporary basis for mutual gain, with no guarantees of future cooperation between members.

In conventional play, the reality-warping presence of the mono-party comes with demands for their persistence and unity⁶. Canonical characters must be provided with some impetus which assures they are not at odds—this almost universally requires a rigged “story” involving a nemesis. The constant need to provide arbitrary reasons for the mono-party to stick together is awkward and demoralizing for everyone at the table.

Bradford C. Walker

sums it up best:

Conventional Play Problem: "I can't do anything without Narrative contrivance to shake things up."

Explanation: In order to keep a Conventional Get Along Gang together as a cohesive unit focused on a single objective, there needs to be a violation of player agency that imposes a burden of performance upon the players’ characters in order for them to do anything but the safest route to success.

Players come to resent this over time …

The worst and lowest aspect of the mono-party is how it subtly erodes player agency until almost nothing is left. Consider a session where a character Bob commits a grievous mistake, causing a terrible outcome. In BROSR play, it would not be out of place for other characters present to cut ties with Bob, swear vengeance against him, or even detain or kill him if his actions were viewed as particularly egregious. In conventional play, these reactions would be unthinkable—the players would need to come up with a reason their characters will continue to tolerate Bob. The BROSR players could do the same, but the choice is theirs without qualification.

Cutting out whole families of character choices leads to a passive player stance—players that are too active and dialed into their characters eventually become conditioned to scale back their engagement. It is sad to reflect on the fact that the vast pool of players brought up on conventional play are hesitant, unassertive, and deferential on the median. It is much more effective to poach board gamers or wargamers than to attempt drawing from this pool.

IV. Gameworld

The gameworld’s role in conventional play is secondary to the mono-party. If a kingdom falls in the east, and the mono-party doesn’t care, did it even really happen? In conventional play, the answer is not so clear.

BROSR play is dominated in every respect by the primacy of the gameworld. Players strategize over the campaign map, weighing possibilities in the same way a poker player would evaluate a dealt hand. The gameworld functions according to the logic set out by the rules, and it frets not over the success or failure of the characters that inhabit it—including the player-controlled characters. This dynamic allows for the players to move the needle of campaign events without the need for pre-written story or arbitrary fiat. Any lasting change made to the gameworld was earned in the arena.

The impact of this effect on player mentality is profound. The level of investment players have in an event brought about by their own actions—when all the other mutually exclusive events were, at one time, distinct possibilities—is simply unmatched and is a prime source for deep satisfaction. This aspect of persistence, of the gameworld acknowledging successes and failures in a permanent way, is what the hordes of MMO hoppers are seeking; yet, it is only truly available in a TTRPG where the campaign is the primary object.

In this sense of the word, conventional play “campaigns” don’t even exist. This foundational term has been twisted into a new meaning at conventional tables, wrapped up in constrained implications of narrative/story & mono-party spotlighting. A “campaign” in conventional play is smoke & mirrors; behind the curtain, there is a performer loading up his next trick rather than a reliable clockwork mechanism impassively tracking cause & effect.

Making Progress

Without hands-on experience, the distinctions between the modes of conventional vs. BROSR play (as described thus far) could appear merely stylistic. Even if we glean from the above comparisons that there is something different available, the question still remains: how do we achieve the leap from one to the other?

Fortunately, all that’s required is a mindset shift. The correct ordering of the elements that comprise TTRPG play is necessary to unlock the power and beauty of the medium; this is the key to better gameplay and better future designs.

BROSR play relies on an approach that is incompatible with modern conventions. To force these incompatibilities to the surface, we recommend implementing a campaign that diligently follows four basic patterns⁷:

• Rules As Written (RAW)

• 1:1 timekeeping

• Interaction at all scales of play

• Continuous Braunstein⁸

This four-fold setup is a one-stop shop for understanding BROSR play. It can be implemented into new or existing campaigns, and its appearance will initially feel familiar to those brought up on conventional play.

To be effective, these patterns must be held as axioms—it must become unthinkable to violate any of these at any point. Conventional play could be perceived as the result of compromising on each of these patterns for ease until they slowly become “optimized” out of gameplay altogether. Think of these four as our Chesterton fence holding back our descent into the sludge of conventional play.

A word of caution: one cannot easily sit and reason about the consequences and second-order effects of adopting these axioms. The downstream effects are unintuitive and difficult to articulate using the conventional-play terminology we’re all stuck with now. The best way to understand is to run the experiment, committing to a predetermined duration (e.g. 10-15 table sessions).

The Four Pillars

a) RAW

There are many reasons RAW is the default and the gold standard for interacting with every kind of game. The abandonment of this standard in conventional play has done incalculable damage to the hobby and caused its most natural participants to view it with confusion or even disgust.

We have written extensively⁹ on the topic of Rules As Written (RAW). The defense of this approach and its many implications are not addressed here; instead, we are focused on correct implementation into the game.

RAW implies a great reliance on the underlying game system used at the table, and the fact is that most TTRPGs will not be able to support this demand to a high standard. BROSR proponents have settled on recommending only AD&D, ACKS, and (Classic) Traveller as game systems that can sustain complete campaigns. These games ace the important practical attributes for RAW seekers.

1. Internal Consistency

When we reflect on events that happened in session, a self-consistent ruleset can convey to us where we made the correct moves and rulings and where we were mistaken¹⁰. There will always be fragile points in a campaign where players must lean heavily on the rules, for lack of better guidance. Internal consistency becomes load-bearing strength during these crucial moments.

2. Diegetic Intent

A ruleset that is only intended for underwater dungeon exploration with a party of four characters is going to fail at the table when one character attempts to use his accumulated wealth to house a mercenary force in a barracks he constructed above-ground.

For a gameworld to be taken seriously, the designer must avoid crafting rat mazes which the players are never intended to escape. This does not imply that a “complete” ruleset—specifying every conceivable activity—is necessary. For the gameworld to “make sense,” it must approach diegesis¹¹. Arbitrary restrictions that do not have an in-world basis will necessarily lead to nonsensical implications and/or dead-end design space.

b) 1:1 Time

Especially for skeptics, there is no way around 1:1 time¹². This is the biggest filter for understanding BROSR play, thus it is the highest priority and most essential axiom to correctly uphold when experimenting. For deep reasons beyond the bounds of this piece, 1:1 time is the cure-all potion¹³ that ensures conventional play dynamics cannot slowly creep in and overtake our campaigns.

It is conceptually simple and easy to implement with a calendar. For each day that passes in the real world, one day passes in the game world. Imagine we hold a session on April 14th. It will be April 14th in the gameworld when the session begins. This played-through session is summarized, in terms of time expenditure, as follows:

• 2 days traveling to another town

• 1 day resting & gathering information

• 1 day dungeon delving in the local crypt

• 3 days of rest & recovery

• 2 days traveling back to our original starting point

This adds up to a total of 9 gameworld days, completing on April 23rd (in the gameworld). If we hold another session on April 21st, the characters from the previous session are not available—they have two days of “time jail” left before their canonized actions are completed.

Time as a Real Resource

No important activity in a 1:1 time campaign is ever handwaved. Whether our ranger character wishes to scout, hunt, or dabble in alchemy, each action takes some concrete amount of time. Magic research, interrogations, spying, hiring—these activities are not merely for flavor but represent substant decision-making & weighing opportunity costs in pursuit of tangible in-world gains.

Time is disbursed equally to all campaign participants, and the “payments” are on a regular, predictable schedule. In conventional campaigns, months or even years of gameworld time can pass between one session and the next. But in a 1:1 campaign, everyone receives one day of gameworld time per real-world day. This organization keeps players attuned with the flow of gameworld events and allows for the goal-oriented use of downtime without ever disrupting precious table time during a session.

More than a Table—a Hobby

An important consequence of 1:1 time is that two separate campaigns can be mashed together as long as “geographic” linkages are made clear. Multiple tables hosting multiple parties can participate in the same world because a heartbeat sync is possible.

c) Full-scale Interaction

Realizing gameworld primacy at the table requires great care. Without the right game design solutions, the resolution of campaign events can swamp a table in work.

Combat & Conquest Perspective

Consider any TTRPG ruleset with highly complex combat rules. With 3 or 4 characters per side, resolving combat could be an engaging and decision-rich activity. But if a campaign situation requires us to resolve a 20v20, the work required becomes overwhelming. And this engagement is tiny! A battle could have hundreds or thousands of participating fighters—not merely difficult but completely infeasible.

The most common solution is simple: don’t invite or instantiate larger conflicts. But there are deep problems with this approach.

The accumulation of resources is a foundational pillar of strategy, regardless of arena. A larger force will characteristically defeat a smaller one (all else equal). Thus, NPC factions seek power through growth to achieve a higher degree of control over available resources.

If the NPCs are bringing mass wealth and manpower to important engagements, why should player characters not seek to do the same? Insisting on “small encounters” is an arbitrary and anti-diegetic approach that limits the possibilities for player characters and brings into question the primacy of the gameworld.

The Cost of Arbitrary Limits

In an ideal TTRPG, the player mindset and the character mindset are one; the player’s rules knowledge gives him insight into his character’s perception and mode of thinking. If a character naturally belongs to the gameworld where growth and wealth are the fundamental modes of success, that character will be inclined to believe in pursuing growth and wealth to achieve success.

But if the resolution mechanisms make it arduous and tedious for the player to pursue that path, then the connection between player and character is not only lost but unattainable. If resolving a legitimate encounter would take 100 hours (of real-world table time), respectful players will avoid saddling the table with this demand by sacrificing their characters’ true intentions and aspirations.

As an example, if our character is loyal to a sovereign, he will naturally wish to accumulate followers for his cause. On the other hand, he will also lend his strength to the defense of his sovereign faction, assembling in the service of his superiors. To put it in combat terms, this character should be able to collect and lead other characters, but he should also be able to slot his forces into a larger conglomerate. It is a sad fact that most TTRPG rulesets are silent on how this should be resolved in game.

Positive Example: The AD&D Assassin

Large vs. small combat scenarios are good comparisons to illustrate the central idea, but this principle applies to all activity in TTRPGs—not just combat. A sublime example is how the AD&D assassin role is handled.

AD&D provides the spying system, the assassination table, and the disguise system to help us understand the assassin’s class role while also teaching us how to practically play out scenarios where assassins are involved. These tools¹⁴ allow us to resolve any circumstance that assassins could encounter during campaign play, but they also allow that resolution to happen at the most appropriate scope of gameplay.

If an assassin player decides to spy on a freshly discovered bandit camp in the midst of an already crowded session, the referee may judge it best to simplify the attempt to the D100 roll available in the spying system. If the assassin player instead declares he will scout the bandit camp during downtime, the referee may decide to play out the attempt during some uneventful evening using the more “zoomed-in” disguise system. The options that exist between these two examples are all covered by the same systems and process of judgment.

These three systems have enough breadth to overlap but can be circumstantially treated as orthogonal. This incredible flexibility supports player autonomy while ensuring the table can resort to lightning-fast resolution, if necessary. Keeping the full scope of the game within reach at all times is alien to conventional play; as a result, conventional tables resort to handwaving anything that lies outside the rat maze.

d) Continuous Braunstein

The surest path to understanding Braunsteins is to try them. Some conceptual scaffolding is useful, though. We begin by asking, “What is a Braunstein?”

The Braunstein name and concept originate from a game session constructed by David Wesely. It was a Diplomacy-like setup at the scale of a small town rather than a world war. The rules formalism was light and open-ended—in the spirit of Free Kriegspiel—with Wesely taking on the role of referee and the other players acting as the town residents. The game turned chaotic; Wesely imagined he would meet with the players one by one and then use his interrogations to carefully construct a sequence of resolutions from “complete” information, but the other players plotted and schemed among themselves while he was out of the room, leaving every player (including the referee) in the fog of war.

This evening session so heavily influenced the creation of OD&D that some proclaim Braunstein as the “First RPG” or so on.

However, the fruit of BROSR experiments reveals a different role in the hierarchy of RPGs for the Braunstein. Jeffro Johnson deserves outsized credit among the BROSR for incisive conclusions on AD&D’s intended method of play¹⁵, culminating in the concept of TTRPGs as vehicles for Braunstein play.

In one of his summaries, he clarifies:

AD&D is a toolkit for managing Braunstein interactions.

Sometimes your D&D session focuses on a dungeon delve. Other times it’s a wilderness journey. Sometimes you resolve a titanic miniatures battle that will change the face of your game world. You move between these play modes without thinking about it. Braunstein deserves the same type of treatment.

Braunstein deserves to be a first-class element of a continuing campaign.

Anatomy of a Braunstein

An operational definition is “multiple independent actors operating in conflict under a fog of war.” At first glance, the definition seems far too inclusive to be of practical use.

It has three elements: actors, conflict, and uncertainty¹⁶. The key is to think about what’s missing. If we were trying to apply this definition to wargame-y RPGs like AD&D, we’re missing logistics systems and combat resolution mechanics, and so on. If we want this to apply to character-driven “drama” games, we’re missing character systems and social dynamics systems. If we wish for the definition to include exploration-based games, we’re missing discovery mechanics and worldgen systems.

The simple, satisfying pattern is summarized

Braunstein + [formalism] = a style of RPG

Consider the example of wargames. A wargame formalizes the interactions between our actors, providing a scenario backdrop to contextualize the nature of the conflict. We have previously made arguments that if this “scenario” is an entire gameworld, then we have evolved into the Final Form of the wargame: the TTRPG. From the Braunstein perspective, this leap from wargame → TTRPG results from the introduction of the Braunstein, morphing the (finite) scenario into a Second World with unlimited potential depth and breadth for player action.

This reframing of TTRPGs allows us to see why Braunsteins can be “placed” into any game—the game is merely a vehicle for the Braunstein. We apply whatever formalisms are appropriate to our scenario and intentions, and the Braunstein does the rest.

Setting Up and Executing the Braunstein

Thankfully, a community effort has produced Brozer: Island of War and Winter, a thorough example with advice aimed at getting started. It has everything from highly detailed faction setups to practical advice on how to begin and develop an ongoing Braunstein.

As a structural summary, the necessary elements to start up a Braunstein are:

• Several factions or important characters with distinct stances and/or goals

• Free-form decision-making by players—no rat mazes!

• A focusing event or object—an in-world reason to pay attention and seek decisive action

• A basic map of possible faction headquarters, event sites, and relevant facilities

Brozer includes a classification system for Braunsteins, focusing on its recommended ‘Type I’ setup—a one-off scenario that can reach a speedy conclusion. This is a great learning exercise, and it is a good recommendation¹⁷. However, the full ramifications of BROSR play are going to be most apparent with a fully-loaded ‘Type III’ setup—the Continuous Braunstein implemented directly into a full campaign.

Try Before You Buy

A great element of the Braunstein-focused BROSR play is that pre-existing belief in its methods is unnecessary. With the overview presented here, and excellent resources like Brozer: Island of War and Winter or the hoard of relevant session reports¹⁸, any capable hobbyist can envision and begin their own experiments and develop their own findings.

The hierarchy of TTRPG play has been confused and ambiguous for decades. A more concrete hierarchy, with its elements ordered more correctly, is a tangible improvement placing us a step closer to a bright future for the hobby. It can be the basis of standards & quality just as easily as it can be a creative inspiration.

This new perspective is a gift to players and designers alike. It is our duty to seize upon these new insights to build a better hobby!

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1. They have pursued RAW not in the sense of legalistic sniping that Gygax warns explicitly against (AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, pg. 230) but in a better way.

2. The “Always On” Campaign highlights many of the fundamental differences between RAW AD&D and conventional assumptions.

3. And it is merely a label. “BROSR” is not meant to be self-descriptive as a term and is never used that way.

4. There are a number of subtly different usages for “campaign.” Here we mean, “the instantiated gameworld in which play occurs.” Gygax notably uses the term this way in AD&D.

5. Whole books could be written about the negative downstream effects of the mono-party. For a strong second source, try The Tyranny of the Spotlight.

6. “Getalong Gang” is the natural result of guarding against game outcomes that might cause competition between table participants. Just let characters disagree; it will be fine!

7. These patterns are discussed in an excellent long-form reflection on BROSR experiments here (youtube link).

8. According to Brozer classification, this is a Type III Braunstein. When running at full capacity, it is the most demanding variety. This particular type is a great “gateway Braunstein,” allowing players to gradually understand BROSR play. The downside is that “gradual” is slow; it takes time for the campaign to deliver.

9. See The Cult of RAW.

10. The feedback mechanism of the RGE cycle demonstrates the relationship between RAW, player skill, and player improvement.

11. Diegesis, the desirable “completeness” of rules, and the unique strengths of TTRPG gameworlds are clarified in Unlocking TTRPG Supremacy.

12. A painstakingly clear and unambiguous examination of timekeeping methods—including their strengths, weaknesses, and general capabilities—is available in Part 1 and Part 2 of Timekeeping in TTRPGs.

13. Jeffrogaxian Timekeeping vs. Variable Timekeeping is an excellent additional source for the mechanics and merits of 1:1 time.

14. The systems add up to only a few total pages in length but provide so much coverage that it is difficult to summarize. Part 1 of Resolution Systems examines the ramifications of the design, exploring detailed examples.

15.

Legendsmith

has a great writeup about designer intent and intended methods.

16. This is operational uncertainty, owing to the absence of complete information. In other words, the player must commit to actions in partial ignorance. This is not the same as fundamental uncertainty, which is modeled by e.g. dice-rolling.

17. With the introduction of 1:1 time, multiple events can begin cropping up and colliding. Combining them into a Type I Braunstein is a clever and powerful way to enhance campaign canon, resolving pent-up campaign energy that might otherwise have vanished.

18. There are so many sessions reports that it is difficult to credit them all. Choice examples are the Dubzaron campaign reports and the Machodor Sessions.