Add in Fiend Folio along with Deities & Demigods. These are important books and do not alter the game. The rules Gary wrote and his time examples are in game play examples, not downtime examples. This is crystal clear in the DMG. If you peek at the original time keeping in OD&D you will see 1:1 time for anything outside of an "adventure" to which he assigns a 1 week time slot. There are Bros who prefer this type of timekeeping. The only real difference in 1e is that the 1 week time slot is now variable based upon actions and time spent during play. I'd like to bring you into a server to experience the game as we play it when you are ready. Nice video WGB. Closer than a lot get.
Started playing in '83 as a kid & we used domains in my first campaign w/ PVP but the game was "off" & have ever since whenever players show interest. Sometimes they don't. In highschool I played in two campaigns. One was exclusively 2e mostly RAW, only had 3 players, no domain play & the game was "off" when we left. The other campaign was a 1e + 2e + BECMI mix. It had over a dozen players w/ various levels of engagement. We used domain play w/ PVP & game was always on when the PCs had off time but we didn't scale game time to real time 1 to 1.
The Bros are definitely having a good time. Scutifer Mike is showing solo play receipts with alternative systems. The Joy of Wargaming completed 50 live streams dedicated to 1e RAW Solo. Dunder Moose is hosting post-game debriefings that summarize the Braunstein-style sessions and lessons learned from both players and referees.
I’ve ran ADND before but never raw, goodness that has to be rough. Then again my players don’t like to sit through loads of text and mental exercises to try and understand what was meant when it was written, they came from 5e. So I ran things very rules light and converted the thatco system to a d20 system they were more comfortable with. Then again I love make things up as I go and the writing them down to be referenced later….
5:04 now I did run 1:1 time, the only time is changed was in play, however when we weren’t playing it was 1::1. This was to allow the players to do any crafting researching, ect that isn’t directly correlated to the plot or combat.
What you are describing is how we were playing OD&D in later 70's. BEFORE AD&D. That is sandboxing, the players make their own drama. If it gets too slow, roll for a random encounter. Simple.
I have considered 1:1 in the past but most of the games I'm in are far to irregular to make it work. I'd have to tailor the game to work that way if we really wanted to do it. Most of my games thought work best as television episodes. I like the bronstien stuff would love to get that working in a game.
Ironically, the part of what the BroSR is doing that is 'real D&D' is the part about playing the game the way you and your table wants to. All that other stuff about 'you're not doing it right' is exactly what Wizards of the Coast has been doing for years now- trying to compel D&D players to play in the approved manner, only having the right kind of fun, with the right kind of people.
I discovered the OSR through Professor DM's and Questing Beasts videos about "Gygax's lost campaign rules", wher 1:1 time, domain level play, wargaming and inter-party interaction was discussed. My response to this was this sounds a lot more like what I was expecting when I started DnD with 5e. So you can imagine my shock when I started exploring the OSR and discovered that those topics are essentially ignored.
@@Mega1russell these are definitely rules that interest me, and should be discussed more in the OSR. I like the idea of D&D as a wargame. It started off as one!
This is EXACTLY what my experience was. I was born in '82, but started D&D with 5e. I quickly became dissilutioned with 5e, thinking this isn't what I thought D&D was. Dive headfirst into TSR D&D, and found what I was looking for. I couldn't believe how much was dismissed in the 5e books.
@@pewprofessional3181 All of the domain play and mass combat stuff was cut out since TSR D&D. These were some of my favorite things. I would get a castle, an army, and there would be sieges, politics, factions…
@@wizardgoesboom Even in AD&D there really wasn't much support for "domain play and mass combat". Core rules said you gained strongholds or whatever at a certain level, but didn't really give any support for doing anything with them. Mass combat rules were late optional source books at best. Battlesystem? Or just Dragon mag articles. Even less support for any other aspects of domain play - running your stronghold and whatever economics/politics go along with that. All the high level modules I can think of ignored anything anything about the strongholds those high level characters should have had, for example.
@ Yes, to get all the bells and whistles of mass combat, you probably needed Battle System. But the Bros suggest stacking units on a 10:1 scaling and using that for mass combat. And you are right, support for domain play seemed a bit like an afterthought
I have trouble believing even the BrOSR consistently use the Psionics or Unarmed Combat DMG rules or its monthly d% for parasitic infestation. OTOH I do use 1:1 time as the default these days, certainly at the month and year scales. Often need to be flexible at the Day scale.
With Psionics it is always a hope that no one rolls any Psykers. I absolutely use parasitic infection as do my Brothers. Unarmed combat is amazing and can lead to level 1s smash grabbing those pesky high levels. We play real D&D.
Old-school D&D is much better than "modern" play and 1e is a great option. But, religiously using RAW for any edition of D&D is highly questionable, unless you are playing in a paid tournament. My group played 1e RAW when it first came out. Eventually, we kept what made the game more fun for us, but dropped every rule that made it worse than OD&D. We ended up dropping a lot. Later, I learned that other groups were ignoring the same bad rules or rewriting them to work better. If you really like RAW best, then by all means play that way. But don't do it because a cult leader tells you to.
@@vidgrip8622 I never played AD&D RAW, so we used house rules a lot and usually on the same rules that most groups took out. Like I don’t remember using segments in combat
My experience back in the day was that no one played RAW, even some groups that thought they did. AD&D was a great game but the rulebook was a clusterfuck, with all sorts of confusing areas and exceptional cases. Going from my high school home games to other groups in college we all thought we were playing by the rules (or had some specific known houserules) but there were all sorts of gotchas that we did differently. Not to mention just gaping holes in areas not covered.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 For sure AD&D was written like a stream of consciousness. It was a bit of a mess. We played a RAW as we could, but some rules seemed just plain silly so we didn't use them.
The ADICT files are just too much. No fighting withdrawal? If you crush the center of a line you incurred a huge disadvantage as opposed to an advantage. 1:1 time can be fine but adjusting scale is necessary. A 1:1 time progression in a wargame is silly dilly; those are 10 or 12 minute turns. I think that you need goals for non-player factions. Econ 101 informs us that all human actions occur in reference to time; it is a scarce resource. In my experience most "Braunstien(?)" actions occur in the "up" (opperational or strategic) time scale. I guess I might quibble a bit with brOSR but the notion is not unfamiliar to me being old af (54).
@@PvtSchlock You are right about Braunsteins. A good example of a “Braunstein” is the Birthright campaign setting in which actions take place over a month of time
The Bros are hypocritical and are basically cosplaying what they think alpha Chad behavior is. I'm somewhat friendly with a few of them and have no issues with how they play, but they're honestly bad for anyone who is interested in keeping old school gaming alive.
@wizardgoesboom I think more than that their childish a-hole behavior makes newer players not even want to listen to old school guys to keep those old school ideas alive in the modern game. More than just gatekeeping, the Bros are burning down the OSR castle from the courtyard.
@ Yeah they did pretty publicly gatekeep Ginger Blast from the playing with them on Twitter. And she seems nice enough and knowledgeable enough as a person
Dunno anything about the BROsr. Should anyone want to delve into AD&D 1e join the Knights-n-Knaves Forum . Lastly, OSRIC, while not RAW, e.g. no Weapon Factor tables, it is one of the finest reads of the DMG and PH. Both precede the "bros" by two decades.
@@wizardgoesboom Right. I am not surprised, you seem to have a some breadth of knowledge of the OSR. What are the origins of the Bros, if they do not hail from Dragonsfoot or Knights-n-knaves (the origin of OSRIC)? Sounds like a bunch hacks otherwise - like you said AD&D was established for tournament play. To my knowledge, Lawrence Schick was responsible for most of the text with Gary handling the editing. Further, initiative and spell casting remain a source of unresolved debate, whether one refers to Eldritch Wizardry or fills out the details with the DMG. I'm not casting any shade on the organic nature of the game and its unexpected popularity following the publication of the LBBs and supplements. Even following the publication of the core AD&D manuals, interpretation was required still with some reliance on Chainmail and the 3 LBBs (edited for clarity)
@@wizardgoesboom, I gave his blog a read. I don't get it. He's done a decent job collating complimentary tables from different 1e publications, but who hasn't had to do this? Sorry, but it just feels very hipster - lots of smoke and no fire. In other words, where has this guy been for the past two decades of the OSR? There is nothing unique about this guy.
I've never played 1:1 time ratio, and it honestly sounds boring to me. The whole point of this game is escapism to me, so why tie that down temporally? It's not tied down to reality in any other way.
@@bakey42 Yes, but there are cases when 1:1 time would be necessary. Like downtime or when you are running the same campaign for different groups at different times to get the persistence to the world
@@wizardgoesboom Allowing for different groups, or mix and match groups, in the same campaign is the only way it seems to have any point to me. Downtime is easy enough without it: We spend a week in town doing the thing. Done. It completely locks down what you can do in the game to short excursions from a safe base, with basically nothing happening except when a PC group goes out to look for trouble. Antagonists can't take actions on their own, they can only be sought out. It's a neat concept, but incredibly limiting.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 The rules function off of strict timekeeping. Without it things begin to lose meaning. Take leveling and training or taxation on domains as simple examples. Another is healing. When you use 1:1 timekeeping a decision to level or go after the big baddie becomes meaning full. In a conventional campaign you just level and then go. In a real campaign, if you decide to level, you may find the world overrun by Chaos and that sword you were seeking in the possesion of Jubilex.
@@rwustudios 1:1 timing doesn't affect those decisions. Requiring training time does, but 1:1 real world:game world time just means if the GM's not running for a few weeks for a vacation, Jubilex has time to eat the world. Like I said, I get it could be neat for a "West Marches" kind of game, with multiple groups and a structure based around completely safe bases and short expeditions, where all you risk by waiting is seeing other players get xp/loot, but it really prevents a lot of other possible campaign ideas. I would argue that tying time based decisions to real time actually makes any kind of in game time pressure less workable. The decision to train before going to fight the big bad is exactly the same within the game world whether the GM just says "Okay, you take 3 weeks to train and do other downtime stuff before setting out" while plotting out in his head what the baddie's been up to in the meantime or if he says "Okay, you take 3 weeks to train. I guess we'll play with your other characters this week or just take a couple weeks off from gaming." Except in the first case, he could have the baddie attack the town while they're still getting ready. Can't really do that with 1:1 time. I do have other issues with training times, but they're just made more absurd by 1:1 time.
I have been learning a the BROsr for a while now, mostly through Joy of war gaming channel.
I think you did a pretty fair overview!
What do you think of them so far and how they play? I think they rather fascinating in how they play the game.
@ I love the theory. I don’t have a group to try it out yet.
Add in Fiend Folio along with Deities & Demigods. These are important books and do not alter the game.
The rules Gary wrote and his time examples are in game play examples, not downtime examples. This is crystal clear in the DMG. If you peek at the original time keeping in OD&D you will see 1:1 time for anything outside of an "adventure" to which he assigns a 1 week time slot. There are Bros who prefer this type of timekeeping. The only real difference in 1e is that the 1 week time slot is now variable based upon actions and time spent during play.
I'd like to bring you into a server to experience the game as we play it when you are ready.
Nice video WGB. Closer than a lot get.
@@rwustudios Thank you! I’d be very interested in observing!
Started playing in '83 as a kid & we used domains in my first campaign w/ PVP but the game was "off" & have ever since whenever players show interest. Sometimes they don't. In highschool I played in two campaigns. One was exclusively 2e mostly RAW, only had 3 players, no domain play & the game was "off" when we left. The other campaign was a 1e + 2e + BECMI mix. It had over a dozen players w/ various levels of engagement. We used domain play w/ PVP & game was always on when the PCs had off time but we didn't scale game time to real time 1 to 1.
@@blackbarnz There’s a lot to be said about D&D as a wargame and I miss this aspect in the newer editions of D&D (post TSR)
Excellent video. Liked and subscribed.
@@georgelaiacona111 thank you very much!
The Bros are definitely having a good time. Scutifer Mike is showing solo play receipts with alternative systems. The Joy of Wargaming completed 50 live streams dedicated to 1e RAW Solo. Dunder Moose is hosting post-game debriefings that summarize the Braunstein-style sessions and lessons learned from both players and referees.
@@macoppy6571 AD&D as a wargame is fascinating too me and seems fun
I’ve ran ADND before but never raw, goodness that has to be rough. Then again my players don’t like to sit through loads of text and mental exercises to try and understand what was meant when it was written, they came from 5e. So I ran things very rules light and converted the thatco system to a d20 system they were more comfortable with. Then again I love make things up as I go and the writing them down to be referenced later….
5:04 now I did run 1:1 time, the only time is changed was in play, however when we weren’t playing it was 1::1. This was to allow the players to do any crafting researching, ect that isn’t directly correlated to the plot or combat.
For people coming from 5e, I would also run Rules Light, like B/X or BECMI or OD&D for easy house ruling before I would run them through AD&D RAW
@ great minds think alike, that’s what I did. Shame my players had to go their separate ways be life is life.
What you are describing is how we were playing OD&D in later 70's. BEFORE AD&D. That is sandboxing, the players make their own drama. If it gets too slow, roll for a random encounter. Simple.
@@worldbigfootcentral3933 I like sandbox style of play. I prefer it to railroading the players
I have considered 1:1 in the past but most of the games I'm in are far to irregular to make it work. I'd have to tailor the game to work that way if we really wanted to do it. Most of my games thought work best as television episodes.
I like the bronstien stuff would love to get that working in a game.
@@JimyRoze I posted a link to their Braunstein rules in the description. It’s called Brozer. Check it out. It is free.
Ironically, the part of what the BroSR is doing that is 'real D&D' is the part about playing the game the way you and your table wants to.
All that other stuff about 'you're not doing it right' is exactly what Wizards of the Coast has been doing for years now- trying to compel D&D players to play in the approved manner, only having the right kind of fun, with the right kind of people.
@@youareivan That’s a very good point you bring up and it is ironic. I have been also noticing that about WoTC as well as their gatekeeping
I discovered the OSR through Professor DM's and Questing Beasts videos about "Gygax's lost campaign rules", wher 1:1 time, domain level play, wargaming and inter-party interaction was discussed. My response to this was this sounds a lot more like what I was expecting when I started DnD with 5e. So you can imagine my shock when I started exploring the OSR and discovered that those topics are essentially ignored.
@@Mega1russell these are definitely rules that interest me, and should be discussed more in the OSR. I like the idea of D&D as a wargame. It started off as one!
This is EXACTLY what my experience was. I was born in '82, but started D&D with 5e. I quickly became dissilutioned with 5e, thinking this isn't what I thought D&D was. Dive headfirst into TSR D&D, and found what I was looking for. I couldn't believe how much was dismissed in the 5e books.
@@pewprofessional3181 All of the domain play and mass combat stuff was cut out since TSR D&D. These were some of my favorite things. I would get a castle, an army, and there would be sieges, politics, factions…
@@wizardgoesboom Even in AD&D there really wasn't much support for "domain play and mass combat". Core rules said you gained strongholds or whatever at a certain level, but didn't really give any support for doing anything with them. Mass combat rules were late optional source books at best. Battlesystem? Or just Dragon mag articles.
Even less support for any other aspects of domain play - running your stronghold and whatever economics/politics go along with that.
All the high level modules I can think of ignored anything anything about the strongholds those high level characters should have had, for example.
@ Yes, to get all the bells and whistles of mass combat, you probably needed Battle System. But the Bros suggest stacking units on a 10:1 scaling and using that for mass combat. And you are right, support for domain play seemed a bit like an afterthought
I have trouble believing even the BrOSR consistently use the Psionics or Unarmed Combat DMG rules or its monthly d% for parasitic infestation. OTOH I do use 1:1 time as the default these days, certainly at the month and year scales. Often need to be flexible at the Day scale.
They have the receipts (session reports)
@Kickitoldschool if these are game transcripts and you have a link I'll definitely read them!
With Psionics it is always a hope that no one rolls any Psykers. I absolutely use parasitic infection as do my Brothers. Unarmed combat is amazing and can lead to level 1s smash grabbing those pesky high levels.
We play real D&D.
I certainly am bored/tired of the "current" mainstream of gaming, and am interested in these Braunstein and 1/1 time ideas for a game.
@@xyonblade It’s fascinating especially the “always on” game and Braunsteins helping to write the story so the DM doesn’t have to
Algorithm go!
Hi WGB o/
Old-school D&D is much better than "modern" play and 1e is a great option. But, religiously using RAW for any edition of D&D is highly questionable, unless you are playing in a paid tournament. My group played 1e RAW when it first came out. Eventually, we kept what made the game more fun for us, but dropped every rule that made it worse than OD&D. We ended up dropping a lot. Later, I learned that other groups were ignoring the same bad rules or rewriting them to work better. If you really like RAW best, then by all means play that way. But don't do it because a cult leader tells you to.
@@vidgrip8622 I never played AD&D RAW, so we used house rules a lot and usually on the same rules that most groups took out. Like I don’t remember using segments in combat
My experience back in the day was that no one played RAW, even some groups that thought they did. AD&D was a great game but the rulebook was a clusterfuck, with all sorts of confusing areas and exceptional cases. Going from my high school home games to other groups in college we all thought we were playing by the rules (or had some specific known houserules) but there were all sorts of gotchas that we did differently.
Not to mention just gaping holes in areas not covered.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 For sure AD&D was written like a stream of consciousness. It was a bit of a mess. We played a RAW as we could, but some rules seemed just plain silly so we didn't use them.
The ADICT files are just too much. No fighting withdrawal? If you crush the center of a line you incurred a huge disadvantage as opposed to an advantage.
1:1 time can be fine but adjusting scale is necessary. A 1:1 time progression in a wargame is silly dilly; those are 10 or 12 minute turns.
I think that you need goals for non-player factions. Econ 101 informs us that all human actions occur in reference to time; it is a scarce resource.
In my experience most "Braunstien(?)" actions occur in the "up" (opperational or strategic) time scale.
I guess I might quibble a bit with brOSR but the notion is not unfamiliar to me being old af (54).
@@PvtSchlock You are right about Braunsteins. A good example of a “Braunstein” is the Birthright campaign setting in which actions take place over a month of time
The Bros are hypocritical and are basically cosplaying what they think alpha Chad behavior is.
I'm somewhat friendly with a few of them and have no issues with how they play, but they're honestly bad for anyone who is interested in keeping old school gaming alive.
@@drivinganddragons1818 Yes, they are heavy gatekeepers, which is probably not good for getting newer people into old school
@wizardgoesboom I think more than that their childish a-hole behavior makes newer players not even want to listen to old school guys to keep those old school ideas alive in the modern game.
More than just gatekeeping, the Bros are burning down the OSR castle from the courtyard.
@ Yeah they did pretty publicly gatekeep Ginger Blast from the playing with them on Twitter. And she seems nice enough and knowledgeable enough as a person
Dunno anything about the BROsr. Should anyone want to delve into AD&D 1e join the Knights-n-Knaves Forum . Lastly, OSRIC, while not RAW, e.g. no Weapon Factor tables, it is one of the finest reads of the DMG and PH. Both precede the "bros" by two decades.
@@aforest2802 Yes, I love OSRIC! I have two copies of it. The big book and the smaller digest size.
@@wizardgoesboom Right. I am not surprised, you seem to have a some breadth of knowledge of the OSR. What are the origins of the Bros, if they do not hail from Dragonsfoot or Knights-n-knaves (the origin of OSRIC)? Sounds like a bunch hacks otherwise - like you said AD&D was established for tournament play. To my knowledge, Lawrence Schick was responsible for most of the text with Gary handling the editing. Further, initiative and spell casting remain a source of unresolved debate, whether one refers to Eldritch Wizardry or fills out the details with the DMG. I'm not casting any shade on the organic nature of the game and its unexpected popularity following the publication of the LBBs and supplements. Even following the publication of the core AD&D manuals, interpretation was required still with some reliance on Chainmail and the 3 LBBs (edited for clarity)
@ the Bros seem to originate from the blogosphere, primarily Jeffro’s blog where he details what the BrOSR is about. It is a late offshoot of the OSR
@@wizardgoesboom, I gave his blog a read. I don't get it. He's done a decent job collating complimentary tables from different 1e publications, but who hasn't had to do this? Sorry, but it just feels very hipster - lots of smoke and no fire. In other words, where has this guy been for the past two decades of the OSR? There is nothing unique about this guy.
@ Yes, these guys are newcomers, only since about 2020. They’re mainly doing Braunsteins now, which is sort of quasi-OSR
Jeffro claims he is the 3rd most important person in the history of D&D. Dude is high on his own farts.
@@midnightgreen8319 Certainly. Though I have to admit the play style of the bros is very intriguing
@wizardgoesboom That may be, but anyone claiming that everyone else is playing wrong doesn't get me interested in listening to them 🤷🏼♂️
@ yes, you are right. They can be a little bit abrasive
@@wizardgoesboom That said, I don't use 1:1 time, but it's a interesting concept
@@midnightgreen8319 I like the concept for use with running the same campaign for different groups at different times
I've never played 1:1 time ratio, and it honestly sounds boring to me. The whole point of this game is escapism to me, so why tie that down temporally? It's not tied down to reality in any other way.
@@bakey42 Yes, but there are cases when 1:1 time would be necessary. Like downtime or when you are running the same campaign for different groups at different times to get the persistence to the world
@@wizardgoesboom Allowing for different groups, or mix and match groups, in the same campaign is the only way it seems to have any point to me. Downtime is easy enough without it: We spend a week in town doing the thing. Done.
It completely locks down what you can do in the game to short excursions from a safe base, with basically nothing happening except when a PC group goes out to look for trouble. Antagonists can't take actions on their own, they can only be sought out.
It's a neat concept, but incredibly limiting.
@ yes as long as you don’t split the party, there is no need to worry about time jail. There’s no need to have 1:1 on all the time.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 The rules function off of strict timekeeping. Without it things begin to lose meaning. Take leveling and training or taxation on domains as simple examples. Another is healing.
When you use 1:1 timekeeping a decision to level or go after the big baddie becomes meaning full. In a conventional campaign you just level and then go. In a real campaign, if you decide to level, you may find the world overrun by Chaos and that sword you were seeking in the possesion of Jubilex.
@@rwustudios 1:1 timing doesn't affect those decisions. Requiring training time does, but 1:1 real world:game world time just means if the GM's not running for a few weeks for a vacation, Jubilex has time to eat the world.
Like I said, I get it could be neat for a "West Marches" kind of game, with multiple groups and a structure based around completely safe bases and short expeditions, where all you risk by waiting is seeing other players get xp/loot, but it really prevents a lot of other possible campaign ideas.
I would argue that tying time based decisions to real time actually makes any kind of in game time pressure less workable. The decision to train before going to fight the big bad is exactly the same within the game world whether the GM just says "Okay, you take 3 weeks to train and do other downtime stuff before setting out" while plotting out in his head what the baddie's been up to in the meantime or if he says "Okay, you take 3 weeks to train. I guess we'll play with your other characters this week or just take a couple weeks off from gaming."
Except in the first case, he could have the baddie attack the town while they're still getting ready. Can't really do that with 1:1 time.
I do have other issues with training times, but they're just made more absurd by 1:1 time.
Spoiler the Brosr are pulling your leg 😂