Total Nonstop SwordStein
The Winning Player AAR
Introduction
A couple nights ago I was blessed to have the opportunity to play in my friend Hieronymous’s SwordStein along with a phenomenal group of players. It is with great humility that I was crowned the victor in spite of much weeping and gnashing of teeth from the competition. I managed to make the losers so mad that they organized some type of democratic election that included randos who didn’t even compete in an effort to undermine my total victory. One sore loser even bought votes for the dumb election. Pity.
It was a fun game and was played well by all involved. Hieronymous stcaedmonstudio deserves much praise for running an exiting Braunstein which had major implications to the game world for his ongoing campaign. And he did it with his own game system, Knight Errant which is a fun and dramatic skill-based RPG. If you missed out on the Kickstarter, send him a direct message and ask my friend how you can give him money.
The Game
Method: Method I Braunstein
Where: Living Urf Discord Server voice chats
When: July 18, 8:00pm – 12:00am EST
Ruleset: Knight Errant (Buy this from stcaedmonstudio)
You can check out my quick summary of how I won this Braunstein on this post:
I will add some additional insights to the SwordStein method here as well as some winning tips for Referees and Players demonstrated in this Braunstein.
I played as Aleister MacReady and these were my goals:
MacReady was an accomplished vampire hunter, but was certainly outmatched by all of the PCs stacked with magical weapons, armor, firearms, spells, and monster abilities. I was going to have to use my wits in order to pull out this victory.
Bias for Action
The game starts with the customary introduction to the setting and how some dying Duke is being escorted back to his chambers. I see that the Duke’s Chamber is locked and must be rolled on to pick it (Roll 9+ on 2D6). So, I have my roll typed in the chat just waiting for the game to start. As soon as the Ref says to begin, I roll for it while all the other goofballs start silly voice DnD theatre kidmaxing in the starting area.
I miss the roll. This places me in the Faerie world version of the chamber as a penalty. I see some crazy stuff. I take minor damage and have to roll to escape. But before leaving, I hear the duke reveal his servants have been doing evil things to him and I manage to take the Duke’s Magical Key out of there.
I later found out that one of the players was the Green Knight and was supposed to come scrap with anyone who entered the Faerie world. But he was stuck in that awkward start of game, silly-voice acting scrum that I refused to become mired in. So, he missed his chance. Sucks to be him, I guess.
I’m off to a great start and this reminds me of a winning tip for DMs and Players when it comes to Braunsteins:
DM Winning Braunstein Tip #1:
Incentivize action and players moving away from the larger groups. The Referee incentivized this by have an important locked room we would need to attempt to lockpick in order to enter.
Player Winning Braunstein Tip #1:
Have a bias for action. Create opportunities for yourself early and often. Even if something seems imprudent or dangerous, it is better to take the risk than sit on your hands playing silly voices all night without generating drama. This is what creates memorable events.
Be Social
Now is the time to socialize. After the players get that initial awkwardness out of their system they begin to spread throughout the rooms. I chat some people up then decide to hop into a two-person max room to see if someone wants to take the opportunity to speak to me in private.
Within moments, Father Shannow seizes the opportunity and disclosed to me all of his goals and plans. I tend to be very charming and have this effect on folks. But he also had some goals that converged with my PC, so there’s that. He became my main ally within seconds of encountering him and he remained so throughout the game. He was hunting a demon named BloodFeast and agreed to help me find vampires to kill. I had no doubts that he was sincere and righteous
Referee Winning Braunstein Tip #2:
Place limits on the room capacity. We started this in Spacestein and it worked great again here in SwordStein. This facilitates breaking up the large clumped up groups of boringness and leads to interesting interactions.
Player Winning Braunstein Tip #2:
Leverage the room limits to your advantage. Need to plot with someone alone or seek to isolate them without being interrupted? Utilize 2 capacity or private rooms if one is available. Already have an ally and a target? Ideally you want a three-person capacity room for you and your ally to leverage numbers against an isolated target.
Forging Alliances
Fr Shannow and I made our way to a room where the sword is buried in the stone. We find Count Pettigrow in there and he has already pulled it in spite of having not completed the prerequisite act of valor. He explains it has the power to reveal vampires. The Father and I are excited to hear that, so we recruit Pettigrow to the Vampire Hunting party. Pettigrow agrees to give me the sword once we can identify a vampire for me to destroy. This is when Lord Sanquinie knocks on the door. We let him in and discover he also wishes to hunt down vampires. Now there are four of us ready to find a vampire. But first, lets talk about winning tips #3:
Referee Winning Braunstein Tip #3:
Create opportunity for alliances. Maybe one player knows they need to help another or a player needs to seek out help from someone in order to complete their goal. It makes the game more compelling and interesting.
Player Winning Braunstein Tip #3:
You need to form alliances and you need to do it quickly. You may not have natural ones, so you need to force them if they are not preexisting. There is risk involved in this. Maybe you’re a vampire hunter and the person you try to ally with is a secret vampire. Whoops. But like Tip #1, you need take risks to make things happen in these games. Even if it goes pear-shaped, it’s funny and makes for a good story.
Vampire Slaying
We quickly identify a vampire. There is a lot of hemming and hawing before he flees and I chase him down to bash him upside his head with my spear. I would have used the sword but Count Pettigrow has left the game with the sword.
The player had to leave for real life reasons.
Fr Shannow landed the final gunshot. Yeah, he’s a gunslinger.
I take the vampires teeth and add it to the fringes of my cloak. Then we drag the corpse out into the tiltyard.
Crowning a Duke
In the tiltyard there is an open debate about who should be the next duke. Myself and the Baron Geywad are the only two who receive nominations. This feels like a good time to joust for it. Jousting is probably my best chance because I am not decked out in the weapons and armor the baron is rocking. But Baron Geywad is very hesitant to joust.
With the hour getting late and other players getting restless and incessantly chatty, I pull the baron into a private room where he reveals that he is not very comfortable with the jousting rules and would rather we have a duel since he understands the combat. I am ready to go spend time with my family anyways, so I agree so we can wrap this up in some form of dramatic suspense. Besides, I am starting to sense the tension of players involved here that are Patrons and PCs in this game world.
A lot is riding on how this plays out for them I now realize. MacReady just wants to secure aid and support for New Avalon which the Baron happily agrees to along with gifting me two chests full of gems for my vampire slaying. This fully completes my goals along with some nice bonuses.
The duel begins and I am quickly smacked with some sword and flail combos. Meanwhile my spear is useless here against his armor. Eventually I have an opportunity to yield this duel with some health remaining. This is when we hear gunshots in the courtyard and rush over.
Told You he was a Demon
In the courtyard Sir Rudolph is finishing off my buddy Father Shannow with a 1911.
So much firepower in this game, where’s my gun?
When asked what happened he said that Fr Shannow was a demon gunslinger named BloodFeast. Now I knew Fr Shannow’s goal was to hunt down BloodFeast so I seriously doubted the veracity of these claims. We were even able to confirm that Fr Shannow’s spirit ascended to heaven, which demons can’t do.
Having confirmed he was a demon it was time to eliminate the last remnant of evil here, but all the other PC’s stopped me. It seemed this demon was a player these guys had adventured with quite a bit in the weekly session play of this campaign and that was a bridge they were not willing to cross. This is where the game came to a natural conclusion.
And Sir Rudolph admitted he was in fact a demon much to the other players shock and dismay.
It didn’t matter much to me. I had already completed my goals rather easily. As a bonus I secured a vast wealth of riches, and had the Duke’s Magical Key to boot. In the debrief I claimed victory without objection and the Referee agreed. I went on online and beat my chest a bit which hurt some feelings after, I guess. Oh well. Sucks to suck.
Total Braunstein Victory. Thank you Hieronymous and all of the fantastic players who were part of this game.
Referee Winning Braunstein Tip #4:
Tie your Braunstein to a campaign with meaningful roleplay occurring. This can be an existing campaign world such as Hieronymous did with this game. But you can also use the Braunstein to be the genesis of your campaign world, which I am inspired to do with the game state from my recent Spacestein.
DnD is a Wargame?
SwordStein was a perfect example of how Total Nonstop Braunstein is meant to work. I had fun as an outsider, but this game had real world effects on the ongoing campaign. A campaign world that many adventure parties play in weekly and the ramifications of the SwordStein events will immediately be felt when they return to the table.
This is something the “DnD is a Wargame” crowd never seem to understand. Nobody cares about wargames. Not even the people who play them. It’s two people if you are lucky playing a scenario that nobody cares about. Not to mention, one of these two people is bound to end up with his feelings hurt. Then they leave and never think about that scenario again. Why do you think wargames have a solo rating on the box? Because nobody cares and nobody likes playing with wargamers, especially wargamers.
But what if you are a Real Bromerican? Playing in an ongoing campaign. One that is using strict timekeeping, 1:1 preferably, and has players really playing their roles. AD&D 1e is the king for these types of campaigns because the alignment rules naturally lead to meaningful conflict.
It is this naturally occurring roleplay conflict that leads to Braunstein sessions that have meaningful impacts on the game world and its players. It’s this naturally occurring roleplay conflict that grants you the potential to play a large-scale wargame scenario that someone will actually care about for once.
This is what Total Nonstop Braunstein is all about. This is what being a Real Bromerican is all about.
Conclusion
Speaking of wargames, I have gone hard in recent weeks on them, because I want to challenge wargamers to tie them to meaningful campaigns instead of solo playing with Jenga blocks in a dark hole somewhere that nobody cares about.
It has been brought to my attention that many folks have had issues with me being too mean, too arrogant, and too belligerent the past couple of weeks.
Before this Bdubs gave me some terrific advice that I regretfully ignored:
I was prepared for anklebiters. I just wasn’t prepared for them to come from so many unexpected places.
So, after much introspection and consideration, I would like to take this opportunity to make a promise.
I promise-
To be more obnoxious.
More overbearing.
And I’m going to make you all learn to love it
because after I win the Bromerican Belt you’ll have no choice!
Now go to the gym, go to church, love you family, and make a difference in your community. God Bless y’all.
Upon reflection, what mistakes did you make? What would you redo and do better?
If the situation were reversed, what would you do to secure victory against you?