The Braunstein Report Part 1: My Experience in David Wesely's Braunstein Game

I finally got my chance to play in David Wesely’s Braunstein game.

For those lacking context, a bit over a year ago, I ran a Braunstein game inspired by Wesely’s. My game was meant to result in the creation of a campaign world and was run in a similar structure.

My experience in the Braunstein is pretty well aligned with

Ghost Planet

’s, as he shares in his wonderful game report.

If you don’t know what a Braunstein is, this probably isn’t the blog post to learn it from, so I would suggest checking out Brozer on drivethrurpg (it’s free) for the bros’ take on this game format. Unfortunately, there’s not a great place to get a full explanation from Wesely, except for the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary, which Griffith Morgan, the creator of the documentary, claims does not have enough information for anyone to run their own. So Brozer is probably the best source to learn.

The short definition is this: It’s a group LARP that involves multiple independent actors operating in conflict under a fog of war.

My Experience

Pre-Game

The pre-game involved taking a seat and listening to Major Wesely’s 2 hour talk. The first hour was about what is roleplaying and he touched on some TSR stuff and talked about pending litigation. I don’t know if that was aimed at me or not. I may have zoned out a bit during the first hour because I had been on a panel with Wesely immediately before this and he was retelling some of the same stories so I did let my mind wander a bit here.

The second hour of the speech was an overview of the political situation leading up to the game. I think some of this context was necessary, but this was longer than it needed to be. Wesely is an entertaining speaker, but he is a long-winded man and this seems to be very obvious to anyone who knows him.

Gretchen

My character was Gretchen, a large and muscular, but uneducated woman who escaped indentured servitude and found refuge in a student group. Prior to the game, I was arrested along with the student group for rioting in a tavern. Student C, played by

Ghost Planet

, was severely injured and unconscious when we were imprisoned. My character apparently had feelings for him.

Student C and Gretchen

The riot was started by Student A, who was not arrested. I never learned the reason for this, but I assume he was someone important.

My packet also explained that due to my background working with cows, I was likely immune to smallpox, having already contracted cowpox. This was a neat detail that I appreciated and it actually came up in game.

My goals:

• Get out of jail

• Get Student C out of jail

• Get Student C to a doctor

• Impress Student B (he was a prominent figure in the group, son of an important individual)

• Get Student A arrested

All I had on me was the wallet that I took from Student C when he got knocked out. It was explained that I did so to prevent anyone else from stealing it. I gave it back to him early on when he mentioned it was stolen.

Strangely, I never saw another character with a name. Every other character was called Baron, Banker, Banker’s Daughter, Student B, Tavern Keeper, etc. I was the only one I saw with a name instead of a title. This is probably because my character was kind of a nobody, so it made more sense to use my name. There may have been another named character, but if there was, I did not interact with him.

The Braunstein

My student group started out in jail and one of our first objectives is to leave. This was easier said than done since the jailer was the only person we could easily talk to and he was dead set on not letting us talk to anyone else or escape. The man was unbribable and we could do very little. This seemed like a hopeless situation at first, but there were people in the rest of the town who had an interest or goal of getting us out of jail. Student B's father was trying to release him, the Doctor wanted me out so he could experiment with inoculations due to my smallpox immunity, and the Chancellor seemed to want the student group out. So we weren’t necessarily alone trying to escape, but the beginning of the game felt like it.

Prison life is tough on the best of us

In the After Action Report, Wesely did state that we had a uniquely stubborn jailer! He absolutely refused everything, so there wasn’t much we could do. I tried to use Student C’s injury to get him out and to a doctor, but the jailer wouldn’t budge. Finally, Student B was able to get out due to his father, but he wasn’t able to get us out. The doctor tried to reason with and pay off the jailer for me, and the chancellor was attempting to do the same for the students.

I should mention that a kid played the chancellor and he was actually pretty good. Kid was ordering people around like he owned the place and seemed to understand everything going on around him. So great job on the part of his parents- that kid paid attention and contributed meaningfully to the game.

I don’t remember why the doctor was unable to get me out, but I think he was unable to come to a deal with the jailer. I was able then to escape with the students, thanks to the chancellor, and they took me to the university where they planned to teach me to read.

Once I was finally out, I had to figure out a way to impress Student B (who seemed already impressed, so I didn’t know what to do), but also I had to search for Student A to have him arrested. I had some interaction with the Engineer’s Assistant, who was trying to sell us plans to the walls of the city, which would be invaluable to the French to have.

Ghost Planet

was talking to the engineer’s assistant with me and seemed to be getting the plans. I gave him the remainder of my money to help with the bribe once I got him to a doctor. My character was on the side of the French technically, but her motivation seemed to just be to stay inside the student group and not be found by the farmer she worked for.

A note about that, I assumed that the famer was a player in the game who would be looking for me and I would need to stay undercover as a man (the jailer already thought I was male, according to my packet, because I was wearing a jacket). This seems to have not been the case. I never heard anything about anyone looking for me aside from the doctor, so at least in our game, it was not a player role. This was a bit confusing for me as my packet clearly explained that I was trying to evade detection by him.

So at this point in the game, a few people approached me- the banker’s daughter (played by an older gentleman) wanted me to sign a dance card. I didn’t know what a dance card was, and I think neither did

Ghost Planet

, so he thought we were signing up for a dance and asked me to go with him. I knew he had a goal to woo me, so I said sure, and we both signed up. About 10 minutes later, the banker’s wife (another older gentleman) approached me and asked if I agreed to dance with her daughter at an upcoming ball. I said no, I don’t think I did, and she asked if I was accusing her daughter of lying. I said I guess? So it turns out,

Ghost Planet

and I did not sign up for a dance together, we both signed up to dance with the banker’s daughter, and I accidentally caused drama by accusing her of lying about it. Oops.

By the time I had this misunderstanding sorted out, I started searching for Student A, since I was supposed to get him arrested. I talked to a few people about him, to figure out my angle, but then the realization dawned on me: Student A had left the game while I was still in jail. My objective would not be completed and my search was in vain.

About this time, we got arrested again. There was some confusion as to whether the students were allowed to be arrested in the university or not, and the Major was outside consulting with someone else, so people were kind of split and we were told that we were forcibly being taken back to jail, so some of us complied since there wasn’t a method to resolve conflict. So anyway, I was back in jail for the second time. Eventually, the mayor came through and demanded our release and gave us all money. He had a very cool plan that sadly did not get a chance to play out because there were duels taking place.

The Mayor’s Plan to Solve the Student Problem

First of all, let’s talk about the Mayor. He was declared the winner at the end, and the guy played it well. He had a bunch of complicated objectives, but it seemed that the main ones were: get enough people to pledge their votes for his reelection, and don’t let the students get banished. He ended the game as everyone’s friend and managed to complete all his goals well. Everyone was impressed with his game.

Unfortunately, the mayor’s goal involving the students was heavily contested as a lot of people wanted to expel us from town, and it looked like that was likely to happen in the end. But the mayor had a plan: the students can’t get expelled if they are dead. He set us up to go to the bar, where there was a prop gun lying out in the open. If one of us went for the gun (and probably we would have), then we would have been summarily executed, and it would have been called self-defense.

I don’t know if this was in the spirit of the mayor’s goals or not, since I’m unclear as to whether he just didn’t want us expelled for self-serving reasons or if he wanted to support the revolution. If the former, then it was a brilliant plan; if the latter, then it probably wasn’t in the spirit of his goals. Either way, I wish the game hadn’t been called to an end before the results of this had a chance to play out because it could have been great and I would have loved to write here about falling victim to a plan that brilliant as I didn’t suspect a thing (though I should have in hindsight).

After Action Report

Afterwards, Wesely went through many of the characters and goals and we got to learn who was successful and who wasn’t. He called on the bastard and asked him who his father was, he called on an investigator and asked him who the French spies were, and there were lots of hidden roles and secrets like this sprinkled throughout the game.

When he got to me, he asked me why I didn’t reveal to the jailer that I was a woman and I said that I wanted to stay with my friends and didn’t want to be transferred away. He expressed that this wasn’t his intention, but went on to ask me if I gave Student C his money back (I did) and about my success in my other goals (it was mixed).

Hearing about all the other roles in the after-action report, I have to say, there were some fun roles available in this game and I was almost a little disappointed to have been Gretchen, but I still had a great time.

Declaring a winner was a little odd to me, though, since I had been told previously that there was no winner declared in a Braunstein, but it wasn’t bothersome. There was a disparity in people’s roles and their ability to “win” the Braunstein. For example, I see no world in which the banker’s daughter, whose only goal I am aware of was to get as many people to sign her dance card as possible, would ever be capable of being declared the winner. My character was in a similar boat to that. It meant that I had fun, but most of my fun was derived from roleplaying my character and not necessarily a drive to win the game.

My Performance

I would rate my performance a solid C. I was hampered early by getting stuck in jail for a long time, but once I got out I quickly felt overwhelmed with all the new people wanting to talk to me and I am personally a little shy in overwhelming situations, so I stayed more insular than I think I should have, preferring to communicate with Student B and C, the doctor, the banker’s daughter, the engineer’s assistant, and the chancellor. When I realized Student A was out of the game and Student B was in drama with his father which I couldn’t easily insert myself into, I found myself a bit directionless later in the game, which was solved by going back to jail.

As for whether or not this was different than a Brostein, that is deserving of its own post and I want to get this out quickly before I forget things that happened in the game. I will go over all the differences in the next post later this week (hopefully). Please feel free to ask any questions you have about this experience!