-Havard

Braunstein 2010

Hopefully more people will get to experience Braunstein again this year. I’m really glad last year’s super-secret off-site Braunstein came together. I talked to Tony about it afterwards and it sounded like a hoot.

Well it went really well, thanks to one of the guys offering to let us use his apartment in downtown Indianapolis. I had five less players show up than I had expected, but that was only one less than the number of characters I had ready, so it worked out OK.

I threw in some twists, assuming I would have at least one of the players from the first revival of BS 1, who would “know too much”: That proved unnecessary, and everyone was good and confused. I particularly liked the Chancellor telling the French spy that if he did not behave himself in the future, he would never graduate! I will refrain from giving any more away, as I intend to run it again this year.

I will be coming back down to ORIGINS in 2010, and the situation is virtually that same as last year. except LOU ZOCCHI will not be there, so I will be staying at the Comfort Inn.
I will be once again arriving really late Wednesday/early Thursday (after midnight if the train runs late) on Amtrak. (anyone meeting the train to carry my luggage to the hotel will get first choice of character in Braunstein).

This time I intend to spend most of my time at the NSDM (National Security Decision Making Game. I am bringing along my handouts for BS again, and will run it if I can get the people time and space (NSDM may provide the space and time). My cell phone number is still
612 dash 508 dash 7251 and anyone wanting to drop me a line before I leave for the Con on 01AUG10 can get me at
weseld1@medtronic.com

P.S. Rob MacD: Now I have I read your third installment – 20′ by 20′ room and liked it even more than the first two parts. You have say two very perceptive things there:
“That’s a comment Major Wesely could make lightly in 2006, but in 1970 it must have had bottomless implications.”
You said it. Many in my generation could have cared less about the War when it was going on- party, drugs, football, study… they gave meaning to the phrase “A quarrel in a far-away place, between people of whom we know nothing.” For those of us who cared, one way or the other, it is still too painful. Things done, things not done, regrets. That had a lot to do with the great rarity of Commercial Wargames about Vietnam: The publishers (very few of them available during the war) saw it as a non-seller… You could add “Year of the Rat” by SPI to your very short list. And after the War, we mostly wanted to stop thinking about it and the big money was in D&D clones.

Your other very perceptive comment was “D&D characters, by and large, work together. ”
Arneson intended it to be that way. One big inspiration is “The Fellowship of the Ring”
but from the first, his Blackmoor games featured the players as a team and the baddies as NPC’s run by the Referee. Of course, they don’t always work together, look at the Knights of the Dinner Table… but Dave wanted the game (or the GM) to reward/teach good social behavior.
I think Kenneth Boulding should have loved it, but I don’t know if he ever even noticed it.

Enough for now. See you at Gencon!

The open gaming area of Embassy Suites is an excellent spot, because in evenings there are lots of people gaming there. A public spot makes it easier to draw curious people in, even if they have no idea what Braunstein is.

“Written histories never tell the whole story. That is why it is important to preserve the oral tradition. Come hear the truth, rumors and myths about the history of gaming, unfiltered, as they have been passed down to us.”

I know nothing about who’s running it, but that sounds like something you should really drop in on Major Wesely. I think you could shed a lot of light on the subject.

It’s SEM0900532, listed as being in Marriott Indiana Ballroom F.

Tony Dowler
Chgowiz
Tim Jensen?
Rich Forest
Tavis Allison

which will make for a pretty weak Braunstein game, (eight to twelve would work better)) but maybe we can drum up support and recruit more after we get down there. I will be staying with Lou Zocchi at the Marriot. I will be arriving really late Wednesday/early Thursday
(after midnight if the train runs late) on Amtrak. (anyone meeting the train to carry my luggage to the hotel will get first choice of character in Braunstein).

I will have to register on Thursday morning (oh the lines! the lines!) but here is my cell phone number: give me a call on Thursday and we can meet somewhere to plan where to game.

612 dash 508 dash 7251

[I obfuscated the number a tiny bit to throw off bots -Ben]

I’d be glad to do either #1 or #4 – if #1 is faster for you to set up that’s a good reason to do it right there.

(I may have lost my mind. Let me know if you find it lying around Indy somewhere.)