Guest Post: Running A Braunstein

  I recently played in a Star Trek Braunstein run by Jacob (@stee_blackbend), an IRL friend who's also in my West Marches campaign. I'd only heard of the game type casually before, but I've played a lot of Forum Werewolf in the past, so why not? Jacob asked me if he could write a guest post about the game type, and it was certainly a good time as a player (even though I died). So, here's Jacob:
What is a Braunstein?
I use Braunstein to refer to the subgenre of gaming, while a specific Braunstein game would have a specific name, ala Trekstein, Travellerstein, or Starstein.
They are inspired by David Wesely's Braunstein 1-4, which featured an 1800s town and a Latin American Banana Republic as settings. Later referees ran Brownstones, a series of Braunsteins set in the Wild West.
The central element that defines a Braunstein is that every player is operating with their own goals and with independence.
A Braunstein is a wargame in that each player has defined assets and is opposed by other players, and an RPG in that every player has a character who they are in the game, along with the freedom of action in an RPG that's not part of a wargame.
For example, Captain Kirk and the Klingon Captain both have their separate goals, and are acting independently of each other to accomplish them.
The heroes AND villains are played by players. The GM is a true referee, as they maintain the rules as the players match wits against each other. A Braunstein is different from an RPG in the same way that a multiplayer video PVP game is different from a single player video game.
It's chaotic. It's said that David Wesely considered refereeing his original Braunstein as a complete failure, until his players eagerly asked for another.

If you've played the party game Mafia or Werewolf, this is essentially the RPG version of that, as you have the Sheriff trying to root out the werewolves, the doctor trying to keep people alive, and the werewolves trying to kill everyone. Only now the Sheriff can have a gunfight with a werewolf, the werewolves can wire the town hall with a kill switch, and the doctor might be running drugs on the side for fun.

What is Trekstein?
A Star Trek Braunstein set in The Original Series era.
The Enterprise commanded by Captain Kirk and a similar Klingon ship commanded by Captain Kor both arrive in orbit of Nimbus, a planet poised between the borders of the Federation and Klingon Empire, and attempt to sway the planet to join their interstellar governments.
Nimbus has recently had dilithium discovered on it, and access to it was a large part of the goal of getting Nimbus to join their planet.
The game began just as the Klingon and Starfleet ships dropped out of warp, and would end when Nimbus decisively decided how to be affiliated.

​(Thanks to a neat Traveller tool, I was able to create this hexmap of Nimbus that I could project on a 3D sphere)

The Setting:
Original Series Star Trek, in a sort of nebulous time, probably during the main series.
All the action was contained within Nimbus System, which contained one planet.
A Braunstein works in a cycle. Players plot and execute their plots, often for a while of relative quiet. Then things come to a head and there's explosive conflict. Then everyone goes back to executing their plans. It's a bit like a Mexican standoff crossed with a tea party; everyone's talking and doing stuff, but everyone knows anyone could draw and fire at any time. To keep this tension up, the play area needs to be small enough that the players you have bump elbows some, which is why Trekstein was set on a single planet, besides most Star Trek episodes being set on one planet.

The planet Nimbus was ruled by a collection of people who the title of Duke. For any planet-wide politics, they'd all gather together to vote. Besides that, every Duke had complete autonomy in their respective dukedoms.

Player wise, there were three factions at the beginning, four at the end:
Starfleet
Klingon
Dukes
And lastly the Gorn

I ran into my first major issue before the game began: no one joined as a duke. In fact, I only had three players. Having come from a 20+ player Star Wars game, I'd expected to have too many players, not too few.
The major focus of the game was originally going to be all the player dukes getting wined and dined by the Klingons and Starfleet while the dukes schemed.
I considered cancelling the game at this point, but instead decided to write up six dukes myself that I'd play. My concern was that my inner bias would sway me into letting one side win unfairly.
At this point I ditched my original idea of the dukes using Mongoose Traveller 2e to create a character, and the Klingons/Starfleet using pregens from Star Trek: Alpha Quadrant (a fanmade Traveller hack). We ended up exclusively using Star Trek Alpha Quadrant.

The starting dukes:
Khan - the villain of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
- Goal: become King of Nimbus.
Gorbin - a Cardassian running a Galactic Jurassic Park
- Goal: Gain more exotic predators for his park

Harry Mudd - the con-man from several TOS episodes
- Goal: Get rich
- Goal: Control the majority of the Dithlium trade on the planet.
- Goal: Get his wife Stella of his back (in the show, she sends private investigators out into space after him to get what's owed her)

Cyrano Jones - The trader who provides the Tribbles in The Trouble with Tribbles.
- Get richer and don't die

Hando Rolo - a knockoff of Lando Calrissian who ran the massive Casino Risa.
- Make a deal for Nimbus that benefits him the most.

Alcar Dovan - a retired Starfleet captain who became a great hunter. He was trying to drug and hunt players for sport.
- Hunt the most dangerous prey.

When I began, I was using a turn system that was supposed to be tied to days. This is a solid way to make sure everyone puts in their actions, and that time moves forward reasonably.
We made it to turn 2 before I realized it didn’t make sense and ditched it.
From then on, I handled player actions as they came in and it made sense. If Kirk wanted to leave where he was and go shoot somebody, but Kor was somewhere in a conversation, I’d resolve Kor’s conversation before I moved Kirk forward, so Kirk wouldn't end up forward in time from Kor. (this is important, because Kor could shoot someone at any moment, which would impact what Kirk wants to do)
Boot Hill talks of taking week or so long turns, and then pausing time for sessions. Since my game was purely play by post, there wasn't a difference function-wise between session and turn play. We had one long almost session where everyone involved in an encounter was online at the same time, but that's the closest we came to a session in the traditional sense, as the game was just moving forward as it happened.

The Starfleet and Klingon players quickly began visiting different dukes to sway them to their side.
As the game went, two large subplots emerged besides the Nimbus political allegiance main plot.

The Alien Bioweapon
The Klingons had a goal of discovering the rumored bioweapon on the planet and then obtaining it without the Federation hearing of it.
At some point, the Klingons were told that if they got rid of a monster in the Caverns of Despair mountain range, a duke would join them.
They went there and encountered a sealed lab filled with alien horrors. They managed to fight them off and reseal the lab. (purely for the fun of it, these were the Xenomorphs of Alien/Aliens)

Later, Harry Mudd (Player) convinced Alcar Dovan the Great Hunter (NPC) that his greatest hunt laid in that same mountain range; after a few terrible rolls, Alcar Dovan and his hunting expedition were slaughtered by the alien horrors, which they accidentally released.

This led to the slaughter of a mining camp by the aliens, with the Gorn, Klingons and Starfleet all beaming up and down to try to rescue some miners.

The aliens vanished into the earth, and only resurfaced later as they dug underground towards Hando Rolo's Casino Risa.
The Klingons found out about this early, and they managed to beam a heavy fighting force to the Casino and hold off the alien assault.
Captain Kirk was unaware of the aliens closing in on the casino, and was busy with a highstakes poker game with several dukes when the alarms of the casino began blaring, as heavily armed Klingons began appearing all around the casino. Since it was a Braunstein and Kirk only had information from his perspective, what was the Klingons saving the casino appeared as the Klingons launching a surprise attack on the casino.

The issue of the origin of the aliens was a hot topic, with Klingons and Starfleet both writing up propaganda articles blaming the "bioweapon" on the other side during the game:

After the Battle of Casino Risa, the aliens faded back into the ground and out of the game. Who knows what they're planning now...

The final subplot was The King Khan Crisis.
Multiple dukes warned and asked players for help dealing with Khan. Nobody ever pursued it, and Harry Mudd decided to sell large amounts of dithlium to Khan.
So as the game approached the end via the dukes preparing to vote, Khan publicly declared himself King of the entire planet, revealing he had dithlium warheads ready to fire.
After Duke Mudd tried to double-cross Khan, Khan launched an onslaught of nukes, one of which landed directly on Duke Mudd's town, vaporizing him and his possessions.
Duke Mudd’s final moments, from an in-game black box of camera footage:

Mudd’s player later clarified: “I would like it noted that Mudd was not wishing for Stella out of nostalgic love. He wished she'd be at Ground Zero because it's the only way to be sure.”

Starfleet and the Klingons joined together to launch stealth and outright attacks on Khan's city, and eventually captured him. They did vaporize multiple blocks of his city though.

Before the aliens burst onto the scene, the Klingons and Starfleet joined in a debate broadcast to the people of Nimbus. This is when my players truly amazed me, as they sparred back and forth with LONG political arguments:
Part of a Klingon message:

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Part of a Captain Kirk message:
​The PR part of the game played a big role in determining the finale.

After the defeat of Khan, Duke Hando pushed to reform the government from balkanized dukedoms to a republic of sorts, with him as President and the other dukes in various roles. Duke Gorbin was strongly in the corner of the Klingons. If the government hadn't been reformed, Starfleet would have won immediately at this point. But since Hando had to have every duke on his side, he offered the Klingons free trade, and control of Khan's old city, redubbed as Qapla' City, to be settled and run by a Director of Klingon Tourism (a job Commander Korax accepted)

Below are the exact goals for each faction/character, along with a review of how they did.

FEDERATION:
Starfleet has issued these orders to the crew of the USS Enterprise:
1. Get Nimbus to officially agree to join the Federation. - PASSED
2. Gain mining rights to the planet's dilithium crystals. - PASSED, via trade
3. Don't let the Klingons gain access to the planet's dilithium crystals. - FAILED, as they have trade rights
4. Don't escalate into an open armed conflict with the Klingons as that would violate the Organian Peace Treaty. - PASSED
5. There are rumors of dangerous tech on Nimbus. Gather data on any potential dangers to the Federation. - PASSED
So 4 goals accomplished.

EMPIRE:
You have been sent to Nimbus to accomplish the following goals for the glory of the Empire, as issued by the Klingon High Council:
1. Gain control of the planet's dilithium crystals. - HALF-POINT, as you didn’t gain complete control
2. Convince Nimbus to officially agree to join the Empire. FAILED
3. Don't let the Federation gain access to the planet's dilithium crystals. FAILED
4. Don't escalate into an open armed conflict with the Federation as that would violate the Organian Peace Treaty. PASSED
5. There's rumor of a powerful biological weapon on the planet. Locate and acquire it without the Federation learning of it. HALF-POINT
So the Empire accomplished 2 whole points

DUKE MUDD’S GOALS:

Your Missions:
1. Get Stella off your back, permanently. - PASSED
2. Become filthy rich. - FAILED
3. Gain control of the dilithium crystal trade on the planet, and don't lose it in any deal with the Klingons or Federation. - FAILED
2 and 3 are arguably accomplished, but potentially failed if Mudd had continued living. 1 is certainly accomplished.

GORN GOALS (this was the Gorn Captain from the episode “Arena”, banished from his homeland for his defeat at Kirk’s hand, and hoping to regain his honor =):

1. Kill Kirk or the Klingon captain to prove your strength in melee combat. - FAILED
2. Take control of Nimbus for the Gorn Hegemony – FAILED
(in the Gorn player’s defense, he was mid-game volunteer to play what was supposed to be a throw away character, and he played him with so much depth that he ended up not being homicidal enough to win)


Lessons Learned/Thoughts
- Lower crunch rules work well for Braunsteins. There are two major schools of style for a Braunstein:
A. Leaning into wargaming, with tracking location and time strictly. More rules heavy typically.
An example would be each player being the Chief of an orc tribe.
B. Leaning into the Werewolf/Mafia facets, where it's much closer to a standard RPG, but with everyone playing their own faction.
An example would be Trekstein.
If you're doing B, lighter rules or just focusing on using the core rules of your game is advised. For Trekstein, most things were standard skill rolls. I choose to accept every non-opposed roll as a success if it was an 8 or more, for sake of ease. This tended to make players succeed a fair deal, which is fun. It's fun to be overpowered because you've worked the situation to your advantage. One still died despite this.
There were many times I ruled on what Star Trek tech could do; I went with Star Trek novel logic; if it would probably work in a Star Trek novel, I ruled it would work here. Captain Kirk's crew was able to successfully remove chestbursters from impregnated civilians, proving that Star Trek tech is far better than Alien tech.

- Things will NEVER go as planned. And you'll scratch your head that you thought X and Y would be a good idea. So don't be afraid to change things up midgame if it's not working. Easy enough for me to say, since I ran this play by post over time, so I had plenty of time to change things, unlike David Wesely who put it all on the line running it live and in person.


- The most important part of a Braunstein rules-wise is combat/conflict rules. Many rules can be handwaved, but when the actual players directly come into conflict, that's when the rules matter. I suspect that playing in person it would be important to have a rules system that the players could use themselves to handle a fight. If everyone knows AD&D combat and there's no secret elements, players ought to be able to run their own combat between the Gnoll Chief and the Orc Chief. Braunstein combat is like a sport; it needs to be fair, because the game itself is closer to a sport than a traditional RPG.

- Design the scenario for the number of players you have. I would have replaced the dukes with something else if I'd known I'd only get one duke player. I like to run NPCs like video game NPCs (and leave most of the active agents of the game under player control), outside of characters like Khan or Alcar Dovan, which I run like they're a player (ie, they're allowed to actively try to kill players)

- I did find I had the most fun when I was refereeing an intense encounter between players, or when I tried to kill my players. Try to kill them, reasonably.
I suggest having a few chaos elements ready to drop into the game if need be, and if things start slowing down, have a NPC go after a PC at full throttle.
A great perk of using the Star Trek setting is everyone roughly knew how the world operated, so what would typically be lore we had to absorb was just basic knowledge everyone had. That's one perk to a historical Braunstein like David Wesely's, everyone basically knows what an 1800s soldier or CIA agent is capable of, so you can deduce what your opponent might be trying from that, along with being able to easily come up with ideas for what you want to do.
- Use pregens for session Braunsteins (a Braunstein that's meant to be played and have a clear ending). The characters need clear goals to shoot for, and a clear idea what who they are and what they have at their disposable.
- Give your NPCs one clear goal. I found when I had to use Khan I had a clear idea what he would do, so it felt like I was just channeling what Khan would do. Moving forward, I'll make NPCs that I have a clear idea of how they'll act and what they want.
- Generally, have two main factions for people who oppose each other, and then add subgoals for specific characters to spice things up. Starfleet and the Klingons were opponents, but Dukes had more individualized goals that throw more nuance into how the game plays out.
- Have an initial moment where the game begins. For Trekstein, it was just as the Klingon and Starfleet ships dropped out of warp.

What does the gameplay actually look like?
Here's what happened if you were a player.
You joined the Discord server.
You looked over a channel with public knowledge about the planet Nimbus.
You selected a pregen character from a list.
I created a private channel for you and me to talk, and send you your character sheet.
In your private channel, I provided info on your exact starting situation. Where you are, what your goals are.
At this point, you tell me what you want to do, and I tell you what happens.
If you're part of a faction, you also have a faction specific channel you can freely use at all times for talking to your faction members. (You always need these)
You can also see a channel everyone is in if you want to in character send a message to everyone.
If you come into contact with another player, I'd create a channel for you and the other players you are present with or directly hailing, etc. Then you'd talk and say what you're doing until there's a need for me to step in.
For example, Harry Mudd, Sulu, and Commander Korax were all meeting at Mudd's town. During the ensuing conversation, Korax drew his disrupter to shoot Sulu. I ran combat between them using the rules until it was resolved (Korax ruled horribly and ended up getting stunned before he could fire). Then players continued dictating their actions/speech.
And then game continues as such. During the above fight, Sulu and Korax were using their private channels to tell me any secret actions they were taking/asking for clarification on knowledge.

While you're sending me your actions and I'm resolving them, all the other players are also sending me their actions, and it's a bit like being in The Hunt for Red October, because you know the enemy captain is plotting your demise just as you are plotting yours. You also don't know what their secret goals are.
Play continues until our agreed-on ending, in this case Nimbus deciding which empire they're joining.

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