Brozeros - BroXT

Session Braunstein using Brozer + Boothill

“I always get the shakes before a drop. I've had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can't really be afraid. The ship's psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn't fear, it isn't anything important — it's just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate. I couldn't say about that; I've never been a race horse. But the fact is: I'm scared silly, every time.”

-Opening paragraph of Starship Troopers.

I’m scared silly before I run a game, every time. It’s the same feeling I had in the locker room on Friday nights—a mix of pressure, terror, anticipation, and excitement. It might sound ridiculous. I have a feeling that many people can relate.

The funny thing about that feeling—it disappears at kickoff; it’s a phantasm. Once you pass the threshold from anticipation to action, the fear gives way to the overwhelming experience of now. When you’re on the field, everything beyond the game disappears. You don’t see the crowd. You don’t think about your girlfriend. In the moment, the only thing that matters is the play. If the idea of running a braunstein scares you, it’s okay. It scares me too. But once you’re in it you’ll wonder why you were afraid at all. Until the next time.

The Setup -

Pick a Brozer faction and reimagine it for a western.

Roll up a character. He’s an important person in the faction you picked.

I gave them each a publicly known headquarters in or near the town of Brozero. I made a bunch of voice chat rooms, one for each HQ and a few safe - safeish places to talk.

They got some freebie 1:10 scale troops and could buy extra.

I posted a few sentences of lore in the form of newspaper headlines to frame the inciting incident. The Mcguffinstone was reimagined as a pre Colombian stone mask. It could make their dreams come true— through an obscene bounty offered up by the Vanderbilt family. I put it into the hands of one of the factions, with the understanding that the bounty would be awarded at the end of the stein.

I made them create a faction goal, a personal goal for their character, and a goal for the mask.

I made a map with printer paper and purple crayon—a circle for each HQ—and used it to keep track of troop movements around town. On the back, I kept track of orders so I knew who to tag in when things converged.

Orders were given by direct message as needed.

The Game

We ended up with 10 players. I won’t bore you with the who shot whom of it all. Suffice it to say, within ten minutes so much was happening that I had to call everyone together and impose a 30 minute turn structure to stay on top of everything. They could still move their characters around, conspire, and shoot each other freely, but the position of their hired guns was on a time delay. Eventually, enough things were converging that the turns became unnecessary. Everyone was preoccupied with something.

I bounced around to all the chats to see if anyone needed anything. I walked some newer players through the process of combat until they felt like they had a handle on it. I resolved orders and pinged people when there were convergences. I made mistakes.

I spread rumors with GOSS when people sent their hired guns to sabotage each other. It also works as a general purpose answer to “I’m looking for information about X.”

One character was killed and I didn’t know for 10 minutes; wrongfully convicted in the court of public opinion and gunned down praying in church. Apparently he was shot for being a Quaker. It was thrilling.

What I’m trying to say is that it was absolutely chaotic and that’s okay. I was roughly sure of what was happening, but out of the loop on why. No one knew everything that was going on, only what they directly experienced. One of the players pointed out in the aftermath that the actions which matter in a game like this are the things you have witnesses for. Those actions ripple outward in unpredictable ways that make everything feel dynamic.

We were scheduled for three hours but ended up playing for five. Everything culminated in a big shootout at the church, HQ for one of the factions. Many of the players went there by their own volition. Some were prodded that way. One character was dubiously elected sheriff and deputized a lot of the other characters. There were deputies on all sides of the fight. It was kino.

Afterwards, players were excitedly trying to untangle the web for another hour or two. The excitement has hardly waned two days later. This is something everyone needs to experience first hand.