For My Amigos 002: What is a Battle Braunstein?

     Some of you have been a bit out of the loop as to what exactly I mean when I mention Braunsteins in the past or present tense, some were not present for Fortress Orkmerica, some have been out of town or missed sessions. It's all good. The big thing is that there is likely another one of these events looming on the horizon and I would like to drop a quick post detailing exactly what is meant by this term in the context of our campaign.

    Simply put, the Battle Braunstein is a special type of session that emerges when the activities of factions and major players in the gameworld converge sufficiently that they can no longer be resolved as background activity. Instead of "DM Fiat" simply hand-waiving the activities of these major players, the Battle Braunstein brings people to the table in a session format similar to our regular adventuring, but now instead of controlling a character in a moment-to-moment adventure, you control a powerful figure or even a whole faction and dictate the activities therein on a turn-by-turn basis (With a turn generally referring to a single 24 hour period). 

    The two things that make the Braunstein exciting and dynamic is the multiple controlling players working at cross-interests (as opposed to the general cooperation you see in a regular adventuring session) and the presence of a mediated Fog of War. The game plays much like Diplomacy, with characters writing out their orders and having these orders resolve simultaneously. Where it differs from diplomacy is the scope of activity. Orders can include everything from troop movements, ambush tactics, spell-casting, attempts at diplomacy, the construction of fortifications, espionage, assassination, the list goes on nigh-indefinitely. In order to make this work, the DM serves as a referee, taking all the orders, looking them over, resolving how they will all play out, and then revealing the new game-state to players. 

    This preserves a Fog of War where characters do not know if their allies are helping or hindering them, they may not even know where their enemies troops are! In the last Braunstein, the troop movements resulted in more than one instance of the humans not reliably knowing where the orcs were as their intel was rendered useless by some new maneuver of the orc player.  

    For a detailed exposition of how this can look in practice, go ahead and read the Fortress Orkmerica post linked above. The important thing about this post is that you need to understand what a Battle Braunstein is in order to conspire to bring one about via adventuring session activity. The key thing is to think in terms of "How can the state of the world become messy to the point that the major players need to duke it out in order for stability to emerge?" To conclude this post I am going to list some example scenarios from our past campaigns that could have been resolved via a Battle Braunstein if we were using this system at the time:

    - In the Blades in the Dark campaign, the conflict between the Bridge Street Bastards, the City Watch, The Crows and the Lampblacks could have been resolved with a gang-war Braunstein (#GANGSTEIN)

    - In the Star Wars game the hot war between the Hutts and the Empire, with the Black Sun Syndicate trapped in the middle, could have been resolved with a Braunstein (And maybe a space/naval wargame for some BIG BATTLES)

    - When the adventurers in our other AD&D game firebombed a village as a distraction in order to steal magical artifacts from that village, and then framed the Inquisition for the firebombing, and then with one of the magical artifacts accidentally summoned a giant demon lord that resulted in a pitched battle between the demon lord, our previous High-Level PCs, the remnants of the tribe that got burned AND the invading subterranean horde of Skaven looking to capitalize on the chaos? That ABSOLUTELY could have been a Battle Braunstein. 

    Really all it takes to make a Braunstein happen is to think AUDACIOUSLY and aspire to MANGLE the equilibrium of the campaign so badly that it simply must be addressed on the scale of a special Wargaming Event. I have full confidence that you guys will be able to make this happen, because you've done it so many times before without even being told to. 

For My Amigos 001: The Henchman/Hireling Distinction

    There has been some confusion at the table as to the distinction between hirelings and henchmen, so I feel it is appropriate to lay out in clear language the precise distinction between the two in a place that can be easily found and referred back to. We will start with the shared traits, variables that are true regardless of which category we are talking about. Then we'll cover the unique characteristics of hirelings, then the unique characteristics of henchmen. 

Common To Both

    Neither henchmen nor hirelings are directly under the control of you, the player. They are NPCs in the traditional sense, and rather than simply being additional character controlled by the Player, the player gives orders which they may or may not follow. In play this is often expedited by having the players move and roll for their respective hired help, but it must be noted that this is a matter of convenience, not procedure. A hireling or henchman that is ordered to do something exceptionally dangerous, or strongly contrary to his interests, may make a Morale or Loyalty test, failing which would result in him refusing to do the thing which was asked of him. Both the treatment of the hired help by their employer and the general conduct of the employer are factors that impact loyalty. An employer who is of opposed alignment to his troops, or regularly asks them to shoulder the greatest risks, and so forth, will expect lower loyalty. A liege who treats his men well, maintains good discipline, and so forth will expect higher loyalty. 

    Both Henchmen and Hirelings must be ADVERTISED FOR. This is a rule that I missed and will be entering into effect this coming week (With existing hirelings standing, no need to retro-actively make you pay for past missed recruitment). Whether by distributing posters, paying a town crier, or whatever, you need to invest coinage to put out the call for men. This recruitment cost ranges from 100-600GP per week of advertising, and various factors including this investment will determine if there is anyone available and how many answer the call. Because it takes a week for the ads to circulate and pull results, players should indicate at the end of session whether they are putting out advertisements so that the following week the prospective recruits will be available. Advertisments are per-type, so if you need to hire an Alchemist, an engineer, and a group of archers, this will require three separate advertisements. 

    This new inconvenience does come with an upside, namely that other thing we have been doing incorrectly is how many turn up. Basically, there should be more men-at-arms available than we have previously been distributing. It should be at least possible that 20 or more men answer the call of adventure. We'll explain the weeny turnout thus far as having been an issue of not properly advertising. 

Hirelings

    Hirelings are paid a monthly wage, and they cover everything from men-at-arms, alchemists, assassins, animal trainers, smiths, sailors, labourers, spies, and others. These people are the staff that make adventuring at scale possible. The monsters of the world are numerous, so you need extra men. At scale these men need their equipment serviced, you'll need armourers and smiths. Establishing a forward operating base outside a dungeon would allow rest and recovery to happen without factoring travel time into each excursion, this would need guards and camp followers. Hirelings is a broad category, but covers all the logistics of running an adventuring operation. 

    Hirelings are on a fixed wage, but additionally do not progress in level. Sages and alchemists never start to gain levels as wizards or clerics, and men-at-arms do not gain levels as wizards. If you wanted to take an untrained non-fighter and whip them into shape as light or heavy foot, this could be done as a downtime activity, but they would still be 0-level fighters, and never progress to level 1. If you want them to progress in this way, you need to set them up as henchmen, rather than hirelings. 

Henchmen

    These guys gain experience. You give them a portion of your cut when treasure gets divided, and they level accordingly. While still independent NPCs with loyalty scores, the Henchmen serve two key functions:

    1. As your operation expands you will need NCOs, officers, men you can rely upon who are a cut above the rest in terms of competency and ability. The henchmen are the NPCs that keep the wheels of your enterprise turning.

    2. Henchmen are a great solution to the problem of death. If your PC dies, and you have nobody to replace him, you're back at level 1, and that can really suck. While this is somewhat ameliorated by the presence of a "Roster" of multiple characters that you may control, choosing session to session which one to level. The benefit of a henchman is that if you are the sort of person to zero in and focus on playing one particular character as often as possible, you can bring along an assistant henchman that doubles as an "insurance policy" against untimely PC death.