My First (Half) Braunstein

 

I've done a lot

of reading about Braunsteins, which aren't an entirely new concept; us "theatre kids" just call 'em LARPs. Which, granted, I've not done, but there's some pretty extensive stuff on them. They're well-known. But anyone who is worth their salt knows knowing about a thing is pretty worthless if you haven't played it.

And I hadn't.

And I really wanted to.

So when Ross invited 

me to a Traveller Braunstein, I jumped at the chance! Ross and I have been talking and playing together for awhile now, so I figured he wouldn't mind the stupid questions I inevitably came up with. I have a pretty packed schedule, so I knew I couldn't do anything regular, but it was a one time thing. I figured that I could get in, learn, and then get out.  C'est la vie et la guerre.

Ross sent me a card with all the character information: a lonely princess whose marriage was delayed. She wanted a husband. There was some mechanical information on the card, for 1979 Traveller. I didn't really look it over at the time. I thought I'd do it later. Ross had the Traveller rules available, so I thought "Well, I'll just ask about this later."

This was a mistake. 

An honest mistake. But a mistake.

This week at work was pure, unmitigated Hell.  Not one, but two crises. All the time I would have normally even glanced at the rules was spent up to my neck in two totally different emergencies. I would go home and just want to stare at a wall. I would come home, find that everyone at home was crawling up the walls, and one evening I barely even got any dinner, it got that nuts. One of these would have been... well okay, not normal, but doable.

All three together? Nope.

So I walked into 

the Braunstein with absolutely no brain function. No research. No forethought, whatsoever. Saying that I was woefully unprepared would have been an insult to the woefully unprepared. It took me a second to even remember that Traveller uses a 2d6 system.

I resolved to walk in and look like a total idiot. It was all I had.

Ross announced the 

rules: he would leave us on the Discord server channels to ourselves, to plot and figure things out. Each of us got three secret meetings with him, which would constitute three rounds. And then Ross was gone, and my dumb exhaused brain went "WAIT WHAT DO I DO". This was such an obviously absurd question that I almost started laughing, right there on the server. I didn't know any of these people, not really. 

DMRaptor and I were acquaintances, and he was just going at it like a freaking champ. It occurred to me that I needed to get a read on these people. The princess needed a husband, after all.

I resolved to simply go for my goal of marrying one of these dudes. And if I was outmaneuvered, as I was almost certain to be, I would have (at the very least) had fun playing a bitter and jaded young socialite. I could get a better experience than Diplomacy, at least, by playing my princess well.

And I succeeded!

I simply sat 

in the bar of the sinking ship, drinking bottles of alcohol in front of the ship's owner, and going on about how my fiancé, who had already screwed my best friend, was away at war, and how the war was a frightful inconvenience to living, but this crashed ship was a lovely little adventure, wasn't it? We certainly couldn't get this normally through paying money. I went on about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket, because democracy let total idiots run things and get the credit for doing it. I held bitter and jaded conversations that sounded very sophisticated for someone twenty-two.

Suddenly I was talking to a Countess in another room, who wanted me to be her heiress, or at least independent enough, and I decided I was going to use my... abilities... to help the Countess out. Did I expect actual help? No, but independence was what was desired, and marriage was a means to that end. So I cleared that with Ross, helped out the Countess with some of her own problems... I went-

And then suddenly 

my phone is buzzing.

Because a kid's up, the wife needs help.

Shit.

Off I go.

What a week.

I have absolutely no idea how it went down. If the ship went down. Or if the Countess figured out if it was an inside job. Or if DMRaptor's used car-salesman persona was actually living up to the hype he brought.

But I had a really good time!

I have some

initial thoughts, of course. Holy hell, that was a culture shock and a half, in the best way possible. I had some experiences in RPGs that were kind of like this (see my post about the Clandestine Turn), but nothing on this scale. And I really enjoyed it.

The structure is 

so freaking simple: mingle and scheme, go for three secret turns with the GM, and then the GM makes sure to keep the fog of war up so that way people do their thing without tipping each other off. I used mechanics once that entire time, and that was to adjudicate an action using one of my powers. I didn't particularly miss the mechanics, truth be told. That part I definitely didn't expect. But oh well, this is why you play things.

I really wish

I had had more ability to prep this time. This feels like something I'd want to take time on, like a month in advance or something like that. Really flesh the character out, really think on it. There wasn't a lot of lore that I could think to look for at the time. That's not Ross's fault, just for the record. I didn't know what questions to ask, and Ross can't anticipate my gaps in knowledge and expectations.

But suddenly I get why David Wesley supposed did a half-hour lore dump at the front of his Braunsteins. Suddenly that makes a lot of sense to me. Because, yes, that temptation would be strong, and even possibly necessary, on some level.

I have a lot 

of questions, which I don't necessarily know how to ask, at least yet. The fact that I was so fried and still had such a great time is a pretty high compliment to Ross and the crew on the server. They were pretty patient, and I appreciate it a lot.

Here's to next time, when I can actually do a good job! And, you know, actually get through the whole freaking session. That would be nice.