Braunstein! on Drivethrurpg?

[Rafael]

Ranted quite a bit on FB about this; f* vulture marketeers. Way to take the fun out of our hobby.

[Havard]

Good news!

Today I can report that this dispute has been resolved amicably: http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.no/201 ... court.html


-Havard

[chirine ba kal]

A little bit of a follow-up; I e-mailed back and forth with Dave on this, and he's confident that - as Havard has so ably reported here and on his blog! - that this matter will be resolved; his lawyer is drafting the appropriate letters and agreements.

On a personal note, I found that this publication - no matter how well-intentioned - was just 'not on'. Dave is, for heaven's sake in the phone book and easily reachable; he was a guest at the recent Gary Con in Lake Geneva, for example.

Because of this, I have applied for a formal License from Maj. Wesely to become an Authorized Braunstein Referee, Certified To Run Braunsteins In An Authentic and Approved Manner - i.e., to try to keep ahead of the chaos. I will be displaying my license certificate at all future Bruansteins that I run...

And yes, I do find the idea that somebody could appropriate Dave's work, and try to use it to market something...

[Havard]

Hey Chirine!

Thanks for the update on this. I hope things will work out for the best here.

Initially I was just annoyed because I would have loved to see a book about Braunstein, how it was run and perhaps with guidelines to how to run new Braunstein Games of your own. However, I would only be interested if it was well researched and approved by Wesely himself. This one was not approved, nor did the author seem to really have taken the time to look into the history of the game, even though it is easy to find info on that on the web.

Furthermore, someone named Jack Vogel on Facebook who may or may not be an alternate identity for the author of the book was extremely antagonistic against anyone who criticised the book before Wesely took action. If he wasn't in fact the author operating under another name, he certainly did a bad job of defending him.

Anyway, hopefully this will be settled.

-Havard

[chirine ba kal]

Agreed; I hope that this gets fixed.

I looked at the posts by Mr. Vogel. hock:

If that's the actual author; he's got some issues. My feeling, based on what I could see, is that the person discovered the book, told people about it, and was angry that some of us who know Dave had issues with the book. Mr. Vogel certainly did not do the actual authors any favors - with friends like this, who needs enemies?

I found it quite fascinating that he took the position that since the book was dedicated to Maj. Wesely, and only cost $1.49 for the download, that made it all right to publish without the good Major's approval. Yes, I am quite aware that there may very well be no legal grounds for any possible action, but the whole thing struck me as quite unethical.

I mean, if you applied this same logic to my book about gaming with Prof. Barker ("To Serve The Petal Throne") it would be perfectly fine for me to simply dedicate the book to Prof. Barker - which I happen to have done anyway, as it seemed the thing to do - and put it up on DriveThruRPG or RPG Now for a minimal cost; never mind all that pesky IP, trademark, and copyright stuff. Would I ever do such a thing, just to make a fast buck?

No. Nyet. Non. Nada. In short, I think not. It might very well be, quote, "legal", unquote according to Mr. Vogel, but it would be wrong - unethical, I think is the phrase. And that, as near as I could tell from his posts on Facebook, was the thing he just could not wrap his head around... :roll:

(And people wonder why I try to limit my Internet presence...)

[oldehouserules]

You might find this interesting: http://pitsperilous.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... stein.html

We really did think that the Braunstein story was shared history at this point, and apologize for the whole affair, both to Mr. Wesely and to anyone else. We wanted to produce an old-school historical RPG and link it to its origins. The good Major and I have discussed the matter and came away friends...

That said, we do have a right to defend ourselves. We are NOT vulture marketers. I'm a medically retired Air Force Captain, combat-disabled in Iraq while serving with the Army (they don't have meteorologists of their own) and take ethics and integrity seriously. Game design has been a sort of therapy for me, and my wife does her best to assist in the things I might have difficulty accomplishing for myself. Given how deeply personal gaming is for me, it was all-too-easy to get into my own head and ahead of myself...

Also, I'll always speak for myself and not hide behind pseudonyms (more chivalrous), and so here I am.

Once again, I'm deeply sorry and grateful to now call Mr. Wesely a friend. His graciousness is beyond compare and we thank him!

[chirine ba kal]

You might find this interesting: http://pitsperilous.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... stein.html

We really did think that the Braunstein story was shared history at this point, and apologize for the whole affair, both to Mr. Wesely and to anyone else. We wanted to produce an old-school historical RPG and link it to its origins. The good Major and I have discussed the matter and came away friends...

That said, we do have a right to defend ourselves. We are NOT vulture marketers. I'm a medically retired Air Force Captain, combat-disabled in Iraq while serving with the Army (they don't have meteorologists of their own) and take ethics and integrity seriously. Game design has been a sort of therapy for me, and my wife does her best to assist in the things I might have difficulty accomplishing for myself. Given how deeply personal gaming is for me, it was all-too-easy to get into my own head and ahead of myself...

Also, I'll always speak for myself and not hide behind pseudonyms (more chivalrous), and so here I am.

Once again, I'm deeply sorry and grateful to now call Mr. Wesely a friend. His graciousness is beyond compare and we thank him!

My I thank you - and your Missus! - for your post? I, for one, am very happy to see you here letting us know what happened; it's both gracious and civilized of you, and very up-front and honest of you.

I don't presume to speak for anyone but myself, but I think you've handled this quite well. I think you'll enjoy working with Dave - he's a pretty cool guy, and I've been honored to know him since the late 1970s; you are about to embark on a wonderful voyage into the imagination.

May I offer a comment? I do not play historical miniatures anymore; I've become a very niche specialist, what with my games set in Tekumel. I've been running 'Braunsteins' (as we call them here in the Twin Cites) set in that 'Sword and Planet Romance' setting as well as in the Star Wars universe - my infamous "Great Mos Eisley Spaceport Raid" was one of the largest Braunsteins ever run; I had as players (amongst others) Dave Arneson as Jabba the Hutt, Ross Maker as Greedo, and Fred Funk as the Imperial Stormtroopers. (No typecasting. No, no typecasting at all.)

Might you want to address the 'universal application' of the Braunstein style of gaming beyond historical periods? I ran one back in June of 2013 that was set in Tekumel, and it went over very wll with the players and generated quite a lot of interest - I did a lot of posts on my little blog about how I run these games, and it seemed to go over well with the RPG gamers. Might be useful for you; I dunno...

Once again, thank you!!!

[oldehouserules]

Thank you! You know, I think I've heard of the Star Wars Braunstein, possibly on your site in some past online excursion or another. At any rate, it sounds incredibly fun, and not just because of the infamous rogues gallery involved (although that must have been a blast)!

Wesely is a fantastic guy for sure...

You make a good point about the very broad applications of the traditional Braunstein playing style, and I think we'll take that on board as we firm up the release. As a role-player myself, I feel like Wesely fathered two branches of the gaming tree, and am deeply honored that the good Major found our rules acceptable to explore his work as it might pertain to the RPG side of the coin, so to speak...

Thanks for the kind words and the sage advice, and see you around the forums!

[chirine ba kal]

Thank you! You know, I think I've heard of the Star Wars Braunstein, possibly on your site in some past online excursion or another. At any rate, it sounds incredibly fun, and not just because of the infamous rogues gallery involved (although that must have been a blast)!

Wesely is a fantastic guy for sure...

You make a good point about the very broad applications of the traditional Braunstein playing style, and I think we'll take that on board as we firm up the release. As a role-player myself, I feel like Wesely fathered two branches of the gaming tree, and am deeply honored that the good Major found our rules acceptable to explore his work as it might pertain to the RPG side of the coin, so to speak...

Thanks for the kind words and the sage advice, and see you around the forums!

You're very welcome!

The Great Spaceport Raid has been mentioned on a couple of RPG forums; Mike Mornard, who posts as 'Old Geezer' and "Gronan' was one of the players - Han Solo, to be exact; no, there's no typecasting whatsoever in my games - mentioned it, and this developed into a thread about how I get one of these things going.

What I've found interesting is the way RPG players react to Braunsteins; it's very immersive role-playing, as well as being very open sandbox play. For me, the miniatures act as a sort of 'tactical display' for the players, helping to keep things straight for them. I've got some videos up on my You Tube channel of some of our games, and if you can use any of that chaos you're certainly welcome to. Ditto for any of my ramblings on my blog, too.

I'm really looking forward to see what you come up with - we've been flying by the seat of our pants for years, and it'll be nice to have something that I can point people to as a way to explain this particular form of gaming / performance art...


And you're right; playing with that mob was really something else!!!

[finarvyn]

I would have loved to see a book about Braunstein, how it was run and perhaps with guidelines to how to run new Braunstein Games of your own.

This would be really cool!

I'm glad that this situation is resolving itself to everyone's satisfaction.