The Winning Secrets Kickstarter is live!

Online discourse surrounding Dungeons & Dragons changed forever when elite gamer Meffridus sent Jeffro Johnson bodybuilder memes to bully him into playing 1st Edition.

What was this strange game that has been subject to a million folk interpretations, whose rules we have been endlessly gaslit into believing were impossible to discern from the text’s arcane High Gygaxian language? Jeffro Johnson, author of APPENDIX N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons, undertook a journey to find out exactly what kind of game AD&D was when you played using the actual rules in the book, even the weird ones that didn’t seem to make sense!

What he found were Winning Secrets…

Contained herein are the chronicles of Jeffro Johnson’s Trollopulous campaign, the first campaign of the BrOSR, with essays and commentaries from RuleOfThule and Bdubs1776.

This seminal work definitively answers:

• What are the core pillars of BrOSR-style play?
• What can 1:1 timekeeping bring to a campaign that pausetime cannot?
• How does rediscovery and incorporation of the Braunstein unlock the game contained in 1e’s rulebooks?
• Why is Rule Zero a luciferian cop-out that turned D&D into a non-game?
• How can I make my game as awesome as the bros’?

Jeffro Johnson’s Hugo-finalist work on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons’ Appendix N launched a revolution in pulp as dissident OSR gamers began to rediscover the literary roots of the hobby. Jeffro managed to capture lightning in a bottle again, however, reshaping the discussion around D&D for a second time, connecting the secrets of David Wesely’s Braunstein, Dave Arneson’s incorporation of the idea of Braunstein into Blackmoor, and the massive living world able to accommodate infinite characters, players, and tables in a campaign that is hiding in plain sight within the rules of AD&D. 

About the Authors

Jeffro Johnson

Jeffro Johnson is a tenebrous vapor that translates his being out of non-Euclidean realms of nameless Stygian horrors only when the stars align such that the very best Lindy Hoppers and jazz musicians converge upon world class dance halls. He shuns both role playing games and the foetid stench of role players.

BDubs1776 

BDubs1776 is a film analyst and esoteric poster of long standing note, celebrated in deep corners of the internet for bringing unusual clarity and bombastic bite to cultural analysis. After aligning with the BrOSR movement in 2020, he became known for an effervescent style that frames games, films, and popular culture through questions of ethics, metaphysics, and the ever shifting shadows of the psychosphere. He is married with children and lives among the remnants of the former United States of America. A self described copperhead, he holds an abiding suspicion of Yankees. He is Roman Catholic.

RuleOfThule

RuleOfThule is a witness of seven heads and a whistler in white raiment from before the time, times, and half a time. His writings at Primeval Patterns call conventional RPG wisdom into question and suggest vast blind spots in normative RPG philosophy. He is the creator of BMD, an esoteric far-future galactic warfare RPG. He and his family endure the humidity of the conquered states and stand before the door no man can shut.

Rewards

Winning Secrets

Winning Secrets is a 260 page coffee table-sized book, crammed with essays, session reports, original maps and more!

• eBook – $3 – Convenient digital copy. Economical for the merely curious.
• Softcover – $18 – Something nice that you can hold in your hands and flip through.
• Hardcover – $50 – Prestigious linen-wrapped hardcover with slick dust jacket. Impress your friends by leaving it in plain view. Poplar slipcase not included.
• Both Formats – $65 – Save a little money by getting both formats, one to use and abuse, the other to keep nice and impressive-looking on your gaming shelf with those games that you are absolutely going to play one of these days.

Brozer: Island of War and Winter

The seminal Braunstein tutorial written and compiled by the heavy-hitters of the BrOSR. 

Far to the north of your campaign setting is a churning ocean of wyrms and icebergs. It’s where freezing winds blast the faces of PCs whilst streams of magenta weirding lights sway overhead in star dotted night. Upon this torturous sea, lying as a dead emperor in an ancient sepulcher sits BROZER: ISLAND OF WAR AND WINTER.

On this island rages war between dozens of factions. Whether it’s Romans or Aliens, spacemen or cavemen; BROZER’S factions fight for supremacy of the isle. In this windswept place of doom and dread, you and your players can experience a BRAUNSTEIN, PVP, and high adventure thus undreamed of.

BROZER is a ready-to-play Braunstein and game world setting for system neutral tabletop roleplaying characters of all levels. Dare to rule the island with a warm heart or an iron fist. Dare to BRAUNSTEIN.

All backers will receive a free print-and-play PDF copy.

Wait, isn’t Brozer free already? Yeah, but check this out…

$7000 Stretch Goal: Free Brozer Softcover

If we reach $7000, all backers will receive a free physical copy of Brozer with their copy of Winning Secrets.

Longtime game blogger Jeffro Johnson earned Hugo nods for his in-depth analysis of AD&D’s Appendix N, in his book Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as for the work he did as the editor-in-chief for the Castalia House blog.

During the COVID shutdowns of 2020, Jeffro and a group of friends gathered to explore a unique objective: explore the early D&D rulesets as thoroughly as possible. This was the birth of the nascent BrOSR movement, an effort that would take the implied goal of the Old School Revival (OSR) seriously.

The BrOSR coalesced as a group of Christian men who, through hearty ribbing and memes, encouraged one another to become better at playing Dungeons & Dragons and produce a better experience at the table.

The group’s principles included playing the game Rules As Written, eschewing homebrewing or house ruling, in an attempt to uncover what the game was truly like when taking author Gary Gygax’s prescriptions seriously. The game contained in the rules contrasts starkly with the “folk game” that D&D had become. While the OSR movement had largely been a vibe-based focus on the aesthetics of the older games, sometimes trying to rebuild them from the ground up, the Bros took an approach that centered on gathering a deep understanding and mastery of the foundational games of the hobby.

Members of this group radically changed the online discussion surrounding D&D, with a focus on RAW, use of 1:1 time, and re-incorporation of David Wesely’s Braunstein as seen in D&D co-creator Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor Campaign. In to providing extensive public-facing campaign reports, the Bros created Brozer: Island of War and Winter (out now through Cirsova Publishing), a Braunstein adventure product designed to teach other groups how to incorporate these elements, and offered it for free digitally and at-cost in print, moving nearly 2000 copies.

Cirsova Publishing is proud to present Winning Secrets, by Jeffro Johnson, RuleOfThule, and Bdubs1776. Originally conceived as the follow-up to Jeffro’s monograph, “How to Win at D&D,” published by Pilum Press in 2023, Winning Secrets collects the receipts for the style of play that Jeffro and the BrOSR championed. The book chronicles the sessions of Jeffro’s Trollopulous campaign, the first campaign of the BrOSR, and contains essays and commentaries offering insightful examinations of the definitive pillars of BrOSR-style play as well as illuminating the guiding values they champion.

In Winning Secrets, you will join the Bros in their journey, uncovering the brilliant lost secrets of great campaigns which gave birth to the D&D game rules. You will see the complete story play out of how this arcane lore was won through Jeffro’s paradigm-shattering Trollopulous campaign.

In this landmark work, you will find:

• A persuasive case for why contemporary approaches to RPGs cannot deliver on the game that was promised by the early D&D rule sets.
• A thorough breakdown of the four pillars of Real D&D, lore from the dawn of RPGs that will elevate the excitement and engagement at YOUR table!
• A detailed history of how Jeffro discovered these secrets and how he and his friends developed solutions to the challenges offered by high level play.
• An explanation of why only Christian brotherhood could break down the barriers that were preventing all of us from experiencing the RPG campaign of our dreams.
• The recreation of a lost artform and an entire world of gaming knowhow that Jeffro pulled out of complete oblivion.

This book will change the way you think about D&D forever. More importantly, it will show you how the game was intended to be played.

Winning Secrets will be live on Kickstarter from February 25^th through April 1^st: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cirsova/winning-secrets

Praise for Jeffro Johnson’s “How to Win at D&D”:

“These 30 or so pages of text in this book are the most impactful and important 30 pages I have ever read when it comes to tabletop roleplaying games and wargaming. It has changed the wayIi approach these games. This book put everything into focus for me, why I wasn’t having fun and didn’t feel good about the games I was running and how to run better games. I’ve bought five or six copies and have given them to each of my players and I recommend it to anyone I know who plays or wants to play D&D.” — Jon Asharan

“For the scholarly reader interested in the history of RPGs, this book is indispensable. It is thoroughly researched and, in my academic opinion, convincing.” — Gabe Mamola

Praise for Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons:

“This book may be the most important thing to happen to science fiction, fantasy, and even horror in the past three decades” — Jim Fear

“An absolute must-read for anyone wanting to rediscover the forgotten literary roots of fantasy in general, and role playing games in particular. I have already been blown away by some of the authors mentioned here, and look forward to a great deal more excitement as I progress.” — Sam Hart