Demonstrating Convergence Management
The Remedial Education Continues
Continuing his remedial education of how this hobby works, Jon Mollison dropped this one-two combination over the past week and weekend.
These videos address the question of how players running actors can, through careful tracking of actions on the map and calendar, result in the emergence of scenarios via the convergence of forces on a single point on the map at the same time. Doing this is a major part of what makes a proper fantastic adventure campaign work as intended.
Is this the only method? No. Does it demonstrate the principle, to which a specific method may be applied to realize it? Yes.
Furthermore, it perfectly mirrors how Dave Weasely created the original Braunstein. Take a second look at the second video. This is, at first glance, something that only has two actors but that denies the idea that Victory Markers are things that need to be found, seized, and held. This opens up the possibility of third parties, had they known of this happening, intervening to pursue their own ends- symbolized by showing up and stealing off with one or more Markers.1
There were multiple Heroes on that battlefield. What if a third party showed up to assassinate one or more of them? That too could happen. Multiple other parties could show up to do their own things, and that is how Braunstein became foundational for the hobby- not endless dungeon crawls, not setpiece battles (certain not balanced ones for tournament play), and absolutely not anything derived from Narrative logic.2
If you are not following Jon’s YouTube channel, his Twitter account, or his blog fix that immediately. He’s on a mission, and you’ll want to be around to benefit from his work.
Which, in turn, means that having the supreme intelligence network is a massive asset for any player to possess- just like in real warfare.
Not enough people read history, especially military history. Opportunism of all sorts follows military action ever and always. It won’t be any different in the unreal realms of fantastic adventure gaming.