On rifles it’s meant to used for long range so that you don’t have to burn up your elevation on your scope. My Badger base on my Rem 700 .308 for instance has 20MOA cant built into it. You don’t really need it for 5.56mm but for long range .308s it’s nice.
Yeah its basically the back of the rail (buttstock end) is higher than the front (muzzle end).
For instance on my Mk12 clone with zero MOA built in I can only get to 13 mils of elevation even though my scope will do 24 mils from zero. So if I wanted to get the full elevation adjustment out of the scope I would need a base (or rail setup like the OBR) that gives me the additional 11 mils.
I haven’t messed with it yet since with 5.56 77 grain ammunition I can shoot out to 1k with no holdover within the 13 mils of elevation I have available now.