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What sets Mythic Bastionland apart..

More Bastionland, more myths

Samuel James

May 2

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This is a collection of thoughts around Mythic Bastionland. I like talking about this game.

I like addressing players by their knight title instead of the name they made up. Titles have weight. Titles are slick.

“Sir! Sir knight!”
“Ah, the trusted Trail Knight. Have a seat.”
“Comet Knight: things look desperate, what do you do?”

It’s cool too when an NPC has an evocative title that becomes their name. “That guy” or “old woman” it becomes “the woodsman” or “shawled crone”. You’re already doing this: the Seers don’t have names, do they?

Part of the referee’s job is to obfuscate what comes from which myth and what is “normal set dressing.” I had something happen in nearly every hex, be it a myth, a brief travel obstacle, a small discovery or sight, or a denizen. The ambiguity kept everyone’s attention: “is this? could this be? do we investigate or let it go? shoot, should we have talked to that guy? hm...” See the Overloading the Wilderness Roll post.

I go back-and-forth between modifying the roll and just sticking to what I came up with for Mythic Denizens (normal wilderness roll except a random Denizen omen comes up on a 6.) You can change the roll however you want, but to keep it hygienic, you have to do this between (NOT during) sessions.

The simple hook of session one was “Pick any edge hex on the realm to start on. You’ve heard rumors of a seer in this swamp area (highlights four hexes). Where do you move next?” The game unfolded SO WELL from there. You don’t need any more than that.

My players latched onto the oaths way more than I thought they would:

SEEK THE MYTHS
HONOR THE SEERS
PROTECT THE REALM

They were referenced all the time in play. Those three lines give them a relationship to adventure, weirdos, and the rest of the world, respectively.

This really is a low player-count game, three players as a soft-cap. I easily run this for only one or two players, something not common for traditional RPGs, and just give them a squire (or not, which made for such session variety). The decisions will likely come quicker with a lower player-count, so just shorten the session length or increase the number of breaks. But in a medium where getting player buy-in and attention is important, it’s a good feeling when the number of people you need on board is pretty low. I’d like to think too that it makes players feel more agency with fewer cooks in the kitchen, fewer hands on the steering wheel. There are also MORE reasons to stick together when there’re only three of you: need someone to watch your back.

That said, I did put together a Mythic Vagabonds variant meant for higher player-count groups. Character creation is one sheet and wicked simple. You’re likely to be without essential items and need to work together to make it through. The same aim and procedures as Mythic Bastionland proper, just with a greater need for companions and teamwork.

Speaking of squires, how often are they forgotten? At my table, all the stinkin’ time. Remind me of that Order of the Stick strip...

Having a repeatable phrase to let the players know when they can move on the map is a clean, hygienic procedure. I remember reading a solo Middle-Earth adventure gamebook that was a hexcrawl. After each entry/encounter, the book would invite you to continue the adventure with the words “Move on.” I like this cue for the party at the moment: “Where do you go from here?” It’s different than the usual “what do you do” which implies more moment-to-moment action when I want to know which hex they want to move to.

One player came late to the first session after I ruled anyone who joined after character creation would be a squire. He was so up for it and hammed it up the whole time. Anyone who complains about power differentials between PCs isn’t a chad player like Kyle Burger. It’s his mission now to get knighted, so I wrote up a small ritual procedure for that. Here that is.

Speaking of power differentials: in the middle of the session, one player stated his character was the oldest of the company. So that night, he advanced from Young to Mature and re-rolled his stats. He had his birthday camping under the stars. Now that player is hesitant to advance to the next age (Re-rolling stats to lower! That’d suck!) and another player with a Young knight wants time to move on (I’d really like to re-roll my Spirit, it’s hot garbage right now!). That tension makes the passage of time more interesting and rewarding for the table. And how realistic: Young knights want to move things along; they’re looking ahead. Mature knights are glad to stay in the present moment, play in the current Age. Old knights want this over, to move on and leave a legacy for other knights.

One knight almost died in a joust in his first 15 minutes of his new character. Every dice roll matter IMMENSELY.

One player made supplications to the Jeweled seer and exchanged a hard-earned treasure for a divination artifact to track down a vampire lord. He’s got big plans.

The players made a deal with The Spider and kidnapped the Goblin. They now have a Smeagol companion that they’re bullying around the realm looking for lost treasures.

This was all in the same session.

The three stats are SO flexible and EVEN BETTER than all previous Into the Odd selections:

-Vigour works just as Strength did, it’s perfect as it was and still is. I love that this is how to resist gambits; a good death-spiral replacement for rolling a save to avoid critical damage as we’ve seen in Electric Bastionland and ItO (in which could seem somewhat random when BIG monsters go down after the first real scratch inflicted on them). Going down at half of current VIG makes sense, is easy to math, and is intuitive. Passes with flying colors (except for the British English spelling and only because my spellchecker harasses me about it).

-Clarity is a STELLAR choice of words. It’s clearly a mental stat while still having many applications in reaction time, just as Dexterity did. But it also clearly a stat that can fluctuate: a bad night’s sleep = decrease, receiving insight from a seer = increase, disorientation or deception = decrease, a stimulant like caffeine = increase. Compare this to Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom: they all need serious, permanent reasons to change. But “hey, I’m a little tired and not thinking straight” is such a diegetic reason for you to be slower in combat or unable to discern tracks on the forest floor.

-Spirit is also straight-up genius. Just like Clarity, there’re clear ups and downs that change this: witness something horrible or depressing = decrease, hear a good song or pep talk = increase, do something immoral or weigh down your conscience = decrease, receive forgiveness or have a talk that clears the air = increase. And it somehow carries the connotation of both Willpower and Charisma in one. Charisma is pretty bad at diegetic reasons for fluctuating, unless your mantra is “get hurt, get mean and ugly.” Willpower is a bit better on that front, but it’s missing the aspect of morale and burdens that makes Spirit such a strong choice of words.

Hey… did Chris just totally dump encumbrance rules? Like completely? EB introduced the concept of Bulky, then it was placed into Into the Odd Remastered and now… it’s gone? Does anyone notice or care? Or did we just go back to the 5e method of not caring about things weigh and how much stuff we carry? “It doesn’t matter until it matters.” What a Chris thing to do. But how anti-OSR, all overinflated with its inventory slots and weight-based movement rules. Wild.

So this tells me that MB just isn’t about tracking the stuff you carry. This then begs the question: do we need Encumbrance in EB or ItO? Do those games really care about that? Unless the treasure/arcana/loot you’re finding is Bulky and you have to weight (heh) that against carrying other items, then it really doesn’t matter. Another example of it not mattering until it does. Bulky in reality just limits how much heavy armor and arms you have on you and even then that rarely comes up.

d72 means you roll two of the best dice: d6 and d12. And you have enough results to feel as though you have a nearly endless supply of knights, seers, and myths. Very cool. It’s always enough that you can never hold all these items in your head at the same time. That means re-discovery, even as the person who reads through the pages constantly.

Being the referee is a good amount of work upfront: get the realm ready, know the procedures, go. After that, it’s just running the thing hygienically and leaning on the myths and tables when you don’t know what happens next. The game really is a runway for imagination.

This could be nothing, but hear me out: Omens are events pointing to the future: the culmination and resolution of myths now arriving. Echoes are events pointing to the past: the remnants and remembrances of myths nearly forgotten. Could you write up the history of the Realm as a series of Echoes, remnants of battles or families or myths or seers, now passed? This is a “show don’t tell” method for lore, which feels very Dark Souls. Remove key pieces of knowledge and then scatter everything to all corners of the Realm.

I have written down in my ideas that someone’s mind or dreams could be a fun site to design. Imagine an amulet that lets the wearer jump into a sleeping person’s head. Now design a dreamscape with six POIs and you’ve got a site!

I’m going to expand on this later, but here’s a new landmark: Lair. Lairs are sites that when cleared the knights receive one glory. It’s a great excuse to put pockets of high-danger combat on the board and have players test the absolute limits of the violence rules. Think Elden Ring with all its optional combats: “yeah, this monster is basically going to sit here contentedly until you do something about it.” Some vassal could stumble on it and the villagers likely know to stay away, but don’t you wanna go kill that huge creature just for the GLORY?

Running this as a low-player-count, open-table-game online via Discord is a joy. We’ve had enough sessions now where no player has been present for every session. So when something comes up that’s a callback to a session before, the player(s) that were present have to chime in and fill everyone else in. The knights share rumors and unpursued hooks and a player-annotated map and I get to shut up and listen. The tapestry of the world is best weaved in the WORLD and not as an expositional explanation from the ref.

Playing online is nice because everyone can look at the player-facing version of the rules. I gave them all a PDF but without the myths, play examples, spark tables, and some pages about preparation. Players can ask me directly, or just query the rules themselves while others are talking.

Being CRYSTAL clear about the implications of dice rolls (failing, succeeding, high damage, low damage) is a very rewarding atmosphere at the table. “*I’M* not going to kill you, but if you can’t find a way to defeat or escape this Wyvern, they’re gonna make two big attacks at 3d10 and 1d10 and it’s NOT going to be pretty.” Then conversation moves towards collaborating on the problem. I’ll remind players about their gambits and feats and eventually players are reminding each other. All it takes is for people (ref and players alike) to pay attention.

For my “grab just this binder and play in-person” setup, I’ve included 10 knights: 2 old, 2 mature, 6 young. All randomized. I like introducing the power differentials from the outside. And then when a knight is used for a session, the player has to sign and date the back of the character sheet like a yearbook.

Does anyone have the original playtest PDFs when there was 100 knights and myths? I’d be curious to see which were cut. And if they can be “reclaimed”/”revived” into a neat little supplement.

Watching all five seasons of the BBC Merlin as a youth is FINALLY paying off!

Absolutely check out the Mythic Bastionland Syllabus. I’m finding and being sent awesome links EVERY WEEK. You guys, making blogposts and creating content, are just superb people.

Here’s an example of a MUST-READ: This post of 72 NPC knights from Crowned Comiserate. It quells ALL my fears of having a player roll up knight I’ve already used in the Realm. I printed this sucker out so fast as it just gave me everything I need to build TONS of knights on the fly. An honest and useful package of legwork.