r/MythicBastionland

Hey there mythic knights! One of my players asked a pretty great question about armor in combat scenarios. He was fighting another knight who was decked out in full plate armor, but his head was exposed. My player wanted to go for his head with his sword thrust, and made the argument that armor shouldn’t be factored in because he was attacking a part of the body that was unprotected.

Wanted to get everyone’s thoughts on what I should do here as a DM?

Hello!

Long time lurker, first time referee! I have a question that I assume the answer is just Primacy of Action, but wanted your take.

We had our first session last night and while the standout was the random weather and nature table producing a rather hilarious scene, the other thing that popped up was just how focused my players get when a myth tosses an Omen at them.

The Tower hit them with their first and second omens and now they are making a beeline for it. My question is mainly, can a myth be resolved before all of its omens have hit the table?

Thanks!

Also seers are weird as hell and one of my players looked at me in disgust after I described one and recommended that I need to figure out my home life

The PDF comes with the hardcover if ordered online, so I was wondering if there would be anything included if I get it from my local game store.

I know some games (like shadowdark) will give you the PDF if you email them proof of purchase, not sure if that is the case with bastionland?

Hey yall, I had a couple of questions about how you all run jousting and sneaking scenarios. For jousts, I know that both opponents roll dice simultaneously, but my question is - do you only roll one dice (e.g. for your lance)? In combat scenarios, it makes sense that you’re using as much dice as possible, because you’re using everything you have against your opponents (shield, weapon, horse trampling, etc). But since you’re really just using a lance in a joust, do you just use that one dice?

On a different scenario, my players are infiltrating this complex lighthouse. When your characters sneak, do you have them roll VIG or CLA saves to avoid being spotted? And do you have enemies regularly roll CLA saves to see if they spot them? I haven’t run a Metal Gear Solid sneaking scenario yet, so any advice would be much appreciated!

Basically the title, how often are your groups gearing up?

Since every piece of armor is the same, players are always trying to loot and equip into empty slots or pick up weapons that they saw have better damage die. It's easy enough to say that the bandits they just dealt with are inferior for knights of their status, but when they defeat the Bolt knight I can't think of a reason they can't take his gear.

Is gear built into progression in your games or is it coming from specific rewards?

Hello everyone!

I'm currently working on preparing for a new campaign, and I've been thinking about how detailed it is to prescribe landmarks and holdings. So far I have this list:

Holding:

* description of the Holding

* Internal conflict

* the Holding's relations with other Holdings

* Description of the Ruler

* The Ruler's relations with other Rulers

* Holding Threads

* Council

* Circle

Dwellings:

* Description

* Sites

Sanctums:

* Description

* Sites

* The seer

Monuments:

* Description

* Sites

Hazards:

* Description

* Sites

Curses:

* Description

Ruins:

* Description

* Hidden Myth, not currently active in the Realm

Perhaps it would be worth adding a few more important points that I may have missed? Should I add courtiers and petitioners to the description of the holding? Should I describe the local residents in the dwellings? Perhaps a set of problems that arise in the dwellings that the knights can solve? Should I create sites for curses and ruins?

I am well aware that Bastion can be played with little to no preparation, using only the spark tables, and I have even played a few games this way, creating myths and landmarks five minutes before the game, but this time I would like to prepare as thoroughly as possible.

What do you think is missing from this list to make it as comprehensive as possible?

TLDR: Mythic Bastionland felt too disjointed and aimless for me. The weird myths and hex encounters made it hard to stay connected to the story and my character, even though I think the combat and atmosphere are great

Experience with the system as a player: 9 sessions, ~27 hours played

The Myths / Weirdness

The myths are all rather confusing. I know this is on purpose but it worked against the overall story for me. There's a weirdness to the game because of the mythical theme.

Unfortunately, this makes it hard to connect to the story. Story threads can change depending on the roll, so my group was often unsure of how to proceed with a situation. I often felt aimless in what to do next or what even a myth development meant to me or the realm. It's a real, "Huh. Yeah, that's weird..." type of feeling.

It's on brand for the game to feel this way but not exactly engrossing me with what's happening.

Hex Crawl / Character Goals

Every movement on a hex spawns a myth of some kind and adds to this disjointed feeling as well. If you're trying to get from point A to point B, you might find yourself doing something else entirely before even getting there, if you get there at all. It makes character goals feel unconnected to what's happening.

For example, I needed to get to Point B on the map to collect something my character wanted. On the way there, we ran into numerous myths that needed our attention.

Cut to a few sessions later, and we still hadn't gotten to where my character wanted to be. The answer is that we could have ignored the myths happening in each hex, but the three guiding principles of each knight kind of imply that you should follow through with what the myths are presenting you with.

Character Creation

You have to bring a lot to the character as a player to make them interesting. It's very easy in this game for your character to just be kind of a blank slate wandering around a map.

There's no real bonds between the players and there's no built-in goal your character wants besides the three main goals given to you by the game (Seek the myths, honor the seers, protect the realm). You get some tiny lines of flavor and then gotta make the best of it.

I can usually make a character work for any RPG, but with how the myths are often unrelated to what the characters are doing, the characters themselves being given very little to work with, and the three main principles that each knight has, it was very difficult to get a feel for who my character was.

Combat

The combat for Mythic Bastionland is one of its strengths. It's simple but has depth. However, the looseness of the rules sometimes makes it difficult to tell what you can and cannot do.

In the moment, combat doesn't always feel exciting, even though it plays better in retrospect when you think back on what happened during the fight.

Also, combat can feel surprisingly long considering how much of it is repetition.

Hi!

I’m going to start as a player in Mythic Bastionland soon and I was browsing through the Starter Kit, when it soon landed on my that if you take out the British flavor, you could very well play this as Mesoamerican Bastionland.

Some of the Myths like the Shadow or the River seem like they’re actually taken from Mesoamerican myths (or myths so old that predate the Great Crossing to America). The same can be said of some Seers.

So, instead of Knights you get Jaguar Warriors and Nahuals, there would be no steeds for obvious reasons, and weapons would be both crueler and more brittle, made of obsidian and bone.

Since in this warrior castes Glory was also the principal measure of status, little would be needed to change this either.

Does this seem like a good idea to you? What other modifications would I need to make to make this more Mesoamerican?

Hey, gonna be running the game within a month. I've been wondering whether to go for a Wanderer or Courtier start. I plan for the game to last between 12-16 sessions.

Keen for thoughts on my intended approach

In one of my holdings I rolled as a drama/woe that there was a beast terrorising the holding.

Separately I rolled for a different holding that the main gate is broken.

I wove these sparks together so that the town with the beast is the source of the realm’s lumber industry and as a result of the beast, lumber supply has stopped, thus preventing repair of the gate.

So, soon my players will travel to the holding to confront the beast. Great.

I’ve been trying to work out what the beast should be, and whether it’s ok for it to be just an isolated thing (knowing that my players will 100% assume it is part of a myth). I also was a bit worried about just plucking a beast from one of the unused myths.

One of my myths is The Cudgel, which has as one of its omens a Hawkleon as a beast to fight/interact with.

Anyone see issues with my nudging the omens so that they encounter this myth when they get to the forest, even if they are not technically up to that omen in sequence?

Also in my thinking is that from the Boar myth my players have the tusks that will (once) instant kill any beast they wound. So they might kill the Hawleon very easily. But that’s probably fine, right?

We just skipped an Age in our MB campaign and I’ve been having fun aging up (or killing off) all the NPCs the players have met. But I wonder about Seers.

Do you think Seers are immortal beings? Do they take on apprentices and pass on their titles like knights do? Should they age and die? Or should it be a case-by-case basis? The Crimson Seer is kinda like a vampire, it could be fun for her to stay eternally young, for example.

https://wurstproduktion.itch.io/the-wild-hunt-a-mythic-bastionland-myth

Place the Myth in a remote area. After the first Omen is encountered move the Myth every day one hex closer to the PCs current position. The Myth warps the hex it is occupying: Animals are afraid, birds nervously take flight, steeds foam and sidle about.

The Wild Hunt

1 In the distance you hear the sound of a terrible horn. You panic and the hairs in your neck stand up. You want to run but you can't. Then the moment passes.

2A flock of ravens flies overhead and starts circling above you. They croak a terrifying poem.

3 Six Bloodhounds, all teeth and lolling tongue. They alert the Wild Hunt with angry barks. They will try to avoid a direct confrontation but follow you everywhere you go

4 The horn sounds again, closer this time and stags and hares and foxes flee from it. You need all your mental strength or else you run with them.

5 The Herald arrives, flanked by two riders and a bloodhound each. She sounds the horn for the third time to announce the arrival of the Wild Hunt. The riders spur their steeds and sic their dogs on you. Only those with iron will won't flee before them.

6 The Wild Hunt is upon you. A warband of Fae and their horned Lord.

Cast

Bloodhounds

VIG 10, CLA 13, SPI 5, 3GD Tooth and claw (d6)

Vesper, The Herald of the Wild Hunt

VIG 10, CLA 7, SPI 7, 6GD, Swiftbow (2d6)

Riders of the Wild Hunt

VIG 10, CLA 13, SPI 10, 3GD Javelins (d6), handaxe (d6), steed

Stribog, The Horned Lord of the Fae

VIG 10, CLA 6, SPI 14, 10GD A2 (a plate of root and reed)

Thornspear (2d6 hefty, releases painful thorns on occasions: when the dice match an enemy is exposed in the next round)

https://preview.redd.it/x52kpi0yxc0h1.png?width=776&format=png&auto=webp&s=80fc0bb9943f39ac79c405d1bd42f49f3bca5874