Over the past two weekends I've GMed a session of Fantasy For Real, and a session of Mythic Bastionland.
I've been reflecting on those sessions, and also comparing them to other FRPGs that I've GMed in the past little while, that have some similarities: Torchbearer 2e, and Prince Valiant.
I've only played the two sessions of Mythic Bastionland. The first struck me with how unrelentingly gamist it was (gamist in this sense). It involved a lot of movement on the map, trying to figure out a path to where the PCs wanted to go, and using a combination of magical items and dealing with NPCs to solve problems. It was less technically demanding gamism than Torchbearer, though - there is no real equivalent of TB's inventory management and condition-management.
The second session, last weekend, was not the same. There was not much problem-solving, and the play was much more about orienting the PCs towards various elements of the setting and situation. It felt a bit closer to Prince Valiant.
Mythic Bastionland does not use the scenario-prep that Prince Valiant does; but there are people (NPCs) and places on the map, and in the Myths. So I used a sort of mix of Fantasy for Real (with Myths in place of the pickle) and Apocalypse World fronts: that is, a group of characters/circumstances with some sort of goal or trajectory. (Not Burning Wheel, because there's no Circles/Wises/picklet analogue.)
I'll try to explain a bit more; although this further explanation may make the comparison to fronts seem a little weak.
In Mythic Bastionland, the overall situation is built up in two main ways. First, there is the map with its Holdings (towns and castles, basically), that are the centres of the social/political dynamics (analogous to Torcbhearer towns); and with its Landmarks, which include some more D&D-ish elements like Curses, Hazards, Ruins and Monuments but also some places that are part of the social set up: Sanctums (where Seers live) and Dwellings (where non-town-dwellers live). Second, there are the Wilderness Event rolls.
The rules for Wilderness Event rolls have a bit of nuance, but the basic idea is that every time the PCs proceed through a hex, that triggers a d6 roll: on a 1 to 3, an Omen occurs (each Myth has 6 Omens in total, set out in sequence; and because the Wilderness Events turn up the Omens in that sequence, there's no need for a separate clocks mechanic as in AW fronts); on a 4 to 6 it doesn't (but if there's a Landmark in the hex that the PCs don't know about, they encounter that instead). Because the system emphasises travel, this means that Wilderness Event rolls are made frequently, and thus are a significant driver of play. (Compared to Torchbearer 2e, the role of events in Mythic Bastionland is swapped: the wilderness events are on a par with Torchbearer's town events for complexity (or moreso); whereas the town events are closer to Torchbearer's Trouble on the Road. This is what gives Mythic Bastionland its magical questing knights flavour, that is definitely not there in Torchbearer and is more pronounced than in Prince Valiant.)
Omens, in turn, keep introducing NPCs into play. As written, these NPCs are pretty loosely sketched and have little or no connections to the broader setting/situation. So the GM has to improvise. For instance, in our first session, a Wilderness Event roll turned up the first Omen for The Wall: namely, labourers working on the wall; I had to decide where they came from. The nearest Holding was a fortress in the mountains, which would be the strategic beneficiary of a great wall controlling the two valleys/passes/plateaus to its south and its west, so I decided that the labourers had come from there. At that point, I also named the ruler of the fortress Sir Leon. And at the end of the first session, it was also established that the festival of Eldermass, which involves the Seers, was approaching.
In our second session, after a recap and a bit of extra action declaration retconned back into the in-game timeframe of the earlier session, the PCs moved north into a forest hex, and the roll showed that the next Omen of The Wall (its second) occurred. That introduced a pair of giant magpies amid ancient stones of the wall; but the Myth information for The Wall also includes a table to roll on, to see what is happening to stretches of the wall, and my roll told me it was mid-inspection; which meant (given that magpies aren't inspectors) I had to introduce some inspecting NPCs - a pair of surveyors and the soldiers accompanying them. And then, because these NPCs will respond to the PCs and the PCs will want to talk to them, I had to contextualise those NPCs within the broader setting and prep, and also incorporate the stuff from the previous session.
And more generally, in this second session, whenever a NPC came up, I was thinking about how to locate them in the broader setting/situation: eg how are they related to Sir Leon and his project of rebuilding The Wall?; how are they related to the Seers and the upcoming Eldermass?; etc.
So the comparison to fronts is (i) looking to the prep to give me something interesting to say, with (ii) that prep, when brought into contact with the Omens, giving me interesting things to say that have a social/political element or trajectory to them. Which - unlike, say, a D&D Expert set hex map and encounter table - drives play in the direction of more than just "procedural"/"technical" challenges and towards more thematic ones. And this was what helped push play in the direction it took, with the players orienting their PCs towards setting and situation: how to relate to the various NPCs they met; what attitude to take towards Sir Leon and The Wall; how to relate to the Born Seer and the advice that the Seer was giving them; etc.
I still think some of the key procedures in Mythic Bastionland are under-specified. But I think it's an interesting FRPG, and a fun one.
I've been reflecting on those sessions, and also comparing them to other FRPGs that I've GMed in the past little while, that have some similarities: Torchbearer 2e, and Prince Valiant.
I've only played the two sessions of Mythic Bastionland. The first struck me with how unrelentingly gamist it was (gamist in this sense). It involved a lot of movement on the map, trying to figure out a path to where the PCs wanted to go, and using a combination of magical items and dealing with NPCs to solve problems. It was less technically demanding gamism than Torchbearer, though - there is no real equivalent of TB's inventory management and condition-management.
The second session, last weekend, was not the same. There was not much problem-solving, and the play was much more about orienting the PCs towards various elements of the setting and situation. It felt a bit closer to Prince Valiant.
Mythic Bastionland does not use the scenario-prep that Prince Valiant does; but there are people (NPCs) and places on the map, and in the Myths. So I used a sort of mix of Fantasy for Real (with Myths in place of the pickle) and Apocalypse World fronts: that is, a group of characters/circumstances with some sort of goal or trajectory. (Not Burning Wheel, because there's no Circles/Wises/picklet analogue.)
I'll try to explain a bit more; although this further explanation may make the comparison to fronts seem a little weak.
In Mythic Bastionland, the overall situation is built up in two main ways. First, there is the map with its Holdings (towns and castles, basically), that are the centres of the social/political dynamics (analogous to Torcbhearer towns); and with its Landmarks, which include some more D&D-ish elements like Curses, Hazards, Ruins and Monuments but also some places that are part of the social set up: Sanctums (where Seers live) and Dwellings (where non-town-dwellers live). Second, there are the Wilderness Event rolls.
The rules for Wilderness Event rolls have a bit of nuance, but the basic idea is that every time the PCs proceed through a hex, that triggers a d6 roll: on a 1 to 3, an Omen occurs (each Myth has 6 Omens in total, set out in sequence; and because the Wilderness Events turn up the Omens in that sequence, there's no need for a separate clocks mechanic as in AW fronts); on a 4 to 6 it doesn't (but if there's a Landmark in the hex that the PCs don't know about, they encounter that instead). Because the system emphasises travel, this means that Wilderness Event rolls are made frequently, and thus are a significant driver of play. (Compared to Torchbearer 2e, the role of events in Mythic Bastionland is swapped: the wilderness events are on a par with Torchbearer's town events for complexity (or moreso); whereas the town events are closer to Torchbearer's Trouble on the Road. This is what gives Mythic Bastionland its magical questing knights flavour, that is definitely not there in Torchbearer and is more pronounced than in Prince Valiant.)
Omens, in turn, keep introducing NPCs into play. As written, these NPCs are pretty loosely sketched and have little or no connections to the broader setting/situation. So the GM has to improvise. For instance, in our first session, a Wilderness Event roll turned up the first Omen for The Wall: namely, labourers working on the wall; I had to decide where they came from. The nearest Holding was a fortress in the mountains, which would be the strategic beneficiary of a great wall controlling the two valleys/passes/plateaus to its south and its west, so I decided that the labourers had come from there. At that point, I also named the ruler of the fortress Sir Leon. And at the end of the first session, it was also established that the festival of Eldermass, which involves the Seers, was approaching.
In our second session, after a recap and a bit of extra action declaration retconned back into the in-game timeframe of the earlier session, the PCs moved north into a forest hex, and the roll showed that the next Omen of The Wall (its second) occurred. That introduced a pair of giant magpies amid ancient stones of the wall; but the Myth information for The Wall also includes a table to roll on, to see what is happening to stretches of the wall, and my roll told me it was mid-inspection; which meant (given that magpies aren't inspectors) I had to introduce some inspecting NPCs - a pair of surveyors and the soldiers accompanying them. And then, because these NPCs will respond to the PCs and the PCs will want to talk to them, I had to contextualise those NPCs within the broader setting and prep, and also incorporate the stuff from the previous session.
And more generally, in this second session, whenever a NPC came up, I was thinking about how to locate them in the broader setting/situation: eg how are they related to Sir Leon and his project of rebuilding The Wall?; how are they related to the Seers and the upcoming Eldermass?; etc.
So the comparison to fronts is (i) looking to the prep to give me something interesting to say, with (ii) that prep, when brought into contact with the Omens, giving me interesting things to say that have a social/political element or trajectory to them. Which - unlike, say, a D&D Expert set hex map and encounter table - drives play in the direction of more than just "procedural"/"technical" challenges and towards more thematic ones. And this was what helped push play in the direction it took, with the players orienting their PCs towards setting and situation: how to relate to the various NPCs they met; what attitude to take towards Sir Leon and The Wall; how to relate to the Born Seer and the advice that the Seer was giving them; etc.
I still think some of the key procedures in Mythic Bastionland are under-specified. But I think it's an interesting FRPG, and a fun one.
