Mythic Bastionland - initial impressions, and making a Realm

[pemerton]

Upthread, before I'd actually played Mythic Bastionland, I made these posts about it:

I've seen this game described as an OSR game. I'm not involved in the OSR space at all, and so my sense of "what's OSR" is pretty basic. But I think of B/X D&D and dungeon-crawl-y AD&D - which I do know fairly well - and Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and even a game like Errant which I bought at the same time as Mythic Bastionland, but which - after a quick skim of the rules - I can be pretty confident I will never read fully, or play. In this sort of game, "beating the dungeon* and PC advancement are pretty central elements

And I don't see either of these in Mythic Bastionland. There is the hex crawl aspect; but as soon as I see "When the group feels that a Myth has been resolved, reaching a conclusion of any type" then I feel we've moved completely out of beating the dungeon territory and have shifted our concern to some sort of shared aesthetic/creative appreciation and engagement of situation that is like some of those other RPGs I've mentioned not far upthread: Burning Wheel, Agon 2e, Prince Valiant, etc.

In this paragraph, I'm contrasting with Errant because I bought it at the same time, having seen both games mentioned together, or at least close to together, in the context of OSR games that do interesting things. And for me the contrast is super-huge. Errant doesn't inspire me at all. It opens by telling me its another OSR game. Whereas Mythic Bastionland opens by telling me the game will be driven by Myths, and then presents all these weird and creative Myths, and has a setting that I think they will work in, and rules to make it all work (subject to the gaps I've already mentioned). Chalk and cheese.

After having played it, I made these posts (on another active thread):

I think it can be useful to distinguish between establishing consequences of declared actions and framing a (new) scene. Although the borderline is not always clear (and sometimes, even often, it makes sense to describe consequence-narration as reframing a scene), I still think there is a useful difference:

*Framing a scene presents an opportunity and/or a threat;

*Resolving a declared action, and establishing its consequence, realises the opportunity and/or brings home the threat.​

The way I've just put it is especially tuned for narrativist(ish) play, and I'm thinking through my recent session of Mythic Bastionland (which was 100% gamist, in the Big Model lexicon) to see if the above still fits. Probably "obstacle" rather than "threat" works better for that sort of play. But I still think the contrast holds.

Here's the action procedure from Mythic Bastionland:

1. Intent: What are you trying to do?
2. Leverage: What makes it possible?
3. Cost: Would it use a resource, cause Virtue Loss, or have a side-effect?
4. Risk: What's at risk? No risk, no roll. Otherwise make a Save or a Luck Roll.
5. Impact: Show the consequences, honour the established risk, and move forward.​

So 1 I get - I'm used to intent-based resolution (eg Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, 4e D&D).

And 2 I get - this is the "credibility test" from HeroQuest Revised, the "no roll for beam weaponry in the Duke's toilet" from Burning Wheel, etc. I think this is the bit that @TwoSix doesn't want to have to do unilaterally as GM ("Dear GM, can I try and do this thing?").

And 5 I'm find with: that's just GMing as I conceive of it.

3 and 4 are, for me, the trickier bits. I'll try and explain why. First, "cost" and "risk" are separated from one another. So it seems to be possible to suffer a cost, but not have to make a roll. This is borne out by the discussion of Exploration, which talks about time taken, and especially uses a phase as a type of cost. And also in the travel rules, which use virtue loss as a cost without a roll (eg for not travelling at night).

I think I would like just a few more examples, especially for non-exploration contexts, of virtue loss as a cost. And the idea of "side-effects" as a cost is also interesting. Some are obvious - a side effect of jumping into water is getting wet - but an example or two beyond that sort of thing would help me.

And then there is the issue of risk, which you've seen me post about before. I'm very used to the BW heuristic, which is (roughly) if the action pertains to something the player has put at stake - via Belief or similar signal - then there is a risk; otherwise, say "yes". But Mythic Bastionland is (to use the old lexicon) gamist and not narrativist. There aren't BW-style beliefs or stakes; the players are trying to earn Glory for their Knights by resolving Myths. So when is there risk? Common sense can get me some of the way, but it's not an entirely common-sense world (eg The Mountain has crag cats that lure human prey by placing jewels; and has glamorous peacock riders). And obviously these judgements of risk, and hence the need for a roll, implicate the difficulty for the players of attaining their goal.

I think it will take me some time to feel my way with this.

In this post I want to say a bit about how these "before" and "after" thoughts fit together.

It was the players' need for information that drove the gamist play. This information is obtained by searching hexes - that's the hex crawl aspect - and by talking to NPCs (including Seers). Probably the best-known information-driven gamist play is CoC mystery-solving. Mythic Bastionland isn't clue-driven in the same way, or at least wasn't in my game. The Wilderness event table throws up Omens without the players needing to do anything special to find/generate them.

Interpreting the Omens is, as I posted upthread, a bit like the Signs of the Gods in Agon 2e. But the pre-authored structures - the map structures, which include definite locations for Dwellings, Holding, Seers, Monuments etc (all important for recovery), and also the Omen sequences (set out in the book for each Myth) - put constraints the players have to work out and work within. Which is what creates the parameters for gamism.

The difference from classic D&D is that the goal is not acquiring treasure. And the difference from CoC is that the goal is not solving a mystery. At least for the Myth that ended up being the focus in my session - The Mountain - the culmination of the information was making a choice about how to relate to the Myth.

Because Glory is obtained by resolving the Myth - whatever that looks like - the gamist orientation seems to drop away at that moment of climax. It's pretty interesting, I think. It reminds me a little bit of Agon 2e. And also a little bit of the Green Knight RPG - the mechanics are different from both of these, but the gamism driving towards the need to make a thematic choice at the end is a bit similar.

 

[zakael19]

Because Glory is obtained by resolving the Myth - whatever that looks like - the gamist orientation seems to drop away at that moment of climax.

I think this is so interesting. The question for the knights becomes “in the context of your Vow that you live by, do you think this Myth resolved such that it adds to your glory.”

 

[pemerton]

I think this is so interesting. The question for the knights becomes “in the context of your Vow that you live by, do you think this Myth resolved such that it adds to your glory.”

I think something to watch out - again, I caveat that this is based on limited play experience! - is the risk of the gamism completely swamping this.

I think the metachannel here needs to be fairly open - or at a minimum, the players need to have some confidence that the GM won't hose them for their choice!

 

[zakael19]

I think something to watch out - again, I caveat that this is based on limited play experience! - is the risk of the gamism completely swamping this.

I think the metachannel here needs to be fairly open - or at a minimum, the players need to have some confidence that the GM won't hose them for their choice!

No idea what any of that means!

Also, the game says “the group feels a Myth is resolved” and the group in this context also includes the GM. There’s certainly some interesting decision space on what it means to resolve a Myth that has come to pass (hit that last Omen). I saw a blog talking about one of the Myths progressing to the final Omen, and deciding that based on what it says it displaced the ruler of a holding, and so resolution in that context for the table meant leading Warbands to assault the holding and restore a rightful Authority.

 

[pemerton]

No idea what any of that means!

Also, the game says “the group feels a Myth is resolved” and the group in this context also includes the GM. There’s certainly some interesting decision space on what it means to resolve a Myth that has come to pass (hit that last Omen). I saw a blog talking about one of the Myths progressing to the final Omen, and deciding that based on what it says it displaced the ruler of a holding, and so resolution in that context for the table meant leading Warbands to assault the holding and restore a rightful Authority.

No idea what any of that means!

If the players can't see past the need to obtain and act on information, then when the time comes to resolve a myth, there's the risk of the players looking for the "right" answer, rather than injecting their own thoughts as to what resolution means.

I think the GM needs to somehow make clear, at least by what is implicitly signalled if it's not explicitly flagged, that the players have to choose rather than just try and find out.

 

[zakael19]

Ohhh yeah, totally. Hopefully that’s pretty clear from the page, but this is another place where the author’s focus on trimming down excess and page layout could’ve used a little more discussion. I’ve seen some talk about reminding players that they should seek out Seers if they’re feeling stuck, but that sort of thing isn’t anywhere in the book.

Relevant to this discussion, from the Q&A post on the author’s blog:

“Is the way to resolve a myth basically up to the players and I decide whether or not that works?

Yes. But it also doesn't always have to be a solution, nor does it have to be successful. A Myth is resolved when the whole group feels that its story has been told and finished. Glory is earned if the players were a meaningful part of that story—even if they failed, or the resolution wasn't solving it.”

 

[J.M]

For me, the brilliance of Mythic Bastionland is how the Myths and Omens work. It solves the issue of random encounters being...well, "random," disconnected, and distracting from the "main" story. I'd seen some blog discussions of the concept of "encounter tables with memory" before, but I've never seen the concept implemented in a game before MB. Has it been done elsewhere?

 

[zakael19]

For me, the brilliance of Mythic Bastionland is how the Myths and Omens work. It solves the issue of random encounters being...well, "random," disconnected, and distracting from the "main" story. I'd seen some blog discussions of the concept of "encounter tables with memory" before, but I've never seen the concept implemented in a game before MB. Has it been done elsewhere?

His Majesty the Worm uses a “Meatgrinder” table where you remove entries from the table as they are encountered. There may be others!

Honestly, Myths and Omens remind me so much of the uh, Grim Portents / Impending Doom etc of Dungeon World (and Apocalypse world) Threats. They’re just folded behind appropriate levels of Knightly realm / Dark Souls-esque theme.

Like, a couple of the myths I’ve looked at could be, when you strip away the flavor trappings, exactly a Threat / Doom / Portents from my Stonetop games.

 

[Fenris-77]

His Majesty the Worm uses a “Meatgrinder” table where you remove entries from the table as they are encountered. There may be others!

Honestly, Myths and Omens remind me so much of the uh, Grim Portents / Impending Doom etc of Dungeon World (and Apocalypse world) Threats. They’re just folded behind appropriate levels of Knightly realm / Dark Souls-esque theme.

Like, a couple of the myths I’ve looked at could be, when you strip away the flavor trappings, exactly a Threat / Doom / Portents from my Stonetop games.

The Meatgrinder is a brilliant bit of design.