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After running Mythic Bastionland for 9 months (about 25 sessions), I wanted to share some thoughts while the experience is still fresh. This is part review, part reflection, part rant.

Let me preface this by saying Mythic Bastionland is a great game. I would not run a system I hated for nearly a year. However, it has a few flaws that reviews often gloss over beyond the usual complaints about combat.

The Good

• General Advice
  • Chris gives fantastic advice in the refereeing sections, and the Oddpochrypha entries offer great insight into how you should think about running the game (or any game really).
  • Spark Tables are excellent sources of creativity and worth rolling on if you need ideas.
• A Blueprint for Focused Open World Games
  • Mythic Bastionland is a brilliant open world RPG. People often miss this because the scope is so laser focused. It is an open world, just a small one.
  • Players start on a simple path following an Oath, a map, and a chosen Holding. Once they encounter their first Myth, the game ramps up. Suddenly, they are balancing Myths, Seer locations, and petty politics. Normally this causes analysis paralysis, but the Knight's Oath keeps them locked-in because slaying a monster always ticks off the Myth and Protect Goal.
• The Myths
  • I wanted to test myself as a GM by avoiding heavy prep work and focusing on pure improvisation. Across 9 months, I only had to sit down for meaningful prep at the beginning, middle, and climax.
  • Now I will give myself some credit, but at the same time, the Myths are perfect for low prep games.
  • The Myths pack enough flavor and mechanical juice to run immediately without overwhelming you.
  • They range from weird anomalies to full wars, and they never overstay their welcome.
  • If I ever need to prepare a one-shot in another system, I will be stealing a Myth from this book.
• Presentation and Tone
  • The tone is immaculate. It feels realistic yet mythical, like a low fantasy medieval England filtered through Dungeon Synth.
  • Alec Sorensen’s award winning artwork really raises this game to the next level and he deserves so much praise for his otherworldly artwork.

The Mixed

• Combat and Math Death Spirals
  • Combat is quick, elegant, and deadly… until optimization breaks it.
  • The first turn is almost the only one that matters.
    • Because attacking impairs weapons
    • Impaired weapons can't bypass armor
    • Early damage means on the next turn they are more likely to be impaired
  • And because players usually go first, their foes are likely to enter a death spiral. How likely?

Math Nerd Time noting that a 1d10 weapon is common.

1 player with a 1d10 weapon pool has a 30% chance to get a Greater Gambit. 4 Players with a 4d10 weapon pool have a 76% chance to get a Greater Gambit. 

• And even if they didn't get an 8, they could potentially need to roll 4 saves to avoid an impair.
• If the players obtain great swords which are 2d10 then math breaks even further.

4 Players with a 8d10 weapon pool have a 94% chance to get a Greater Gambit.

• When the enemies do get a turn, Deny means zero chance to hurt players on the first turn.
• By the end of the game, combat was a chore with zero interesting decision making as the optimal choice is too strong.
• The Myths… again (and also Knights)
  • I know I said the Myths are amazing but I have a confession.
    • I rolled for my Myths then ignored the results.
    • Not because they were bad but because not all of the Myths are the same quality.
  • A few relegate players to spectators, have loose disconnected events or awkwardly slot in fights with a random animal that add nothing to the narrative.
  • The same applies to Knights. Some have far more useful or flavor-rich abilities than others. Save your players from the disappointment and just let them pick their Knights.
• The City Quest
  • While I like the atmosphere of The City Quest, the events feel disconnected from each other during what should be a climatic build up.
  • There is no real thread to follow outside of NPCs, and there are few meaningful decisions to be made.
  • The whole thing feels like it will become a railroad the moment they ask the first NPC how to get to The City unless you choose to ignore Chris’s Primacy of Action and just refuse to tell them anything.
  • The end is also a little avant-garde which will not be everyone's cup of tea.

The Bad (Only Rubbish Realm Generation)

This is a long rant (which I have cut down) so buckle up.

In my opinion, the Realm is one of the most important parts of this game, part of their oath is to Protect The Realm so it better be worth protecting.

The Realm has two parts, the land itself and the people who live in it.

I decided the map and the small web of politics were two things I would not come up with on the spot with little details be done as improvisation.

Breaking the Rules

• When Chris opens the section with "Break the rules," it feels like an admission that worldbuilding is more art than science.
• That would be fine if he did not spend the rest of the page giving precise instruction on generation.

Poor Advice for Islands

• I think for the only time in the book he gives some bad advice suggesting a 12x12 grid is typical even with an island chain game.
• Something that I believe will ruin travel pacing, shrinks usable land, and forces constant on the fly edits to Myths in order to fit naval travel.
• Why suggest this? Definitely break the rules if you want a Naval game.

Terrain Generation

• Early Maps (Following the procedure)
  • I start generating a map purely from the landscape table, only to absolutely hate it.
  • Maybe there was too much green, maybe it was too repetitive, maybe it felt too square, or maybe total random generation just doesn't make very mermorable maps.
  • I tried breaking the rules by painting fields, moorlands, and mountains by gut feeling while using the spark table just for inspiration.
  • It was better and serviceable, but I still was not happy.
• Understanding the problem
  • The problem was not the book didn't tell me how to make a map, it just failed to tell me how to make a interesting looking map.
  • My map was very much like my home, the British Countryside but its all a bit green and brown, Mythic Bastionland is that but also a little bit weird and a little fantastical.
  • So some of you will be telling me "Just use the spark tables!" and let me say I did.
  • Spark tables have told me what is in the region , stuff like "Blooming but Thorny Vines inhabited by deceitful birds" is great when the Knights enter the region but on the players will only "Forest" or maybe "spikey forest" if the GM drew those.
  • Yes I could spend hours making a visually stunning map but artistry should not be a requirement for a interesting map.
• Final Map (and my advice)
  • First ditch the 12x12 grid and go wider (something Chris started doing also).
  • I recommend a non-square jagged coast which gives a new decision for how to travel around the realm (and flavors settlements on the coast).
  • For the landscape, Chris has the solution but doesn't teach us it, its to use the spark tables.
  • Get your crayon out and start painting parts of the land using the tones of the sea and sky using unnatural colors.
    • Suddenly ended up with a Sapphire Forest, Lavender Hills, the Bloody Crags, the Golden Mountains, and the Inky Plains.
  • It gave the landscape instant visual intrigue, instant vibes when they get there, instant ideas why it is that color, and created places my players were curious about on the map and could recognise without checking a grid reference number.
  • Most importantly, it felt familiar but a also bit weird.
• People and Holdings
  • I was excited to build the political web after watching Chris demonstrate a brilliant method for linking four Holdings with the spark table on a livestream and his blog. Sadly, none of that process made it into the book, which simply tells you to place four Holdings.
  • Yes the book advises using spark tables but it fails to tell GMs where to focus their energy.
    • Referees could spend hours end up rolling superficial traits like outfits and heraldry instead of prioritizing high-impact tables like relationships and desires.

Last Comment on World Building

Chris cites Neverland by Andrew Kolb as an inspiration. Right before Neverland reveals its excellent hexmap, there is some text about it and the prose feels like Mythic Bastionland…. except Chris never wrote anything like this.

“Neverland is a character all on its own. The setting is both inviting and dangerous. It’s civilized and wild. Its both young and alive and a very old reminder of death.”
- Andrew Kolb

Kolb goes on the say that the map should evolve and react to the players and their decisions. Its not static its dynamic.

Mythic Bastionland’s Realm lacks this atmospheric framing and the Realm suffers because of it.

If The City is the grand Myth waiting at the end of the game, then The Realm should be the Myth at the beginning, filled with its own stories, conflicts, and unexpected turns as it reacts to the Knights tackling the chaotic world around it.

And even if you disagree that this should be part of the game, Chris has you covered, break the rules. I just wish there was some good rules that did not need breaking first.

Conclusion

Mythic Bastionland fantastic game and with the Myths being the highlight of the book.

Even if you never plan to run this Mythic Bastionland specifically, all the Myths are very system neutral and should be stolen to use in other systems.

So last year I’ve discovered a neat game on Itch.io named Celestial Bodies, that has such a unique combat system with it’s Grid, I really fell in love with the elegance of it, but I haven’t seen other games use this kind of mechanics aside from it.

I have been looking at various games since a while now and many many names come again and again with various iterations of the same rules, I wanted to know if y’all could recommend me more unique and underrated systems or mechanics you’ve encountered in your TTRPG journey!

Following up my last broad question post with another broad question post, but this one cropped up in my head as I've been looking into more reviews of systems, and identifying the systems I want to play/try. (Vaesen, Coriolis, and Girl by Moonlight are in my top 3.) One of the interesting things about being a new player or GM is that you have a small reference base to realize what makes a system "good or bad." so some reviews just...don't really make a lot of sense to an outsider.

"Modiphius' 2d20 System is a bad fit for most of the games they publish." "Cosmere is bad because it's a 5E hack." those are two statements I've seen while exploring online because I was interested in both Fallout (my friends enjoy Fallout a lot.) and Cosmere because the very large fandom for Stormlight has left me intrigued. But the thing is, a lot of those complaints don't really make a lot of sense to me as a newcomer. My vocabulary and mechanical understanding aren't sharp enough yet to understand why a game being a 5E hack is bad. As a new prospective player I don't understand why the 2d20 system is "a bad fit."

*I'm still confused on the 2d20's issues, but I understand that a lot of the frustration with the 5E hack thing comes down to how much the Kickstarter raised. But I've also heard from folks who have played with Cosmere more that describing it as a 5E hack isn't really a fair assessment of the system itself. So I'll have to give the game a shot myself to figure out where I stand on it, admittedly.

But as I've worked more with my players, and figured out what I enjoy about systems, I've come to a better understanding of what kind of games/systems I enjoy, and my regular play group enjoys too. I personally struggle with setting up maps and tokens in Foundry just due to time and attention span, so I know map heavy games aren't really going to be what I like to run. I really like setting up stories and working with my players on character arcs, so more story heavy and improv games are my jam. My regular players really like making characters that will last a while, so highly lethal games like what I have been told OSR games are, probably aren't going to gel with them. (Call of Cthulhu in October will be...interesting to say the least.)

Ultimately as a GM, the biggest investments into any new system are time and money-two things in shorter supply as a working adult in today's world. So a lot of why I've been agonizing over what system to try and obsessively reading reviews is just that part of my optimization brain trying to find "Safe Investments". (Ironic for a guy whose narratively focused over mechanics focused.) But that runs up against the issues of reviewers being people who live and breathe TTRPGs, and also, forgive me-the love of hyperbole online.

Negativity sells well online, clickbait is designed to engage our brains, and get us to be angry. So negative reviews tend to feature more prevalently than positive ones. Which I think really messed me up when I was first getting into the hobby, and scared me off a few systems I otherwise might have enjoyed. It may be presumptuous of me to assume, but I don't think most systems are so bad they are completely miserable experiences.

So as a new player looking to learn more about TTRPGs, and learn some insights from my seniors in this hobby-how many systems have you tried that were truly, genuinely so awful that you considered it a waste of time and money to get into them? Not the games that were "fine, but not my cup of tea." But genuinely "so awful that it was a waste to even give this game a shot."

And as a bit of a more positive side question, how did you develop your tastes as a GM or player? Obviously the answer is to try a lot of different systems to see what you like, but are there any other ways you have of figuring out what you really enjoy? I would appreciate some suggestions on this one! (For me it's a matter of positive buzz + setting/art looks cool ala Vaesen.)

I know weird title but I’m having fomo and overthink issues. So I’m a guy and I wanna do group rps however I play as a female and I don’t wanna be that weird guy that plays as girls yet I feel I do better on them in games. for roleplaying I find it fun solo. Yet in a group I get the wigged out to the thought people see my character see a girl then hear man voice or n mic and get creeped out

Edit:
Thanks yall for responding im definitely overthinking and I will give it a shot and for clarity Im not the type to say I am one or do hyper-sexual things.

Hi all,

When do you know its time to let go of an rpg?

When you did, what game was it and why did you say goodbye?

A decade ago (...my god), I was massively interested in Acthung! Cthulhu, as others were, seeing how long the series was supported and eventually revitalized into the 2d20 system.

Being the obsessive that I am, I bought everything and, you guessed it - I didn't play em. I did however, run a handful of one shots early on, with my own dungeon of madness I am quite proud of, with painted Hounds of Tindalos minis!

It was as fun as it was socially taxing to DM but as life and interests go, my attention was taken elsewhere. All the while, the books still rang with an aura of intention on my bookshelf, feeling pangs of potential when I notice them. Except, they've sat for so long, the pang has faded. Perhaps escaping to cosmic horror or a world at war is a harder sell these days.

Even so, I still can't seem t let go of the twinkling, maybe-someday energy, the sunk cost fallacy or other human discomfort. The books seem to be lucrative to sell, but I'm not sure for how long.

Untold stories have a grip. Half of me holds on and the other wants to let go.

I've been playing TTRPGs for about 14 years now. Over those years, I've dipped my toes into a handful of systems (D&D 3.5 was my start, tried Black Void, D&D 5E, PF1E, PF2E), but in the end I always come back to my ol' reliable D&D 3.5. I think it's comfort combined with options for me. Given that I've played it for so long and there's so many options, I never felt the reason to change.

What about you guys? If you've stuck to a system for many years, what kept you?

What do you think of this game? I have the core rulebook. I’ve read it but haven’t played it yet. There are a lot of different types of die rolls (attack, armor bypass, abilities, spells, shield blocks, actions, and so forth).

For those that have played or ran it, is it hard to keep track of all the types of dice rolls?

General thoughts about the system?

I like the general vibe of the game, the setting, and some of the adventure content.

Hello, I'm writing this post to ask you guys some feedback regarding my situation. I love RPGs in theory, but I have not really grown up with them. Most of my friends have played DnD with different groups of friends, but that's sadly not my case because I've never really had a group of friends interested on it.

The thing is I read the whole of the Die comic book last november and fell in love with alternative RPGs to DnD. I convinced my friends to play a one shot I made following the base Die RPG scenario and it was such an amazing experience that I've started studying different systems, with the last one being Dragonbane (probably my favorite so far).

The thing is, I loooved GMing, I'm even considering starting to go to narrative classes just to be able to repeat what I did to my friends, but I'd like to practice a little more with the pre written campaigns before I start writing my own.

Although I convinced them to play the one-shot, I don't think they would want to play a campaign with me. I've thought about trying to get a new group from a local RPG shop, but I'm not sure I'm confident enough to do it with people I'm not comfortable with, and I'm not sure if playing a prewritten campaign with an almost new GM would be interesting to anyone. I just wanted to know your thoughts about the idea, if you think I should try to find a new group or if I should try to convince my friends.

Thank you in advance!

I'm thinking something of an TTRPG where players either unwillingly gets affected mentally in ways that aren't just "You roll differently" or something where it is mechanically a part of the character creation or alike and not just a part added to the background. I'm especially curious about mechanics that might use them in a positive way to progress a story or the game, e.g. overcoming a personal fear or other kind of issue.

If you mention examples, please give a short explanation of how the mechanic works :)

I played CBR+PNK at Free RPG weekend and had a good time. I noticed that I was trying to play the game like it was D&D. I kept trying to find items or tools in the environment instead of using a Blade’s style flashback (I think that was the style of play as intended). after a short while I realized that it was a different game and just rolled with what was being presented.

While I'm not rushing to play the game again, I was so enamored with the layout and design, I might give it another shot. Our GM was great, and I left wanting to hear others’ opinions about the game.

two questions:

Have you played this system and what did you think about it?

Have you ever tried playing a RPG in a way that it was clearly not designed for and then had to adapt mid game? what game was it and what did you learn?

Honey Heist has the simple mechanic of balancing bear against thief, where the more bear actions you do, the more bear you become and more bear activities become easier, and if you away away too much side towards bear, you lose your character because it just turned into a bear with no thief in him. And vise versa for thief. I am looking for a game with this kind of an idea but something with more rules potentially.

Looking for inspirations for TTRPG setting I'm making, involving shamans channeling one of the fundamental archetypes and must balance these forces, who are active forces with their likes and dislikes and sometimes openly hostile towards one another.