Chris McDowall's Mythic Bastionland has entered my life like a whirlwind. I've tinkered with Forbidden Lands for a long while but the game never got to the point where it did what I wanted. Seeing MB has made it obvious to me where my disagreements with trad game design lie. I wish to highlight where I think McDowall is further expanding the scope of OSR play.
The front cover, taken from the Bastionland blog [1]. It was called 'Primeval' but later switched to 'Mythic' to avoid connotations of dinosaurs and the Flintstones, according to the Discord.
Random Encounters
A common feature in adventures and advice from the OSR games is to include random encounters. The method dates back to the earliest incarnations of the game in the form of the rosters of potential foes one can encounter in a dungeon, and later also evolving into a representation of a monstrous ecology of the wilds. It solves some key problems in the playstyle:
- Random encounters reduce the cognitive load of the GM relative to prepared encounters.
- Random encounters can act as a way to convey environmental features like monster populations or faction presence.
- Random encounters can serve as a durable attrition mechanic to reinforce that aspect of expedition play.
- Random encounters can create unexpected and inspiring scenarios.
These are powerful boons, but the third one is probably the most vital. Expedition play is required for random encounters to truly make sense. I believe this is why they are relatively impopular in neotrad games like D&D 5e. Making encounters random isn't without its drawbacks:
- Random encounters provide unconnected prompts which are likely to fail to hook the game.
- Random encounters can harm the pacing of an emerging or structured narrative.
The Myths
The myths were developed by Chris McDowall to support hexcrawl play for his upcoming game Mythic Bastionland. There they have come to effectively replace the role of the traditional random encounter.
A myth consists of 6 "omens", an evocative name, picture and description. The omens are themelsves encounters and are generally only a 2-4 of sentences long but are rich in actionable detail; they usually feature creatures or people, a location, potential energy/conflict and some evocative sensory information. They are written to be agnostic of specific locations but include specifics of the surroundings where they take place. They are also tied together by the common theme of the Myth, which can be an upcoming event or a monster. One encounter could be dealing with the consequences of a monster's rampage while another could deal with the problems caused by those who try to hunt the monster.
The GM places 6 myths in 6 different hexes on the map. These hexes are the epicenters of the myths, but the effects spread more widely. During the travel procedure a dice is rolled every 8h not resting in civilization and there is a 33% chance of triggering the next omen of the closest Myth. This mechanic ties the myth only loosely to a location and lets its omens find the players where they are. There is a risk of encountering the omens of random myths. The omens once they hit the table are fully real events and locations of the game; if the omen calls for a salt bog then there is and will remain a salt bog in this hex. The GM uses the prompt of the omen to adapt it to the situation where it was encountered, which is generally quite easy given the ample amount of supplementary information and inherent potential energy involved.
Map made in Hex Kit [2] using the excellent No Strange tiles by Thomas Novosel [3].
I believe the magic of the myths lies in those connections between omens. Because the rules are hard these connections carry the same reality as the encounters themselves even after them having hit the table. Because the information of the whole myth is indirectly encoded in the encounter this very effectively awakens wonder and interest when experiencing the encounter; it poses the open ended question of "what does this encounter imply about the future encounters?" which has real correct and incorrect answers. This is a delicious problem for the players to ponder about as they continue playing and does a very good job of drawing one into the game world.
Better random encounters
There are some significant advantages with myths over regular random encounters. They heightens the significance of whatever event or creature is their foucs, which is a very agreeable proposition for a game about fantastical events of monsters. By being short and limiting the number of omens they also help the GM focus on only the most exciting parts of the myth, which helps cut down on rumination and overprep. For most monsters I've become convinced that it is more appropriate to write them as myths than as set encounters in any one situation. Likewise for events and Fronts. This one tool thus drastically streamlines my GM toolbox.
I consider myths to now be one of the more useful tools for a sandbox, next to node-based plots and keyed locations.
There is more to say about Mythic Bastionland but I won't bother the reader with a recap when the playtest document is available for free on the Bastionland blog. I recommend checking it out. The rules are well designed to support the intended playstyle of episodic play with time passing in months and years over the course of a campaign. The simple and evocative knight templates make for excellent chunks of content to both empower a player and kick them into the NSR playstyle.
References:
1. McDowall, 5 july 2022, Mythic Bastionland Playtest, BASTIONLAND, https://www.bastionland.com/2022/07/primeval-bastionland-playtest.html
2. Cone of Negative Energy, 27 feb 2017, Hex Kit (1.0.0.0) [desktop application], Itch.io, https://cone.itch.io/hex-kit
3. Novosel Thomas, 18 feb 2022, Thomas No Strange Tiles Pack [digital art asset for Hex Kit], Itch.io, https://thomasnovosel.itch.io/strangetiles
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