Journeys

This Bastionland Editorial was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site a week after its original publication.

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Primeval Bastionland is finally at a stage where I can drag it to the table for an early playtest to see if the idea has any real legs.

It's built on the Electric Bastionland rules, but a couple of additions are needed for context here.

EXPOSED: Characters who are caught unprepared, helpless, or overloaded are Exposed. They are treated as if they have 0hp. If they improve their situation then their hp is consulted as normal. Traps and ambushes usually catch their victims Exposed when sprung.

BURDENS: Knights regularly acquire Burdens on their soul. Anybody carrying 3 or more Burdens is considered Exposed. Burdens are Relieved by their specific requirement, or taking a season of reflection or indulgence.

Being a game explicitly about quests, I wanted to have some tools on hand for roaming around the wilderness and undertaking long journeys. I wanted something different than just "roll to see how good/bad your journey is", so I'm trying out a set of guidelines that should encourage the players to plan their journey carefully and engage with the locals without being too focused on the minutiae of navigation and resource management.

DOMAINS & PROVINCES

A typical Domain covers 9 Provinces.

Roll a Host for the central Province, forming the main settlement and seat of power.

The remaining 8 Provinces are set to the North, Northeast, East etc. Each is defined by rolling a Myth that it is known to be linked to. If appropriate this may include a smaller settlement.

Myths can be interpreted literally, or in a more abstract manner. In case of duplicates the myth takes on several forms.

TRAVELLING

Days are split into 3 phases: Day, Eve, and Night. Travelling at Night is ill-advised if not impossible.

Travel between Provinces takes:

• 1 Phase by horse or river with a route
• +1 Phase on foot
• +1 Phase without a route

Travelling to a new Domain follows the same guidance as above, but replaces each Phase with d6 full days. Each day gives the choice of two Provinces to pass through, each with their own Myth.

Etiquette dictates that hospitality be granted to travellers, though a favour is usually asked for in return. Roll a Host to discover who you find.

If Travellers are forced to spend the night camping without having secured the area they gain the Burden:
Weary: Sleep somewhere safe and comfortable.

Similarly, each day they go without food and drink gives the Burden:
Deprived: Have a hot meal and clean drink.*

SEASONS

A year is roughly split into summer and winter. After a Quest is completed roll 1d6.

1: The season changes.
2-3: The season is turning. Change after the next Quest.
4-6: The current season continues.

In winter, Eve is treated as night, and anyone travelling outside of a settlement gains the Burden:
Frigid: Get yourself warmed up.

*Yes, this is replacing the existing Deprived rule for this playtest!

Style

This Bastionland Editorial was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site a week after its original publication.

If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.

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Style. It doesn't matter which one you have as long as you have one.

Now I think that quote is talking about fashion, in which case I do not have one, but I think it carries over nicely to games. 

The games that just wash over me and fail to make any sort of impact are those that lack a style. I'm not talking about lavish production values, instead I just want a game to grab something and run with it. 

2400 is lo-fi sci-fi on a single sheet of paper. You can spot the style a mile off.

Lancer is hyper tactical mech-building blast'em up. There's a lot that doesn't work for me, but it goes hard on its thing. 

Worlds Without Number (or anything by Kevin Crawford) is a workhorse system dragging a cart overflowing with resources to actually run the game. You don't have to be flashy to have style. 

But the topic that got me thinking about this is a dilemma on how I run games. 

On the one hand, I like the idea that GMs don't need to spend hours ahead of a game rigorously preparing an adventure, showing up with reams of notes. 

On the other, one of the first two ideals of what would become Into the Odd were:

• An impartial GM. The GM uses the rules provided to challenge the characters and does not alter the situation to aid or hinder them.
• Adventure Module compatibility. The game assumes the GM is using a pre-planned environment and hazards, whether their own or by another writer. 

So I've long been drawn to the idea that the world exists outside of the GM at the table, and they act as an impartial representative for the world, rather than spinning it at the table as required.

Naturally, I've usually landed somewhere in the middle. I prep in broad strokes, flesh it out at the table, throw in something new if it feels right, and make liberal use of random tables. 

The Blorb principles got me thinking more closely about how I might be able to acknowledge the distinction between the pre-game prep and in-game improvisation, while still drawing on them both for any given session. 

So this is all very messy at the moment, but I feel like it's starting to form a shape.

• Prep can be in broad strokes. 
• Details can be improvised, but must honour the essence of those strokes. 
• If something must be created at the table from nothing, let the dice be the oracle.

 

Forest

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The Forest 

Roots deeper than soil, farther than sea
No passage is swift, no figments believed 

Travel

• The forest knows what happens anywhere else in the forest.
• All forests are connected.
• Some of the most dangerous and feared individuals end up imprisoned or entombed here.

The Fearmonger in Wood
STR 17, DEX 16, CHA 12, 3hp
Encased in rune-carved wood (A2 against metal)
Crushing grasp (d10) or cloud of spores (everyone in blast loses their speech until they leave the forest) 

• Wants to cultivate a healthy fear of the forest and have word spread beyond.
• Takes any form they wish with elements of deer, owl, boar, and mouse.
• Can call upon woodland creatures for aid and hurry along the seasons, but is outranked by the old trees.  

The Verdant Maze

Place
1: Entwined Wall of Trunks and Roots
2: Mossy Stone Pile
3: Descent into Damp Earth
4: Leafy Clearing
5: Tree Bridge
6: Trailway

Omen
1: Riders Approaching
2: Frantic Movement in the Branches
3: Twisting in the Roots
4: Fading Light
5: Rising Mist
6: Watching Eyes

Graphene

This Bastionland Editorial was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site a week after its original publication.

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I love rules-lite systems, but I'm recently moving toward rules that are light but strong. 

Rules like Graphene. 

Light systems are often praised for how they "get out of the way" once you hit the table. The players don't have to spend a lot of time and energy on the rules themselves, so they channel it into the other parts of the game instead: exploring the environment, making their characters memorable, and good old fashioned problem solving. 

This is something I've always strived for with my own games, but I've started to feel a dissatisfaction when the rules feel completely absent. 

It's a difficult balance to describe. I don't want the GM or players to have to think too much about the cogs and gears of the system, but I want those few mechanical parts to be a more solid presence on the game. 

Reaction and morale rolls in D&D are the classic example here. They don't really add much complexity that you need to hold in mind, but they have a major impact in the way your dungeon crawl plays. Now those Gnolls want to talk to you, and you've got to decide what to do when the Ghouls start to flee toward the dragon cave. Of course the GM could just make those things happen, but it feels different when it comes from a rule rather than a ruling. 

The best anti-example would be one of those systems where you have a dozen +1s and -1s to keep track of, but they usually balance out to some inconsequential modifier that doesn't even affect the majority of possible rolls. Similarly, there are those fiddly little rules that you sometimes forget to use in play... then realise that in forgetting them nothing was really lost. Those are always the most satisfying parts to chop out of a work-in-progress game.

But this desire for strong rules goes further than that. Maybe they're stronger even than the GM. Maybe Rule Zero is losing its shine for me. RULES NOT RULINGS!?

Well, no. I like games that empower the GM, but I want the game to have a power of its own. Just like how you obviously shouldn't fudge the dice, maybe the strength of the fiction and the agency of the players are both enhanced if the rules cannot be broken. 

I suppose this is all adjacent my thoughts on those 3 Tiers of Truth. I've had a lot of fun with loose games that hardly engage with the rules and are mostly improvised at the table, so perhaps I'm just craving something more solid as a contrast. The grounded, impartial, almost sim-like feel of a high-crunch game without the brain melting complexity. 

It might be a futile quest, but I'm going to keep searching for that Graphene. 

ITOR Last Call

Last Call for new Into the Odd Remastered pre-orders! Existing backers, this is also your last chance to modify your order.

At the end of Sunday 15th May the Pledge Manager will close and the final details go over to Fria Ligan.

You can pre-order here, where existing backers can also confirm their delivery details: https://bastionland.pledgemanager.com/projects/into-the-odd-remastered/participate

We're still on track for June delivery, and I'll keep the updates coming as we get closer.

Problems

This Bastionland Editorial was originally sent as a reward to all Patreon supporters, and is released freely on this site a week after its original publication.

If you want to support my blog, podcasts, and video content then head over to my Patreon.

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I like encounters that are a problem with a problem throwing problems.

Wait! Hear me out.

Okay, let's assume we're talking about a classic monster encounter that at least has potential to be antagonistic, and think of it this way instead:

• The encounter poses a defining problem to the players (the troll is blocking our route into the deeper caves)
• The encounter has personal problems of its own (the neighbouring kobolds are making a racket, disturbing its hibernation)
• Engaging with the encounter causes dynamic problems that need responding to (you cut off the the troll's head but it gradually begins to grow back. The tiny head starts barfing acidic bile around the room, what do you do?)

Defining Problems

This is the reason for tension in the encounter. Why is this thing a problem at all, rather than just something existing alongside you? Monsters blocking the way is obvious, but you might have encounters that are working against you in less obvious ways (this goblin is following us around but we don't know why). 

Personal Problems

This is the "why" of the encounter, flipped to their perspective. It can be blunt, like a Beholder that finds themselves disgusting at all other beings, or more complex, like a golem that's been bound into performing a likely impossible and very specifically worded task.

Dynamic Problems

These are the turn-by-turn problems that usually emerge if things turn to combat. It's a solid rule of thumb to have each round of combat feel different to the last somehow, and good encounters give you the tools you need to do this without too much forced-feeling improvisation. Remember, the point of these is to create interesting "what do you do?" moments for the players, so things like winding up for a huge attack are often more interesting than the attack itself. 

Standard Caveat

As with all of these guidelines, I wouldn't hold myself to following them to the letter 100% of the time. Maybe that Black Pudding doesn't need to have a personal problem... but at the very least it's useful to think about its wants and needs, however simple, and keep them in mind when running the encounter. Sometimes "hungry, drawn to warm flesh" is more than enough.