I've had a few people ask about playing Mythic
Bastionland with larger groups of players. I've found the game flows at its
best with 2-4 players, but getting up to 5 or more starts to raise a few
noticeable effects.
- As discussed previously, Knights are powerful, so this
effect is compounded when you've got six of them riding into battle. With
so many gambits and smites and denies they can be tough to challenge,
martially. Whether this is a problem or not is open for debate, but
it certainly creates a different feel to playing with smaller groups.
- Combat
often involves everyone throwing their dice into a pool and working out
what to do with their dice. The larger the group, the more chaotic and
crowded this can feel, sometimes even sluggish, so I think you lose a bit
of the dramatic effect it usually causes.
- With
so many Knights in the group it's less appealing to have additional
characters tagging along like squires or other NPCs, and they can create
some interesting contrast to the Knights.
So what do I recommend if you want to play with, say, a
company of six players?
First of all, you don't need to change anything. I
think the game still works, it just feels different. But if you want to try
something new I have two options.
Rookie Knights
Everyone makes a Young Knight as normal, but apply the following changes:
- Virtues
are rolled on 2d6 instead of d6+d12
- Each
combatant can only be targeted by a single gambit from any given attack,
no matter how many attackers were involved.
- Bolster
is the exception to the above, and can be applied multiple times to the
same target.
So the end result is more fragile characters with fewer
Feats and Gambits being thrown around in combat, while keeping those systems
intact.
Grand Company Setup
Tear up nine scraps of paper and label them as the following:
- 3 x
Knight
- 3 x
Squire
- 3 x
Raider
Each player draws a random character type. Now personally
I'd rig the draw so that there's a guarantee of at least one of each type
to keep things interesting. So build a pool with one of each type, then
randomly add the other types until you've got a pool of character types equal
to the number of players.
Knights roll a character as a normal.
Squires roll a squire as detailed in the book, also rolling
here to get an extra detail.
Raiders make a character using this method, representing raiders who have been converted
to the wisdom of the seers, but have not taken the Oath. They still track Gold,
not Glory, but they're more inclined to mercenary work than raiding the
holdings of the realm. Ignore the stuff about the ship, you have a pony instead
and an axe (d8 hefty), shield (A1, d4) , and 3 javelins (d6).
Players pissed off about being a squire and not a Knight? Is
it weird that there are semi-converted raiders lumped in here? Yeah, I guess,
but lean into it. Give the Squires some sort of path to Knighthood, play up the
philosophical conflict between Knights and Raiders, maybe the company hate that
one player who got to be a cool Knight so much that they consider murdering
them.
Have fun!
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