Getting ready for Mythic Bastionland
I first read about West Marches style campaigns a long time ago and I've been dreaming about running one ever since. The closest I ever got was a D&D campaign that I was running for two different groups, in two different parts of a shared world. I'd only created a huge hex map for them, told each group "you're about here" and asked them where exactly and why. And everything snowballed from there. Sadly, after surviving moving first to online play and then to in-person again after covid, the campaign didn't survive me changing time zones. Luckily, it had the unexpected and very welcome side effect of turning my friends into rpg fiends in the few years I was away.
I came across Mythic Bastionland a few weeks ago and immediately thought it sounded very right for a West Marches campaign. Exploring wilderness and hex maps are at the core of the game. I also recently came back to my hometown. And now there's a huge pool of rpg-loving friends to recruit from too! It felt like the stars aligning.
Reading the manual for the very first time was upsetting. No preamble, introduction, narrative, nothing. Straight to rules. Just fifteen pages of them.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
So I went and scoured the internet for information. There's videos by the author, Chris McDowall, explaining most things. Those helped. There's an enthusiastic review by Quinns Quest. That made me excited. There's so many resources, like excellent blog posts discussing how to run Mythic Bastionland, giving tips on creating the realm, running myths, using the crazy amount of random tables stuffed in the manual. It started to make sense.
Yet, I'm reluctant to embark in a whole West Marches campaign for a game I haven't even tried yet. So I set up a one shot to try it out. Here's what I've been doing so far:
- I created too many knights. I'm supposed to have three players at the table, but I have six sheets ready to go. I learned a lot about how knights are structured, what kind of shenanigans they might pull out of a hat and what questions I might expect from a first-time player.
- I took a long time to decide on a mapmaking tool to use. Some produce ugly maps, some need a lot of work for a decent result, others aren't really doing what Mythic Bastionland requires. I used Perilous Shores so I don't have to think about where to put what terrain, as I don't enjoy that process very much. But! I basically get a blank map except for holdings. Filling in barriers, myths and landmarks sounds much more interesting.
- I printed out some rule pages for the players (pages 8-10 that cover basic rules, harm and scars, combat). I might prepare a glossary for them (and me), as I keep forgetting what blast and Impaired mean.
- I printed out the knight pages for the knights I created. I tried to sum up knight abilities and possessions as much as possible in the sheets, so some things might be hard to understand when reading them for the first time.
- I rolled for two myths, but rolled again when I got one that felt like it wouldn't be satisfying to encounter and maybe resolve in a one-shot.
- Sent players all the material I made for them a week in advance: sheets, rules and knight pages. If they feel like reading up on stuff, they're welcome to it, but I'm not expecting it of them. As a player I would enjoy having something to read in advance, so I always try to provide it for my groups.
And that's it. Over the week I'm going to fill in my map with landmarks and I'll be ready to play. I must admit I'm very excited about a game that asks of the DM no session-specific prep, as that's what I regularly do anyway. I'm going to drop the players in the world ("Where are you and why?") and we'll find out together what happens.
Can't wait.