Deconstructing Bastionland: Session 1

Myths as Fronts

Part of a series. Part 0 here.

Let's start with one of the best systems from Mythic Bastionland: Myths

A quick description of Myths

Within MB there are 72 Myths. While setting up a campaign, the referee is supposed to roll randomly to select 6 of them to be the initial threats. Whenever the party ends a phase (a 3rd of a day) in the wilderness, there is a 3/6 chance of no Myth being triggered, a 2/6 chance of the nearest Myth being triggered, and a 1/6 chance of a random Myth being triggered.

Each myth has 6 omens, and whenever a Myth is triggered its next Omen occurs, with the final Omen being its climax. For example, let's take The Tower. Simplified, its 6 omens are as follows:

1. The party encounters a knight that is escorting labourers for building the Tower.
2. Giant birds, chaperoned by armed horsemen, haul huge blocks of stone to the Tower.
3. A mysterious, freestanding staircase is discovered. While ascending the stairs, one receives strange visions. Finally, at its top, a clear view of the Tower, completed.
4. The weather turns to black but rainless stormclouds. Bolts of lightning intermittently strike the ground, starting fires across the realm. 
5. A bolt of lightning strikes the tower, causing it to crumble and fall.
6. With a final thunderclap, all towers across the realm similarly collapse. Afterwards, the sky clears.

Analysis

From a design viewpoint, Myths are merging of the idea of "Fronts" from PbtA systems and the random encounters that are popular in many OSR style games (To be clear, this is how I see them. I have no evidence that it is how Chris McDowall came up with them). 

Random Encounters

From random encounter tables, we get, well, randomness. There's much more writing on what makes random encounters good other blogs. A common misconception, however, is that they are basically filler - "Oh, here comes 11 goblins! Let's have a combat.". Handled well though, they provide much more than that.

1. Worldbuilding: Who lives here? What do they want? Random encounters make the world feel real, more full and complex. This isn't just verisimilitudinous fluff, but leads to:
2. Information: The answers to the above questions describe upcoming threats, but perhaps give clues to their vulnerabilities and goals. You didn't just encounter 11 goblins, but the vanguard of a Goblin army. They were panning for gold, or hiding from a troll. Finally, this then opens up:
3. Opportunities: The Players can take inspiration (sometimes intended by the referee, but equally as often not) to exploit new opportunities. Was the troll threatening your keep? Now you know the Goblins also dislike it - perhaps they're a potential ally. Why were they panning for gold? Maybe they know something about the local area that you don't - steal their plans and make them your own.

All of this leads to Emergent Narrative - the players taking decisions and agency into their own hands, in a way unpredictable to the Referee. This creates organic story development that the players are invested in.

Fronts

Now let's mix in Fronts. This is an idea in Dungeon World and related systems, in which the GM designs a collection of linked threats that over time advance through existing stages. This formatting of adversaries, or more specifically their plans, has two major benefits.

1. Playerless Design: It is a common idea that the villains should have plans irrespective of the protagonists - and if the players don't step in, these will proceed unchecked. Knowing how events will unfold without the players' interventions gives structure without railroading the players - it's their choice how to react.
2. Clear Progression: It's easy for threats to the players (and the world in general) to meander. Sure there's a nasty group of brigands, but they're not really posing any pressing threat. They're vaguely robbing and terrorising. But with Fronts, there's a clear, escalating danger. The front might begin with a few harassed and robbed farmers in the borderlands, but as the brigands go unchecked and grow bolder, they'll initiate deeper and more daring raids, until finally it's the players' loved ones being held for ransom.

Mixing them together

When these two systems are combined, you get a play procedure that is dynamic and player-focused, with their actions being the primary influence of what happen and when - it's their movement and their choices that trigger the Myths. But with the Omens clearly developing into a looming crisis, the narrative is constantly progressing, the tension ever escalating.

Using Myths as a campaign framework

So, using Myths as an outline, we can build a campaign. Unlike McDowall, however, we don't need to write 72 of the blasted things. We only need 6 (at least, for now). These are your initial developing crises, and between them will provide a good amount of content for the players to interact with before you need to do more prep work.

Myths themselves aren't a huge amount of prep work. Each of them takes up a page in the rulebook, and almost half of that is pretty art. Each Omen is 2-3 sentences, and there are around 3 NPCs tied into those Omens. After all, too many restrictions and deliberate interactions inhibit player interactivity and on-the-fly improvisation. In the Tower example, nothing is said about how to prevent either the Tower's construction, nor its collapse. We'll talk more about Seers in a future post, which might be how players discover answers to those questions, but better yet, the players might devise solutions of their own.

So let's take a look at 2 approaches to using Myths as a Campaign Framework.

Approach 1: Palette Swapping

In MB, the myths aren't linked in any direct manner. In this approach, we do the same - each Myth is an isolated bit of weirdness. As long as you have 7 Myths (6 active, one spare) at any given time, you're peachy.

Lets give a concrete implementation within my Ragnarok setting. As a reminder, this is basically "What if Mythic Bastionland was more Norse Mythology than Arthurian Legend/British Folklore", so it cleaves pretty close to just being an MB reskin.

So my 7 Myths will be:

1. Yggdrasil drops a branch from which sprouts wild plants
2. A troll seeks to blot out the sun
3. A strange order is tampering with the Well of Song
4. Two God's escalating competition threatens to cause eternal winter
5. A Shapeshifter plots the ultimate farce
6. Dwarves are crafting a new God of their own
7. A Draugr king seeks to reclaim his throne

And to give an idea of the Omens of Myth 3:

1. An abandoned longhouse, a cold firepit full of burnt instruments
2. Ravens singing nursery rhymes are perched upon a cracked barrel of water, deliberatley hidden. When drunk from, causes the drinker to burst into song. Enough for 2d6 drinks.
3. 5 Silent Skalds break the fingers and cut out the tongues of a captive troupe of musicians, one by one. Each joins the Silent Skalds after the process.
4. A wild-eyed merchant offers payment for songbirds, or their blood. If pressed, claims this can be made into the Wine of Musical Inspiration (not true).
5. The Silent Skalds ride triumphant, having poisoned the Well of Song. No new song may be sung.
6. A pair of dwarves, weeping, riddle verse at one another, trying to keep Song alive. They will do so until they die of exhaustion, and then Song will end.

Approach 2: When is a Myth not a Myth? When it is Mythtaken

I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you you could do Mythic Bastionland but Norse/Greek/whatever folkloric tradition.

But what if we used the Myth structure to represent other kinds of threats, and connected them to form cohesive narratives?

Lets imagine a more traditional campaign setup, with a Big Bad Evil Guy trying to take over the world. They have a suite of Lieutenants enacting their evil will. We can also throw in a few curveball ticking clocks, perpendicular to the evil schemes.

Let's call these Plots, rather than Myths, to differentiate.

The players still can focus on what they find most pressing, while other Plots lie in the background. But rather than just have a 7th Plot lying in wait to replace whatever Plot is resolved first, future plots should be responsive, and reflect the wills and plans of the greater powers in the setting.

In resolving one Plot, did the party slay the lieutenant behind it? Then perhaps the next Plot can be about the BBEG anointing their successor. By contrast, perhaps the party failed to prevent a ritual that transformed the inhabitants of a holding into vile monsters. Now there is a new Plot - these monsters have a pretty short expiry date, and are engaging in a mass migration towards the nearest water source to expel parasitic worms.

Plots don't need to be as mysterious and logic-defying as Myths. A plot can be as simple as an invading force, or Assassins eliminating political opponents. 

The Hard Part

Myths, and their Omens, can occur anywhere. When they are Mythic events, caused by supernatural forces, these things can be handwaved away or even leant into - the rulebook advice section specifically gives an example of a Forest appearing in the middle of a frozen wasteland! But if you're trying to design more concrete Plots, then you need to adhere a bit more to realism, while maintaining this "Anything, Anywhere, at Anytime" requirement for the Plot beats.

A Concrete Implementation

Let's use my science-fantasy alien planet setting, Jaronil, for this example. This is a post-apocalyptic setting, with misunderstood futuristic technology, magic and alien creatures.

In this campaign, the idea is that a Giant slumbers beneath the land beneath the land. In dreams, they send visions to unwitting supporters, to destabilise the land so that their return is unopposed and even welcomed. Their Lieutenants are The Warlord, The Tinker, The Sorcerer and the Vizier.

To the Warlord he sends dreams of a great empire covering the world. Thus, the Warlord is attempting to unite/conquer the nomads of the Rust Wastes, using the strength of arms and its terrible beasts.

To the Tinker he sends dreams of arcane knowledge and forgotten secrets. The Tinker, in turn, excavates those things best left in the past, not heeding the dangers they pose.

To the Sorcerer he sends dreams of wild magic and the names of soul-coveting demons. They will unleash hellspawn and form wicked cults to pay the blood price of forbidden pacts.

To the Vizier he sends dreams of wealth and power. They will conspire and connive, their plots forming power vacuums they will then inevitably fill, until they seize power in a bloody coup.

Classic stuff. Now let's set that up into the Plot Framework. We'll do 1 Plot per Lieutenant, plus 2 wildcard Plots, to keep things dynamic and not all about the endgame.

It's worth pointing out here that in MB not all Myths are "Bad". Some cause more horizontal world changes, unearth strange artefacts, or other things. So try and sneak opportunites into your Plots!

(Here's a potentially obvious note for writing Plots in either framework - crib Mythic Bastionland homework! Roll a random Myth, and repurpose it to fit!)

1. The Warlord has driven Tharagavverug, the terrible Dragon-crocodile, from the wastes into the realm. 
2. The Tinker has awakened half-dead warriors, remnants of the Atom Wars. They mindlessly pursue victory against all they see as "enemies".
3. The Sorcerer's rituals have ripped open a tear in the past, through which drift the memories of those long-dead, and remembered by only a few.
4. Under a pseudonym, the Vizier supplies money and weapons to brigands across the realm, fomenting unrest.
5. Entering a Stone circle, the party find themselves unable to leave til offerings are left before each of 3 Menhir marked with strange glyphs
6. Rumours sweep the realm - the Baan of estegu-Morsic, the weapon of the last of the True Knights, has been found. As many have died by its blade as have died in their attempts to possess it.

Most of those fit the more melodramatic sensibilities of Mythic Bastionland, so lets zoom in on number 4, which is much more grounded, and see its 6 steps.

1. The party passes a gibbet, its chain snapped, lying open on the ground.
2. A family of 7, grandma riding in a cart pulled by an equally elderly draught-monitor, is lost in the wilds. They ask to be escorted to the nearest holding, as Brigands abound.
3. 5 traders struggle to free a cart trapped in a deep furrow in the road. They anxiously refuse help, as their cart is full of contraband weapons supplied from mysterious benefactors.
4. Ambush! The party is set upon a dozen vagabonds, wielding newly-forged metal.
5. A group of deserting city guards are leaving the realm, claiming things are too dangerous, and they aren't getting proper support from the capital. Will violently refuse attempts to coerce them back to their duty.
6. Torqual, the bandit king, leads a warband of motley recruits, and his 'honour guard', towards the nearest holding. The party sees them from afar, and they travel at 1 hex per daytime phase. He is not unreasonable, but dreams of becoming a true king.
   
   

Look at that! Just the same as any other Myth, but entirely grounded.

And as these Plots are completed, it is up to the Referee to design new ones that follow on naturally. Recurring characters are always fun, and if the Lieutenants' Plots are repeatedly foiled, they may well seek to become involved directly, leading to dramatic confrontations.

How does this all end? Well, we'll talk more about endings in a future post. But for generating future Plots, one should take particular notice of the Primacy of Action concept from the rulebook - "Past actions taken by the players supercede content generated by prompts or rules. Their deeds are reality.". The further into the campaign you get, the more goings on should directly stem from the earlier actions of the party.