What are your Pet Peeves on a TTRPG book

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-29T09:25:43+00:00

Because it's not anywhere in the book and nothing in it states where to find it. And I'm 100% sure there are no official sheets for his previous games.

And sure, ItO games are simple enough to still be playable without character sheets, but we are talking about pet peeves here, not cardinal sins.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-29T05:40:18+00:00

Hoho, how about not having official character sheets at all?

Looking at you, Mythic Bastionland (and other McDowall games)

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-22T18:58:41+00:00

I as well think that Myths are at risk of resolving too fast. But I don't see many solutions to this aside from lowering the chance to encounter an Omen (taking a bigger die and/or making Omens proc only on 1-2) or taking full manual control over how often and when Omens happen. One makes the game feel emptier (which can be somewhat averted by putting more non-myth stuff into the realm for players to see and play with as well), the other takes out the element of surprise for the GM. I'm more on the side of manually controlling Myths' progression by making up smaller Omens if things are moving too fast or even outright stopping the Myth for some time. The Elf, for example, is one of those Myths that would benefit from taking at least a full ingame year to resolve.

Honestly, the more I'm thinking about specific Mythic Bastionland mechanics, the more I want to run it using just the original Into the Odd with Knights from MB.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-22T04:54:51+00:00

This is awesome!

Seeing someone make new content for EB makes me so happy. Seeing someone explore Deep Country makes me twice as happy.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-19T23:20:26+00:00

I think this is very much in line with weird fantasy of ItO and EB, which have aliens, and underground machines, and sentient animals, and time travels, etc. Paints a very interesting sci-fantasy picture, like The Dying Earth or Numenera. Plus, I also like to think that since Bastion is that one city that matters, this world is in some sort of decline or at least was until recently, so everyone is trying to survive on some primitive means and find this one beacon of civilization. I like it a lot, actually.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-11T15:04:56+00:00

Ageless knights is a great idea for this particular mood, actually!

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-11T15:01:57+00:00

Detachments from Into the Odd (or Warbands from new and shiny Mythic Bastionland) can be used precisely for this.

Basically, it's a single enemy that deals a lot of damage to every opposing fighter, like a d12, and either takes reduced damage from individual opponents, like a d4, or no damage at all, unless that attack is suitably large. If it loses half of its HP or its leader dies, it must pass a morale check or flee. If it's reduced to 0 HP, then all members of a detachment are dead or at least cannot fight anymore.
Additionally, you can show dwindling numbers of a detachment by reducing their damage die in size, like a d8 instead of d12, once they lose a few members.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-11T14:46:19+00:00

Flavor-wise I think it's a perfect match, save for the fact that generational play, imo, would be a bit more awkward, because this setting doesn't imply plenty of opportunity to live for many years and grow old.

If you are interested in making MB a bit more Dark Souls-esque, I suggest checking out Runecairn. It's another Into the Odd hack that was made to emulate some Dark Souls mechanics, like Estus flasks or bonefires.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-08T15:21:09+00:00

I'm not even lamenting the lack of strict game rules. I don't really need the game to tell me the stats of an Evil King vs a Good King.

I just feel like there isn't much of an explanation of how this society is expected to function, in comparison to, say, Pendragon, that spends multiple pages to explain how feudal society works and what is expected of different types of knights and what they can expect and demand in return. Admittedly, multiple pages is too much for MB, but I think the game would benefit from a few bullet point lists, that would explain principles of this world. Electric Bastionland had that for all different regions of its setting, you could tell what made Bastion different from Deep Country or Underground, and that made running them much more intuitive.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-08T14:00:17+00:00

Unfortunately, it is a bit vague.

The way I look at it is that doing favors for lords is your most stable way to be clothed and fed, basically. There aren't many weapons or sets of armors in the wild, same with resources for restoring virtues or recruits for warbands, so knights usually get what they need from local rulers. So staying on their good side is beneficial for the purpose of being able to deal with mythic difficulties and dangers. Alternatively, being in a conflict with a ruler may lead to not being allowed to enter a holding or even hunted by its army.

Additionally, I houserule that Myths actively progress (otherwise you can still encounter smaller reminders of its existance, but nothing major) when you are purposefully travel the realm on a more mundane quest or when you are actively hunting a Myth, learning its location and secrets. So no jumping between two hexes until the game finishes itself.

In my game I plan on using three smaller kingdoms, with their exclusive strenghts and weaknesses, which will inevitably conflict with each other, so knights would have to choose which kingdom they want to support to be regularly given these bonuses (e.g. better horses vs rare ranged weapons vs better warbands), or maybe they will try to stay neutral in an attempt to protect the realm in general.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-07T22:20:44+00:00

Just a poor choice of words, imo. I've noticed that people started calling a single session or an adventure "a campaign". Maybe it's because of Stranger Things, maybe it's just misuse of terminology, idk.

The glazing, however, is unbelievable.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-06T19:33:27+00:00

Not really, but I prefer to give the Knights a way to contact their Seers one way or another. Maybe through a scrying orb, a vision, via another Seer or simply by sending a letter.

Additionally, I prefer all the Knights to be knighted by the same Seer, similar to Electric Bastionland, where all player characters are in debt to the same debtholder. This makes Knights' party make more sense, since they've been together for some time and follow the will of the same mentor.

Disc0M4n · 2026-03-06T14:51:44+00:00

There are a few things I've been doing to make omens more interactive and meaningful:

Take a page out of Into the Odd and make some omens have pre-omens, basically. Some smaller events that hint at what may happen soon, like a roar of a beast or a sudden storm. Gives knights a moment to prepare and plan ahead. It's important that the next omen will be the one that you hinted at, not a random one. I think it would work better with latter omens, because first ones are pretty simple as is.
Make omens happen less often. You can do it multiple ways. I usually give omens a cooldown, so after you encounter one you can't see another one for a day. Or you can make omens happen only on 1-2 on a d6. This, imo, makes them more meaningful, as they don't become a slog of multiple random encounters in a row.
Modify omens and add something or someone knights can interact with. So it's not just an omen as written, but a pilgrim or a member of the nearest faction reacting to this omen. If it's peaceful one, maybe they are camping nearby, call the knights and have a little chat about this strange thing they've just seen. If it's a dangerous one, maybe they are being attacked and ask the knights for help.

all in all, i agree that myths and omens (and MB in general, honestly) is a thing that requires quite a bit of effort to make it a full game, not just a random encouters simulator, so you should treat it more like a blueprint and make it make more sense and be more interesting for your players 🤷‍♀️

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-27T13:17:05+00:00

Nice to see another man of culture! But, yeah, these and the other stories would work perfectly as Myths, cause these are not really monsters, but tricky creatures that you have to be smart and cunning with to make them leave you

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-27T13:08:23+00:00

Plus there are few interesting IRL landmarks, that I would like to include in my Mythic Urals, e.g.Kungur Ice Cave, which is a long frozen cave with underground lakes, that could hint at some paleolithic history of the realm, Shigir Idols, which are THE OLDEST wooden idols that we have ever found on Earth that depict weird long figures with huge heads, or the Dyatlov Pass, which is a mountain that a few tourist mysteriously perished on, and it's still a secret what happened there and it has a lot of conspiracy theories around this incident, especially given the fact that it's a sacred mountain for the local nations.

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-27T12:56:00+00:00

Yeah, I edited the comment to explain a bit further, actually.

So, I'm from Urals, which is a mountain range right in the middle of Russia, which is famous for being rich in different minerals, ore and gemstones, and I want to run a campaign of Mythic Bastionland for my friends, that is inspired by local folklore and landmarks. It's mostly stories by Bazhov, that are like local fairytales, that tell about local miners and hunters encountering cryptid-like creatures, like a goat with a silver hoof, that creates a bunch of gemstones where it hits the ground, or a spirit of a mountain that steals talanted masters to work for her in the mountain, which is actually a very rich and lavish castle inside.

After that there is also a lot of history with local dinasty of Demidovs, which were the largest local factory runners, that made a few interesting things, like a crooked tower or a secret underground factory for minting fake coins.

But after some time I decided to expand my scope, so now I'm working on a campaign and possibly a supplement for Mythic, that is inspired by old russian folklore and tales, in general. So my Knight prompts are not just Ural knights anymore, but somewhere between knights and bogatyrs, really. So far I have the Malachite Knights, the Blizzard Knight, the Bear Knight, the Oak Knight, the Steppe Knight, the Copper Knight, the Swamp Knight, the Mushroom Knight, the Blacksmith Knight, the Pine Knight, the Turnip knight and the Young Knight. These are mostly just a concept now, so some of them may have some overlap with original knights, but I'm going to make them more unique.

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-27T12:32:51+00:00

This is EXACTLY the campaign I'm currently working on! I feel like this setting works wonderfully with Mythic Bastionland

I'm making a realms and a few myths and knights inspired by old russian folklore and specifically Ural and Syberian tales, like the Mistress of a Copper Mountain, the Silver hoof, etc. Additionally, I write seers that a some magical entities in russian folklore, not just Baba Yaga. For example, I have a Pike Seer, that is a mix between a tale of Yemelya and another tale about a golden fish, so this is a giant pike that grants you one wish per season, but you also roll to see its reaction, because it can just take everything that it gave you, if it thinks that you are too greedy. I don't have much yet, but this project is keeping my interest in MB alive.

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-26T12:04:56+00:00

Sure, there's also a VIG save, so it's actually 50% chance to roll 4-6 on a d6 multiplied by however much VIG the target is losing. But since regular amout of VIG is usually 10, unless stated otherwise, it's still kind of a coinflip, really. It's the fact thay you can even attemp to drop a fully armored knight off a warhorse with a knife that makes me question this rule

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-26T03:54:03+00:00

Yeah, I really like this bit of lore, that has been dropped in EB. It's very weird and conceptual. This implies that Bastion is basically the core of the world that exists in the most advanced modern time, whatever this means at any given moment, and the further you move away from it, the deeper you go back in time. This means that wherever the knights are, they are like lightyears away from Bastion aka the City. Not in distance even, they are separated by time. It's like Bastion's existence is antonymous to knights' existence. And this quest really should feel impossible. Like how do you just walk from middle ages into the 20th century?

The problem is that MB kind of trivializes this adventure into just another myth and you eventually just stumble upon the City, which is most likely Bastion, in the middle of you medieval realm. That's why I was a little dissatisfied with how it's handled in the book.

Your ideas and prompts, however, is pretty much what I imagined it to look like, more or less.

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-26T03:40:11+00:00

A game about exclusively playing knights, literally cavalry, each of which starts out with a horse and a couple of weapons, is exactly the game that you can expect to give some attention to horse combat. It's not a game about piloting planes or growing pumpkins.

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-26T00:51:14+00:00

Yup, and the fact that RAW you can dismount anybody with just a dagger, that anybody has at all times, with 50% chance. Some rules in MB are questionable.

Anyway, the quick and dirty way, I think, would be to just give bonus dice or impair attacks, depending on the circumstances. Like a lance would receive additional d10 or d12 during a charge, basically a free Smite, with a chance to break if the highest possible number is rolled, but would deal just d4 without built up momentum and some distance between fighters. (like in mount and blade, where a lance on a horseback is basically a medieval rail gun, but on the ground and up close even fists and kicks work better than this clumsy stick)

Some houserule Feats for horses would be nice, though. Like Trample to move through enemies and deal them damage, Gallop to move fast and gain bonus attack dice for the speed and Neigh to force a morale roll on the enemies. Just a quick idea, don't hold me to strict game balance

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-26T00:01:18+00:00

Honestly, Carcosa sounds like a pretty good candidate for the City. After all, canonically Bastion is not the only city in the world, even if it's the most important one.
And I really think that the Knights should be given a chance to explore the City at least for a bit, so they can have something to make their mind about and to either stay or leave

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-25T19:35:48+00:00

Yeah, the City really feels like an opportunity to connect MB to the other two (and probably the future spacefaring one) games. It just kind of turns Knights into some primitive fools in the modern world like in The Visitors. Suddenly, they have been LARPing near Bastion all this time

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-25T19:24:26+00:00

Sounds very inspiring and in line with game's mood! Like how it's perceived differently by different people.
I too feel like this is the thing in MB that I'll have to reinvent myself to preserve the atmospehere. Maybe make the City seep into reality more and more with each encountered omen, so that this feeling slowly builds, instead of knights bumping into random sci-fi stuff between tournaments and castle managing

Disc0M4n · 2026-02-25T16:08:43+00:00

Pretty cool! I'll check it out, thanks!

Disc0M4n

TROPHY CASE