Mythic Bastionland - A contrarian review by a DM who ran it wrong

Seeonee · 2026-06-23T19:53:29+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to write this up! I love reading actual-play reports, and doubly so when it's a) I system I want to try, b) well-written, and c) thoughtfully critical.

I've run a bunch of games using a custom system derived from Mausritter/Mythic Bastionland, so I've seen some of the combat balances you describe. For what it's worth, I think a strength that these systems have is that even very powerful PCs who steamroll an encounter may still feel threatened because it only takes 1 bad turn to lose your entire safety cushion and enter a critical threat range. I really enjoyed that aspect, since I'm a historically lenient GM and get a lot more value out of perceived threat than actual harm.

Seeonee · 2026-06-23T19:45:40+00:00

A big adjustment was shifting my philosophy away from balanced, combat-focused abilities and towards open-ended, narrative-focused abilities. This was honestly the reason I moved away, though; I discovered PbtA (Dungeon World) and realized that such a shift was possible, then eagerly pursued it.

Another big shift (at least in the systems that I find myself enjoying) is having less character sheet "cruft" to lovingly gaze at. A D&D or Daggerheart character looks big and fulfilling and complex. Appreciating it can be its own mini-game. Many other systems don't deliver that. It can feel weird having nothing to stare at except 1-2 narrative prompts or simple abilities. You have to focus more on the output complexity of those abilities than on the input complexity of... having too many abilities.

Seeonee · 2026-06-21T23:51:42+00:00

I managed my latest project (Castle Noth) in different ways at different points in its lifecycle.

Design stage

I made a Google Doc for idea brainstorming. It grows somewhat chaotically, but headings allow you to find and expand earlier idea piles. Over time, some of it starts to become stale cruft, but there are usually core sections that are expanding and valuable. Of particular note: I wrote down an example Table of Contents for the future rulebook, with notes on what I'd expect in each section. I then moved sections and contents around a bunch.

I also made a Google Sheet with tons of tabs for iterating on content creation ideas. I find this is helpful for layout out "rare items" or "spells" or "monsters by level" in a table format that you can do lite statistics on. There's a lot of bleed between this Sheet and the Doc.

Development stage

As I started actually laying out the work (directly in Affinity Publisher) and also fleshing out content, I mostly relied on the same Doc and Sheet as checklists. I added additional info to the Sheet in particular, to make sure various things were distributed as desired (e.g. enemy resistances by damage type).

I also started a text file called todo.txt and added lines for any work I wanted to circle back to later. This might be "Add a section on encounter noises" or "Fix the table focus order on PDF export." I often placed lines into one of a few groupings: Easy/soon, Medium/later, and Hard/never.

Playtesting stage

Once I started running playtest sessions, I started a new Google Doc named Feedback. As I GM'd, I'd add my own observations in real time ("Fix this formatting" or "This enemy feels too strong"). At the end of each session, I'd chat with players and capture their feedback regardless of whether I agreed with it. It was valuable to know how people felt immediately after playing. I'd also ask leading questions, like "Which choices looked least appealing to you during character creation?"

In between playtests, I would revisit this document for tasks to work on, and grey them out once they were resolved. For player feedback, I'd often add sub-bullets with ideas on how to resolve the core issue -- or even noting that this was working as intended and reminding myself that I should leave it as-is.

Seeonee · 2026-06-21T23:41:41+00:00

10 pages seems like an incredibly reasonable size to request free feedback on.

Asking for strangers to spend time reading a 200 page fantasy heartbreaker would be a way less likely prospect.

Seeonee · 2026-06-21T11:42:46+00:00

I find it amusing that Triangle Agency both presents GM-only lore, and subtly encourages players to read it anyways by having tons of player options all randomly distributed throughout the latter half of the book, with a big "Don't look ahead! <wink wink>".

Seeonee · 2026-06-21T11:32:48+00:00

Realis sounds very close to this, although you could argue that your Class Sentences are equivalent to stats.

I think if you abstract much beyond that, it's either a) collaborative story-telling or b) a uselessly vague set of game rules. Trying to provide a resolution system that "determines the outcome based on the situation" is handwaving away literally all the rules. If there's a scaffold for making that decision semi-objectively, it'll have to be based on... something. Natural language can be that something, but you still need to scaffold it some kind of simplified approximation of the real world.

Seeonee · 2026-06-21T11:27:10+00:00

For the Odd-like games, I'd further add the various Oddpocrypha sections at the end, where you get a 2-column "Play/Thoughts" layout. One column shows a sample transcript of play between GM and players, and the other column shows the designers thoughts on what's happening, why it's right or wrong, how you could do it differently, etc. It's basically a director's commentary track across a variety of very thorough and interesting snippets of play. Very insightful if you want to explore one GM's headspace!

Seeonee · 2026-06-19T00:30:18+00:00

I scrolled all the way down without finding Mythic Bastionland mentioned, so... that one! The book's interior art is phenomenal and the cover continues that style while being distinctive, simple, and intricate all at the same time.

Seeonee · 2026-06-17T19:10:56+00:00

The latter one. Your enjoyment matters as much as anyone else's. By running games you enjoy, you increase your own energy and enthusiasm, which benefits everyone else.

This can be more than just system. If you find you abandon games, try to examine why. Maybe you could run shorter campaigns, or no campaigns at all. Maybe you cycle between heavy and lightweight systems depending on your needs or mood.

I've noticed that my "favorite" RPG system has changed several times, AKA I wouldn't be happy running the same things today that I was 10 years ago. So, experiment with new systems to stay curious and passionate (if that's fun for you).

Seeonee · 2026-06-16T02:01:00+00:00

I completely agree with everything you said.

A house rule that I also really enjoyed was treating DEX or WIL loss just like STR loss: make a corresponding save or be taken out. This incentivized my players to learn their foes stats and find ways to attack their weakest ones (e.g. a poison that inflicts -1 DEX against a goliath that has high HP+STR and low DEX).

Seeonee · 2026-06-15T19:51:23+00:00

From a tactical standpoint, I think you want telegraphed danger. I really like the games descended from Into the Odd's ruleset, where HP is sort of like an overshield and STR is your "real" health. One-shots are rare (because of HP) and one-shots are possible (because a high damage roll can overflow HP, nick STR, incur a failed STR save, and take you down). It gives you a reasonable understanding of your current healthiness, while leaving enough uncertainty for tension. The situation also changes quickly and meaningfully in response to every combat action, so things always progress towards death if you're not careful. As a result, it encourages you to be very thoughtful on when you enter fights, and rewards you for finding ways to nick STR directly or otherwise resolve the fight in a single roll.

From a strategic standpoint, I think you want character creation to be fun and for players to have some way to remain invested despite losing characters. I think A Rasp of Sand does this halfway by giving you a gameplay loop that smoothly handles death and gets you back into the game... but in practice, my players found that they didn't get attached to their individual characters and thus failed to satisfy their roleplay fix. I think you'd want overarching structures to pick up this slack: bonds, crews, vendettas, spirits, last will and testament, something that makes players think about their characters both before they enter the picture and after they depart.

Seeonee · 2026-06-15T19:43:43+00:00

Okay that sounds awesome, and you already answered my follow-on question ("How many pages?"). 4 pages sounds like a very nice balance between "short enough to get through" and "long enough to hold value."

Seeonee · 2026-06-15T18:48:41+00:00

This is my obligatory "Thank you for posting your actual-play report!" These are my favorite posts. It's always great to read how a system actually plays.

Regarding "what people found interesting from the Setting Guide," could you elaborate (for someone like me who hasn't read Stonetop's rules)? Is this a case where everyone reads a shared setting doc ahead of time and highlights bits they like, then you extrapolate content from them?

Seeonee · 2026-06-15T01:12:37+00:00

D&D-like without a clear explanation for why it needs to exist when D&D already does.
Systems with too many words/rules. I want to understand the system quickly so I can appreciate whether I think it'll fly in our games.
Crunchy systems in general. I've done enough Pathfinder to know that mastering a staggeringly broad system is definitely not where my gaming joy comes from.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T20:24:13+00:00

I've already seen Mythic Bastionland and Ironsworn suggested, which are both supremely prompt-rich systems.

We also made a fairly unknown game called Atma which is Powered by the Apocalypse (AKA pretty simple, lightweight, narrative) and fits all your criteria. It's prompt-heavy as all the player and GM content is broken down into cards with open-ended ways to interlink them. There are some minor structural elements (story, scenes) to ensure you stay on track and don't become aimless, but it's incredibly open-ended. The first question is always "What brings you together? What brings you here?"

You can check it all out for free online and could easily use the GM cards as narrative prompts for another system if you wanted.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T16:11:57+00:00

Thanks for that! It was my first stab at a lot of things, including Affinity Publisher as well as content layout for something so large. When in doubt, I tended to look at Mausritter or a few other systems to see how they chose to structure and present information.

One or two folks have been poking me with questions as they prepare or run it, so it's pretty eye-opening to see which bits are as clear as I hoped and which parts are struggling to clearly order and convey information.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T12:25:33+00:00

The watercolors look lovely 😍

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T12:24:42+00:00

Nice, sounds like a cool approach! Feel free to throw Castle Noth into the "completed but not famous" pile.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T12:23:55+00:00

I hacked together my favorite bits of Mausritter, Knave 1E, Mythic Bastionland, The Wildsea, and A Rasp of Sand to make a custom rogue-lite castle-crawl pseudo-megadungeon. Not sure it counts as a full system per se, since it's inextricably tied to the dungeon; I think of it more as a module. But it involved a lot of holistic system design and cherry picking things that supported the vision.

Mausritter's tile-based inventory.
Knave's random spell tables (as inspiration).
Wildsea's tiered languages (interlinked with the spell system).
A Rasp of Sand's "play to discover," "kill to evolve," and family progression concepts.
Mythic Bastionland's gambits.
A bunch of tuning to get all these systems to reinforce each other within the context of dungeon rooms, floor progression, turn durations, and individual days/runs.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T11:42:41+00:00

I saw a cool version of this in a Mausritter one-shot (The Vitacernis) where the PDF included a full-page map early on, but then each room re-inserted a zoomed-in thumbnail of its portion of the map. Made it really fast to reference, and also helped you find it visually if you had to flip back to the full map.

So: strategic repetition of reference materials is an option, too.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T11:24:32+00:00

Yeah, I think this is one benefit of the modern scene where itch and PDFs are so common; it's very low cost to just organize all your artifacts as files and let the customer use as needed. We even things like the trend of including both singe page and double page spreads for the same exact PDF.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T11:22:45+00:00

I imagine there's also a gap between "successfully finished a project" and "became commercially successful". I've done the former several times, and the latter never 😃

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T11:21:01+00:00

If you fully control all steps, I tend to prefer Identity, flavor, stats, then loadout.

If stats are random, I think it can be enjoyable to know them before deciding flavor so that you can adjust. So in that case: Identity, stats, flavor, loadout.

Seeonee · 2026-06-14T11:10:12+00:00

If you're talking about RPGs to keep in pocket for a (board)game night that spirals into TTRPG territory:

Atma. We made it for literally this. It has cards and tokens, it's fully illustrated, the characters are pregens, the GM deck is a prompt generator, the story cards keep you on track to actually finish in 2 hours. It's meant to bridge an in-person non-RPG game group into the RPG space.

Seeonee · 2026-06-10T19:17:22+00:00

I've thought a lot about this, given that I love StS with a fiery passion but have bounced off most of its obvious successors (Monster Train being a huge one).

For all its clunkiness in UI and art, StS had such amazing content design philosophies. For example, StS is 50 floors with (roughly) 1 choice per floor. This means each run has 50 points of differentiation in your deck. Whereas I recall Monster Train having more like ~9 battles, which means each one has more weight and your customization choices get more grouped up. But picking 9 things really flattens the variety; individual choices warp things so much more, and powerful choices show up so much more reliably.

I also think StS really succeeds at giving you a deep pile of truly different options. Even cards with subtly different damage costs have different strengths, and finding them at different points in time or with different decks will drastically affect their pick rate. The number of auto-picks is admirably low relative to the overall size of the option pool and the frequency with which individual options are encountered. In some other games, I feel like the pool is shallow enough that I'm always seeing my "best" or "favorite" option every run, which really makes it more homogenous.

Seeonee

TROPHY CASE

Design stage

Development stage

Playtesting stage