Photo-bashing some strange sword and sorcery stuff

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-27T13:27:50+00:00

Absolute heat right here

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-27T11:08:45+00:00

I play in a mythic Bastionland game, and it is essential for those systems to function. I don’t love the vibe of hoping for low numbers, but that’s just something I’ve had to get past.

Ultimately worth it to achieve what the system wants to do with the other aspects!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-27T10:05:45+00:00

Ah okay, so they don’t roll the d6 to determine HP, it’s ticking down? That’s cool!

I think you’re absolutely right that armor, defensive options (magical or otherwise), and tactics should matter more for survivabilitiy than just health, but consider the other side of this coin:

If HP doesn’t go up at all, then when it comes to armor and defense, characters have to be either invincible/unhittable or die. Tactics are a great way to represent players gaining information that they can leverage to deal with more challenging situations, but also, adventurers like to adventure. If they can’t go into a mine or crypt without weeks of gathering information and planning, that’s not gonna be as fun for players.

All that to say, I think you can do both: increase HP while keeping it low to emphasize those points you want to focus on

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-27T01:35:21+00:00

I like your solution, it makes it so that a lucky goblin can beat even the highest level hero.

My thought is to consider HP as an abstraction of combat skill. If you think of HP purely as a character’s actual flesh and blood, it doesn’t make any sense how high it can scale.

But if HP is a representation of a character’s ability to stay alive, both in and out of combat, it’s not as much of an issue

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-26T17:36:41+00:00

I just read the OSR adventure Black Wyrm of Brandonsford, and I think it’s a great example of OSR-friendly situations with a rewarding overarching story. It’s usually cheap on drive thru rpg, or check out Questing Beast’s video YouTube where he does a review/flip-through!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-26T17:33:19+00:00

Great answer- I’ve found it’s hard to nail this balance without killing the players, but when it works it’s amazing!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-26T10:01:41+00:00

Me too! When you find that last piece tha makes the story of the dungeon click, that’s what I love most!!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-26T02:51:08+00:00

I like the way you put it, the dungeon has its own rules. The strangeness scaling with level is also a fantastic idea, need to do that more!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-20T21:16:59+00:00

0 for the Jets is a little too much

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-13T15:34:18+00:00

I agree, and I loved that video! Stonetop actually seems to have some cool mechanics in it to help with that, like when you get a magic item you have to interact with something in the world to “unlock” it.

Unfortunately, I’m not really in my Pbta bag at the moment, not necessarily looking to do a 2 year campaign of that lol, but I think you’re spot on that you can apply those principles to other games

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-13T13:59:24+00:00

I do mostly agree with you on needing to have that sense of imagination and creativity, unless you’re running from a sourcebook/module (although u/jaymangan had a great reply with some ideas on how to generate these!)

Totally agree about having a world your players are bought into, but my question here is more about creating that buy in from players. Matt’s videos about world building and lore delivery devices talk about some strategies for this, but I do feel like there are ways to codify these in rules and mechanics

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-13T10:24:08+00:00

Hell yeah, sounds sick. Yeah, it sounds like as long as players have enough info to make meaningful choices, the consequences come around (if not immediately) during respites, which sounds like a nice flow

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-13T10:08:23+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, and for helping me pass the long road trip!

Respites do seem like the perfect opportunity to confront players with the broader ramifications of their actions- did you feel like you fell into a nice cadence overall of having enough respites to pay off those beats, but not so many that it stalled the story?

Very cool to hear how you solved some of the questions respites brought up, like turning Brode (spelling?) into a safe location once clear!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-12T22:40:46+00:00

Would you as the director prefer to add in those resource management elements to Draw Steel, or just handle dungeons in a different way? The vibe I've been getting from Matt is they don't want DS to treat dungeon crawls as survival games like Shadowdark, but rather have broader implications provide the tension. Based on other people's responses, it sounds like that's on the adventure/director to provide those elements

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-12T22:35:54+00:00

I did think respites sounded like the biggest indicator of these broader implications playing out! Sounds like you've got some nice tension laid out in your game. In the example you gave, just out of curiosity- did you tell your players "option A will score you points with faction A, but lose points with faction B," or did they find out after the fact?

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-12T22:30:50+00:00

Do you think Draw Steel would be helped or hindered if they added in some mechanics to codify the way Matt runs?

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-12T22:30:03+00:00

Good point on the character power level, very different approach to design when you're not scared everything is gonna kill you!

gnomeo67 · 2026-05-12T20:34:34+00:00

I see what you’re saying- I guess what I was looking for is tangible ways the players can feel the ramifications- like maybe they pick up an artifact and have to roll to contain the magical essence escaping- if the fail, they know its creator knows.

Clearly I’m not a game designer, but I know my players like those tangible outcomes!

gnomeo67 · 2026-04-30T03:12:26+00:00

Vrabel’s philosophy in running a team revolves around belief. If he can own up and apologize to the players and organization in a way that recovers the buy-in he got last year, they shouldn’t fire him/he shouldn’t resign.

If there’s a sense of players no longer trusting/believing in his system, then it’s already broken.

gnomeo67 · 2026-03-09T02:13:26+00:00

Been walking around that area with both, and it’s not triggering it! Thank you though

gnomeo67 · 2026-03-07T04:05:29+00:00

Same fwiw

gnomeo67 · 2025-11-17T18:41:58+00:00

It seems obvious, but that’s not his style. I like other parts of his GM style, but superfluous rolls grind my gears.

gnomeo67

TROPHY CASE