Much more than just knights
A while ago, I wrote a post about how Mythic Bastionland felt, to me, a little complicated to run or improvise. The truth is, I did not set up the starting game well, and the first two sessions dragged a bit – both in terms of emergent narrative and world immersion. Part of that came from using the conventional campaign start of Mythic Bastionland, and also a boring start: Six Myths, big map, no inciting quest to do... and part of it was me not feeling comfortable using the spark tables.
At the time of the post, Chris McDowall (Bastionland author) just put out a post about Mythic one-shots. It was a great read and helped me understand some of my frustrations with those early sessions.
After a few more games, the world began to take shape. The myths started to settle in and the emergent story began to unfold, leading to some of the most interesting adventures in the recent years: we were lost and found the White Citadel.
Troupe style of play in simple rules
Mythic Bastionland recovers the tools present in troupe style games, like Ars Magica, and presents them in a format that is accessible for other style of games too. And it just feels so natural to go ahead and play with a larger company – a company with a holding or settlement, one that can send Knights, Squires (or even Wizards?) to quests in a land of whimsical locations and events.
To me, the step back from Mythic Bastionland to an Ars Magica-style game is very simple and almost telegraphed by the book itself. I still have to run domain play in the odd-knights game but I am tempted to construct some sort of holding, with vassals, knights, sages and squires and run a sort of West Marches game, but without Marches, and not really West.
Magic Bastionland
Games with simple rules really encourage hacking and DIY extensions. In my mind, MythBast spells can work as weapons, with a damage die and tags like hefty/long/slow, among others.
Magic: Instead of Knights we have wise people, instructed in the use of a specific spell like Lancelot Fire Snake, d6 or Voodo curse of the Body, d6, Long . Use the damage die for combat, and let players and referee negotiate the spell effects when outside of it. After all, having time to perform a full ritual will certainly be better than just casting in a hurry in the middle of a battle.
Tools of the trade: Magic wands, staves or even grimoires as tools that add dice to the attack pool or work as leverage in the negotiation of the spell effect.
Advancement: Spellcasting proficiency comes from inspecting magical artifacts (possibly destroying them in the process) or learning from another wizard/witch/druid/magic person during a whole Season. I am even tempted to use advancement as journal entries (there was a good post about Journal as experience points, but I've forgotten where)
This is all fuzzy in my mind still, but I feel it is a fun exercise to do: to transform Mythic Bastionland to a new Ars Magica experience. Not that it is needed, but I would be happy with it.