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So since Band of Bastards is finally seeing a beta release, it seemed like a good time to make a post here about it. People who recognise the game The Riddle of Steel may well recall that there were a few attempts at successor games once it went out of print; Blade of the Iron Throne is one such game, which decided to take the old ruleset, replace the d10s with d12s and make a Conan-esque game out of it; Band of Bastards is another, which has taken a somewhat different route. Those of you who do not know what The Riddle of Steel is, it is a game written by Jake Norwood; the chap all in black (well, more in black than the other one) in the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkQO0kT4SZA As you can see, he's a reasonably good swordsman (in fact he runs his own school of historical fencing, and is active in the HEMA community in other ways). As it happens, he's also something of an RPG nerd, and he wanted to play a game that captured the dynamic and fluid nature of combat in a way that would still be playable by - and hopefully appealing to - people who know nothing about fighting. Since that game didn't exist, he made his own and named it The Riddle of Steel. As one might imagine from a combat system designed by someone who plays lots of RPGs and also knows how swords work, the melee system was detailed yet playable; making the one on one duel actually exciting to play and to witness in play. It was magnificent. Another thing he did was create a means of character advancement which allows the players to tell the GM what they want the game to be about, and at the same time rewards acting in character and grants bonuses to actions taken while pursuing the character's goals. The player would specify five "Spiritual Attributes", and these would both grant bonus dice and could be spent on advancing the character's other stats. It was quite a simple way of doing things, yet it worked really well. Unfortunately, the remainder of the game was a bit of a mess. The skill system was a bit wonky, group combat basically required the GM to run multiple fights simultaneously (which worked, but was hardly a good solution), ranged combat was a bit poo poo and the magic system, while interesting thematically, was so complex that it rarely actually saw use. Then, Operation Iraqi Freedom happened, and Jake Norwood had to go off to war, selling off Driftwood Publishing to someone else. After that, drama happened which would take far too long to go into here. After a while, the game went out of print, and so members of a fan forum for the game set about creating a successor. This split into at least three projects - Blade of the Iron Throne, which kept things largely the same but reduced the wonkiness of the skill system and added a magic system which had similar mechanics to the melee combat system, a project I forget the name of which is largely hosted on 4chan if memory serves, and Song of Steel, which was later renamed to Band of Bastards when the focus went from making a better group combat system but keeping things largely similar to creating a game about playing a band of thieves, corrupt nobles or other ne'er-do-wells with an agenda. So yes; as I mentioned above, this game is finally seeing an open beta release. The pdfs are being released on their forums; a couple of chapters at a time as and when they're ready. The first two chapters are here, which are a standard introduction and an explanation of the die rolling mechanics. Next week is the character generation chapter. In the meantime, I leave you with this, the text they intend to put on the back cover of the book: Band of Bastards posted:Love, Honor, and Justice. Three worthy causes... for a damned fool and an early grave. Poets harp on about the noble and gallant, but it’s all hollow tales and lukewarm lies. No, what we've got is a cold truth of mud and sweat and steel and blood. Don’t fool yourself, kid. The world’s a hard and mean place. Nobody’s going to do you any favors out there.
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Feb 19, 2016 15:36
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| # ? Apr 24, 2024 05:47 |
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