Myth of Blades
Saturday, October 24th, 2020
One of the inspirations oddly missing from Band of Blades is acclaimed 1990’s computer game Myth: the Fallen Lords, a real-time strategy game by Bungie. The game tells the story of a continent over-run by armies of the undead, led by powerful (bickering) sorcerer-generals, who are themselves enslaved and corrupted by an ancient sorcerer-king; against them is arrayed the Legion, an army of men and their allies led by nine powerful sorcerers, who are desperately fighting to hold the line and protect the last bastions of humanity from being overwhelmed.
Sound familiar? Yes, that’s pretty much Band of Blades. Almost certainly because, just like Band of Blades, Myth: The Fallen Lords is also an homage to Glen Cook’s Black Company series of novels, and therefore borrows a number of similar elements. Now I enjoyed the Black Company, a lot, but I love Myth: TFL. Myth is my single favorite game ever of any genre or type of video game. It has been almost thirty years, and I still fire it up on occasion to throw exploding bottles at the shuffling hordes of thrall and hack down myrmidons.
After playing (and re-playing) the video game, I’ve always wanted more, and to be able to experience it at the tabletop. Since Band is so closely intertwined with Myth on a conceptual level, this is my chance to make it happen as a role-playing game using a system supportive of the nature of the fiction.[1]
Positions, Puzzle Boxes, Adversaries and More
Friday, June 26th, 2020
One of my BitD groups recently had a discussion about play styles due to some questions involving how one goes about negotiating for Position and Effect. One of the players, frustrated by the system, wanted to know what the normal difficulty of an action should be. The thing is, in BitD, there’s no real answer to that question.