Default setting of Bastards

[Marras]

So, if I have understood it correctly the default setting of Band of Bastards is set in Renaissance era. Is it set in our own historical era with a twist of magic and if so, is there a default country/are where it is set? Or is the setting an imaginary one like Old World in Warhammer?

[higgins]

Rather than writing 30+ pages of fluff text on a custom setting that you'll thumb through once and abandon, we'll instead include built-in starting point, or "microsetting" to kick-start your first campaign. Essentially, it will be a single city crafted with some loving detail to help you get a feel for exactly what we imagined 'Bastards was meant to do and the kind of campaigns it was meant to run. The city itself is an ideal frontier town or pirate port, and can either be the beginning of a shared-setting-creation campaign, or drag and dropped into an established setting.

[Marras]

So the setting is a sort like Night City of Cyberpunk 2020? A fictional city that can be used in real world or in a fantasy setting. I suppose that will work quite well.

Thanks Higgins!

[Agamemnon]

Sorta kinda the same vibe, yeah. The phrase "viking tortuga" was thrown around at one point. But that's exactly the idea. Our microsetting is meant to be a starting place for a campaign, either one of your own devising, a shared setting creation setup, or dropped into an existing setting - historical or otherwise. The goal is to give you enough information to run a demo game or two to get you started, without saddling the book with a few dozen pages of world fluff that most gamers are going to toss out anyway.

[Marras]

I think this might be exactly what I need.

I have been toying with an idea about a pretty normal PC party with some affinity to crime. At least one of them is a cousin of a head of one major mercant family. The merchant family has seen it's better days and the leader is now very desperate. He needs to turn to crime to kickstart his merchant empire to a new rise and who would be better suited to take care of the seedier side of business than his poor cousin and his crew

This might be just one job or even build up to a great campaign depending on what PCs want to do.

[Agamemnon]

Sounds like the makings of a good campaign!

Don't limit yourself though. One of the interesting things about the tone of the game makes some of the most compelling characters be the ones who are legitimately trying to do the right thing - those bastards tend to be the worst off of all. The show Black Sails (if you get the chance to watch it) is largely compelling because so many of the characters seem to be doing more or less what they think is "the right thing" or "the best thing" -- it just happens that "for whom" lends to some excellent dramatic conflicts.

[Daeruin]

The fiction of Joe Abercrombie is another good example. The guy who's trying to be a good man is often the one who suffers the most. I enjoy his books but have to admit that the setting of Bastards isn't that appealing to me as a game. I intend to use the rules as the basis for a totally different campaign concept.

[Marras]

As it happens I have subscribed HBO Nordic and seen the first episode of Black Sails. I have to watch more episodes then

What comes to my general campaign idea that is of course just a starting point. What kind of characters the PCs actually end up to be is ultimately up to players.

[Agamemnon]

The fiction of Joe Abercrombie is another good example. The guy who's trying to be a good man is often the one who suffers the most. I enjoy his books but have to admit that the setting of Bastards isn't that appealing to me as a game. I intend to use the rules as the basis for a totally different campaign concept.

Abercrombie is such a big influence on this setting that our original cover idea aped the design of his covers as kind of an inside joke. Haha. I think we actually use the phrase "back to the mud" at some point as well.

That said: we like the idea of that kind of wild-west, outlaws and villains kind of thing, and we built the game around the idea. Play it up to the hilt and brand it that way. There's nothing stopping you from playing it up as whatever else though. I've got campaign ideas floating around from historical norse and musketeers to a high-fantasy modification and some unofficial Dune rules floating around.

[hector]

I'm personally reminded of The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - about a band of thieves who occasionally get into fights and such.

[Daeruin]

That's another great example.

Will Bastards have any sort of social combat system? (Maybe that question should be in its own thread.)

[Agamemnon]

That's another great example.

Will Bastards have any sort of social combat system? (Maybe that question should be in its own thread.)

Addressed in its own thread!