Daggerheart vs Mythic Bastionland
Compare Daggerheart and Mythic Bastionland side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Daggerheart | Mythic Bastionland | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Narrative, Collaborative, Heroic, Roleplay-Heavy, Fiction-First, Theater of the Mind, Character Building, Drama, Beginner-Friendly, Character-Driven | Rules-Light, Hexcrawl, Exploration, Attacks Always Hit, Domain Management, Sandbox, Atmospheric |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d12 Duality Dice (Hope + Fear) and add modifiers vs. difficulty. Which die rolls higher determines whether the moment swings toward the players (Hope) or the GM gains Fear tokens to spend on complications. In combat, adversary attacks roll d20 + modifier against target's Evasion. | Attacks always hit: roll weapon damage directly with simultaneous combat. Guard absorbs damage before Virtues (Vigour, Clarity, Spirit). Gambits trigger on 4+ damage rolls for special maneuvers. Omen tables guide myth discovery across hexcrawl exploration. |
| Dice | 2d12 | d6–d10 |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL) | Proprietary |
| Cost | $$$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Darrington Press | Bastionland Press |
| Year | 2025 | 2025 |
| Best For | Groups who want heroic fantasy with emotionally driven storytelling, where every roll shifts momentum between hope and fear. Great for Critical Role fans and narrative-focused tables. | Arthurian-style campaigns of knights seeking glory, ruling domains, and hunting strange mythological creatures across a wild realm. Great for groups who want structured hexcrawl play with emergent storytelling. |
| Highlights | Every action roll uses 2d12 Duality Dice, and whether Hope or Fear lands higher hands momentum to the player or the GM. Combat runs fiction-first with no fixed initiative, so the spotlight passes by the action rather than a turn order. Characters equip abilities as domain cards drawn from two domains, building a loadout the player can swap between. | Simultaneous combat system, detailed hexcrawl and myth-hunting framework, award-winning layout and art (2025 Ennie Gold), domain management adds campaign depth |
| Considerations | The domain-card system runs best with printed cards, though it can be played from the character sheet alone. Players and the GM use asymmetric rules, so each side has its own procedures to learn. Mechanics are tied to the game's own setting and ancestries, which takes work to reskin for another world. | Combat has more procedural steps than it first appears, omen system can feel prescriptive, Arthurian tone limits flexibility, setting context buried deep in the book |