The many rolls of Mythras

I'm not sure how much I have to say on this topic, but prompted by Seraphim Seraphina's Write More Short Blog Posts here I am.

For the past few years I have not rolled to hit. I have just rolled for damage. This evening I played in a game of Mythras. We rolled to hit. We contested those rolls with parries. We used the contest results to choose special effects. We rolled saves to avoid the special effects. We rolled for damage location. Only then did we roll damage. And sometimes we rolled to endure the damage.

We call this simulationist because maybe hitting and maybe not and maybe parrying and maybe not and maybe specially affecting and maybe not and where you hit and how hard you hit and maybe enduring and maybe not are all parts of a real fight. Real fights are also fast, and this is not particularly fast.

Wrapping all this up in one roll captures the flash of action, the impact that can't be undone. Unfurling it into components lays out the brutal effects in detail. They're both powerful and dramatic in their own ways.

We had an interesting conversation afterwards. The rules light games we usually play are clearly faster. But there's something to be said for slowing down, zooming in, and having the system generate the texture that we're used to narrating with less scaffolding.

I don't have a conclusion here except that I'm grateful for the diversity of experiences that the hobby provides (yes, I know I've just given examples of diversity in characters bashing each other with clubs - but like I said, this is a short blog post).