All Bastard!
This is an interesting storytelling game centred around adventurers in a tavern boasting about their adventures and the villains that they have (hopefully bested). These latter are the eponymous Bastards who are half something, half another but All Bastard and deserving of being brought low for their wicked ways.
Each player takes three turns, in each one facing a Bastard that is played by another player. The first two are encounters on the way to confront the main villain and represent minions of the main Bastard or incidental threats along the way.
Each Bastard is resolved using a pool of dice 4d8 that the player controlling the Bastard rolls in secret. Characters are defined on three stats which have polyhedral dice assigned to them. The player chooses their approach and rolls the die that is associated with the stat.
Success in a challenge against the Bastard removes the lower dice in the pool but failure the highest die so it feels like the mechanics should generate a narrative that favours a success for the hero, perhaps after an initial setback. The rules do mention the balancing calculations that the designer has used and how to play around with them for a different feel to the game.
Success generates fame tokens which can be banked for reknown or traded for a Relic, a helpful item with an associated special rule. At the end of the game each character's saved fame tokens measures how impressive and well-known their story is and allows the character with the most fame to claim bragging rights as the best adventurer.
The turn taking aspect of the game seems to me to be the Achilles heel of the game: as only two players are critically engaged at a time. There isn't a well-defined role for the other players; they might be fine sitting by and enjoying the action or taking on bit-parts in the other player's scenes but also they also might not have much to do and none of what happens in the scenes will affect their own scenes unless they are sophisticated players who will reincorporate elements on their own accord. This is compounded by the fact that the hero is meant to play through three Bastards before the next player starts their first.
I wonder if a simple tweak to assign roles to groups of players instead of just the two might help resolve this. It also feels like it would be better for the game to be played in rounds rather than each player performing a complete set of stories. That might have a better feeling of rising peril and the characters trying to top one's exploits.
I think I'm going to try and bring this game to a storytelling group and get a better sense of whether it has enough game options and sparks inspiration in the players. It looks good but the structure does put an emphasis on the contribution of the players.