Greetings! First post, and first time running an RPG. We had a solid test game, got a good feel for mechanics. Have a couple of questions to try and improve my game.
First question, the PC’s got into a fight conflict with a squirrel up in a tree. One player had put a lot of points into Insectrist and I wanted to incorporate somehow, so in the tree there was wasp nest. In the conflict they scripted Attack, Maneuver, Attack. The Insectrist Mouse wanted to use his maneuver to rile up the wasps, is there any way he have rolled Insectrist for that instead of his low Nature? Story wise that just seems more fun.
Next, let’s say one mouse has high skill in Pathfinder, another mouse has low Pathfinder, but wants it to get better. From the Players point of view why would they ever let the low Pathfinder roll? He’s likely to just fail. Should I just try and instill more roleplaying and get the PC to insist he wants to try?
Another is if we were to try and run a long campaign using each tick for a season (14) or shorter without winter (9), wouldn’t the mice’s nature be completely drained well before we reach the end? The mechanics for recharging are few and far between. How would one play and have that not be the case?
Lastly, I listened to all the Walking Eye podcasts for MG (really fun) and the GM seemed to allow more rolls than the book calls for. In the book there could be as little as 2 rolls in the GM turn, but there are way more than that even accounting for twists in the podcast. Is there that kind of wiggle room for the number of rolls?
Thanks for any help, I’ve been reading through tons of posts here and have learned a ton.
Way to go running your first roleplaying game–it looks like your group had a good experience with Mouse Guard.
Please see page 87, “Who makes the test?” If the player with the lower rating in Pathfinder wants to be the one to make the test, all he or she has to do is volunteer first to take on the obstacle. It’s also up to that player whether or not he accepts help from his patrolmates. For example, failed rolls are needed to advance skills rated two or higher.
I’m strict about presenting the patrol with two hazards during the GM’s Turn–twists notwithstanding–and I find it makes for the best play. The limited opportunities to test control how fast the characters’ skills advance and how many checks they can earn for the Players’ Turn; they also force the GM’s Turn to be focused on the most interesting and crucial challenges that the guardmice face during their missions. These factors create a feeling of pressure on the players–time is of the essence, and there is never enough time to do everything they want to do.
If your players are clamoring for more tests, you can present them with complex obstacles (see pages 68 and 92) and conflicts during the GM’s Turn, as well as utilizing twists rather than conditions in response to failed tests. They also can use their checks in the Players’ turn to seek out opportunities to test skills of their choice.
It’s been half a year since our last MG game, but I will give it a try.
You can only use the skills listed for each type of action in a conflict (well, or Nature, if the action fits the descriptors). This keeps players from building one-trick ponies (well, one-trick mice) and using that one skill for every conflict. In your case, Maneuver uses Nature. If the player wins with his action, then he could impede his opponent or gain position, depending on his margin of success; in the fiction this might take the shape of kicking the wasp nest at the squirrel, for example, or otherwise riling up the wasps.
This is usually not up to the group to decide.
a) In the GM’s turn, the player who pipes up first is the one who rolls. If one player goes “Wait, I have an idea – we could just throw a rope over that branch and …”, then this is the guy you pick to roll. “Excellent! That’s an ob 3 Health test. Go!” (The players can, of course, huddle up to decide who goes before someone announces his mouse is stepping up.)
b) In the players’ turn, it’s up to each player what he spends his checks on. If he wants to find a path, he simply pays his check and then his mouse goes and does it.
Well, I guess the answer is to be careful with taxing your Nature. Acting with your Nature is always safe, but acting against your Nature can mean burning precious resources. Remember you can deplete your Nature to restore one point of tax (p. 233), and you can advance Nature like any other ability.
I haven’t listened to these podcasts, so I can only speculate, but you can call for more than a single roll for overcoming a complex obstacle.
According to pages 93 and 94, the player could have used Insectrist instead of another skill when helping his patrolmates with their rolls, but only could have helped himself with an appropriate wise (e.g. Wasp-wise). That being said, something like the wasp nest, which was a nice inclusion on the part of you and your group, goes a long way for adding color when describing actions. Incorporating the wasps would have been a great way to characterize the resulting impede or gain position in response to the successful maneuver.
The walking eye sessions frankly said haven’t been that good in their rule use. Be very strict about rolls in the GMs turn. I tended to have between 2-6 (counting a conflict as 1) depening on the mission.
It looks like your characters were acting against their nature or tapping their nature a lot. Were they simply burning through nature because it was a one-shot game? In my campaigns, I haven’t encountered the issue you’re describing of players not having enough opportunities to replenish nature (which are on page 233, as Kai noted).
Nooooes just wrote post and got “Your submission could not be processed because the token has expired.” and lost it.
Take two! Thanks a bunch everybody, great and plentiful responses.
We’ve only had one session so far, just thinking ahead! Perhaps it’s not a problem at all.
As a thought experiment I’d like to run a few scenarios by you all. Set up: A four mouse patrol has tracked the missing acorns to a squirrels nest high up in a tree. Nearby there is wasp nest. The squirrel is home, but hasn’t noticed them yet.
(Pretty sure this is valid) Start a fight animal conflict. Attack/Maneuver/Attack. The Maneuvering mouse rolls his Nature or LoreMouse and succeeds. He then describes how he riles up the wasps by yanking some of the larva out and throwing them at the squirrel. Purely descriptive.
Apiarist/Insectrist mouse triggers complex obstacle where he rolls to rile up the wasps as a distraction so they can all sneak off with the acorns unnoticed.
Apiarist/Insectrist mouse rolls to rile up the wasps against the squirrel, then the patrol starts a conflict fight animal where there teams are now Mice vs Squirrel vs Wasps (Sounds fun!)
Three of the mice start a conflict fight animal, meanwhile the Apiarist/Insectrist mouse rolls to rile up the wasps against the squirrel. If possible, how could this affect the fight mechanically?
Two mice a conflict fight animal or chase (Goal: distract the squirrel), meanwhile the other two mice start sneaking out the acorns.
Can’t think of any more. Not sure these would all work, but finding out why they don’t will go a long way to my understanding of game mechanics.
Numbers 1 and 2 are probably the best way to do this. No. 3 is certainly possible. However, I would expect the wasps and the mice to duke it out if the squirrels should drop out of the conflict. I wouldn’t do 4 or 5.
If the mouse with the insect fetish wants to help with the conflict, why not use the rules for helping with a conflict? (See p. 102 for these.)
If you really want to start a conflict, make it about the acorns. That’s what matters. Conflicts produce results, they change something. Use them for important, dramatic things.
Okay. Mice are gathering food stock from thieving forest animals–I can imagine that.
(Pretty sure this is valid) Start a fight animal conflict. Attack/Maneuver/Attack. The Maneuvering mouse rolls his Nature or LoreMouse and succeeds. He then describes how he riles up the wasps by yanking some of the larva out and throwing them at the squirrel. Purely descriptive.
I would require at least Loremouse and might require Apiarist as an existing skill or as Helper (possibly allowing for wasp-wise, stinging insect-wise, or hive mind-wise in place of Apiarist). I might consider also that the number of successes better come out pretty high in order to get the narration of riling up a wasp or hornet nest–and framing the squirrel as the source of molestation–and keeping the patrol free from being attacked by hornets/wasps. What he is asking for is a fairly difficult thing. I would expect the patrol might really want to be careful of such a blunderous action. For a mouse, a single sting might be uncomfortable, but many stings might be deadly!
Apiarist/Insectrist mouse triggers complex obstacle where he rolls to rile up the wasps as a distraction so they can all sneak off with the acorns unnoticed.
The complex obstacle might be a better way to ensure Apiarist is being used and an appropriate wise can be included. It also doesn’t place it into the middle of an already chaotic Animal Fight! in the treetops. It is still a big deal to ensure the mouse can frame the squirrel and avoid the patrol being attacked, but at least it isn’t also in the midst of a fight.
Apiarist/Insectrist mouse rolls to rile up the wasps against the squirrel, then the patrol starts a conflict fight animal where there teams are now Mice vs Squirrel vs Wasps (Sounds fun!)
hmmm. I would use one animal as an NPC and the other as flavor. I wouldn’t prefer to have two animal NPCs acting at the same time over the same conflict. Otherwise, this does allow/enforce that the patrol will be a target of the wasps just as much as the squirrel. It depends largely on the goals being placed on the table for such a conflict.
Three of the mice start a conflict fight animal, meanwhile the Apiarist/Insectrist mouse rolls to rile up the wasps against the squirrel. If possible, how could this affect the fight mechanically?
Nope. If the patrol is getting into a conflict, then everyone opts-in or opts-out of that conflict until it is resolved. After the conflict is resolved, and the compromise is resolved, then we move on to the next obstacle. If the Apiarist wants to rile up the wasps, he has got to convince the patrol to go along before a conflict begins. The conflict might become the Twist of a failed attempt–in fact, this could become the three-sided conflict: Wasps-We will punish those who molest our nest; Squirrel: I will move my acorn cache before getting too badly attacked by wasps; Patrol: We will steal some acorns for the food stock before the getting too badly attacked by wasps.
Two mice a conflict fight animal or chase (Goal: distract the squirrel), meanwhile the other two mice start sneaking out the acorns.
Sorta. The patrol all opts-in or opts-out of a conflict, then the conflict gets resolved, then we move to a new obstacle. So, it might be a conflict (chase or fight animal–depending on scene framing), then the compromise narrates the split in which patrol mice sneak in behind to get the acorns. In this case, the compromise might or might not require a test (probably not require). Afterwards, the narration brings the patrol back together as they meet the next obstacle. Oh, those mice who want to stay behind for the acorns–yes, they would have to opt-in if they want to be part of the compromise.
Can’t think of any more. Not sure these would all work, but finding out why they don’t will go a long way to my understanding of game mechanics.
I want to note something not mentioned.
Bees are fascinating. They create wax, honey, and bee-bread (a pollen-honey mixture) which is all accessible to an apiarist (not even highly trained) who knows how to handle the hive.
Hornets, such as wasps and yellow-jackets, are also fascinating, but far less useful. They don’t create much if any wax, but some create paper; they don’t create much if any honey or bee-bread. Several species are burrowing and make hives underground (a little more like ants). None are kept as livestock like bees. They are generally considered a pest.
Bees have plenty to offer a colony of mice and would be more easily domesticated for their many useful products. Wasps are unlikely to be domesticated–getting trained enough to cause their hive to swarm as desired (I think) still falls to Apiarist (not Insectrist). I treat Insectrist as a sort of Animal Handler skill mostly like shepherds, goatherds, cowboys/girls, fish farmers, horse breeders, and/or dog breeders.
So, ultimately, I don’t feel the use of hornets as implements of combat fits the tone for MG. Even using bees as an attack squadron means risking an important food production resource–only use in the most dire situations.
The apiarist mouse declares that he in going to anger the hive, with an intent of having it attack and drive off the squirrel. The GM sets an Ob (probably 6, based on factors for the Apiarist skill on p. 242 - “hive = 4” and “anger = 2”). The apiarist mouse’s player describes (through roleplay and/or simple narrative description) how his mouse is creating a fire for the required smoke, and any other actions which seem appropriate. The other players can speak up, describing how their mice are helping (perhaps helping to build the fire, direct the smoke, distract the squirrel, etc.), and the apiarist mouse can choose to accept helping dice from them as they hand them over while they describe.
The apiarist mouse’s player rolls the dice.
If the roll beats the Ob, the player gets what he wants - the bees are properly agitated and they drive off the squirrel. The patrol can now collect the acorns without having to deal with the squirrel.
If the roll is less than the Ob, then one of two things happen:
The GM gives the players what they want (the squirrel is driven off), but assigns a Condition to all mice who had “dice in the game”. This is described by the GM: Perhaps the squirrel was driven off, but some of the bees turned on the mice during or after that, and they were stung - take Injured or Sick. Maybe it was just a lot of work, and the mice breathed in a lot of smoke - take Tired. Something along those lines.
The GM does not give the players what they want (so, the squirrel is not driven off), and applies a Twist. This could be a Fight Animal Conflict with the squirrel, or with the bees, or maybe even with both (I’d be likely to use the “both” option with a 4-mouse party). Or, it could even just be another simple (or perhaps Complex) test to deal with angry bees and/or a squirrel who now knows that the mice are after his nuts.
There are multiple ways to approach most scenarios in Mouse Guard, and multiple ways of dealing with what happens after the dice are rolled. And, also: You don’t need to assume that “Twist = Conflict”, even if that might seem to be the most obvious choice.
This is a great forum! Lot’s of detailed responses.
Played again with a group of three. Starting a multi-part campaign where they have to establish a new settlement for the displaced refugees who have had trouble resettling in the years since the Weasel War. It’s already taking twists I didn’t expect which is great. They will soon stand before the Family Elders for Elmoss who are demanding Lockhaven give them reparations for the refugees they’ve been helping!
I already find myself more comfortable doing different voices for NPCs and making stuff up, learned some things to focus on too. For instance I want try harder to have more hooks for the everybody to play off of in the Player turn.
Another thing I think will be useful to make is a short list of prepared twists to grab at a moments notice. Things I can have researched a bit. Perhaps always have two per type. Like read up on Badgers and Ravens, flash floods and brushfire, etc so there is something fun pull out when appropriate.
Yeah, one of the fun things I have learned from Mouse Guard is that learning about actual creatures and other things that exist in nature can be at least as interesting (if not more) as learning about their various counterparts in fantasy worlds.
This is a big part of why I like these games so much. The best thing is when the session is over and I’m all fired up because I just cannot wait to find out what happens next session.
My standard preparation is to be ready with one hazard of each type (weather, wilderness, animal, mice). I present two in the GM’s Turn and pocket the other two for twists. I broke down a session using this approach a few years ago, which you can read about at this link.
Yes, an entire night on wikipedia learning about Raspberry Bushes, that Copper Ore can be found in Sandstone, Alum is super useful for dying cloth, and how to make yarn from raw cotton! Now to read up on badgers.