A First Attempt at Mouse Guard – session report

Mouse Guard Missions
1

We’re all new to Mouse Guard. The GM and myself have both read the rulebook twice, while the other two players know nothing. I don’t know if it was intentional, but we played the entire session without the rules for Persona Points, Fate or Checks.

Mouse Guard is unlike any other RPG we’ve played before. In particular I’m struggling with the concept of the GM and player turns. I thought they’d be alternating every 20-30 minutes, but the GM said it was more like 1-2 hours. I read the rules again since and it looks like he’s correct.

I’d really appreciate experienced players pointing out anything we’re doing wrong. The story telling aspect works great, and I love the character generation in particular the belief, goal and instinct. However I’m finding Conflicts unbelievably clunky and a barrier to good role-play.

Just for fun I’m writing this from the point of view of my character Osric. He’s a tenderpaw in his second year, desperately trying not to flunk out like last year.

His attitude comes across rather self centred and bitter, but it’s worth noting he spent almost the entire session tired and angry.

I don’t know the months of the Mouse Guard calender so I’m guessing. (Vernalstar is the Mouse festival to welcome spring)

[i]6th of Vernalstar 1153

It’s a new year and our patrol is ready to depart Lockhaven on it’s first mission. It’s a simple mail delivery with an unusual twist. There’s no mail bag, just a single sealed letter to be hand delivered to Calen the Patrol Captain at Port Sumac. I have no idea of the contents, but it must be of extreme importance. My mentor Brand and I have the great honour of being joined by the legendary hero Sloan the Explorer. If the tavern gossip is to be believed, he is the greatest swordsmouse in the entire Territories. We are to leave at dawn tomorrow and travel with all haste.

It is with great excitement and trepidation that I look forward to visiting my childhood town. It’s been over six years since I was forced to leave, and yet I still wonder how I will stand up to the bullies of my youth. I can only hope the old memories do not resurface, plaguing my nightmares once again with the images of my parents deaths.

I am pleased that the patrol has required use of my skills so early in the mission. I have double checked my calculations and am sure my weather watching is correct. The road to Darkwater is newly clear, and with my boating knowledge finding passage to Port Sumac should be easy.[/i]

Weather watching is a simple test against Spring. I pass and choose ideal travelling weather (I’ve only skim read the weather rules at this point)

[i]12th of Vernalstar 1153

I do not believe such a straightforward journey could be so exhausting! No trouble on the road, but the relentless pace has left the others so irritable. We’ve made it to Darkwater but finding a boat Captain willing to sail tomorrow was harder than expected. Brand is very displeased with the way we are being overcharged. Worst of all, I’m the one he takes it out on. I can’t wait until I’m a Mouse Guard. Today he had the nerve to set me some “Easy tasks to build my confidence”. What a joke! “Osric, pick up that drift wood for me will you”. I’m so sick of his arrogance.[/i]

Travel to Darkwater is resolved as a pathfinding conflict. We win, but lose half our deposition in the process. The GM rules that if we are unwilling to take any time penalty, all the mice are now angry and tired. This seems excessive to me, but I don’t know the rules well enough to argue the call. Besides GM word is law.

The whole conflict felt very mechanical and abstract. Didn’t work for me at all. At least the adventure improved dramatically past this point.

Picking up sticks was a table chatter joke. I added it to the story for colour. I assume Brand wanted to end the day with some wood carving as both he and Osric are carpenters. Osric fails to see this and storms off in a huff.

[i]13th of Vernalstar 1153

This was a day of great excitement. Best of all I preformed as a great hero. My initiative has saved us days, possibly even weeks of trouble.

The letter has been delivered, and I can’t say I was surprised when it contained additional instructions for us. Apparently Siemon one of the Port Sumac Mouse Guard is a suspected rebel from last years war. We are to return him to Lockhaven for questioning as quickly as possible. Captain Calen turned pale as he revealed that even as we spoke Siemon was boarding a boat the “Short Leg Runner” for a mission to Lonepine. There was no time to waste. I threw my armour to Sloan and sprinted off leaving them with the words “I’ll bring him back. Be ready.” A childhood of fleeing bullies came back to me, and I flew through the streets of Port Sumac with easy familiarity. I arrived on the docks to find Siemon still discussing travel plans with the boat captain. He was very reluctant to come with me, but I played the role of a flustered tenderpaw who’s just passing on a message. He fell for it like a stone, and we were soon heading back to Captain Calen to clarify his orders. Clearly I have natural acting talent!

As we returned I could see Brand and Sloan still arguing over their plans, I could only hope Siemon did not guess at their intentions. I have to admit Brand’s solution was pretty clever. We have convinced Siemon that he is urgently needed in Lockhaven to repair tunnel damage and prevent flooding. You could visibly see him stand taller when told that Gwendolyn had specifically asked for him by name. Fortunately I was on hand to improvise. The others don’t have any science knowledge at all.

Siemon has extensive contacts in Port Sumac, he practically walked into Dain a boat captain on walking out the Mouse Guard offices. We’ll sail back to Darkwater tomorrow.[/i]

Conversations with Calen are role-played without mechanics.
Running to the docks and persuading Siemon to return to Calen are simple tests (health and persuade). Although I was unbelievably lucky in having Osric pass both.

Deceiving Siemon is critical to the story and is resolved as a Conflict. It feels strange, but I guess we’ll get better at it. Brand’s player really struggles to come up with a new line for every attack without repeating himself. It’s a very close conflict, but we luck out with a feint against a defend and the line “Gwendolyn has asked for you personally.” We’ve lost almost all our disposition and the GM awards the compromise that Siemon is very suspicious.

The GM rolled a Circles Test for Siemon to find a boat, and rolled a massive 5 successes. Not sure if that’s good for him or us.

[i]14th of Vernalstar 1153

The boat is steady and the weather calm, I’ve got a spare moment to write my journal.
I am so pissed off with Brand’s actions today.

As we were boarding his boat Wind Walker, Dain revealed that there is not adequate supplies for 5 mice. Sloan attempted to get him to leave anyway, but he insisted in stocking up on food. Things were quiet for ten minutes after he left and then all chaos broke loose.

Next thing I know my patrol begins casting off the boat. Siemon is as shocked as I am and rightly accuses Sloan of stealing his friends boat. Sloan then draws his sword, commanding Siemon to remain seated. Siemon then pulls out a pair of knives and battle commences! All the while Brand is yelling at me to sail the boat out of the harbour. I am torn in anguish. I can’t steal a boat. Especially not here in my hometown. I’ve had enough time in the courts as it is. I wanted so much to make a good impression on my old acquaintances. But I can’t disobey a direct order from my mentor. I’d never become a Mouse Guard. And without the Mouse Guard I’ll be alone in the world again.

The suspect Siemon has been restrained, and we’re on the return trip to Lockhaven.[/i]

We’re not sure how to detect a secret communication between Siemon and Dain. The GM lets us all try to pass a listen check using Deceive. Brand passes using his Big Ears trait.
Dain is going to try and find out the contents of the letter we delivered.
Table chatter go nuts as we decide what to do. Sloan’s player is under extreme time pressure and has only ten minutes to resolve the scene. He argues for the direct approach of restraining Siemon and stealing the boat. I argue against this as it’s in direct violation of Osric’s goal for the session. (Stand proud of my achievements in my home town) Brand agrees with Sloan and a dramatic battle begins.

This is resolved as a fight conflict with Brand and Sloan against Siemon. Meanwhile Osric passes a boatcraft test to sail the vessel out of the harbour. As the conflict drags on this brings up an interesting point. How does a character go about entering a conflict late? Should the conflict have been larger to include the objective “Restrain Siemon while sailing out of the harbour”?

Although this was the low point of the mission for my character, as a player I find it very interesting to be forced to act in direct violation of my mission goals.

2

Hi Altaem, welcome to mouse guard and the forum! Typically play reports are posted in the
Game + LIfe -> Playing Burning Wheel, Burning Empires and Mouse Guard forum, I’m sure of the admin’s will move it along shortly.

I enjoyed reading your play report. Assuming you all had fun, It really doesn’t really seem like you did much wrong. I would be interested to hear where your GMs turn ended and what you all spent your players turn checks on.

With regard to the conflicts, the nature of the system means it takes a session or two to get to grips with. Once you have played out a couple of different types of conflict, you’ll start to get a better feel for it. The chase conflicts are particularly fun!

Some suggestions from another newb who has gotten to really enjoy the conflict system: For me, the scripting system lets me preload my tactical decisions and really engage with the mechanics before switching to a fast passed, narrative set where we reveal, describe and roll. I have found that thinking up short but descriptive actions or snatches of dialog rather than big elaborate stuff really helps things flow more smoothly. If that is happening, and everyone is describing how they are helping, conflicts can go really smoothly.

The other trick is get a handle on how the different actions you could choose relate to the conflict and how that ties into the descriptions you give. It can be different for different sides too! In a chase, the chased team doing an Attack is slowing down the chasers, while the chasers Attacking is doing something to catch up or slow the chased party down!

One gotcha for conflicts is that if you have two evenly matched characters with low exponents on the applicable skills some conflicts can really drag on because it takes a very long time to have much effect on disposition.

Specifically with a journey conflict which i havent run myself, i can only comment from speculation and extrapolation. I would think the GM needs to really personify the season in his descriptions of actions - the weather should be a primal beast that isn’t going to be stopped by mere mice!

One other thing which more experienced players might be able to clarify, but i dont think you are typically allowed to test for the same thing multiple times, be it one character or more.

Remember, failure should never be a block. Instead of not overhearing the communication, perhaps the GM could use a twist such as something like ‘you lean against the door to get a sound when the latch clicks open and your tumble in!’ Have a look at pages 68 and 69 (Failure and Moving from Obstacle to Obstacle) and the example missions for more ideas about running twists.

Hope these blatherings help!

3

Thanks for the reply. It had not occurred to me to leave the Mouse Guard section of the site to find the MG play reports.

The session came to a very abrupt end due to real life concerns. I think there’s a little GM turn still to be resolved. Unless the player turn is to occur in Darkwater. I would have preferred a player turn in Port Sumac as it’s the only location I can pursue my mission goal. Guess I’ll have to accept that I tried and failed.

Regardless the player turn will be very short as none of us knew to accumulate checks.

4

Complete newbie here weighing in, so take all commentary with a heavy dash of salt.

Reading over your play report, I think I understand, to some extent, your trouble with conflicts. To be more precise, I don’t think the first conflict listed in your play report should have been a conflict. A simple journey from point A to Point B during the spring should probably have been a straight up pathfinder test. It’s early in the session, and it doesn’t seem like a dramatic enough story moment to merit a conflict.

As brehaut mentioned, if you’re doing a Journey conflict, you really need something significant to conflict -against-. There should be severe weather, or another party of mice you are racing against, or some other “opposition” comprising the other team in the conflict, and I don’t really get that sense from your story.

If you have a good sense of “opposition” in your conflict, and you’ve built it up to a dramatic tension, then the conflict actions really have easier analogues - an attack would be pushing on through the harsh weather, while a defend might be holing up in a hollow tree to try to ride out the worst of the storm. A maneuver might be taking another route that offers better cover, etc. (I don’t have my book in front of me, so there are probably better examples there.) If you’re just walking along the path from town A to town B without any particularly troubling obstacles, it’s not really appropriate to do a conflict. In your case, your GM should probably have just called for a Pathfinder test, and either Twisted (You lose the track! You stumble on a nest of something unpleasant! The bridge is out! etc.) or just made you all tired upon arrival and gotten on with the story.

5

Your diary and then explanation format was very enjoyable to read. You should do more.

6

That would require playing more Mouse Guard. We haven’t played since. Unfortunate as I was getting to like Osric.

7

Well, I’m not an expert. I’ve ran it twice and played twice. But, lack of expertise has never stopped me from opinionating :slight_smile: And I love the Mouse Guard conflict system.

First off, could you post the characters’ beliefs, goals and instincts? They’re the heart of things.

Travel to Darkwater is resolved as a pathfinding conflict. We win, but lose half our deposition in the process. The GM rules that if we are unwilling to take any time penalty, all the mice are now angry and tired. This seems excessive to me, but I don’t know the rules well enough to argue the call. Besides GM word is law.

Could you please point me to that rule about the GM being the law in the Mouse Guard book. I’ve looked for it, but can’t seem to find it.

Here’s what it actually does say about compromise:

"The loser makes an offer to the winner…The whole group must decide if the compromise is appropriate.[/QUOTE]

The GM can approve the compromise or ask the loser to modify his terms if no consensus can be reached. The GM doesn’t just get to rule that you get x if you don’t agree to y. Its a discussion.

The whole conflict felt very mechanical and abstract. Didn’t work for me at all.

What were the goals of all the teams, and can you recall any of the actions and how they related to the goals? In particular, how did the wilderness act to oppose the patrol and achieve its goal during this conflict?

Deceiving Siemon is critical to the story and is resolved as a Conflict. It feels strange, but I guess we’ll get better at it. We’ve lost almost all our disposition and the GM awards the compromise that Siemon is very suspicious.

Again, can you give us the goals for all the teams and as much of a play by play as you can remember? Setting goals is really critical for conflicts. Also, Siemon’s suspicion better come out in play if its going to count as a major compromise. How does his suspicion twist things?

We’re not sure how to detect a secret communication between Siemon and Dain. The GM lets us all try to pass a listen check using Deceive.

Hmmm…did anyone fail? If so, what were the resulting conditions or twists?

Sloan’s player is under extreme time pressure and has only ten minutes to resolve the scene. He argues for the direct approach of restraining Siemon and stealing the boat. I argue against this as it’s in direct violation of Osric’s goal for the session.

Can you describe how this played out more. Osric is arguing against this approach, but is rolling to get the boat out of the harbor? I think I’m confused. Was there an argument between Sloan and Osric (persuader vs. test maybe?) and then another conflict to restrain Siemon? Or did Osric bow to the pressure without much argument?

And again, if this is a conflict, could you state each team’s goals and then any actions that you can remember? Were everyone’s goals clearly defined and understood before you began the conflict?

Although this was the low point of the mission for my character, as a player I find it very interesting to be forced to act in direct violation of my mission goals.

Yes. That is very cool. I love it when that happens.