I think if you did have a Weather bug in the patrol who kept fiddling with things during the Player Turn then they should certainly reap what they sow. It’s certainly a powerful skill.
In this situation it was more of a roleplay and I felt it helped the story of the session.
Since it is the GM’s turn I think I will keep checks like this rare and mostly for roleplay rather then trying to wrest control from the GM.
I’m curious, what did you guys think of my idea for Disarming the season?
I would have either:
1.) Given Cheddar the leaf to use as gear for the conflict (i.e. bonus for her rather than penalty for Weather)
Or, more likely:
2.) Had her impede and gain position, as Weather doesn’t have traits or gear.
Seeing as you all were in the midst of a conflict, however, and she was a new player, I think you handled it fine. But giving Cheddar temporary gear would be more in line with the spirit of Mouse Guard’s rules, and forcing her to impede and gain position would be more in line with the letter.
My thinking was more a long the lines of “If she wants to disarm Spring, then we’ll take away it’s main weapon the rain. How do we do that? Well a temporary umbrella would work pretty well.” So I figure since most weapons give a bonus then this would give penalty to Attacks by Spring since the majority of it’s Attacks are the rain this would lessen the impact.
In a situation where there isn’t a gear or trait to disarm then we shall have to improvise another way to simulate the affects ^^ and really that’s just the fiction as Luke said in the thread on Disarming.
I don’t understand. Weather doesn’t have gear, weapons, or traits. What’s being disarmed?
Spring is using rain as it’s means of Attack. Thus negating the effects of the rain disables that. Course you know, it’s still a storm so not entirely.
This is simulating the effect of a disarm.
Here’s the next section of our adventure! I’ll update the main post as well. Seasons are a brutal enemy when you’re by yourself, but she’s making good progress!
Action 2! Spring Attacks and Cheddar Defends; 4 to 2 Cheddar’s disposition is reduced by 2!
*me:* Slogging through the small stream of water is starting to numb your legs and slow you down you try to scurry up the sides but slide back down into it.
Action 3! Spring Defends and Cheddar Maneuvers; 2 to 4 Springs disposition raises by 2, and Cheddar Bolster and Impedes.
*me:* Finally you flip the leaf against the side of the deepening trench and scurry up it pulling it along after you. The ground seems to have grown softer and slips easily between your toes making progress difficult.
[i]Round 3
Spring (Disp 8) - Cheddar (Disp 4)
Action 1! Spring Feints and Cheddar Defend; Nothing to 5. Spring loses 5 disposition![/i]
*me:* In the distance you can see the rocky out cropping that is Gilpledge. Spying your destination invigorates you and you spy to your left is a line of small boulders that you leap onto giving you firm footing as you rush along.
Action 2! Spring Attacks and Cheddar Maneuvers; 1 to 1. It’s a tie!
*me:* As you run along the small boulders you hear a vicious howling from the wind picking up. Holding on tight to your leaf you leap into the air and sail through the air landing under a tree safely waiting briefly for a lull in the rain before you set out again.
Action 3! Spring Attacks and Cheddar Attacks; 1 to 1. Both lose a little ground
*me:* As the rain lightens up you dash to the next tree only to slip and fall in the mud, but you get up quickly and make it.
Round 4
Spring (Disp 2) - Cheddar (Disp 3)
How many WW rolls (assuming they are successful and the players ask for clear skies) would you give before hitting them with the weather “reaction”?
Action 3, Round 1, Spring Feints and Cheddar Defends, but Spring loses 5 Dis? Shouldn’t it be Cheddar?
Excellent description on your Defend action though, in fact, excellent description all around! Weather conflicts is one of my weak points and it’s nice to see an example of how it plays out.
Oops, I wrote that down wrong should have been Spring Defends and Cheddar Feints. I thought for sure she was going to attack with the bolster.
Looking back I see that I did the Feint wrong in the first session.
Feint & Attack = Attack Wins
Feint & Defend = Feint Wins
Feint & Feint = Vs. check, MoS are removed
Feint & Maneuver = Ob 0 All success are removed
I think I need to print off that Conflict sheet, lol. Or make it my desktop or something > . >
As for the WW checks that’s probably gonna be up to the GM and what kind of effects they have been evoking.
There’s no problem with this if Spring is getting a weapon D for the rain. If not, there’s no mechanical weapon to remove and should essentially be treated as another maneuver like impede (which it looks like you did essentially).
Nevermind. I missunderstood your post.
Basically using it as a permanent Impede except only for Attacks. Which is a similar effect to what Disarming would do if the Season had a “real” weapon. All in the fiction.
I don’t have my books here to check. Is disarm permanent, or can you rearm yourself with a manuever?
I know how it works in BW, but I’m not as good with MG.
It says you lose that object for the rest of the conflict but you can draw another weapon between rounds of actions.
So you were giving the weather a bonus on attacks to represent the rain as a weapon, and this is what Cheddar disarmed with her maneuver?
I thinks its clear from the post that he wasn’t, but the way he chose to make the fiction fit the disarm is fine. If they were sitting together at the table, he could have said “Well, the Spring isn’t really getting a mechanical weapons bonus, so how about an impede maneuver instead?” Which would have done the same thing.
Scippy, I’m curious why we’re seeing your descriptions of the action, but we aren’t seeing Cheddar’s player describing her intent first. Was the player narrating?
After the third time seems about right.
At Scipion’s request, this is what I suggested this for future instances.
I don’t really agree with treating it as an Impede maneuver though. An Impede requires 1 success and only affects the next action. A Disarm requires 3 and permenantly reduces the effect of your opponents actions.
There are a couple times she has chosen to Impede, one of such the dashing under the trees for temporary shelter.
If we were at the table I would have said, “Huh, well Spring doesn’t have a weapon but what if we came up with something that countered the rain and gave the same side effect.”
She’s actually not very familiar with roleplaying and especially the game system so she doesn’t know what should happen or how to tell it. Also she just had surgery and isn’t feeling so well so for the GM’s turn I’m taking the majority of the descriptions in my hand and laying out the story. Since we aren’t at a table I can’t coach her on what a good group roleplay dialogue would be. During the Player’s turn I’ll be making sure she narates a lot more similar to the begining of the session. I’m also leaving out much of what I would consider “table chatter” regarding the rules and selection of dice and working of the mechanics, and of course feedback regarding the narration.
Its an interesting idea, but since the storm isn’t getting dice for the rain the way animals do for their weapons, I would probably file this under the sucks to be a lone little mouse fighting SPRING and substitute impede and gain ground advantages. Sorry, little one, you run from storms but you can’t defang them.
But that’s really just what I would do. I’m a dick that way.
Except you could defend against the rain…you know…with an umbrella. If you like you could think of the umbrella as Arming the Spring with an anti-weapon. A weapon gives say +1D Attack, this gives -1D Attack.
The combined effects of Impede and Bolster =/= Disarm. They are an option, but so is Disarm however they are not equally interchangeable. Disarm requires a hefty 3 successes and is a permanent effect. The other two are only temporary.