I was wondering if anyone had followed the Grain Peddler mission through to its logical conclusion: Full blown rebellion against Lockhaven!
I’m running my second official MG game this Saturday, and as it was left off, the patrol captured the peddler giving secrets to the cartographer. They dispatched a small group of guards and found a tunnel leading under and out of Barkstone.
I’ve got some ideas for what the patrol will find, from an entire military contingent down to the scene of a massacre of the rebel army by argue wolf or a pair of foxes. I’ve also thought about bringing the conflict to Lockhaven ala the comic, but a full-on war conflict seems a bit much for new characters/players.
Any thoughts, or at least some experiences with this scenario that might help shed some light on how I should proceed?
Thanks all!
…anyone…?
Nope, but I think I may have my next mission idea though 
We did run a session where conspirators were in league with the weasels, but not a rebellion.
Cool!
I’m trying to figure out how to challenge the players without automatically killing them… After all, 5 guards mice versus a small army is pretty lopsided.
I thought maybe I’d try to give the characters a way of sabotaging the army/stalling for time so some of them (or even the whole patrol) could hightail it back to Lockhaven to warn Gwendolyn. Maybe the army has to cross a stream and the guardsmice could sabotage their bridge building. Or perhaps they could figure out a way to send some rocks crashing upon the mice during their march… A canyon path or something.
Still not sure. And figuring out obstacle difficulty ratings is not my strength (yet).
Any thoughts, as always, are appreciated.
If they’ve found the grain peddler and stopped the delivery to the cartographer then I would probably go from there and play it out like this, put a significant problem in the way of the rebellion.
My first advice no matter how you choose to do it would be to break this down into more than one Mission.
For the first Mission I would suggest (taking into account the fact they were new players and you’re a little shaky on some of the factors and you want them to have a better understanding of the rules before death is on the line) the Mission be: “Find out who is behind the attack and notify Gwendolyn.”
I would then have them write Session Goals.
The first obstacle in the session would be presented like follows:
You must interrogate the grain peddler (a mice obstacle), this is a Persuasion Versus Will Test (Don’t forget to remind them that the map is gear and provides a +1D bonus to their check as it is evidence along with other justified skills) against the Grain Peddler’s Will (as the GM you should roll first. Roll 6 dice. His Will to resist telling them +3, +1 for Haggler, +1 for Persuader and +1 for his Cunning Trait)(his stats are on pg 82 of MGRG).
With success or failure the Grain Peddler tells them, “Midnight has started sowing hatred towards the mouse guard and you stopping me will undoubtedly slow them down but I fear an attack will come shortly from the rebellion.” on a Failure they get all this but are made Angry by the fact that a mouse would sow hatred against them and and the guard.
Let them decide what they will do with the Grain Peddler and then move on to the second obstacle, the journey back to Lockhaven.
Assuming this is Fall (when the Grain Peddler Mission takes place) I would use one of my Weather Changes (fall has 2) and run a Journey Conflict using Fall 5
Noisy Leaves, Windy, Stormy and Cold.
They will use Pathfinder (charging through the Fall weather) for Attacks and Feints and Survivalist (setting up camp for the night) or Weather Watcher (trying to predict the weather to travel at optimal times) for Defend and Maneuver. You should always roll at least 5D for Fall’s Rating and normally adding +1D or +2D for one or two of the Factors (so maybe +1D when they doing a Pathfinder Check as there are Noisy Leaves and +1D cause the Wind makes it hard to travel with the shifting terrain and +1D for the Cold so roll 8D against whatever amount they come up with, this may seem high but with all the helping dice of the patrol and there’s no guarantee you’ll roll successes it’s not). I would have the goal of Fall be to slow down the guard and punish them for traveling to Lockhaven (I would purposely leave the word punish so that depending on the level of compromise you can dish out something appropriate. No compromise or a minor comprimise would be at least Injuries or Sick to the whole party and a delay, a compromise would be Tired to all and maybe delaying them (probably just Tired would be sufficent) to where they have less time to prepare for an attack. A minor compromise would be maybe Hungry/Thirsty or Tired but no delay.once they arrive in Lockhaven, start the Player Turn.
The next Session and Mission I would probably do would be: “Prepare for and fend off the Rebellion.”
Write Session Goals.
The first obstacle is to prepare for the rebellion, this will require A Militarist Ob 5 (Lockhaven has a military tradition +1, Fort +2 and they are Defending and Reinforcing +2) to organize the other Mouse Guard and Tenderpaws for an attack, a Carpenter Ob 5 (Reinforcing a room (Gwendolyn’s) or large exterior wall +5) and an Orator Ob 3, (Will 3) but I would have anything higher than 3 be the number of Mice that provide helping dice during the next conflict (don’t count the other Patrol Mice in this. So if the Test result is 7, then the other Mice provide +4D helping dice each turn, plus the patrol can provide helping dice too) to convince the crowd that there is a large rebellion coming and their help is needed.
The second Obstacle for this Mission is the attack itself. I would run a Fight Conflict with the Bandit statistics and +9 Helping Dice for a total of 10 Rebels. Run it as one team for the 10 Rebels (Bandits) as the Patrol will receive helping dice based on how good they did in their speech. I would also allow them to use the reinforced door and the military guidance as “gear” for the Fight allowing +2D for their Disposition. If they failed these tests, I would probably give them the +2D to their Disposition and some Condition but if they passed I would give them +1 success to their Disposition for each Test they Passed. After the attack I would start the Player Turn.
Overall you could spread it out more but I think two Sessions would be good as Fall has 2 weather twists before it finishes and you can do the winter session which definitely shouldnt kill anyone.
Good luck, I’d love to hear what you ended up doing.
Cool stuff LaffinJoker!
Here’s what I ended up with:
I may have to change the initial Pathfinder test to the Journey Conflict you detailed. I still forget that conflicts are more than combat encounters.
Thanks for the ideas!!!