The end result was a great session for a solo mission.
The player (we’ll call him Rory) chose Jacob, the Ptl Ldr from Pt Sumac. He really liked it just fine and did really well getting into the character I had imagined while making the worksheet.
I opened with a general prologue of a year spent encouraging artisan mice to attend the winter apprenticeship in Lockhaven. You may notice that the character sheets already have two contacts. That created a pool of NPCs for me to reference during the events of the session. I asked Rory to describe some details of the two contacts he’d already met. I told a small intro and noted the details from Rory. His description added a Mothering (1) trait to Kelly and a belief of, “The craft is more engaging than other mice.” for James.
This was a great way to fill-in some flavor for the NPCs without writing a unique block for each one myself. I had used the block from the book wholesale. Later, we also introduced an armorer, Gregory and discovered he had a Fighter 2 skill as well as an enemy in Rootwallow.
The start was good–sorta. We began with a Weather Watcher test to establish a plan for when to leave with teh caravan. Jacob’s concern was getting the caravan started in good weather; his Compassionate trait added to his effort to provide a comfortable start to the journey. Unfortunately, the weather was going to be fickle during the entire trip (I added +1 Ob to Survivalist and Pathfinder for the weather constantly changing).
As the group started out from Lillygrove, his first concern was getting the artisans involved; he wanted to delegate tasks of survival to the group so that duties were covered such as camp cooking, shelter building, and harvesting remaining forage in the late autumn wilderness. It was so important to provide excellent comfort, he tapped Nature and delegated the cooking tasks to Kelly (good choice); he also assigned tasks to James which he would be suited to accomplish. For now, he had not met other mice of the caravan, but assigned harvesting/foraging duties. He succeeded exceptionally against a high Ob. This was a huge benefit! It got the mice immediately convinced he knew what todo and would place their needs high while expecting work from everyone.
The success over Survivalist avoided a twist I had in mind of the artisans complaining, bickering, and hoarding. It would have become a conflict and required some promises of improved conditions. He was able to bypass that successfully. It was a good time to use the Persona.
At this point, the Weather obstacle was handled. The caravan had begun and reached the first fork in the road. Now it was important to select a path which would balance the cost of staying in settlements with the dangers of traveling through wilderness paths. Rory felt that Quick-Witted was a good way to offset the fickle weather. He didn’t have a strong Pathfinder, but a pair of sixes made a great candidate for Fate–which showed coward dice. This lead to a foolish shortcut that attracted a fox.
The fox brought up a chase conflict (Jacob wasn’t going to risk the caravan on a fight). They made a run, but lost some of the food supplies early. They were able to use the terrain and found a thorny rose bush to slow the fox. Unfortunately, they lost all Dispo while the fox lost none. While this might mean the fox need not offer a compromise, it is important enough to a learner that I offered a minor compromise. Ultimately, our conflict ended thusly, "All the wagons of food stores have been left behind, the caravan has had to run and we might lose mice. When we arrive at a safe spot, we’re only just outside Copperwood and can’t find Kelly or Gregory. The caravan has no food, are Tired and Angry, and Jacob has been injured along the way.
Now, the group was all in a state of unrest and needed to reorganize to decide how to proceed. I had Jacob test Administrator to get control of the demoralized caravan of artisans with plans to get them fed, lodged, and prepared to finish the route. I allowed Circles to provide a helping die, since he was largely looking for some mouse to help them. It did turn out as a failure, so I added William, of Copperwood, and alluded to the fact that he might not be a friend. Momentarily, he offered food an lodging, but he would get the better deal in the end since the artisans would be indebted to him.
At this point I closed the GM turn and opened the Player turn. The caravan wasn’t arrived at Lockhaven, were tired and angry, and were barely willing to continue. In the interest of learning, I rolled through recovery without costing checks, but explained that it normally costs, but learning it is vital. The injury would last briefly, but Rory opted to take a permanent scar (I reduced Hunter).
Having earned a check and gained a free check, Jacob finished with a Pathfinder test to bridge the final gap with the caravan. Afterward, he wanted to deepen the friendship with James by testing circles to find a skilled artisan with whom he could ensure this supportive mouse could be apprenticed for the winter. He also made a point of writing to Kelly’s and Gregory’s family about their loss to a fox escape.
We ran through rewards. From our perspective, Rory played for and against Belief–that is the first time I’d seen it happen in my time GMing MG. He also had played according to Instinct and worked toward his Goal (though failed to fulfill it adequately).
It was a good session and finished in about two hours. I really liked how it went. In part, I think the reduced time to spend constructing the session on paper made for a better experience. I was forced to shoot from the hip a bit, but still had quite a bit of notes to help out. I do think that solo missions must be tough; I imagine the PC and GM should be good friends and have a strong bond of trust. For a demo session, Rory was fairly trusting, since he didn’t know the system quite as deeply as I. He did plenty of reading before the session as I had suggested.
I hope no one is offended, but I did printe selected pages from the .pdf and posted those to our group files. It offers a chance for potential players to learn a bit before coming to play. I keep two hard copies of the core rules at the table.