Eeeeeeek! Just bought it!

Mouse Guard Getting Started with Mouse Guard
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After talking about it for a long time, I finally bought Mouse Guard. I found it in my local Books a Million and was super pumped to discover it there.

The book is absolutely gorgeous. It’s worth the money simply as a physical object. Congrats to all involved with the production.

Now, for my question: my group of friends is, generally, a D&D sort of group. (We’re having a blast with my heavily drifted version of “Thunderspire Labyrinth” right now.) I really want to get a game of MG started straightaway.

My strategy for this is to just show up ready: the pregenned characters printed out, the Mission ready to go. I’ll explain the rules as I go and tell them they should just give it a try. They’re generally familiar with the Burning* resolution system.

So, any suggestions? (Other than find a new group.) What have you done to get your group ginned up about playing MG? What kind of pitch would you give?

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I also found my first Mouse Guard RPG (and the Fall 1152 graphic novel) at Books-a-Million. I found a sale on it on the Books-a-Million online site (about 40% off, IIRC). As much as I wanted to get the rulebook right away, I opted for the sale.

I also found the graphic novel at my local library, so I’ve had it checked out for about 5 weeks now. I’ve been passing it from friend to friend; telling them that they can finish the entire thing in one sitting (probably 1 hour). And depending on their reaction, I tell them “well, if you liked that, how would you like to be a Mouse Guard yourself?”

I haven’t managed to get a game organized yet. I’ve been bombarded by Spring Fever – and I mean all the symptoms: wanting to be outside, doing stuff in the garden, cleaning out the house, getting hit by allergies, and now suffering from sinus infection.

But I digress… if I were to get a game of first-timers together, I’d start with this:

This is not your ordinary roleplaying game. A bad roll of the dice doesn’t mean you fail … it usually just means the game got more interesting. And although I am the “GameMaster”, I am not wholly responsible for “what happens next”. In fact, you – as players – will have a heavier impact on that.

But first … let’s quickly go over the character sheet …

… stuff on Belief, Instinct, and Traits …

… stuff on Nature and Skills …

… stuff on how to earn checks …

Remember how I said you can tell part of the story? That’s what checks are for … stuff on how checks work.

For our first mission, we’ll be using … sample mission stuff

Once we get more familiar with the system, we’ll try making our own characters.

And that’s pretty much it. The sample missions are there to give everyone a chance to “try it out”.

Once you’ve tried it out, the folks here at BurningWheel.org are very interested in hearing how your session went. And a lot of us (including the game designer Luke Crane) are rather active in giving suggestions and inspiration!

Welcome to Mouse Guard.

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Daniel - your situation is so similar to mine, it’s scary.

I have a regular d&d group (that’s been running for about 8 years), and I happened upon this book at my local Books-a-Million and thought it looked so awesome, I decided I must play it.

I’ve read through the book a couple of times and I’ve got my group fairly psyched about it (i think)… …personally, i’m extremely excited about running this (enough that i wanted to peruse the forums).

The game is different from your average rpg - and really, I like that. I like d&d and whitewolf games and other stuff, but i’ve been looking for something different.

My concern is that this game seems to be written with short-term and less seasoned/hard-core(?) gamers in mind. My intention is to run an actual campaign of Mouse Guard - one that will span many, many sessions and (hopefully) develop into an interesting story. I’m curious as to how this will work out with the game as its published. I also have some slight reservations about the conflict system as it kinda seems not everyone gets to act (independently anyway) in a given “round” with the teams thing… …but we’ll give it a try.

I’m not above house-ruling some things for my own ends, but i’m curious as to whether there’s any advice out there for people like me who want to make this a little more…ongoing.

I’ll take a look around the rest of the forum. :slight_smile:

~PS

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push the checks cycle, and/or increase the baseline.

It’s fine for campaign play, if the players get all the action/reward cycles:

  1. Use it to raise it
  2. BIGs for Fate and Persona gains
    2a) Fate and Persona to succeed when it matters
  3. Use traits as disads against yourself to get checks
    3a) use checks to engage in personal storylines
    3b) use checks to be able to fulfil BIGs
    3c) use checks to recharge traits as advantages
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Cool, cool - i’ll keep those things in mind.

I’m gonna make sure the players have a decent understanding before we get into it. It kinda chafes my creative urge to use pregen’d stuff, so we’ll be making characters out of the box. First session will be entirely devoted to mechanical explanation and character creation - so i’ll make sure to hit those highlights for them.

Really though, the game’s pretty simple. I like that. A lot.

~PS

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Why not just play one session with the sample characters and sample mission so that the players can get a feel for the game and understand what they might want from their characters?

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In the first session for my last campaign, we played the Find the Grain Peddler scenario and did character creation in about four hours total. Playing the sample mission gave my players a good frame of reference for making their own characters and the kind of conflicts they could expect from the game.

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Ok, so that’s basically what Luke said too. I guess that’s not a bad idea - using the sample stuff as a preface. It might well ensure the players are happiest with their characters as well… I’m just eager to jump in with my own ideas. I won’t want to spend a lot of time on it, but that mission looks pretty short & sweet and hits the high points. I may well do that after all.

Thanks for the input :slight_smile:

~PS

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You’re welcome. Good luck. Be sure to let us know how it goes.