I’m looking to run a Mouse Guard session in a week. I’ve won my bid to GM again but I’ve not got the Burning Wheel rule mastery sufficiency, so I faced a compromise;).
I was looking up the pros and cons of using teamwork in conflict so I could explain the basics to my players.
Teamwork:
Helping dice to Disposition.
Helping dice to scripted actions.
All locked into conflict result.
Reasons for separate teams:
Improved action economy.
Independent goal may be persued.
You are not locked into conflict result.
And the players get to choose how they are distributed. I as the GM cannot force them into one team. Am I right?
But if the players choose to each act as their own team can I split up the enemy forces similarly?
Say the patrol of 3 mice encounter 3 weasels determined to capture them can I simply opt to match the weasel team layout to whatever the mice choose? Or would it be unfair that the weasels got to react to the mice teams when the mice did not get a similar advantage.
And just to be clear, I’m assuming the team of opponents are able to give helping dice to one another for both disposition and scripted actions as the mice are able to.
Since multiple teams acting together add but one die per team, if a group of 4 PC’s breaks to 2 & 2, the enemy 3 weasel team is at less of a disadvantage if they do split up… tho one side might be acting defensively.
I saw nothing that says they have to all declare simultaneously. I often would write my teaming down, and stick to it, but found nothing compelling same.
If they want to each be independent, then they will soon learn that that results in defeat in detail, possibly even death, of one… for most mice have a weak spot somewhere in the conflict skill set.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Multiple teams taking the same action count as one action being helped. I guessing that the players always choose that the higher exponent team is helped by the lower exponent team.
I trust this is the case. But it needs to be their mistake to make. Plus I need to earn their trust that I’m not going to fudge results, if we lose a lone mouse, it furthers my goal.
You absolutely can determine the formation of the teams. Why? Because formation of teams is a formal rule requirement. It’s not a player decision. GM indicates number of teams and that must be abided by.
Well that explains why my exact question wasn’t in the book.
But by extension of that the teamwork rules require the mouse making the test to accept a helping die.
So if the brave mouse steps forward, the tenderpaw can try to help but the mouse says, “No, stand back it’s too dangerous, I’ll hold them off!”
But the tenderpaw can still get involved. Disobey orders. But not directly help the disposition. But doing so makes him vulnerable as he’s probably a weaker target.
It’s cool and dramatic.
It’s like the roleplay supercedes any tactical team choices, good or bad.
That is a cool scenario, but that’s not supported. Help has to be accepted. Check out page 93. Roleplay in that scenario is super important because that’s how you get your helping die accepted! But RP doesn’t let you force yourself on another player.
That was supposed to be an example of RP (refusal of help) dictating separate teams. Not a player forcing a helping die upon another.
By the mechanics they’re both more vulnerable. And of course they are, one’s just yelled “I’ll hold them off” and the other has disobeyed his mentor!:rolleyes:
