Moderator’s Note: Split from this thread.
Now that Mouse Guard is out have you considered using it for the mission model use in that game?
Natures could be interesting as well. I have read Mouse Guard (MG) but am not proficient with it but couldn’t you use Natures in MG for types of characters like Captain? or Companion?
Just a thought.
Shall we call this thread:
Big Damm Mice
Just another thought :rolleyes:
Hm! You thinking about doing it as mice-in-space, or straight Whedonverse using the MG mechanics?
If you’re doing humans and using the MG engine…I could see an argument for “Hero” as the default PC Nature. Other breakdowns: Browncoat/Reaver/Alliance, maybe. Or since Firefly is so strongly Traveller-influenced: Trader/Navy/Merc/Noble.
I think it’d take some work to come up with a compelling way to burn characters. Might be cool to actually use the map from the RPG/visual companion and establish relationships that way.
There’s also the mission element, which is sort of different in FF than in MG. My take on the MG model is that you have an unimpeachable authority that hands you your job for the session but in FF, jobs get decided on by the Captain, who doesn’t really carry the same sort of moral authority (for lack of a better word) as Gwendolyn. I think you might find yourself grinding up against the GM/Player’s turn split because of that – you’d probably come into conflict with your Captain in the course of carrying out your mission, right?
Or, alternatively, there is no Gwendolyn type. Maybe you get your missions from an abstract entity, like a “trader’s guild” or something that basically matches crews to gigs. Or, even more abstractly, you have some kind of meter called “Hungry” that drives the kinds of jobs available and that you’ll take – the hungrier the crew is, the more desperate they’ll be to do pretty much whatever comes their way. So there is no authority handing out missions, it’s all just expedience to buy food, parts and fuel.
It seems to me that the good juice in FF is the interplay between crewmembers. Those episodes where they’re at each other’s throats (i.e. most of them) are way better than when they just show up and be good guys (i.e. the whorehouse episode). And SOME episodes have no mission at all (i.e. Out of Gas, probably the best FF episode).
So, I dunno. Just kind of noodling on it for now.
p.
Well I was actually writing this for another thread where someone was trying to run a Firefly game with Burning Wheel. The thread was written before Mouse Guard was out and the poster was worried about the mission structure not working well with Burning Wheel or Burning Empires.
So here I am…
Hm! You thinking about doing it as mice-in-space, or straight Whedonverse using the MG mechanics?
I was thinking humans, mice are nice but I think they work best in the setting they are in.
If you’re doing humans and using the MG engine…I could see an argument for “Hero” as the default PC Nature. Other breakdowns: Browncoat/Reaver/Alliance, maybe. Or since Firefly is so strongly Traveller-influenced: Trader/Navy/Merc/Noble.
I am no expert in MG, but I was leaning towards the character’s occupation would be there Nature, I am re-reading the rules and will see how it works.
There’s also the mission element, which is sort of different in FF than in MG. My take on the MG model is that you have an unimpeachable authority that hands you your job for the session but in FF, jobs get decided on by the Captain, who doesn’t really carry the same sort of moral authority (for lack of a better word) as Gwendolyn. I think you might find yourself grinding up against the GM/Player’s turn split because of that – you’d probably come into conflict with your Captain in the course of carrying out your mission, right?
You could have the Captain as NPC could be the Gwendolyn type giving out missions. Or in the Serenity RPG you could have a separate owner like the Aces & Eights. Or what I am leaning towards, work with the player captain and other players to work out each mission sort of a collabrative Gwendolyn.
It seems to me that the good juice in FF is the interplay between crewmembers. Those episodes where they’re at each other’s throats (i.e. most of them) are way better than when they just show up and be good guys (i.e. the whorehouse episode). And SOME episodes have no mission at all (i.e. Out of Gas, probably the best FF episode).
It seems to be a lot of character interplay happens in MG with Kenzie, Saxon, and Saddie. I haven’t worked everything out yet, but I feel compelled with this thread.
I will keep chewing on it and we will see what comes out.
Thanks for the ideas Paul 
With BE, the invasion mechanics work just fine… but instead of vaylen, it’s Crew vs the Authorities. The FoN’s become the Captain and Crew (on crew side), and the 1-3 guys assigned to their case specifically… one might be the broker who loaned them the money, one might be a Fleet security type… Hmmm…
You might want to adopt an ongoing conflict as part of the motif, even in MG… one volley per mission… With an overarching big bad.
In considering hacks for MG, nature is very interesting. My take on it is that the PCs should often be working at odds with their nature. Mice, by nature, flee and hide, but Guard Mice have to overcome those natural instincts to be heroes. But then they have those natural instincts to fall back on when the situation calls for it. Of course, there is also the element that if they completely deny their nature they end up becoming too alien to fit into mouse society.
So, it seems to me that in a hack, nature should describe the average member of the population from which the PCs are drawn to highlight how the PCs are different.
Just some thoughts and unfortunately I don’t have any good suggestions for specifics for Firefly.
In considering hacks for MG, nature is very interesting. My take on it is that the PCs should often be working at odds with their nature. Mice, by nature, flee and hide, but Guard Mice have to overcome those natural instincts to be heroes
This could be interesting, the nature Captain could put the character at odds with the crew with traits like “What is best for the ship” or “Have to make a profit” things like that. Or do I just sound like I am barking up the wrong tree (forest??)
Actually, I also think there’s a difference of themes here.
In Mouseguard, part of the theme is about going against your nature to protect the community.
In Firefly, part of the theme is embracing your nature and about preserving your individuality.
So I would use nature in Firefly like this:
Make a handful of different natures, like
Mercenary (Jayne) - Killin’ things, getting paid, getting out alive, being scary
Captain (Malcolm) - “This is my ship”, turning a profit, no one gets left behind, voice of necessity
Lifesaver (Simon) - Healin’ things, strength of passion, being sophisticated
Protector (Zoe) - Standing by their side, voice of reason,…
Flyboy (Wash) - Like a leaf in the wind,…
… something like that. They probably need to be a lot broader. There needs to be some reason not “just” to be a one trick pony.
Also, Firefly takes a few different stances on nature during the series… A lot of times characters grow and prosper by embracing their nature. A few times it’s the other way around - like when Malcolm gets into trouble with Saffron. Or when Malcolm and Inara are driven apart by their natures.
Perhaps a game mechanic where nature can be used both ways. You can invoke it to substitute for skills or abilities and to boost them, but you can also invoke your nature against yourself… perhaps enabling players to earn checks both through their nature and through their traits.
I’m new to all this but those all look more like Traits to me. Nature is just a kind of Emotional Attribute correct? It could be something different for different groups but should be something that embodies a kind of temptation, internal strength/weakness, and/or doom for a particular group. The more of these there are, it looks like, the higher the inter-character stress . That one Mouse Nature is kind of unifying in that everyone can pretty much run away together if needed.
Right? (or am I totally off base)
You know…going back and rereading my first post on the subject, the more I like the idea of giving crewmembers the same Nature: Hungry.
Every working as a free trader is Hungry, and the hungrier you are the more powerful you can be when you give into it. But you can get too hungry (out of business) or not hungry enough (too successful).
The trick, to me, would be coming up with the list of things that are supported by your Hunger, ie the stuff you play toward/against:
So…all these negative-ish things, right? Maybe the twist is that you come up with a long list of things (maybe 10 or so?), strategies that characters use to overcome their hunger. And of that long list, you pick four. It’s then those four things that you either tap your Hunger to support, or reject to
Jayne would be all about violence, lying, scheming, etc. And he probably has a fairly high Hunger, so he’s strongly motivated to give in to those strategies. But then, like, Mal, he’s a schemer (maybe “planner”) but he’s also a leader – and for him, providing leadership is his way of overcoming his own Hunger (figuring that if his crew succeeds, they all succeed). I think Mal would also have a lower Hunger than Jayne, therefore less motivated to give in to, perhaps, “bad” uses.
This kind of breaks the basic idea of Nature – making it a customizable metatrait – but I think the mechanical pushes and pulls are all in the right place (give in to your Hunger-fighting strategy but forego character development, fight against your Hunger-fighting strategy and risk becoming less “hungry” later).
p.
Nature, in MG, is about what “Conformists Do”…
so, for FF, at nature 7, you settle down and become a nice little settler.
At Nature 0, you become a reaver-wannabe.
It is both your natural ability to overcome the hard stuff, and your ability to conform.
So I’d suggest, for humans:
Nature: Blend In to the Crowd, Grin and Bear It, and Spot the Outcast.
For Reavers: Torture, Kill, and Fight!
Which way a nature 0 goes depends on whose help die gets them that first success…
Paul B: I just can’t see it though. From my recollection of watching Firefly, overcoming the negative sides of human nature was never part of the theme.
Jayne did bad things to bad people, but he never showed signs of becoming more or less hardened or “bad” by it. That part of him was static, it just was.
Mal and Inara was driven apart, mostly by Mal’s need to be in control, possibly by Inara’s need for the same.
The bad guys had obviously given in to the darker side of human nature, but the main characters was never really challenged on this… IMO. Meh, part of the problem with discussing themes is that it’s so subjective.
Aramis: That’s actually pretty close to perfect. I might try to make the keywords a little more broad, but that’s nitpicking. Nice
As Aramis points out, the idea of Nature is that you’re in conflict with it. It’s not often the right choice. It makes you do things that are distasteful (even though they’re efficient or effective).
The characters in Mouse Guard are interesting because their Nature tells them to run and hide, but their vocation tells them they must stand and fight.
They must find a path between those two forces in order to succeed.
Any successful Nature hack has to present the same tidal forces.
-L
I’ve been thinking about this whilst reading the rules and I was wondering: If it’s a problem, why you don’t just drop Nature alltogether?
It serves a purpose in Mouse Guard to help with the feel of the setting, but the game still functions perfectly well without it.
It doesn’t work for the Firefly setting so just drop it.
You could still keep it for ‘Animal’ opponents where it actually serves a core purpose but that’s pretty much the same purpose as Mouse Guard, so it’s not a problem.
Crow
Just a quick thought on the Gwendolyn equivalent in Firefly. Isn’t that where the middlemen would go? Badger, Niska and people like that are the ones handing out the jobs and jobs are so scarce for a Firefly type crew that it doesn’t break the game for the GM to say, “So, you took this job from this guy,” without player input. The episodes without a ‘boss’ could be the jobs and other stuff the crew tries to rustle up on the Player’s turn.
That occured to me too.
The mission:
Badger has a job for the crew. Word of an old wreck with a cargo of foodstuffs. Good Money.
Gm’s Turn:
The crew set off. Fail their rolls on the journey and the GM throws in an Alliance twist. In the middle of retrieving the cargo, the IAV Dortmunder shows up. They manage to escape with help from their Crybaby device they jury rigged in the last player’s turn. They reach Persephone without further incident.
Player’s turn.
Now the players get to resolve the job (which goes wrong), find paying passengers and new cargo.
In Mouse Guard the characters have a common purpose: Serve the Guard and protect the territories.
In Firefly The characters have a common purpose: Do the job, get payed.
Crow
I don’t recommend it. Removing Nature sorely weakens the player character.
Re-reading the Nature rules, I guess the loss of tapping and double-tapping is not insignifigant. Hmmmm…
Crow
I like the idea, and ironically I was just looking at my Mouse Guard book while re-watching Firefly episodes, so both are fresh in my head.
It seems to me that Nature is not intrisincly something you strive against, after all there are things about Mouse Nature that still came in handy for Guardmice. Climbing, hiding, and even escaping is sometimes the right course of action.
What we should focus on, is what features are inherent to all humans through out the 'Verse. My suggestions would be as follows: Loyalty - all types of humans seem to cling to their respective groups; Survival - the instinct to perserver through all trials is also common to humans everywhere; Ambition - the drive to better one’s self or situation; and Stubborness - seems to me that people will often stick to their decisions long after they should.
Thoughts?
Already being discussed here, just a few topics down from this one at time of posting.