How do i challenge these instincts?

Mouse Guard It's What We Fight For
1

Hey,

we just created our characters for our game starting tomorrow. It’s a game to bridge our semester-holidays before we get our regular group back together. One is a long time (well one semester) Mouse Guard player and has good BIGs. The other two have nice beliefs but i struggle on what to do with the instincts they have.

I: Listen to everyone but don’t trust them
(B: The right course is to do what is the best for the biggest number of mice)

i: Allways keep the backs of my patrolmates covered
(B: The way of the sword is allways the last answer)

What sayeth thou oh BW-Forum?

2

  1. isn’t the best Instinct. See if you can get him to write it more forcefully. Who is it that he doesn’t trust?

  2. This one is easy. While the patrol is on an errand, give him a juicy side errand that ties into his specialty. Then, while that’s in play, ambush the patrol. Oops! Didn’t play your instinct! :wink:

3

The first instinct boils down to “never trust anyone.” So, put the patrol into places where they have to trust the locals or each other.

4

I think both of those instincts can be primarily brought into the fiction by the players. That’s fine for Mouse Guard.

5

I guess so. We will see. I am normaly fine with weak BIGs in play. I can try to challenge them but if the players can’t earn not-artha from it they will see that something is lacking and will try harder to bring it. If it doesn’t work after 2-3 sessions after a change than i get worried and will step in. I help players to write good BIGs but it’s still their job in my eyes.

Does anyone else have the notion that the beliefs of people new to MG are more like instincts? Quite a few times i had to tell people that they just wrote an instinct.