Yippee!
Yesterday I put up a notice for an Introduction to Mouse Guard session at my local game shop… Complete with the “We Want You” and “Join the Guard Today!” stuff… Very nice.
Anyway. Now that I’ve put out the call, I need to figure out how I should run the intro session!
Logic tells me I should just print up the pre-gens and run the Grain Peddler mission. Simple. However, I wonder what concepts I ought to introduce to entice players for more. Personally, I love creating characters, and I think that’s a lot of the game’s appeal to me. But is that best left for another session (“Well, if you enjoyed THAT, wait 'til you create your OWN characters!”)?
What would YOU tackle in an “Intro to MG” session to ensure the players “get it” and want more? What concepts do you see as important “bulletpoints” to emphasize in an intro session?
Something I’ve had success with is starting with a simple rule info dump, an exposition on “how your last GMs Turn went”, and a mini Players Turn. I give each of them two checks, each of them one condition, and let them go. Once they’ve spent their checks, we go into a GMs turn proper, and play through a mission as standard. I like to have “The Grain Peddler” as my exposition, and then follow on with infiltrating the secret army, mostly because I love how people play Saxon and Friends.
Just to clarify… You just give a synopsis of an imaginary mission? Just the GM turn part of it?
Yes. It sets the scene for the Player’s Turn, and gives a breakdown of the kinds of things they can expect.