Is my game too difficult for the patrol?

I recently ran my first session of Mouse Guard for a few friends. I’ve spent many years both playing and running D&D, but this was my first attempt at GMing another system. I must have stepped in almost every pitfall for a new Mouse Guard GM! Despite all of us feeling frustrated by the experience, we could see that the system could be great fun and agreed to give it another shot.

Since then, I have done a fair bit of research and pondering on the matter and have found ways to improve my GMing to avoid many of my past mistakes. However, I still can’t wrap my head around the proper difficulty of tests. According to the Range of Difficulty table found on pages 228 and 229 (in the 2e book), the most common Guard work would be categorized as Obstacle 2. However, when I used the skill factoring tables from the Abilities and Skills chapter, all of the tests were Ob 3 or above. Even when helping each other and using wises and tools, my patrol failed every test where they didn’t tap Nature or spend a Fate point! My players (quite fairly) felt that the deck was stacked against them, and the game quickly adopted an adversarial feeling in lieu of collaborative story-telling.

Needless to say, by the end of the session, the patrol weren’t the only ones feeling battered. I know that D&D GMs sometimes have the reputation for running games so that they feel that they have “won” over their players. Though I always strive to challenge my players and their characters, regardless of game system, I always aim not to be one of those GMs. This was clearly not my desired outcome!

Would some experienced GMs be so kind as to share some pointers for obstacle difficulty? How do you square the Range of Difficulty table with the factoring tables, which seem to produce much tougher tests? Mouse Guard obviously has a different approach to failure than D&D. Do you have any tips on how I should run my game to familiarize my players with this new mindset?

I tend to gutfeel my obstacle ratings for the most part. If it’s a skill that hasn’t come up in play much, I’ll definitely take a look at the factors for the skill, but for the most part I tend to just go with either Ob 2 for stuff the patrol should be able to accomplish and Ob 3 for stuff that’s going to be tricky, but they should still get done. Depending on how many players you have in your game (I had 3 for my campaign), Ob 3 stuff shouldn’t be all that difficult with helpers. It could be that the dice were just working against them for this session.

However, that brings me to a reminder point - if there’s not the possibility for a real twist, don’t test the skill. Just let them do it. If you have them take a test for everything they want to accomplish, especially if you think it’s something they should have no issue getting done, the game will eat them up. I don’t have the 2e PDF in front of me, but I know from 1e your missions should basically have two or three obstacles for the patrol to deal with. That’s it. If your players are taking five or six tests during the GM turn (excluding Conflicts, which are test farms), you might want to take a look at how you’re building your missions.

Out of curiosity (and because I know there’s people who are much better at offering advice like this than I am), can you give a rundown of what your session was? It might help for others to give you tips on which tests you probably don’t need, which ones are too high, etc. Just a few suggestions for you.

Yes, please, a run down of the tests and how you responded when they didn’t meet the Obstacle.

I’ll do my best to recount the tests in the session, but it’s been a few months, so there may be some missing pieces to the puzzle. I will also include my post-mortem comments in blue, as that might help you guys inform me if I’m on the right track. Hopefully, it will provide guidance to any other newbie GMs as well.

I had decided to try my hand at writing my own mission, borrowing a generous handful from the Deliver the Mail sample mission.

The mission began with Gwendolyn tasking the patrol with delivering the mail to Appleloft. As this was the beginning of Spring, and the first mission of the year for the patrol, she also asked that they ensure that the path to Appleloft was clear. My players asked if they could gather supplies in Lockhaven and I told them (to their consternation) that supplies didn’t matter and that they couldn’t spend time in Lockhaven. They had to get on with the mission!

From a Mouse Guard perspective, this still seems to be a decent call to me. With regards to the story, supplies wouldn’t have helped too much, so we should have just gotten on with the good stuff. However, my players–like me–are more accustomed to systems like D&D, so they argued with me for a little while before we moved on. In the end, it may have been faster just to have them make an easy Resources test. If they failed, it may have introduced an interesting twist in the form of a quartermaster waiting to give the patrol a piece of his mind when they return.

With the patrol now leaving Lockhaven, the leader decided to check the weather. I wasn’t sure if he could call for a test like that during the GM’s Turn but I decided to let him go for it. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Weather Watcher is a versus test! I told him that such a test during Spring would be Ob 6, forgetting that Ob 6 is pretty much impossible. I thought that his success would be unlikely but within the realm of reason. His eyes almost bugged out of his head! We talked for a while about how such a thing was possible until he made the test (tapping Nature)…and failed. I decided to invoke a weather based twist and have a storm move in. This would increase the difficulty of their later Pathfinder test and force them to make tests to avoid getting sick, but didn’t really have any impact on the narrative.

Looking back, this feels like a poor choice for a twist. It influenced the game solely in a mechanical manner, in a way that the players couldn’t really appreciate, and didn’t add anything interesting to the story of the mission. I would really welcome suggestions for better weather-based twists.

Since the patrol had to get to Appleloft, I next had them make a Pathfinder test. To make a long journey over a snow-covered trail while the storm dropped sleet on them, I set the obstacle to 6. Again, they failed, so I gave them some conditions.

I think that this test wasn’t very compelling. Even if the obstacle had been possible, the test doesn’t do much aside from punishing the patrol for not succeeding.

As the patrol neared Appleloft, they discovered that, sure enough, the trail was not clear. A beaver had built a dam nearby and the trail was now flooded! The party made a Scientist test (Ob 4 in the sleet) to try to destroy the dam while its creator was away, but they failed. This meant that they took too long, so the beaver returned, resulting in a conflict.

I feel like I did pretty well with this portion of the mission. When the patrol first encountered the flooding, they rolled their eyes. They were probably thinking, “Great, another insurmountable obstacle!” However, when they found the dam and didn’t see the beaver nearby, they started getting excited. Even when the beaver showed up and the conflict began, everyone was really having fun. I didn’t run the conflict perfectly (see below), but this was certainly the highlight of our session.

I certainly made some mistakes while running the conflict, but the patrol barely squeaked :wink: out a victory.

I didn’t do the best job of teaching my players about conflict goals. I should have encouraged them to take the goal of destroying the dam, as that was their ultimate aim in this situation anyways. They said that their goal was to drive off the beaver and beaver decided that it wanted to drive them off. We had a difficult time negotiating a major compromise at the conclusion of the conflict, probably because the goals were so diametrically opposed. I think that I ultimately just gave them more conditions.

With the beaver gone, I asked them to make another Scientist test (Ob 4) to destroy the dam.

Now we start getting into the portion of the mission where I really messed up. I was having the patrol trod over the same portion of the story twice! I should have simply narrated them destroying the dam.

When they failed this check, I decided to introduce another twist. The patrol succeeded in destroying the dam, but they did so while they were still on top of it! I had them make a Health test (I don’t remember the obstacle) to try to race off of the dam before it collapsed. Those who failed had to make another Health check to keep from getting injured while they were swept downstream. Then, the party had to make a Pathfinder (or maybe Scout, I can’t remember) test to find each other and then another to finally make their way into Appleloft, carrying a bag of rather soggy mail.

Double-facepalm! This is where things really went from bad to worse. Just like my initial Pathfinder test, I feel like I called for these tests solely because my experience running D&D told me that players should have to roll dice to accomplish such things. But these tests didn’t add anything interesting to the story! They only extended the mission long past its welcome and made the players feel like I was being vindictive. Calling for a second test to destroy the dam was already a mistake, but adding another twist afterwards made it so much worse. There’s only one good thing that I think could have come out of this cluster-snafu: Leaving the tenderpaw all alone in the scary wilderness and forcing him to make his own choices could have been fun. Not to mention that the rest of the patrol would now be in a mad scramble to find him. Unfortunately, at this point the session had already run far too long and we were all so frustrated that I just tried to get the mission over with as soon as possible. Even still, I called for the tests because I didn’t know any better. Ugh.

And there you have it. I have bared my shame. :stuck_out_tongue:
This turned into more of a session report than simply listing tests. Please pardon my over-sharing. I hope that you guys will have some good feedback and that others can avoid some of my mistakes.
Thanks!

Oh, here’s a problem. A versus test means that the patrol and the season are both rolling dice. The season rolls 6 dice and the patrol try to get more successes than it to pass the obstacle.

This would certainly ramp up the difficulty!

So in looking over everything, it doesn’t seem all that bad really. As you’ve acknowledged already, the second test for destroying the dam was a mistake, as it should’ve been covered under the Let It Ride rules. Outside of that, I’ll mention that you made the right call with turning down the Resources test at the beginning of the mission. Your players may have been unhappy based on their backgrounds as D&D players, but it’s the right call for the game. The Weather Watcher test (outside of the Ob error) is something that I generally don’t allow players to make unless they have an Instinct along the lines of “Always check the weather before heading out on patrol.” One of the big things about Mouse Guard is that the players don’t get to call for tests outside of the obstacles set by the GM unless they have an Instinct related to it. Anything the players want to get done happens in the Player’s Turn. That notwithstanding, your twist of the storm was a good one.

The only thing that strikes me is that the Pathfinder Ob 6, even with the weather factored in, seems very high to me. As a personal rule, when determining factors I tend to look at which aspect presents the biggest challenge to the patrol and use that. By this I mean that, using this Pathfinder test as the example, the difficult part of this for the patrol would have been the distance they’re traveling, since the route itself is fairly well-mapped and used. If you’re playing it that the remaining snow is the bigger obstacle, then I would use only those factors. Again, this is a personal guide I use, but I typically don’t stack factors in determining obstacles. In this case, if you really felt that both the trail condition AND the distance were issues, I would’ve instead gone the route of making the trip a Journey Conflict instead.

Overall, and especially for your first time, I think you did remarkably well. It’s a very different system than d20, and it will take a few sessions before you really get things moving smoothly. But the fact that your players really dug the Conflict system is huge.

Thank you taking the time to put that all down. Not too terrible, but I can see some things. Here are my thoughts in no particular order.

  1. If supplies don’t matter, why not let them have supplies?
  2. The WW test you’ve already mentioned s/b versus. Also, I believe WW decides the next weather based twist. I wouldn’t bring a storm in right then and there. That’s clear demonstration of punishment. If the WW test is failed during clear weather my go to is success with condition, tired from staying up working while others are rested.
  3. It’s hard to tell how the obstacles are being set. Are you counting factors or just winging it? I recomend counting factors.
  4. No, no, no. Conditions are never punishment for failure. They’re the cost of success. When the patrol fails a pathfinder roll and you decide to give a condition, that’s a moment to reinforce how awesome the patrol is in surmounting the difficult voyage. Describe them hiding from badgers, scaling sheer cliffs, doing all those cool ranger tracking things. Ask one of the players how he gets by some particularly challenging obstacle. They arrive at Apple loft beaten and bruised, but everyone is safe… then tell them take the condition, like tired or hungry, or whatever.
  5. Bringing in the beaver is a good twist, but not because “they took too long.” That’s mouse failure, when you don’t need mouse failure. The beaver shows up while they’re working, full stop.
  6. Conditions as compromise are fine. But since you knew the dam is what they really care about, I probably would have gone with "you drive the beaver off, but realize destroying the dam is too big a task for a 4-mouse patrol. Then I would have ended the GM turn. Let them figure out how to tear the thing down during the player turn. Maybe science the shit out of it or get some townsfolk together.

A good mission to borrow from, and writing your own mission is a good way to customize and become accustomed. I like Deliver the Mail; because, the actuall mission is routine. It is a simple task to carry mail, and you can see from the sample mission the obstacles are interruptions along the way. So, this showcases a good pattern: the mission is routine, and the obstacles are partially unrelated to the routine duties.

… delivering the mail to Appleloft. … ensure that the path to Appleloft was clear. … players asked if they could gather supplies … they couldn’t spend time in Lockhaven. They had to get on with the mission!

… supplies wouldn’t have helped too much … accustomed to systems like D&D, so they argued with me … may have been faster just to have them make an easy Resources test. … it may have introduced an interesting twist …

So, regarding the gameplay, I tend to allow players to tell 1 - 2 supply items they want from Lockhaven; so maybe a few loaves fo grabcroon, a warm blanket, a few packets of tea, etc. I’ll do that without a Resources test or a lengthy shopping scene. But, they rarely know all the details of the mission, so they can’t pre-plan by grabbing a specialized tool that would bypass the efforts. Something like a map, almanac, or weapon might garner a test, or maybe I’ll give them a mediocre quality item. For example, a recent Lockhaven start allowed for a scratch map (basically margin notes) from the cartographer–enough to give some general regions of a city, but not individual addresses or streets.

Regarding the post-mortem, I kinda think having a little bit of gear can be creative; sometimes players are really good about making fictive uses of gear. In the case of food/drink, I’ll allow a moment to use up the food/drink to overcome Hungry/Thirsty while out. It serves as an immediate and lasting exchange of gear for recovery which (I think) gives a sense of accomplishment and wisdom for players, such as, “Whoa, good thinking to bring along a little food from home!”

However, I do agree that having a Resources test could introduce a small, but interesting, Twist.

… leader decided to check the weather. … call for a test like that during the GM’s Turn … Weather Watcher is a versus test! … I decided to invoke a weather based twist and have a storm move in. … increase the difficulty of their later Pathfinder test and force them to make tests to avoid getting sick, but didn’t really have any impact on the narrative.

… feels like a poor choice for a twist. … solely in a mechanical manner … players couldn’t really appreciate, and didn’t add anything interesting to the story of the mission. … suggestions for better weather-based twists.

First, I think this is a matter of practice, timing, and meaning. I try to always have some idea what the weather will be when introducing the session, and I’ll allow a WW test before GM Turn formally begins–especially when there is a relatable Instinct. So, I usually think this is best during a Player Turn, but I’ve even run obstacles in which a Weather Watcher test is an appropriate skill to overcome the Weather Obstacle.

The Weather Twist is a good choice; I hope you’ll look back at that a bit differently. In this case, the player took a risk which could have played to great benefit, such as, “My successful test indicates I’ll predict a warm, dry period and gentle entry into Spring weather.” That could have been an easier Pathfinder test later, and avoided Health tests for everyone. Yet, having taken the risk, instead the result was, “Oh my, we’ve got to be on the trail during a final, blow-out storm. It looks fairly bad mates; we’ll need to be prepared for a difficult trek.” Also, though it is a small portion, it is a good portion of story about the natural world which they have so little control over.

I may need to save suggested Twists for another thread. I feel Weather Twists do well as aded challenge or altered challenge, rather than a new test.

Aside, the players could have teased and/or punished their weather-interested mate a bit as though claiming he brought about worse weather by checking–a superstition perhaps among mice.

… to get to Appleloft … a Pathfinder test. To make a long journey over a snow-covered trail while the storm dropped sleet on them, I set the obstacle to 6. Again, they failed, so I gave them some conditions.

I think that this test wasn’t very compelling. Even if the obstacle had been possible, the test doesn’t do much aside from punishing the patrol for not succeeding.

Right, going overland is a tough trek. Feels a little high, yet here’s my take: Pathfinder Ob 6 (short journey, washed out, weather). The factors seem to add up to Ob 6.

But, you didn’t feel it was compelling; I have a thought about that. Was this a Wilderness or Weather scene? Was it just an element of the routine duty? So, here’re some ideas:

  • The patrol needs to deal with this Springtime run-off and washed out paths; it’s a serious obstacle (Wilderness)
  • From the thaw and run-off, there are areas of total mud; you can avoid some, but you’ve reached a massive patch of muddy terrain to get beyond (Wilderness)
  • You started the trek in crisp, bright weather near Lockhaven, but now that storm is bearing down and you’ve got to keep moving despite white-out conditions (Weather)
  • Appleloft was a lengthy trek, and moments from arrival, the patrol is freezing, soaked, and needs to get a day of shelter before the final jaunt into the grove (Weather)
  • The patrol has to cover a lengthy distance and the trail hasn’t been cleaned (routine)
  • The patrol covered a good distance toward Appleloft, but other mice are not so equipped; you better backtrack to blaze the trail a bit (duty)

Now, each of those could be a Pathfinder test; and possibly other tests too, such as Survivalist for shelter or Health or Will for just non-stop morale. I feel the Weather and Wilderness scenes are more compelling than the duty or routine; however, I didn’t check how the BIGs interact with those other scenes.

As the patrol neared Appleloft, … trail was not clear. A beaver had built a dam nearby and the trail was now flooded! The party made a Scientist test (Ob 4 in the sleet) to try to destroy the dam while its creator was away … they took too long, so the beaver returned, resulting in a conflict.

… encountered the flooding, they rolled their eyes. … when the beaver showed up and the conflict began…

See, this is why I was thinking about what type of hazard had prompted the Pathfinder test. If they had passed the Pathfinder test, but then faced this obstacle, it would feel deflating. Having failed, it feels like a Twsit along the way (e.g. “you were doing so well, until this beaver dam caused an issue for the route.”).

As-is, this was an Animal hazard, right? So it’s a proper design, though I would have opened with the beaver and dam closer to Ivydale; then placed the remainder of the trekking afterward. That asks a question of the patrol, “Do you stop the trek to deal with this, or leave it to other Guard who will be running missions soon?”

Further, so what type of Conflict did it become? I agree Scientist is a good test, but a beaver dam is a huge structure compared to mice; breaking it could flood a settlement downstream too. I feel this is a good topic for the patrol to debate and address with locals; the maintenance of a dam could be very good for mice, as far as friendly relations go with the beaver family. So, this allows a Conflict to go one of many ways–Fight Animal, Chase, Negotiate, Speech, Argument, War.

… patrol barely squeaked :wink: out a victory.

… teaching my players about conflict goals. … encouraged them to take the goal of destroying the dam … their goal was to drive off the beaver and beaver decided that it wanted to drive them off. … difficult time negotiating a major compromise … because the goals were so diametrically opposed. I think that I ultimately just gave them more conditions.

Sounds like a Fight Animal scene ensued, in which the GM side and Player Side were simply opposed. I like to suggest conflict goals should be askew rather than oppoed. So, maybe the sides could have been like so:

  • Patrol: We’ll damage a critical portion of the dam, so the beaver has to spend time on repairs
  • Beaver: I’ll drive off these mice, and keep building larger
  • Patrol: The dam could serve as a road, so long as the beaver won’t attack mice
  • Beaver: Other predators will be attracted to mice, so I’d better drive them away for my safety
  • Patrol: Beavers are attractive for predators; we cannot allow it to stay for safety’s sake
  • Beaver: Mice often share food, labor, and company; I could have a friendly neighborhood if I can convince them to locate a village nearby
  • Patrol: Beaver foodstorage is abundant, and they welcome many into their lodges in Winter; a friendship could benefit a settlement or the Guard
  • Beaver: These little mice will become an irritant and will steal from me; I’d better leave this dam and lodge to find a more remote location (thus leaving a pond and dam without maintenance: a flood danger)

Now, those all are varied goals which could serve a variety of conflict types; the BIGs will come into table chatter about how to proceed. But, there are many facets to how the interaction between mice and beaver might play out. Some cases may be a chance for bonding, sharing, and mutual benefit. Also, those have something of a condition that helps frame the conflict and later, compromise.

With the beaver gone, … another Scientist test (Ob 4) to destroy the dam.

… having the patrol trod over the same portion of the story twice! I should have simply narrated them destroying the dam.

… another twist. The patrol succeeded … while they were still on top … Health test … to race off of the dam before it collapsed. … another Health check to keep from getting injured while they were swept downstream. … make a Pathfinder (or maybe Scout, I can’t remember) test to find each other … another to finally make their way into Appleloft, carrying a bag of rather soggy mail.

… went from bad to worse. … called for these tests solely because my experience running D&D told me that players should have to roll dice to accomplish such things. … didn’t add anything interesting … only extended the mission … made the players feel like I was being vindictive. …

Well, a lesson learned. Here’s my take on closing the mission portion:

Compromise: Beaver is driven away, and won’t keep up the dam and lodge (possible flood danger). Patrol finishes task of dismantling the dam while atop the structure–leads to Health test to avoid being swept away and injured (Each PC tests, failure leads to Injured condition). Patrol regroups promptly, finishes journey to Appleloft.

So, that’s one test from the Compromise without forcing Conditions from the Compromise–it allows one final risk of Injured Condition without also causing them to be separated. Then, they complete the success w/ condition of the Pathfinder test earlier.

I agree sometimes I feel like the D&D mantra becomes: Hard things require dice rolls. And some dice rolls will be just that. The Health test against the sleet to avoid Sick; the Health test to avoid being swept away by a flood; the Pathfinder test to trek a long distance; the Weather Watcher test to predict upcoming Spring weather. These are all possibly just rolling dice to do hard things.

But also, the MG (and Burning Wheel) mantra is: Risky things require dice rolls. So, the risk of trekking or working in the sleet is becoming Sick, test required; the risk of dismantling a beaver dam from top-down or bottom-up is there will be a flood of water from the pond, test required; the risk of trekking overland in early Spring between Lockhaven and Appleloft is multi-faceted and too large to list (there are so many risks involved), test required; the risk of predicting the weather incorrectly is multi-faceted and to large to list (so many things are weather related from harvesting, traveling, breeding, to building, storing, livestocking), test required. These are all risky things which deserve a dice roll.

So, a challenge to players and GMs is to address the risks and rewards, have an idea what those risks will cause, get a plan to mitigate those risks, and manage the scope of those risks. Breaking up the beaver dam in my campaign would be a hugely, bigly bad idea! I, as GM, would use that to flood a settlement immediately! The natural world is a big feature, so messing with the natural order is hazardous.

… This turned into more of a session report than simply listing tests. Please pardon my over-sharing. I hope that you guys will have some good feedback and that others can avoid some of my mistakes.
Thanks!

Sounds like a really good opening effort and some great lessons learned. I’d like to get more insight into your mission design process. What is the basic outline you used, and what prompted the mail route to only one settlement? What prompted the beaver dam as a counterpart to the crow from the sample mission?

Some other insights I’m curious about include, how much table chatter went on before the players agreed on a plan? Was there disagreement which had to be sorted in table chatter?

Oh, echo of these.

My two cents, I would of made the getting to the place a Conflict from the storm twist. Definitely sounds like travelling through that would be totally dangerous.

Whoa, thank you for all of the feedback! This will take a good while to process, but I’m sure that it will make my next attempt all the better!