'Life on the Road' section

I’m looking for some clarification. Who gets to choose a trait from the ‘Life on the Road’ section (p. 308)? It says Patrol Leaders and Guard Captains may. Guardmice and Tenderpaws may not.

What about Patrol Guards? In other words, why is this section both inclusive and exclusive… and leaves one rank out? The way we handled this was to ignore the second sentence; Patrol Guard does not get to choose one of those traits, either.

What I did was left it up to roleplaying. Since I take “life on the road” to be experience gained from travelling the territories I believe that if someones character is a Patrol Guard that has been in the Guard for a while and just hasn’t been promoted to Patrol Leader he can take a trait from that section. If the character was recently promoted from Guardmouse and this is his first foray into the territories having to deal with the increased responsibility of being a Patrol Guard then I don’t let the person take the trait.

That’s how I interpreted it too. The “middle rank” is a case-by-case basis.

Hmm… I’ll have to draw my GM’s attention to this thread. My patrol guard mouse is 40 with lots of experience in the Guard. :slight_smile:

He’s a bit of a hardass and people don’t really like him, but he’s a veteran of the Guard. He even has a negative reputation (“Powerful enemies” from Circles questions) for having abandoned a bunch of militiamice captured by weasels back in the Weasel War. He did and didn’t, so to speak. Only his “shining light of Guardmouse-dom” friend (his current patrol leader) and his uncle (his mentor) saved him from being kicked out; they intervened with Gwendolyn. As it is, he’ll never make patrol leader unless the stigma of him being traitor has been completely removed, and no one will patrol with him except his “paragon of the Mouse Guard” buddy (his patrol leader) and that patrol leader’s tenderpaw.

Far be it from me to call the police on you, but technically only Tenderpaw, Leaders and Captains start with two traits.

Sorry for the confusion.

That’s the clarification I needed. Thanks!

Is this a typo? Don’t you mean three for Tenderpaw, Leaders and Captains and two for the rest?

[ul]
[li]On page 300 everyone gets one home town trait. [/li][li]On page 308 “Chose a quality you were born with” it says all players get one and that you may reinforce your hometown trait.[/li][li]Then on 308 again for Tenderpaws only in the “Chose something learned… from parent” section they pick one.[/li][li]Lastly on 308 again “Life on the road” Leaders and Captains get a trait.[/li][/ul]

The totals Traits of that are:
[ul]
[li]Tenderpaws: 3 traits, (Hometown, Born-with, Parents)[/li][li]Guardmouse: 2 traits,(Hometown, Born-with)[/li][li]Patrol Mouse: 2 traits,(Hometown, Born-with)[/li][li]Patrol Leader: 3 traits,(Hometown, Born-with, Life-on-Road)[/li][li]Guard Captains: 3 traits,(Hometown, Born-with, Life-on-Road)[/li][/ul]

This here marks me a little confused as many of the sample characters in the missions and such, namely Patrol Mice, have 3 traits but if you make your own character they have 2. Which I assumed was because they are existing characters with a history, not new.

Let me amend that. You can pick as many traits as you’d like.

I had omitted the Hometown trait from my comment above. So your list is technically correct if one cares about such things.