Mice of the Old Republic

Mouse Guard Hacks and Expansions
1

Being a Hack for a Knights of the Old Republic game.
I’m just throwing out some reposts of ideas I’ve found and some quick ideas that came to mind.

Here is a good place to start.
The link reposted:

Someone had a great idea on RPGnet. Use Mouse Guard for Jedi Knights. Given it simple mission based structure it should work well for a Clone Wars or pre New Trilogy era.

The main change would to make Nature -> The Force. Using the Force is identical to using Nature or Tapping Nature.

Jedi would have the Light Side descriptors mercy, compassion, self-sacrifice and peace. Sith would have the Dark Side descriptors anger, fear, aggression and revenge. If they hit Nature 0 then they would convert to the other side.

Other changes:

  1. Use Traits to cover over specific Force Powers. In broad terms, you really only need Mind Trick, Telekinesis, Body Control, Energy Control and Farseeing. The bonuses you get reflect using these powers (Mind Trick could aid Persuader skill for example) and using them in a way that gets you in trouble (often seen in the movies) is already covered.

  2. Cloak color becomes lightsaber color.

  3. Skills need to be changed to appropriate equivalents.

That’s it really.

EDIT: Oh and I have the perfect title! It’s an Anakin quote and very appropriate to Burning Wheel’s central ethos:

I wish that I could just wish away my feelings but I can’t: the RPG

There are a couple of ways I have been thinking of using Dark Side mechanics.

Here is a hack for a Burning Ravenloft’s Darkness attribute and a good start for a Jedi game, but perhaps a bit too crunchy for Mouse Guard - unless one wants to go that route.
– I would let a character embrace the Dark Side to gain a free Persona (Fate?) but then the “Darkness” (read: Dark Side) attribute is raised.
– This would possibly need the addition of a Dark Side Trait.

Using Skywalker’s idea but tinkering with it I think this might work:
– Make Light Side Nature and Dark Side Nature in to a Paired Nature - meaning that both add up to 7. Yin and Yang.
So if a Jedi has a Light Side of 5, he also has a Dark Side of 2.

Now the fun part - the Jedi may Tap his Light Side Nature by using a point of Persona as normal, but the Jedi may also Tap his Dark Side Nature for free - to represent the temptation of the easy path to the Dark Side.

By Tapping the Dark Side the character’s Dark Side Nature is immediately raised while the Light Side Nature is lowered.
– Once a character has a Dark Side Nature of 7 they are retired from play - they become NPC enemies.
– Once a character has a Light Side Nature of 7 they are retired from play - the Jedi council asks them to become less active on “adventures” and instead they sit on the Jedi council as a paragon of Jedi Nature (ie. administration duty).

Any other ideas?

2

Ooh, I like that. Simple but workable.

–Victor

3

This is going to make turning Dark Side very fast, only a few taps and your out.

4

Ah. Good catch.
This will be stream of thought…

How about this:

When Light Side Nature is Taxed, or when the Dark Side Nature is called on (ie. Tapped) then the scale slides and Light Side Nature is lowered, while Dark Side Nature is increased - with one difference: the Dark Side Nature is raised but not “permanently”, instead the Dark Side acquires a “shadow rank”. (I would let a character Tap in to the higher “shadow” Dark Side score, just for it to be even more tempting).

This is only until the Light Side Nature is Recovered, Lost, or Depleted - then the Dark Side Nature shadow ranks are either lost or become permanent (as much as any Nature is “permanent”, that is).

That is to say, Nature is Taxed but one can still Recover it.

And also I think that Tapping one’s Dark Side should be a quick path to a Fall, as it is optional. But that doesn’t completely solve Tapping one’s Light Side Nature and Taxing it.

So here are my thoughts so far:

Example: a Jedi has a Light Side Nature of 5 and so also has a Dark Side Nature of 2. The character is in dire straits and decides to Tap his Dark Side Nature. This Taxes his Light Side Nature and forces the Dark Side Natue up. But the character is given a chance at redemption and can still raise his Light Side Nature to it’s original score through the normal means.

What needs to be added IMO is different ways to Recover one’s Nature - other than rules as written.
There needs to be a way to repent, so to speak - Perhaps acting as a paragon of Light Side ways, for one session, could increase a Taxed Nature.

EDIT: or maybe pg. 228 “Advancing Taxed Nature” is enough?

5

Balance

Using Skywalker’s idea but tinkering with it I think this might work:
– Make Light Side Nature and Dark Side Nature in to a Paired Nature - meaning that both add up to 7. Yin and Yang.
So if a Jedi has a Light Side of 5, he also has a Dark Side of 2.

I think you need to tie these two concept up to morality and action. Mouse Guard hinges on the concept of Nature defining the actions your characters might undertake.

I suggest you use the Jedi and Sith creed, respectively) for inspiration.
LIGHT SIDE
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no death, there is the Force.

A force user may pay a Persona to enhance an action as long as he; Remains emotionally detached, Acts with belief that he is right, is calm, and is unafraid. Failure may indicate that he did not fufill some or more of these qualifications. (which causes TAX as he questions his own actions and morality)

DARK SIDE
There is no peace, there is anger.
There is no fear, there is power.
There is no death, there is immortality.
There is no weakness, there is the Dark Side.

Conversely a Force user may always and freely tag his Darkside nature (but to usually lesser extent as light and dark must always remain in balance) The creed gives us a guideline. By paying a persona and fufilling the following qualifications he may benefit from the FULL 7d advantage!

Acts in rash anger, acts from a position of power, is unafraid of death, genuinely seeks to prove he is not weak.

A free tag of Darkside nature causes TAX. If the roll fails; it also causes tax as per usual nature rules… Yes. This is Lightside tax.

Finally a characters permanent Dark/Lightside Nature only changes if TAX brings the relevant nature to zero. Which would as usual reset the tax-counter and lower one and increase the other nature.

mleh, messy. Written in 5 minutes as I leave work.

-Ken

6

Actually, the Sith Code is…

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.

… if you want to get technical.

7

Okay … I couldn’t help it. I just had to post my reactions.

“wait … MotOR? Catchy!”

“What’s better than mice with swords? Obviously mice with lightsabers!”

“This obviously needs a new conflict type. Call it The Anakin Obstacle … you get to fight against yourself.”

…

Seriously, though, when I was wondering how to describe the Mouse Guard comic to friends, the best analogy I could think of was “just think of Star Wars Episode 3, but everyone are animals, and the jedi are dressed as mice … with swords”.

I think the hard part is that everyone will be focusing on the dark/light side, and completely miss working on the “mundane” tech stuff. That’s to say … hey, Weather Watching and Fighting is cool … but don’t neglect the Carpentry and Loremouse.

8

My thoughts on a Star Wars Hack. I borrow ideas from up thread, but also WEG d6 Starwars. My reference point is the Rebellion, i.e., the original trilogy, not Old Republic.

Health and Will are joined by Tech and associated skills. This leads to new types of conflicts, such as Repair Starship skill vs. Millenium Falcon’s crapiness score.

Most obstacles carry right over. Mice obstacles abound in starwars, as do animals: Trash Monster, Ice Monster, Space Worm, Rancor.

Wilderness obstacles exist here and there, only in Empire Strikes back, really: ice fields, asteroids, ship-swallowing swamps, but technical obstacles like busted doors or malfunctioning hyperdrives have a lot in common with wilderness obstacles.

But there’s only one cold night on Hoth for weather problems in Star Wars. So weather is replaced by Empire. The empire really isn’t an obstacle to be defeated, so much as a force of nature to be suffered through. There are always too many tie fighters, too many AT-ATs, too many Stormtroopers to count. The Empire are always too many or too big, the only thing to do is to keep fighting them while you accomplish some other task. Often they are just a modifier on another more critical task. Luke is under fire when he swings across the chasm with Leia, but the stormtroopers are just a bit of color and a minor hinderance for the main action.

Force is just nature, as everyone knows, but I would do darkside a bit differently: you would get a darkside point everytime you used the force for evil, but if you were successful, you would get +1 permenantly to the force, to which there is no upper limit. Failure of any kind of force use could lead to a tax as normal.

Whenever you get a darkside point, you would have to roll will vs. darkside to get another darkside point (and, if possible, involuntarily do another evil act), and you’d have to roll again do the new point! Once darkside reaches some high level, like 10, you become an evil NPC as above and in WEG d6.

Lightsabers use Force instead of fighting, negate ranged bonuses, have a +1s to succesful maneuvers and some big bonus to attack, like +2s or something.