Thanks for the encouragement. It’s been interesting since until recently I’d not run any BW product. Now, I have a couple of sessions of MG under my belt (with and without Ranger mods). I feel much more confident I’ll be able to pull this off at GenCon. :o
You won’t make it to GenCon unless you post those APs. . .
taps a bat against his palm as a subtle hint
Okay, I’ve given this some thought and consulted with my muse, Msr Sorensen. This is a near-perfect hack except for Nature. As it stands now, it’s twinky power fantasy. It’s about awesome hiding killing dudes who hide and kill. Why? Nature.
Nature in Mouse Guard is a force at odds with the duty that must be performed. As it stands now, Nature in this hack is perfectly in tune with the duty. This does not adequately represent the source material. Aragorn is not at peace with himself and his role. To put it in game terms: His Nature is one thing, his duty is another.
Therefore, I propose Nature’s descriptors for these Rangers be Grief, Tradition and Family.
Grief – the weight of the tide of time upon the immortal and long-lived
Tradition – the rituals, etiquette, mores and values of this most venerable culture
Family – the deep-seated instinct to build families, dynasties and lineages.
Note well that none of these are particularly useful to their duty. In fact, these qualities call these men home like a siren song. At home, they can mourn their grief, practice right and good traditions and tend to their families. In fact, this is what they fight for when they roam and range. That internal conflict will add depth and vulnerabilities to these hardened fighting men.
-Luke
Very insightful. I would only add that descriptors in MG work best when they are active verbs (in the gerund form to get all technical): Escaping, Hiding, Climbing, etc. Otherwise the descriptors tend get a little too squishy.
Grief is easy. It becomes Grieving. It has to be tied to the actual act of dealing with the tide of time.
Tradition and Family are more difficult. Absent more inspiration, gerund phrases might do the trick:
Respecting Tradition, Upholding (husbanding?) Family.
Wow, that’s a really good point, Luke! I’d never thought of Nature in MG that way.
However, I’m having a hard time picturing how one could tap Nature in a way that wouldn’t always be against their Nature. For instance, how does one tap Nature to grieve, regardless?
For example, in MG, while mouse Nature is contrary to their duties, they are still activities they can make use of; i.e., hiding, climbing, etc., are not stretches for them. It’s contrary to the Guard element of Mouse Guard, but not to the mice.
So how does one tap Nature (without it being against Nature) for Tradition, Family and Grief?
I think the 3 (and 3 is a perfect number, given Tolkien’s use of the conventions of numbers of power – 3, 7, 9, 13) aspects of Nature need to be an activity, but, as Luke said, also need to be activities that are not in keeping with the duties expected of a Dunedain Ranger.
Ruling could be one, perhaps? It isn’t in their nature (which is partly why Aragorn resisted for so long and why his attitude/persona shift occurred when he took up the crown).
Speaking the Truth could be another. Most Dunedain seem forthright and honest, though it may not serve them best, situation depending. (Aragorn gets a strip torn off him for using ‘Ugly Truth’ by telling Theoden to go to war, for instance.)
Seeking Knowledge could be the last. The Dunedain are the remnant of the Numenoreans, renowned scholars and men of such learning that they became decadent and arrogant as a result.
Just some ideas.
Forgive me Patrick if I find those a bit bland. They’re pretty typical RPG abilities.
How do you use Grief? Oh my. You use it for funeral rites. You use it to swear vengeance or enact revenge on your father’s murderer. You use it to forgive.
How do you use Tradition? To right fallen communities, to bring them from the path of the Shadow. To go before the king. To teach children, to impress foreigners, to be really conservative assholes. Why did Numenor fall? It broke with Tradition.
How do you use Family? To sire children, to convince your wife, to argue with your father, to put your upstart brother in his place.
Escaping, Climbing, Foraging and Hiding are obviously useful, but they are directly at odds with the expectation and needs of the Mouse Guard and the mouse communities. Obviously, the Tolkien stuff needs a slightly different premise, but it needs a strong one nonetheless.
-L
Allegiance or Conformity for the first maybe. Fidelity for the second?
Nah. Those are all nouns. It’s not about what you are. It’s about what you do.
How about: Grieving, Traditional, and Familial?
(Not sure if that is what your looking for though - nouns, bah).
Greiving Upholding Tradition, and Upholding Family, to put them in gerund form.
No worries! They struck me as a little… meh as I wrote 'em but I felt the Nature aspects needed altering, likely because I didn’t see their uses. However…
Awesome examples. I guess I wasn’t thinking broadly enough. (Thinking tends to be hard after four 12-plus hour work days…) Those examples make a lot of sense and something I hadn’t thought of before: I like the possibility of making an argument for an action that is using tapped Nature as being in line with Nature.
Or… just leave them as nouns. After all, these are more like areas which their Nature affects. At this point and after some thought, I say let the ambiguity of the nouns stand. After all, look at Luke’s examples; they relate to those three aspects of Nature. There are separate actions undertaken in relation to them.
Leave 'em as Tradition, Grief and Family. Those realms of experience are in their Nature. Period.
Thoughts?
I know the idea is to go with actions because of Mouse Guard, but I say why?
In the absence of better suggestions, I’m with Patrick. I’d just break the rule and leave 'em.
The real key here would be to back up these descriptors in the setting description. Ideally, we’d have a nice description of the traditional life of these fellows and the descriptors would be plucked right from the prose.
-L
emphasis mine
This was weird with Nature going up and down. So delete Nature from this sentence. Also, the Ob for the Healer test seems too high. This may be because only one had Healer at all and his skill was a 3 (he did not have a useful Wise and only one other Guard had a Wise that could help either). You guys know the numbers/probabilities of the system better than I; is Ob 4 ok or should I reduce it to Ob 3?
Thanks. I was not happy with the Nature I’d come up with (it seems to be the hardest thing to get right in these hacks). I think the other Numenor ‘stuff’ will be Traits.
I’ve also been looking around and I can’t find a set of verb forms to replace these that work. For the moment (unless or until someone suggests something more elegant), I’ll go with these as presented.
I agree with your later comment that in a perfect world this would be backed up with some choice direct source material. Since I don’t have time to reread these right now I’ll muddle through as best as I may. Anyone know of any good message boards with teaming LOTR fans that might be willing to do some of this work for…(I mean with) me?
Also, this changes the end game at 0 and 7 Nature. Would you just reverse the results but keep the same descriptions?
Thanks again for everyone’s contributions and encouragement. 
These are the changes to the existing Mouse Guard Traits.
Bigpaw is renamed Rough Hands
Fearful is restricted to Recuits. More experienced Rangers have overcome this issue or they would have been removed.
Guard’s Honor is renamed Ranger’s Honor
Innocent while not completely restricted to Recuits would be very unusual in more experienced Rangers.
Longtail is eliminated.
Lost is restricted to Recuits. More experienced Rangers have overcome this issue or they would have been removed.
Oldfur is renamed Greyhair.
Sharptooth is eliminated.
Other more specific Traits are being mulled over. Any suggestions?
Corrupt
Some stray too far into the methods of the Enemy, or allow their desires to overmaster their duty and loyalty. Those who embody the deceitful, subversive and dark ways of the Enemy are tainted, corrupted; they have fallen.
That’s an idea if you’re still looking for that kind of Shadow-taint idea. There are Black Númenoreans, after all.
Saint, as I was saying to you before, I’ve got a whole slew of stuff to work out with ya on this hack. The ones needing the most public feedback are the Nature descriptors for Men (non-Dúnedain), Dwarves and Hobbits. I brainstormed:
Man: Adaptation, Community and Self-Preservation (least pleased with the first but I like the other two)
Dwarf: Greed, Stubbornness, Loyalty (ideas spurred from Glendower’s Dwarf Guard hack)
Hobbit: Beneath Notice, Merriment, Back Woods (most happy with these, though finding a noun sort of descriptor for “bucolic” or “rustic” was annoying)
I figured we might as well have 'em, since that would mean less redundancy with the Denizens stuff: No need for the Nature (blah) specification. Just have Nature and it defaults to the race, making a Hobbit Cartographer different from a Dwarf Cartographer.
Orc: Aggressive, Destroying, Loud and Pursuing
Trolls: (Had to be different because of the different types and how some are fine in sunlight and others are not.)
– Torog (Hobbit troll): Nocturnal, Capturing, Hoarding, Eating
– Cave-Troll: Nocturnal, Huge, Obeying, Smashing
– Olog-hai (War trolls): Powerful, Fearless, Huge, Smashing
I even messed around with Balrog (Gigantic, Shadow & Flame, Aggressive, Tormenting) and Kraken (Predator, Constricting, Whelming, Laying in Wait) for fun. After all, the Kraken is still there and who knows whether another Balrog (or multiple) lie hidden or imprisoned in the North?
Last thing: King Elessar Telcontar (aka, Aragorn II)
Nature (Ranger)…6 | Resources…10
Will…6 | Circles…7
Health…5
Skills: Fighter 5, Persuader 4, Orator 4, Rider 4, Healer 4, Scout 5, Militarist 3, Realms-wise 4, Enemy-wise 4, Trail-wise 5, Obligation-wise 4
Traits: Alert (2), Leader (2), Wise (2), Determined (2)
Gear: Andúril (sword), Scepter of Annúminas, Elendilmir (crown), Ring of Barahir
Oh, and I meant to mention: If you’re looking for info, wikipedia is great for anything that involves insane geek knowledge (star trek, star wars, LotR, comics, etc.). Found a bunch of info there.
I would probably have put the setting around the time of the White Council, when the Witch-King became active in Carn Dûm again, but that has the drawback of being more described. I played in a campaign set in the Northern Kingdoms after Tyrn Gorthad fell which was also a great setting, but that was before the Rangers.
One of the problems of the northern setting for Mouse Guard is that the North is severely depopulated so except for Bree, Rivendell and the Shire and perhaps Cameth Brin (the Hillmen town) you don’t have any large settlements to speak of so place-bound Traits and skills are divided among few towns. Of course in the Golden Age that’s different. You have places like Annuminas, Tharbad, among others.
Btw Goblin Nature: Servin’, Smashin’, Scavengin’.
Base is probably the new Northern Capital by lake Evendhim (Fornost again?) or Rivendell if we play during Third Age. Rivendell: Lore, Music, Smithing, Hunting, Calligraphy, Cartography, Sindarin. Traits: Elf-touched, Loremaster, Philosophical.
How’s progress? This looks amazing, by the way. I love all the great hacks for Mouse Guard almost as much as I love vanilla Mouse Guard. 