Night's Watch

Mouse Guard Hacks and Expansions
1

“You are more ignorant than a child, Ser Knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows.”
-Melisandre, Priestess of R’hllor

“I did not command it. I told you to do what needed to be done, and left you to decide what that would be.” Qhorin stood and slid his longsword back into it’s scabbard. “When I want a mountain scaled, I call on Stonesnake. When I want an arrow through the eye of some foe across a windy battlefield, I call on Squire Dalbridge. Ebben can make any man give up his secrets. To lead men you must know them, Jon Snow. I know more of you than I did this morning.”
“And if I had slain her?” asked Jon.
“She would be dead, and I would know you better than I had before.”
-A Clash of Kings

I just thought I’d throw out a few rough ideas for what seems a very natural application of the basic Mouse Guard setup- The Night’s Watch from George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Most of the basic mechanics and skills could be kept completely intact. The main differences would be (A) the partition structure of the Wall, dividing the Watch’s concerns into primarily-political to the south and primarily-physical to the north, and (B) the fact this is a much, much grimmer, darker setting than that of MG (or Tolkien, for that matter.) The Night’s Watch, particularly in later centuries, includes some very nasty pieces of work, so that trait revisions might involve more than simply excising references to mouse-anatomy. The recruitment system might need substantial tweaks as well, to reflect the setting’s large differences in social class- and the Watch’s function as a penal colony of sorts. Nature mechanics and the Natural Order might also have rather less utility.

…What do folks reckon?

2

Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night’s Watch, for this night and all the nights to come.
-Oath of the Sworn Brothers

“The collar is supposed to remind a maester of the realm he serves, isn’t that so? Lords are gold and knights steel, but two links can’t make a chain. You also need silver and iron and lead, tin and copper and bronze and all the rest, and those are farmers and smiths and merchants and the like. A chain needs all sorts of metals, and a land needs all sorts of people.”
Maester Aemon smiled. “And so?”
“The Night’s Watch needs all sorts too. Why else have rangers and stewards and builders? Lord Randyll couldn’t make Sam a warrior, and Ser Alliser won’t either. You can’t hammer tin into iron, no matter how hard you beat it, but that doesn’t mean tin is useless.”
-A Game of Thrones

A rough outline of the recruitment process might go as follows:

  • Watch division: Ranger, Steward, or Builder. ‘Sages’ (Maesters, Greenseers/Wargs, Pyromancers etc.) might be present too, but probably not as PCs. (How to model ‘magic’ in this setting is a significant question, actually…)

  • The social background system needs to be more nuanced. At minimum, you’d have a division into Noble, Smallfolk, Cityborn and Wildling, and a bunch of associated skills for each.

  • Reasons for entering the Watch. Were you adopted from the Wildlings? Did you take the Oath voluntarily, as a Noble? Were you convicted of a serious crime- and were you guilty?

  • Some modelling of the various Demesnes seems to be in order. This could represent either being born into a particular noble house, being their bastard, being their vassal, or growing up in an associated city or fortress. The main options are:
    [ul]
    [li] Winterfell/White Harbour/Snow/Stark
    [/li][li] The Eyrie/Gull Town/Stone/Arryn
    [/li][li] Storm’s End/Storm/Baratheon
    [/li][li] Riverrun/Rivers/Tully
    [/li][li] Casterly Rock/Lannisport/Hill/Lannister
    [/li][li] Highgarden/Old Town/Flowers/Tyrell
    [/li][li] Sunspear/Dorne/Sand/Martell
    [/li][/ul]
    Each would have a set of associated skills. Of course, the Greyjoys and Targaryens/King’s Landing also merit mention, and there are dozens of minor houses listed as Bannermen. (Ideally, though, you’d want to leave players some room to improvise in the latter department.) The question of when in Westeros’ history the game is set might also be significant.

  • Basic combat ability, basic social ability, and basic craft ability. (Despite labour divisions, a good deal of cross-training seems to take place, and any brother might be called to go on a mission, if it seems likely their skills will be required. Even Sam has the rudiments of bowmanship, and Jon knows how to cook.)

  • Friends and enemies. Mentors. Command structure. Age and rank.

  • Miscellaneous- are you a bastard? Who are your Gods? (tie this into the magic system?) Do you have an animal companion?

3

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under it’s mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.
Finally, he looked north… …past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked with snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.
Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.
“Why?” Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.
Because winter is coming.
-A Game of Thrones

This is a setting where seasons can last decades and winters threaten to bring down a plague of undead, so it’s pretty clear that weather mechanics are important here. Equally clearly, they need substantial modification, in part because there’s a much larger geographical range present in this setting- something close to winter conditions prevail in the far north almost continuously, but Dorne has sun-baked deserts. (The Watch’s business is mostly political to the south, but extended travel of any kind could be difficult in mid-winter, and direct routes are dangerous during times of war.)

The first problem, I think, can be solved by having one ‘big thing’ dealt with over a series of sessions, with the possibility of transition to another season mid-mission. Then, the characters have the option of doing the equivalent of a ‘winter session’ where they return to the wall and put in a standard ‘tour of duty’, aging a few years while they wait for another ‘big thing’. (You might also expect the seasons to advance if enough game-time years go by during a single mission, but that’s unlikely.)

The second problem might be solved by assigning ‘season modifiers’ to different areas depending on geography, and perhaps adding a 5th season- White Winter, with Nature 10 to contend with.

Stark/Arryn Lands- cold.
Lannister/Baratheon/Tully Lands- temperate.
Tyrell/Martell Lands- warm.

Another question is the degree to which the seasons could affect combat with the Others and their Wights. Fire, presumably, is a factor, but do mountains and valleys affect the picture? Day and night?

So, standard mission ‘hooks’ would include:

  • Requests for supplies, recruits, or reinforcements (south of the wall.)
  • Ranging afield to gather intelligence on the Wildlings (north of the wall.)
  • Large-scale military engagements (north of the wall. Rare.)
  • Maintenance and raising of segments of the Wall (quarrying ice from frozen lakes, clearing the forest to eliminate cover, north of the wall.)
  • Manufacturing goods and cultivating land to provision the brothers and for external trade (south of the wall.)
  • Training and disciplining fresh recruits, maneuvering for promotion, giving subordinates opportunities to show their quality, etc.
  • Various duties pertaining to resident Maesters, Septons, etc. (These are likely to be few and far between, statistically speaking, but adventures do tend to focus on the exceptional.)
4

“So many vows… they make you swear and swear. Defend the King. Obey the King. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the Gods. Obey the laws. It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or the other.”
-Jaime Lannister, Knight of the Kingsguard

“…For love is the bane of honor, the death of duty.
…What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms, or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.
…A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.”
-Maester Aemon of the Night’s Watch

This is the closest thing I have to a well-defined mechanical change at the moment. Mouse Nature gets replaced with a set of paired, dichotomous guages: Ice and Fire.

Ice represents discipline, self-control, dispassion, callousness and deceit. Fire represents passion and drive. They never total more than 7. You spend Fate points to tap Ice, and Persona points to tap Fire.

Since you have to spend Artha to use 'em, I’m not too worried about making their uses real specific, but I’d still intend Fire to be much broader in application than Ice- the catch being that it reduces your capacity for self-control. (My initial idea would be that- in conflicts where an opponent’s terms are sympathetic to your own goals or relationships- you roll your Fire and add successes to their starting disposition.)

As rough examples from the books, Daenarys Targaryen is an example of a high-Fire character. She can accomplish a great deal when she puts her mind on it, but that drive also gets her sucked into ‘tempting’ situations. Catelyn Stark is a high-Ice character- the deliberate suppression of her grief and rage gives her enormous stamina, but also thwarts and frustrates her goals and ambitions. I think the books as a whole are about the clash between doing what is human and doing what is necessary, so that’s what I’d like to model.

As with Nature, the idea is to try and strike a balance between these extremes- enough drive to get the job done, with enough clarity to see which jobs need doing. A Brother who reached 7 in either Fire or Ice would not be considered fit to serve- they either sit things out for a while or abandon their post and desert the Watch.

Another question worth considering is how to advance Ice/Fire. As skills? By increments-on-success? There probably isn’t any Tax, so how might depletion work?

So… Any thoughts? Queries? Quibbles? Critiques? Scathing rebukes? …Rejection of fundamental premises?

5

Heya, Morgan. I’ve been lurking for a few days now, so thought I’d weigh in. I like the basis for the game, but I’ll be honest in that I’m not sure there’s enough meat for long-term play. Short-term and one-offs? Hell yeah! You could have freakin’ awesome games of those kinds, I think.

The big thing is identifying the 4 Hazards you would use in a Night’s Watch hack. Maybe Brothers, Supernatural, Cold and Wildlings? (Are they called Wildlings? It’s been too damn long since I read those books!) Actually, those aren’t too shabby, though I’m sure people could think of better. Hmmm… now that I think of it, maybe there aren’t any issues for longer-term play! :slight_smile:

The Fire/Ice concept is cool, but a member of the Night’s Watch actually has awesome freakin’ Nature descriptors already in that the nature of any member is against the purpose (in a way) of the Night’s Watch: they’re thieves, rapists, brigands, adulterers, disappointing sons, desserters, cast-off bastards, the dishonoured. Yet there they are, serving what is meant to be a very sacred and noble duty – so much so that they are released and absolved of former wrong-doings, released from formal filial bonds, and then bound by an oath to serve. It’s actually a fucking sweet situation, and the best part is you hardly have to mess with it!

As far as seasons go, perhaps keep the normal four (or three and make Winter longer, with Fall being the rest/vote/etc session instead of MG’s Winter), but when the first Winter session hits, roll and see if it becomes a true fuck-off long-ass Winter. Maybe on a 1 or 2 it’s the full-blown deal, at Nature 8 or 9 or something. Or work in Weather Watcher, perhaps.

6

:slight_smile: I hope so. Mice == Brothers, the South, Wildlings on occasion (Craster’s keep, Whitetree, et al.) Animals == Animals, really (shadowcats, direwolf packs, mammoths,) more Wildlings, Others and Wights if you go far enough north. Weather and Wilderness stay the same.

The Fire/Ice concept is cool, but a member of the Night’s Watch actually has awesome freakin’ Nature descriptors already in that the nature of any member is against the purpose (in a way) of the Night’s Watch: they’re thieves, rapists, brigands, adulterers, disappointing sons, desserters, cast-off bastards, the dishonoured. Yet there they are, serving what is meant to be a very sacred and noble duty – so much so that they are released and absolved of former wrong-doings, released from formal filial bonds, and then bound by an oath to serve. It’s actually a fucking sweet situation, and the best part is you hardly have to mess with it!

That’s not a bad notion. So, the idea would be to tie the recruit’s reason for joining into the Nature descriptor? My one quibble would be that at least a couple of Brothers genuinely join for relatively noble reasons- or perhaps that would that be reflected by a lower initial Nature?

As far as seasons go, perhaps keep the normal four (or three and make Winter longer, with Fall being the rest/vote/etc session instead of MG’s Winter), but when the first Winter session hits, roll and see if it becomes a true fuck-off long-ass Winter. Maybe on a 1 or 2 it’s the full-blown deal, at Nature 8 or 9 or something. Or work in Weather Watcher, perhaps.

Sounds good. I’m still a little leery about not factoring the differences in climate- how do you handle this sort of thing in Realm Guard, if a patrol ever wanders south toward Harad or Umbar?

One possibility I’ve considered is actually to have some sort of ‘doom counter’ similar to the Phase structure in BE (or perhaps demonic influence in DitV,) that serves as both a weather-factor and an explicit endgame mechanic, telling the Seven Kingdoms to get their act the fuck together before the predictable occurs. Winter is Coming and all that jazz.

7

Ah, interesting. See, I think Wilderness is the weak link here. Of course, in my listing, having Brothers, Wildlings and Supernatural involves a bit too much overlap, though I think Supernatural ought to be distinct from, say, Brothers (internal strife, baby!). It’s a pretty special hazard, and one that the Night’s Watch faces more than any other force/group in Westeros (arguably).

Yup. That would be addressed by the Recruitment questions re: factoring initial Nature.

I have their characters fall off the map and die horribly. I then kick the players out of my apartment and weep in the dark. :wink:

Weather is variable, based on whatever is happening in the context of the game, just as is the case with seasons within the context of the mechanics. Weather-based complications will depend on where they are and what they are attempting: Storms along the coast flood the town they’re seeking an official in (or threatening a Friend), a sudden lightning storm does damage to ice on the Wall, a blizzard from the north obliterates the tracks of the Wildlings, etc. You could have the ice lake the Brothers are walking across start to crackle and sunder. (That’d be an awesome Chase conflict.)

So I wouldn’t worry about climate so much as contextual issues specific to whatever they’re doing at that time, wherever that happens to be on the map.

Remember that weather is already on a counter of sorts: seasons change session to session, and via Weather Watcher and Weather-based twists. In terms of a more direct counter, you could certainly say something like: “Okay, after 5 Weather-based failures during either Fall or Winter, Winter really hits and will last for 5 more sessions/twists, regardless of what season ought to come next.”

8

I don’t see why Wilderness is particularly the weak link here- the terrain up north seems varied enough (mountain passes, avalanches, frozen lakes, rushing glacial meltwater, etc.) I agree that internal strife absolutely can and does happen. On the subject of the supernatural- the Others only show up in person very occasionally, but dreams and prophecies are a surprisingly important feature of the books, so perhaps those would deserve a conflict type unto themselves?

Yup. That would be addressed by the Recruitment questions re: factoring initial Nature.

Cool. I’ll have a think about that for the specifics.

Weather is variable, based on whatever is happening in the context of the game, just as is the case with seasons within the context of the mechanics. Weather-based complications will depend on where they are and what they are attempting: Storms along the coast flood the town they’re seeking an official in (or threatening a Friend), a sudden lightning storm does damage to ice on the Wall, a blizzard from the north obliterates the tracks of the Wildlings, etc. You could have the ice lake the Brothers are walking across start to crackle and sunder. (That’d be an awesome Chase conflict.)

So I wouldn’t worry about climate so much as contextual issues specific to whatever they’re doing at that time, wherever that happens to be on the map.

Sounds fair by itself, but the book does go to some lengths to list the specific types of hazard typically associated with a given season, which are also tied into the Weather Watcher mechanics (for unseasonable weather.) So, ideally, I’d like to be able to give similarly comprehensive descriptors, if only as rules-of-thumb/guidelines.

Remember that weather is already on a counter of sorts: seasons change session to session, and via Weather Watcher and Weather-based twists. In terms of a more direct counter, you could certainly say something like: “Okay, after 5 Weather-based failures during either Fall or Winter, Winter really hits and will last for 5 more sessions/twists, regardless of what season ought to come next.”

Again, while I don’t have a problem with having one season-transition mid-mission, the seasons in this setting strike me as too long for unmodified MG season-mechanics to be plausible here. I mean, under the standard rules, weather-based twists are typically associated with long-distance travel (which presumably take days or weeks, but rarely on the order of months or years.) Winter can’t go away after 5 standard twists- the scale is just wrong here.

9

Well, in any case I appreciate the feedback. I’ll see if I can formalise the recruitment process over the next few weeks.

Basic thoughts on tiers in the Natural Order:

  • Mature Dragon
  • Other, Mammoth
  • Wight, Giant, Growing Dragon
  • Direwolf, Snowbear, Lizard-Lion, Knight, Armoured Cavalry, Dothraki Bloodrider, Unsullied, Shadowcat, Sworn Brother, Wildling, Raider, Bandit, Mercenary, Child of the Forest, Hatchling Dragon, Horse
  • Eagle, Child

Having fire, dragonglass or dragonfire (!) increases your effective tier against Wights and Others, a little similar to tokens of power. Every 10X multiple in numbers typically raises effective tier by 1.

If there is a ‘doom track’ of some kind implemented, linked to the seasons, the idea would be that this limits/raises/specifies the effective level of adversity that can be brought to bear against the players. So, in spring, the worst they’ll need to deal with is tier 1/2 opponents, in summer tier 2/3, in autumn tier 3/4, and in winter tier 4+. If you’re substantially north of the Wall, those tiers go up by 1.

With regard to season descriptors… it might not be all that important. The weather north of the wall is winter-equivalent all the time, it’s just that it’s rating becomes higher as true winter approaches. If you’re going anywhere south of the wall, there are well-established roads and wayside inns, and non-winter weather won’t be a major problem unless you stray far off of the beaten track. Bandits might be a problem of course, as might an outbreak of civil war. One of the interesting aspects to this setting is that the seasons genuinely do have unpredictable durations, so the GM has some discretion there.

One other minor point of note: Wildlings could also come from south of the Wall, as clansmen from the Mountains of the Moon or as Reeds from the Neck.

I’m inclined toward setting this toward the end of Mad King Aerys’ reign, in what I presume will be early spring. Civil war is very likely to break out, and some of the major characters from the books are in play, but it gives the players a fair opportunity to change things and makes all the major houses available.

10

At any rate, since I most likely won’t be able to arrange playtesting at any point in the near future, I’m probably going to have to close up the thread around there for now.

I have a couple of decent quotes left over that I thought would be catchy as various chapter-headings, but it seems a little superfluous at this point. I guess the only other major change- as Rafe suggests- would be to replace Nature with ‘Shame’ or ‘Dishonour’, since that roughly captures what the Watch are about, emotionally. I also have some rough ideas for skills/traits particular to the great houses and their ‘demesnes’, but I’m running a little short for personality descriptors- maybe I need to review the books and take notes.

So, to everyone else, thanks for reading.