I’m running a mouseguard game this evening (about 6 or 7 hours away). It’s our first session with our own characters, 3rd not including recruitment.
Our last two sessions have been recruitment, Here are the characters BIGs:
J as Brand:
Brand’s Joined the guard for glory and honour. His TenderPaw seasons had him fighting with mice of an Owl Death cult. He hates mouse vs mouse.
Belief: My duty is to serve the guard, the guards duty is to protect the mice
Goal: I will recover the missing honey
Instinct: always help a mouse in need
C as Jet
Jet is a bit of a loner, he distrusts others, politicians in particular and traitors mice.
Belief: A mouse should stand on its own two paws
Goal: I will find the truth behind this mission/traitor
Instinct: Never trust a claim without proof
The following is based on the discussion we had in recruitment:
New Guard-Mice Brand and Jet returned to lockhaven after their first year of patrols to hunker down through the bad weather as the mice do. Winter is drawing to an end as its discovered that a couple of barrels of honey have gone missing, that were accounted for at the beginning of winter. Also missing is a guardmouse. The mice are brought to Gwendolyns chambers and told that they are to leave as soon as possible to track down this miscreant and bring him back to Lockhaven for trial. Unfortunately a heavy a heavy dump of crunchy spring snow has just fallen delaying their departure.
First obstacle: Weather
Spring thaw is happening fast of the latest dump of snow, flooding streams. The mice need to ford one such stream on the outskirts of lockhaven when they hear the cries of a young girl mouse; they see her clinging to a rock in the middle of the torent. This will probably be a conflict. It hits brands belief and instinct and (against) Jet’s belief
Second obstacle: Mice
The find the miscreant, he is tied up, beaten and starved in a back room. He urgently needs medical care; His partners in crime have robbed him of his share of the spoils. A couple of tests possibly involving a negotiation conflict.
Sounds like fun! Only thing I would add is Gwendolyn having some kind of evidence (or the guardmice patrol needing to find it) indicating where they are to go. “Go find them” can be a bit tough. Perhaps a subtle lead such as “the guardmouse gone missing was good friends with Trent, an apiarist…”
They go find Trent, see what he thinks. Hell, if one of the players has a Friend in Lockhaven, there you go: That’s who they go see. Or a Mentor. If you want to lead off the hazards with a “mice” hazard, he could be an Enemy, or someone who collaborated with the miscreant.
Regardless, I think they need an initial direction to head in.
For the second hazard (the miscreant), where is he? What back room? How could the players get there? Mouse Guard isn’t a game of hand-holding, but the mission itself in the GM’s Turn needs to be relatively straight-forward in terms of steps.
That’s my opinion, anyway. There are far more experienced Mouse Guarders out there.
I really like the first obstacle, especially because of how it makes the two beliefs conflict. It doesn’t sound like it needs to be a conflict thought. I would say that either a Heath test to get through the storm, or possibly a pathfinder test to navigate a safe path to her should do the trick.
As a fun twist, if they fail, the entire time they tried to get to her they heard her cries but they were muffled by storm. When they get to her, they see she’s not clinging to a rock as much as she is trying to move it. Her little brother is trapped beneath it and she’s trying to save him. This should really make Jet feel like a heel if he was bickering about helping her in the first place.
Alternately she could be trying to make her way to some animal’s den that snatched her baby and got caught in the storm, so you’d have an animal twist instead of a wilderness twist. Either way, I think the important thing is to show that she wasn’t helpless but was trying to do help someone else.
Hi Sean, thanks for the reply i wish i hadn’t run the game already, this is excellent material! Anyway, thanks for the food for thought, it is appreciated.
There are far more experienced Mouse Guarders out there.