Playing against Beliefs

[Odie]

@Thor

Sorry for the terminology confusion. Artha is the blanket term for Rewards in Burning Wheel, and Moldbreaker is the name of the Playing Against a Belief reward. Those of us who play a lot of Burning Wheel have a bad habit of using that terminology even when we’re talking about Mose Guard.

Those of us who play a lot of Burning Wheel also have a bad habit of using examples from Burning Wheel when talking about Mouse Guard, too. (Sorry, Fuseboy!)

@punkbohemian

Thanks for the elaboration (and the welcome). I think I’m starting to get it. For the record, in any (good) d20 games I’ve played, character was actually important…not necessarily as a function of the system, but the GM expected it in gameplay.

I think that’s the difference you’re adjusting to: in Mouse Guard, character is also very important as a function of the (rewards) system. It’s interesting to me to ponder the differences between the way Mouse Guard represents “character” mechanically, and the way other RPGs do. Many other systems rate “character” qualities mechanically, from Pendragon Virtues to systems like Wraith’s Passions (“protect my children 4”) or PDQ (“Protective Father +2”). Mouse Guard treats them less quantitatively. In other games, the core of your character is represented by some kind of stat. In Mouse Guard, your character’s abilities are rated, but the core of your character isn’t; instead, we have the Belief and Instinct which tell us what lies at your mouse’s heart without numerical trappings. Your character grows and changes according to the situation, as in other games, but rather than a mechanical adjustment, instead you earn artha. It’s an indirect relationship to the mechanics, rather than a direct one.

I don’t necessarily have anywhere I’m going with this, but I’ve always found it interesting and thought you might too.

-B

[Steerpike]

@Odie

I think that’s the difference you’re adjusting to: in Mouse Guard, character is also very important as a function of the (rewards) system. It’s interesting to me to ponder the differences between the way Mouse Guard represents “character” mechanically, and the way other RPGs do. Many other systems rate “character” qualities mechanically, from Pendragon Virtues to systems like Wraith’s Passions (“protect my children 4”) or PDQ (“Protective Father +2”). Mouse Guard treats them less quantitatively. In other games, the core of your character is represented by some kind of stat. In Mouse Guard, your character’s abilities are rated, but the core of your character isn’t; instead, we have the Belief and Instinct which tell us what lies at your mouse’s heart without numerical trappings. Your character grows and changes according to the situation, as in other games, but rather than a mechanical adjustment, instead you earn artha. It’s an indirect relationship to the mechanics, rather than a direct one.

I don’t necessarily have anywhere I’m going with this, but I’ve always found it interesting and thought you might too.

-B

Odie, I am not the OP but I found that really neat and hadn’t really thought about it that way. Thanks for the food for thought!

• Colin

[doycet]

@punkbohemian

So, basically, it’s not just breaking a Belief, but breaking a Belief for the sake of the Guard/mission/goal.

No.

The reward your referring to is about acting in a way that is (a) contrary to your belief and (b) good story. Whether the action is for the sake of the guard, or the mission, or the goal doesn’t come into it simply because your belief might not have anything at all to do with any of those things. (PROBABLY does, yes, but might not.)

More importantly, Moldbreaker is a reward to the player (meta-level points) not the character (some kind of in-game reward): hell, in most cases, doing something Moldbreaker will probably net the character grief, not reward.

It comes down to whether the moldbreaking was a good and interesting thing to have happened – at a meta- or story-level.

The whole paladin-alignment thing is a misleading comparison or example, because a paladin adhering to their alignment is an in-game thing, and this isn’t about that kind of stuff.

Hmm… this is more difficult to explain than I’d anticipated.

Okay, let’s take this COMPLETELY outside roleplaying for a second.

Let’s talk Television Procedural Cop Drama.

In a show like that, we’ve got cop characters – the protagonists. Within the setting, they are obliged to obey the rules of being Good Cops. That’s their “paladin alignment restriction”, okay?

But the actor’s and writer’s duty to the Show is (obviously) bigger than just “be a cop and obey the rules” – their (entirely meta) duty is to be cool and interesting and nuanced characters that people want to know more about.

To help facilitate that, they all have these Beliefs that they’re built around.

And every so often, the character does something that REALLY goes against something we know they believe – usually either because they’ve become compromised in some way or (more often) because they believe something else MORE.

In television, these events within the story are rewarded by increased popularity of the show and of the character. Even though (again, at a meta level) what they did may not be “what a cop should do” (and the character will probably suffer for it), it’s TOTALLY their duty to the Show to do exactly what they just did.

That’s Moldbreaker – rewarding the player for fulfilling their duty (to the game) to do interesting and compelling stuff.

[punkbohemian]

I don’t necessarily have anywhere I’m going with this, but I’ve always found it interesting and thought you might too.

(I’m the OP)
I did find that to be really interesting. One of the things that drew me to the system is that to utilize it, it has these properties that munchkins can’t really touch.