this took place during the GM’s turn. The patrtol had just received the mission for the sample Trouble in Grasslake. I had described their rush to grasslake where they saw the turtle wedged between the brewery and bakery. I told them the mayor approached to report that already a few mice had been mortally wounded trying to fight the beast; he discouraged them from open combat.
The patrol leader has Loremouse 2, but didn’t quite understand what Loremouse was useful for. I pulled out the skill in the skills chapter and described the two major uses for it. I reminded him that Nature (Mouse) includes escaping, hiding, foraging, climbing; however, Nature (Turtle) may include different actions. I told him it may be good to learn what the nature of the turtle might be in order to make decisions about how to face it effectively. So, after reading we both saw that he was faced with a Loremouse 2 vs Nature (Turtle) 8. He simply declined and stated, “There’s no way I could muster those dice to a success, and it’s probably not well worth it.”
I figured that the risk of failure should be for those things that really matter to the mice. To him, risking failure trying to recall the nature of turtles wasn’t worthwhile. In my understanding, it would be cruel to force him to fail at a task he didn’t want to engage in.
After he declined, we continued. The patrol talked together about how they might face the problem. Each time one of the patrol voiced another machination of hwo to deal with a turtle, I added some description of the turtle damaging something else (typically the brewery or bakery). As they realized their arguing was costing time, the patrol leader ordered everyone to stop discussing and get behind an idea. A patrol guard had a suggestion to build a large wheeled truck which they could get the turtle onto in order to roll it out of town while the patrol leader was more set on brewing some sort of intoxicating poison. The patrol guard wanted to convince the patrol leader his idea was best; the patrol leader used a trait aginst himself to break the tie in the guard’s favor.
The patrol guard got Lester and the mayor on their side to ask the town to gather the needed supplies; he asked the patrol leader to take a few patrol mates in an effort to snuff out the bakery oven. I’d made it fairly clear the turtle was enjoying the warmth of the bakery even though they didn’t know much about turtles. The patrol leader took two mice an began an animal fight conflict as the patrol guard and another guardmouse initiated a speech conflict to rally the people to their call; the mayor and Lester helped in this cause.
I played out the speech first against a disposition 8 crowd. No one openly disagreed, but there were two reasons I formed a resistant crowd–we were learning about using conflicts in play and I wanted the dice to help determine how effect their speech turned out. It went well and they had lots of helpers for their resources test to gather the needs of building a rolling barge.
Next, I played out the fight with the animal. I distinctly told them that while the turtle did not have a goal of killing the mice, it is a foe of such danger that injury and death could be the result of severe failure. The turtle’s goal was, “I will hold off these mice and protect my nesting location from their intrusion,” as the mice set a goal, “We will safely bypass the turtle to snuff out the baker’s oven and get free alive.” The turle began with dispo 12 and the patrol mates with dispo 11. The fight resulted in turtle 8 and mice 0. They did receive a compromise, but not much. Of the three mice, one was badly injured, all three were tired, and the patrol leader was angry that this plan had gone so poorly. They asked for a compromise in which they learned a valuable secret about the turtle.
I gave them their conditions and told them that the tenderpaw of their group had taken full notice of the nest and eggs–he knew that the turtle was defending a nest. I also gave them the knowledge that the bakery oven would burn out in due time, but they had not been close enough to douse the fire.
After the setback, the supplies were coming in from the patrol guard and townies helping. The patrol leader had no interest in making another face to face attempt at the turtle. Miss Flower became smitten with the injured mouse and invited the patrol to her home for food and rest. But, the patrol didn’t feel they had finished things right. The patrol guard wanted to make a new speech to encourage them to evacuate from the town until the turtle left.
In this I did bring a merchant to argue against them and formed an arguement conflict which the town could listen in on. Although the merchant didn’t really have great skills for it, he won over the patrol and discouraged residents from leaving. The patrol guard was angry; he was also tired from gathering all the supplies.
The supply pile was left in the town center and the brewery and bakery were left to their fate. The patrol went with Miss Flower for food and rest, feeling defeated, insulted, and disgraced.
Miss Flower got the injured mouse interested in marriage and really set it in with a persuader 3 vs will 2. It came to 3 successes against snake eyes; everyone had a great laugh.
Then I turned it over to the player’s turn. Only the patrol leader and patrol guard had gained checks. The patrol guard attempted to recover from anger, but failed (tired being covered by Miss Flower providing a place to rest). He then took aside the injured mouse and tried to talk him out of getting tied down while he was still so young in the guard. He pulled a persuader 4 vs will 2 and strongly won over the mouse. No one went on to speak with Miss Flower about it, so I used her in a future complication. In fact, the mouse and Miss Flower are set to marry during the first thaw of spring; her father and she came to Lockhaven during the winter. The two mice spent time getting to know each other better and he reversed again in the decision to marry her. Gwendolyn even encouraged him to marry and start a family while young.
Others tried to recover. The patrol leader had checks and decided he would try to brew a concoction on his own using his checks, but didn’t have a check left over to initiate a conflict that might result in using the concoction against the turtle.
and that’s everything from that session.