I have a situation in Mouse Guard and was wondering if any of you have any tips for making the coming part of the campaign special.
The situation is that the patrol, two player character veterans and one non player character tenderpaw, is near the scent border but a little lost (they lost a Journey Conflict but with a compromise). They’re looking for a patrol that has gone missing although they don’t like to be straight with that and usually tell civil mice that they’re just checking in on them to see if they can help. The lost patrol consists of two veterans and two guardmice and is led by Caley, brother to Cale one of the player character’s Enemy.
It’s the first time in the campaign that the’re about to cross the scent border and for the tenderpaw it’s the first really dangerous mission (and the two player characters, especially the patrol leader, is responsible for him and he’s very keen on but not very successful on tricks like feints and shortcuts and the like).
The tenderpaw likes Caley but the player character whith Cale as Enemy is abit suspicious and the other player character is cautiously neutral towards Caley. The tenderpaw has so far done very little good for the patrol and showed little talent and my thought is that he shall test the patrol leader’s Belief ‘‘There’s a place for every mouse’’. I’m also trying to give them a problem of the more educational or pedagogic kind. If the tenderpaw keeps doing miserable feints that gets the patrol in trouble can they keep doing feints themselves? If they do the tenderpaw will think it’s OK and keep doing his feints. If they don’t, to not encourage the tenderpaw, it mitght get frustrating to not be able to use one tactic.
Also the reason for the patrol gone missing might because of the player patrol. When they delivered mail to Gilpledge and other places they encountered martin who talked about his heirloom left in Walnupeck and almost convinced the characters to help him retrieve it and they left emssages to other patrols to try to help Martin if possible. Now a patrol maybe that and went missing. Maybe they instead should have told Martin that Mouse Guard don’t have the resources for these ‘‘small’’ things.
If you like to look up the two characters involved you can find them here:
http://www.illertass.se/Illeryan_-Illertass_webbplats/Webblogg/Entries/2009/10/21_Mouse_Guard%2C_character_gen…html
As well as the story so far, first session description here:
http://www.illertass.se/Illeryan-Illertass_webbplats/Webblogg/Entries/2009/10/27_Mouse_Guard%3A_Deliver_the_Mail.html
Archive with the rest here:
http://www.illertass.se/Illeryan-_Illertass_webbplats/Webblogg/Arkiv.html
It’s a little mix of swedish and english posts but all Mouse Guard posts are in english and ‘‘Gå till arkivet’’ means ‘‘go to Archive’’.
What I’m thinking about is having them sometimes to do Tests or Conflicts to avoid weasels to keep them on their toes and nervous. It worked quite well at ambush from bandits earlier to let them do a conflict to realise that unknown thing were going on. It made them nervous and very curious. The unknown things were the preperations of the ambush when they were going to sleep. Something like Test/Conflicts to avoid the weasel patrols or something unspecific like that so that they don’t really know if the weasels are patrol one and one, in pair (would make sense) or maybe even in bigger patrols or how often they patrol, if they patrol (probably they do).
I was also thinking about letting the scent border have a lesser effect on mice too since they’re after all mammals too. Not that it would be hard cross the scent border but maybe it gives mice an uneasy feeling, especially the tenderpaw who never have done it before (the two player characters did a lot of missions in The Winter War and then passed the old border at least a few times.
What I’m thinking about is having them sometimes to do Tests or Conflicts to avoid weasels to keep them on their toes an
d nervous. It worked quite well at ambush from bandits earlier to let them do a conflict to realise that unknown thing w
ere going on. It made them nervous and very curious. The unknown things were the preperations of the ambush when they we
re going to sleep. Something like Test/Conflicts to avoid the weasel patrols or something unspecific like that so that they don’t really know if the weasels are patrol one and one, in pair (would make sense) or maybe even in bigger patrols
or how often they patrol, if they patrol (probably they do).
I was also thinking about letting the scent border have a lesser effect on mice too since they’re after all mammals too.
Not that it would be hard cross the scent border but maybe it gives mice an uneasy feeling, especially the tenderpaw wh
o never have done it before (the two player characters did a lot of missions in The Winter War and then passed the old b
order at least a few times.
My paln so far is that the patrol met Martin was convinced while they were drinking ale at the inn in Gilpledge, maybe an ale or two too much, and went with him to retrieve the heirloom, a little with the attitude ‘‘How hard can it be?’’. The y got caught by the weasels and if the weasels discovers the player patrol they will try to lure them into a trap with one or two of the lost aptrol mice as beit. I haven’t decided if the weasels should have eaten some of the mice, that could probably make things a little more tense (the tenderpaw also have the Belief that The Guard can solve all of the problems of mice, that Belief could get a little tested that way and make some drama?). Should I maybe let half of the weasel patrol be on their way home with at least one mouse and let the player patrol decide if they want to follow them to rescue the rather valuable patrol mouse but at the same time risk three patrol mice. Maybe a little journey down into some border tunnel of Dark Heather?
What do you think?