Hi all,
We have recently started our first Mouse Guard campaign. The players have chosen from the template mice. I, the GM, decided to run “Deliver the mail” as the start up mission. The result of that mission was that the mice were trapped in the basement of a house in Walnutpeck(?) filled with weasels, where the wheelchair of Martin was found.
The previous mission the group consisted of Sadie and Lieam. Sloan was introduced in this mission. He was told that he had lost his patrol (Thom and co) in a blizzard and all of a sudden he was captured and kidnapped by the weasels. They accused him of espionage. The second mission to the players was to “Return Martin and his wheelchair to his hometown”. The goal (as I now recall them from my memory) of the players were:
Goals
Lieam - “Make sure Martin and the wheelchair is safely returned.”
Sadie - “Establish myself as the leader of this patrol.”
Sloan - “Revenge the weasels and steal something from them.”
I started of the second mission with these obstacles:
Animals:
In the intro, just after the goals were set, Sadie and Lieam are captured by the weasels and to their surprise they find another mouse captured as well, Sloan. They find themselves tied together with rope in the old tavern of Walnutpeck, where the weasels have made themselves comfortable. A group of more than 30 weasels are gathered in the room and they seem to be arguing about what they are supposed to do with the mice. Weasel captain Smyth is having a speech, where he is trying to convince the rest of the weasel community to torture the mice to reveal their secrets. The mice group sees a chance to influence their destiny and they start to argue with Smyth. Speech conflict: Smyth’s goal is “Convince the weasel community to torture the mice to reveal their secrets”. The patrol’s goal is “Release us and let us leave unhindered.” The mice won the conflict and they were released. As a compromise I added the weasel captain as an enemy.
Mice:
On their way back to the territories they find Sham the trader, an old enemy of Sadie, trapped with his wagon in the spring snow. Sham wants some help to repair his wagon, but the group is suspicious and doesn’t want to (despite Lieam’s instinct to always offer help to those in need). Sadie, with the instinct “Never delay when on a mission” is arguing to leave Sham to his destiny. When the group realize that Sham is outside the territories they start to question his intentions. He seems to be a bit nervous and after a few answers that are unsatisfactory he all of a sudden decides to flee! The patrol is surprised to why he would do that and start to suspect that there is something fishy with Sham. They hunt him down (health vs. health) and finds that he has the recipe of the scent to the scent border. Sham confesses that he intended to sell it to weasels to make a fortune. However they can’t reveal who gave the recipe to him.
Weather:
Spring snow (possible twist). Was invoked when the players was hunting down Sham and failed the health check. They got him in the snow storm, but Sadie was sick in the end of the mission.
Wilderness:
Water in some form. I can’t recall now, since it wasn’t used.
I was pretty pleased with the gaming session, even though the rules still feel hard to implement for us. We all come from the old RPG traditions, such as D&D and White wolf.
One of the players and I was talking after the session about setting goals in conflicts. We both agreed that it felt a bit too easy to escape the weasels. The disposition of the weasel captain was reduced to zero in two actions. Furthermore, we asked ourselves whether the rules forbid the players to set the goal “We will be kings of the weasels” in the speech conflict. My players are mature ones so no one did, but we were a bit confused about the goal setting in the conflict. Any comments?
All input and comments are welcome! Are the goals my players set good goals? Were the obstacles I created plausible? Did I do the right thing when I let it start snowing in the middle of the Mice obstacle, i.e., is it according to the rules to invoke a twist during the ongoing obstacle?
My plan is to introduce a plot in Sprucetuck, where a group of mice deliberately spread the recipe of the scent to weaken the position of Sprucetuck among the territory cities. All input and suggestions are welcome among those lines as well.
I hope you can stand my english.
Sincerely yours,
Erik