Rafe don’t read this 
I am having a bit of difficulty in designing missions. At the moment I seem to be moving in a direction where a situation is developing around Port Sumac. All the mission ideas I keep coming up with seem to basically just involve Mouse encounters, how you you include other aspects of the Mission creation process in this?
Cheers,
Dan.
Here’s a possibility:
– “force” the players to use their player checks to accomplish the mission. That way, they face the “mouse obstacles” during the Player’s Turn.
– During your GM turn, you use one Mouse obstacle to help push the mission “the intended way”. And you have one non-Mouse obstacle that is kinda non-mission oriented. Like … “oh, a raven happens by” or “oh, it happens to be raining really hard” or “oh, the mouse you’re looking for happens to be out of town, so now you gotta go outside”
Town based obstacles… hmm…
Weather: cold, heat, rain, snow. Knock off a die or two for rain, snow, or cold, as shelter is readily available, but still…
Wilderness: Well, treat the urban jungle as a kind of wilderness. Pathfinding and City-Wise to get places in a timely manner; having to force doors or otherwise intrude could justify an intrusion skill, or laborer.
Animals: bugs, birds, worms… just becuase it’s a city doesn’t mean animals can’t happen. Heck, rabbits may be in town and simply need help, or volls, or shrews…
I always liked putting the lights out in a town and setting some squirrels loose to steal all the baby mice.
Blasted evil squirrels!
Yeah, like Stormtower writes, take 'em outside and onto the high seas. Use the fact that Sumac is a port to spin off all manner of nautical missions with a variety of obstacles.
Forex, the weather watchers sniff the mother of all storms brewing. Mice huddle in their homes as winds tear slates off houses and rain batters against flimsy doors. A cry goes out! The “Crane”, that sweet sailing ship captained by the legendary Dro, which was due in with stores for the winter, has crashed against the reef. The Guard must venture forth into a veritable hurricane (Weather Obstacle) and mount a rescue of mice and vital supplies.
Twists? Cue the music from Jaws as a vicious Pike circles beneath the waves before launching a furious attack (Animal Obstacle); or cue the music from the Poseidon Adventure as the ship sinks into the murky deep with the Guard and some terrified sailors and passengers still onboard (Wilderness); or the Guard swim out to the ship, only to find that Captain Dro is quite mad and has lashed himself to the mizzenmast and is determined to “go down with the Crane!” (Mice Obstacle); or the ship is merely the shell of the “Crane”, it having been attacked by salt-encrusted sea spiders who have laid their eggs in the bellies of the few surviving sailor mice who then a daze have sailed her home using sails spun from spider silk (another Mice Obstacle twisting to an Animal Obstacle).
Pirates too. Slavery. Shipwrecked on a desert island. Whaling! Ok, maybe not whaling… sardine-ing, Moby Dick-style. Plenty of varied obstacle types there I should think.
Love the ‘Twists?’ you came up with there Indy Pete. You have a very twisted (pun) imagination, especially in connection with -
“…it having been attacked by salt-encrusted sea spiders who have laid their eggs in the bellies of the few surviving sailor mice who then in a daze have sailed her home using sails spun from spider silk”.
Very good, and possibly very, very wrong.
You know, I think I might use that!