I’m fairly new to the MGrpg, I’ve had it for a while, but never got around to playing it. One of the little things that’s held me back is having to take the very abstracted combat and translate it into something that makes sense. For example, if the mice are in the middle of a Journey conflict and the GM plays a Feint, how would you describe that?
If the GM played an attack, it could be the sweltering summer heat. I could imagine defend being a sort of impediment like a gully or river or maybe something unexpected like a huge fallen tree in the path (in case the mice have a map that would warn of an upcoming stream). But what about the rest of the options? Maneuver and Feint? What about for the other conflicts? How do you describe those same actions from the guard’s point of view? Playing Feint in a Journey conflict?
Just looking to get a sort of brain storm of possibilities from other players.
I always start with Disposition and conflict goal: what are they?
In a Journey conflict, the opposition’s Disposition is a marker of the progress you make during the journey. Your Disposition is a marker of the speed with which you make it; losing Disposition represents a delay. Now that we have those, it’s easier to figure out what moves mean.
Then, I go to the actions and what they do. A Feint is a surprise attack that forges ahead and destroys Defense but is run over by Offense. A Feint by the guardmice sounds to me like a quick and sudden forced march to cover lots of ground in a short time, with no regard to the weather or potential perils (normally, in an Attack, you’d move carefully to avoid bad weather or obstacles). It scraps right past Defend, as the journeyers are already booking it with a tremendous pace, but it fails against an Attack, because they try marching straight into trouble.
Meanwhile, on the other side, a Feint might be something that disrupts the mouse camp. But if they Attack…too bad! They’re already on the march, leaving trouble behind them!
It’s all about context, really. Look at the current situation, and figure out what the moves mean in that context. This applies to all conflicts, even armed combat!
That does make more sense from a different perspective. Maybe it’s just a hangup I have with terminology and wording for a lot of MG’s mechanics. Thank you, CarpeGuitarrem
Oh, it requires a bit of stretchy-mindedness, but once you get in the habit of thinking in creative ways about it, there’s cool flexibility around it all. I’d look to the Disposition, then the skills you’re rolling.
