Played mouseguard for first time today,its great fun and i really like the game mechanics. I was pleased how my players really got into the spirit of the game so quickly too.
My question is about gear, Can only carry so much (page 35). One of my players asked what he can carry and when i told him “its limited by space on the sheet” he just answered “all i do is write smaller then?”. They only have about three items a piece atm and the comment was meant slightly jokingly but i have trawled through the book looking on clarification because i thought i read something about item limits one time. i did not find it. Can anyone advise or point me in the right direction?
The rule is as it says - if you write neatly and in a tiny, crabbed hand, you can pack more in. You’re just that retentive a mouse.
Personally, I would rule that if you need a magnifying glass, microdot reader, or a scanning electron microscope to see what’s in your pack, you’re missing the point a little.
i understand the incentive to game the system and write smaller or cram words together, but I didn’t bother writing anything about not doing that because I knew Mouse Guard players are cooler than that.
I heard a rumour that in the upcoming box set your mouse can instead carry anything that you can draw onto a sample mouse portrait. Maybe you could print off one of those mice portraits from the wiki.
Even if it’s not true about the boxed set rumor. I feel like Glug’s comment about the character portrait may be on to something. Especially since this question seems to come up a lot.
Sween my advice is to grab the mouse portrait from the Recruitment thread (it’s stickied) that David drew and hand one to each of your players. Tell them to flesh out their character with fur colors, cloaks, scars, gear, weapons and any general “fluff.” After all is said and done, then lay out your character pictures and compare. I think this will go a long way towards answering your query. And will also stop the “un-cool” actions of certain players who want to try and coax the rules towards their advantage.
GM - “What is that your mouse is carrying?”
PC - “It’s a solid oak ballista! Complete with 10 iron spears and a quiver my mouses mentor gave to him.”
GM - “You can’t carry that.”
PC - “Why not? It fit on my character sheet!”
I understand, good answers, i’ll definately get the mouse portrait too. our group is a good bunch generally. throwing common sense at this i dont see any probs.
the patrol leader drew a character cameo of his mouse complete with eye patch (i awarded a fate point at the end of the session i was so impressed!) so he can be group artist
i dont know if this should be it’s own topic, but am i the only one who cant go to the mice portraits? when i click it it says “Apologies, but the page you requested could not be found” at mouseguard.net anyone else?
When they ask about lots of thing to take with them, I simply tell my players: “You are a tiny mouse. Yes you all are brave and able to do things others can’t but it doesn’t change the fact that you are small. You are patrolling around as a group, my suggestion is to discuss what you need and split the burden. If you overpack, how can you react fast when there is a dangerous situation?”
After this explanation they generally don’t argue.
