I’m going to run a mouse guard demo next month at a local con, and I’m looking for suggestion on what kind of mission should I use.
I’d like to use the comic’s protagonists as the PCs (kenzie, saxon, lieam, sadie and possibly celanawe), but I’d prefer not to run the “find the grain peddler” one.
Mostly because I’ve already run it a couple of time so I’d like to try something new, but also because I’d prefer to stay away from the stories in the comics (in the event that someone read them).
So what would you do? Run the grain peddler? Another mission from the book? Write a new one?
I’d try writing a new one. You’ve already got the sample characters toward which you can tailor the mission, and you can add in little details like making the in-game season match the real-world season. (I like to kick off campaigns this way.)
In the end I’ve decided to keep the grain peddler team of PCs, use the comic as inspiration but focus on Sadie’s trip to Calogero instead. So, the mission will be finding out why the communications from Calogero stopped, I’ll have to change Kenzie’s goal but the other characters will remain the same.
For the obstacles, I’ve thought wilderness (navigating the coast to reach Calogero), and mice (convincing Conrad theat they’re not traitors, or maybe healing him to make him speak and tell them what happened). For twists: one will obviously animals (evil crabs! :-)), the other probably weather…
The demo was a blast!
5 players (4 guys and 1 girl, who played Sadie), 2 of them never roleplayed before. Nobody knew the comic, so I decided to drop the mission I prepared and run the grain peddler. The fifth player joined us right after the party defeated the snake (luckily I had a copy of nathanial’s sheet, just in case!). This meant that he had just the standard single check to act in the players’ turn, but that wasn’t really a problem
Actually, we were having so much fun that I got carried away by the players’ celebration for the defeat of the snake that I forgot to ask for a compromise… ^_^’ At the end of the mission the players demandedto start immediately another one, so we picked up where we left and played a second mission where they kicked Midnight’s a**
So, everything went very well, and I’ll probably run another game in the near future with some other guys who couldn’t play at the convention
