Don’t know if what is implied in that heading bodes well for me.
I had a few questions about wises:
- If wises simply add a die to an applicable skill roll why do they have levels?
- When used to help, they just add a single die, correct?
Thanks!
- Does Wises on page 255 help?
- Yes. How can I help? Page 93.
Wises can feel unimportant since their rank often remains 2 or 3. However, there may come times that a player wants to use awise to establish facts about the world using their wise as the test. Wises ranked at 2 are barely scratching the surface of knowledge. Having a wise more developed gives more strength to a player who wants more voice in the setting.
Imagine a 4 Mouse Guard-wise. They could be testing each session with a check in order to establish facts about the organization, duties, jurisdiction, and precedence of Guard activities and reputation. That could be very important if they want to set a tone for the campaign.
On the other hand, similar to Persuader, Deceiver, and Orator, when less developed it causes the use to be more tied to twists and compromise between player and GM. It means that attempts to establish evidence might be clouded with mixed information and alternate perspectives. This can make the wise of one mouse far more opinionated than factual. It creates a greater reliance on first-hand experience than accumulated historical logs.
Imagine a 2 Fox-wise for a player who wants to very accurately describe the terrain of a fox’s den. The limited rank indicates they may have heard once about such a place, but never been there, and, even if they have been there, the den of one fox is hardly the standard for every other fox. That could be very important to ensure a trap well-set in one fox’s den does not anticipate an automatic success in another fox’s den (since the two are different from one another).
So they work like Declarations from Fate then. I assume that you set an Ob for them given that you mention that wises are not very helpful when starting at 2 or 3?
Interesting that I missed that. Thank you all for your help! Want to get my ducks (mice) in a row before my first game on October 5th. It’s a one shot so most of this won’t really factor in but I want to know the ins and outs before I sit down.
I believe you’ll even find a list of factors for setting obstacles when testing wises on page 255.
Thank you all very much! I am looking forward to playing soon! I seem to know the front half of the book much better than the latter half. I will need to read up on all this again!