Comments on: Nico's Lego RPG: Assault on the Crystal King's Cave, Part 1

By: Monele

Monele — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:51:02 +0000

@ChattyDM and Michael: thanks to both of you! I somewhat remember Mouse Guard being based on Burning Wheel but I had no idea BW itself was based on Fudge. Interesting! I’ll have to look up some more information on these then.
.-= Monele´s last blog ..RP with Parents – UP =-.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:20:56 +0000

@Noumenon: Role playing is a child’s natural way of playing games. It’s just the “sharing” part of narrative control some have trouble with. It’s great to see you play that little adventure with a 3 year old.

@Michael: Thanks for the historical perspective. I’ve never looked at Fudge.

@Anarkeith: The DMG2 has many elements to bring the crustier D&D player into narrative sharing mode and all those new agey stuff. It’s worth a look in parallel to mining other games for ideas.

By: Anarkeith

Anarkeith — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:35:19 +0000

Great post, Phil. Playing with kids was the key to re-energizing my interest in D&D a few years back. The narrative sharing elements of Mouseguard and the willingness to participate in narrative sharing (which kids do naturally) are things I’m trying to bring into the other games I’m running. Lots of good fuel for the creative fires in this concept, for players and GMs!

By: Michael Phillips

Michael Phillips — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:00:40 +0000

Monele Mouseguard is based on Burning Wheel which is based on Fudge so it has two generations of generic rules systems behind it. The best parts of mouse guard, adventure design, scene work, how to control pacing, DM and PC narrative control turns are all very easy to pull out and use in another game system. If you aren't afraid of having non-matching systems in your game, it might be worth stealing the whole social combat system for your other rpgs. (In burning wheel, the assumption is that when social combat is over, if the participants can't agree on the results, then it goes to physical combat, which will work with whatever rule set you want. You do need to have some personality traits assigned by the players for social combat in the system. .-= Michael Phillips´s last blog ..Sanctuary’s Dragon Slayers =-.

By: Noumenon

Noumenon — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 23:18:28 +0000

I actually tried a little roleplaying with my three-year-old nephew the other day. When he decided he was a crab and I was his shell, I told him Ottie the Sea Otter came by. He pinched him. So I used the “factions” concept from DMing and had the starfish come by and say “Thank you for keeping Ottie from picking us up” — then they came inside his shell, hung out and got their arms bitten off by sharks so the crab had something to pinch. He’s not old enough for rock paper scissors though so it’s a mix of DM fiat and 3-year-old fiat (“Now a good shark comes by!”) Good fun.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:40:01 +0000

@Monele: Mouse Guard is based on the more complex Burning Wheel Role Playing game, so it’s not based on some Generic engine. But the concept of adding twist to failures is rather easy to adopt as a playing style.

@Andy: Nico’s addition is what makes those games so cool and worth it. I plan to release a ‘RP’ with kids e-book at a certain point in time. I’ll keep everyone posted.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:45:07 +0000

That sounds very fun! I love the part when Nico injects his own compromise into the game (Little Crys gets crushed, but the Crystal King is making another one, who will be back to terrorize everyone). Sounds like he’s really warming up to this roleplaying thing.

You might eventually want to look into typing some of this up into an “RPG Jr.” sort of system, release it via PDF, that sort of thing.
.-= Andy´s last blog ..Breakin’ Down the Christmas Tree, Part 2 =-.

By: Monele

Monele — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 21:13:19 +0000

Very cool! The narrative system sounds very interesting. Is Mouseguard based on a generic system or could it at least be adapted?
.-= Monele´s last blog ..RP with Parents – UP =-.

By: ChattyDM

ChattyDM — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:31:35 +0000

Thanks Trabant. I keep realizing that Nico appreciates the uncertainty of where the story will go (provided he has the best chances of winning) more than any rules or mechanics.

In part 2, you’ll see Nico bring in more complexity to the system by himself.

By: Trabant

Trabant — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:14:14 +0000

I have no words for how much I like your “mouseguard/rock-paper-scissors” system and game reports. It’s so absurdly oversimplified, it might just work.