Mouse Guard Chronicles, Session 2, Players’ Turn: The Spurce Connection

You can see this session’s GM’s turn here.

Player’s Turn Summary

The successful but banged-up patrol hobbled back to Lockhaven to recuperate from their injuries under the ministrations of the Guard’s healers.  On their way, they stumbled upon 2 surviving Scent thugs caught in the Flashflood and Jasper ran to their help, rescuing  Garrow the Merchant and the huge Thug otherwise known as The Big Cheese.

Once in Lockhaven, Edgar delivered a report to one of his guard captain uncles and asked about his enemy’s recurring involvement with Scent smuggling.  Finn tapped into many of his war buddies, now turned Inn keepers to try to find a contact involved in storage and transport of Scent and he found one in Sprucetuck.

Malcolm also tapped into his contacts to to find his old friend the Tavernkeeper, known for his many shady dealing.  As luck would have it, that contact was last seen in Sprucetuck too.

And so was Edgar’s enemy…

Table Chatter and GMing highlights

Retcon for great justice!

As we set up and started to roll for condition recoveries in the player’s turn, I realized that there were restrictions about the order of conditions a PC could recover from. Thus, a mice must recover from Hunger/Thirst before Anger before Tired and so on for Injury and Sickness.  So a player can’t decide to keep the less problematic Anger to focus on healing an injury.

That meant that all my players had to spend 2 checks each to attempt to recover from their more serious conditions and success was NOT guaranteed.  I could see that some of them wanted to take the story in new directions and were disappointed with that state of event.

So I invoked rule 1 of RPGs (fun over rules) and retconned my earlier call, making Edgar/Finn Injured and Malcolm/Jasper Angry. I dropped the second imposed condition and the group’s mood instantly bounced back! (I even got some positive feedback for that call the next day over IM).

Yay!

Northland thawing

You might recall I mentioned that Maze froze up a few times during the GM’s turn.  Well he thawed up nicely during the player’s turn where he set up a great scene and got to rescue 2 of the NPCs who bullied them to spew out the positions of other guard patrols during the GM’s turn. This, along with a discussion I had with blogger Sarah Darkmagic about agile and comfortable DMs who freeze up when they become players gave me an insight.

In the Players’ turn, the only problems to resolve are mostly created by the players, who likely have the solution worked out,  much like if the player was his own GM.  I’m beginning to suspect that what really breaks minds in Mouse Guard is that constant dichotomy between being a classic player (choose a skill, roll for success) and being co-GM (describe the scene, including the elements needed to make the skill you use make sense) at the same time.

I’ll be watching Maze’s journey as it unfolds over the next few session. He’ll likely post his thoughts on his blog as well.

When the GM gets Fiasco-ed.

As the turn unfolded and players told me about the scenes they were setting up, it became evident that they were pushing to send the game toward a new plot.  Alex sought his friend out, an old tavern keeper with the same criminal background as his.  He tried to locate him on the map of the territories and I asked for a Circles test to allow Alex to set where he was. I also explained the Enmity Clause of circle tests where a failed test allows the GM to create a new enemy instead!

Yan: Really? Oh man I wanna roll a Circles test too!

Malcolm located his friend and placed him in Sprucetuck, home of Scent manufacturing.  We had a potential ex-con in the city laying the first brick of my players’ fiendish plans.

PM played out a scene in Lockhaven where Edgar informed his uncle about the Scent dealings (thus accomplishing his goal).  He then totally pulled an awesome, plot-defining quote on us that blew my brains out:

Edgar: Uncle, have you had news of that weather watcher scum (Edgar’s enemy) we’ve been chasing for so long?  I think he’s once more involved with Scent smuggling!

Priceless!

When PM tried to place his enemy in Spructuck, I decided to gently stop him, judging he’d held to the narrative long enough for his turn.

Of course, that’s when Yan made the finishing move.  After moving the party to Sprucetuck (I allowed liberal moving over the whole territories during the player turn) he had Finn and the patrol go tavern-diving through his old war contacts to find someone important involved with the shipping and storing of the Scent chemical.  His circles test provided him with one such mouse, a mid-power mouse in charge of overseeing shipping of the Scent to Lockhaven and other guard patrols .

Phil: According to the rules, you get to name him now.

Yan (Making a very French “I have no fucking idea” facial expression): I don’t know… huh, Liam I guess.

PM: No way! That’s my enemy’s name.

Chatty: You guys are shitting me!

Yan: Absolutely not, I had no idea!

Chatty: Well then it’s settled, Finn’s new contact is Edgar’s enemy, that ought to be interesting!

So that the next adventure is obviously going to be about elucidating who’s stealing the Scent powder and why. I’d be a complete jerk to do otherwise.  But that doesn’t mean I have to play it as straight as they are driving things to be now, right?

All in all, that was a great Players’ turn and an awesome game.  Once again, a 10 minute prep session delivered a very satisfying 4 hours adventure.

We should pick the game up again after Gen Con.  Chances are this Summer campaign will become the monthly geekout day game once fall rolls back and I settle on a new RPG/campaign with the new gaming group.

Thanks for reading.

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Mouse Guard Chronicles, Session 1, Part 4: The Players’ Turn

See Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Here’s the plot, have fun with it.

Mouse Guard has a very peculiar play structure I have not seen in any other games yet.  The game is divided in 2 “turns” that each last 1 or 2 hours depending on how things go.  The first one, the GM’s turn is what classic RPGs call the adventure and I covered it in detail in parts 2 and 3.  Once the mission is completed (or failed), the GM’s turn ends and the Player turn starts.

Each player then get to do either of 2 things: 1) Attempt to recuperate from a condition (like Injured, Angry, etc) or 2) Set a scene to accomplish a goal, push the plot forward and/or create new plot/setting elements. Of course, there’s a trick.  In order for players to get more than one ‘turn’ during that period, they need to earn them by playing against themselves during the GM’s turn.  There are, of course,  mechanics where you can impede/hurt your character’s chances to give yourself extra turns in the Players’ turn.

Convincing your players to gain such additional turns (called checks), especially those focusing on success/fearing failure, can be a challenge. But it’s a self-rewarding process that players usually grok after a few sessions. Since all PCs are likely to have at least one negative condition by the end of the adventure, they need to get themselves more turns if they want do something beyond recuperating.

Slummin’ it in Port Sumac

In this, our first session of what was to become a campaign, the players poked with their turns, not quite sure what to do with them.  Malcolm healed his injuries while Finn found himself an artisan for some new skill he didn’t have (Armorer IIRC) and asked him to show him the basics.  The NPC, somewhat annoyed to be interrupted by a Guard gave Finn a task that no newbies could achieve. Finn (helped by veteran armorer Edgar)  managed it (using the “Beginner’s Luck” rule) and got closer toward learning a new skill.

Finn also tapped into Malcolm’s underworld contacts to secure enough Scent to reseal the breach, setting up the next mission nicely and opening a meta-plot element: “How come criminals have access to a supply of Scent?”.

Edgar roused the city’s population and gave a well-felt speech to calm the local population, promising that the guard was on top of the predator issue but that the Territories should still be ready to mobilize should it become necessary. Malcolm used his deceiver skill to disguise himself and act as a member of the crowd and shouted “It’s true! I believe in the guard, we’ll be safe” over and over again.

It worked… I blame the writers.

Finally, Jasper, wanting to impress his mentor (Malcolm), crafted a good luck charm with a tuft of Fox hair. All other PCs chipped in to help, but none of their “dice” helped… yet he succeeded in spite of that! Which made for a funny anecdote that all the advice Jasper got was wrong.

Thus was our first session concluded.  A great success.  As the next session will show, we all got much better with the game itself and the players literally drove the campaign in a new direction.

Thanks for reading!

P.S.: Next posts will be shorter. Likely 2 parts per session, outlining the highlights of the GM and Players turns respectively and the main GMing calls that I made in each.

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Mouse Guard Chronicles, Session 1, Part 3: The Unarmed Hero

After character creation and playing through the first (failed) obstacle of the evening, we started our first Mouse Guard conflict.

The conflicts mechanic is the game’s most complex, involved element.  It brings together everything the game can do and is, at time, very counter intuitive.  For example, in a chase conflict, if you are the team trying to get away from the chaser, you need to use the “Attack” action to go after your goal (escape) instead of “Maneuver”  which would be used to set your team up for a better escape route on later rounds.

Add the necessity of splitting the party in teams, the helping out rules, bonuses from “conflict tools”and Fate/Persona points… Things become about as complex as your favorite fantasy crunchy game.  The hardest part of that combat remained how to establish the interrelation of multiple teams playing simultaneously.  I won’t go into the details of it, but you have to follow a certain set of rules if 2 teams choose actions that would lead each team to play opposed dice checks vs their common enemy.

Fortunately, the rules are VERY well written and within minutes, Yan and I found rulings and agreed on interpretations. So after spending a good 30-40 minutes of false starts and going over the combat rules we finally settled in for a fight.

Foxy moves from the kid.

Combat involved 3 teams, Edgar/Finn committed to chasing the fox away, Malcolm/Jasper played defense and opted to protect the party and the fox sent out to eat one last morsel before moving on deeper in the territories.

The details are a bit fuzzy since the game was more than 2 weeks ago, but I recall the fight was over really fast.  The fox and the Edgar/Finn team fenced a bit to no major effect while the fox disarmed Jasper’s bow, leaving the poor tenderpaw weaponless.

As luck would have it, the next round saw Jasper needing to attack without weapons.  Maze was really flustered and out of his comfort one at this point.  He was playing a non combative PC (designed a little to close to his own personality he later told me) and he had a very hard time “getting” that the game encouraged making stuff up on the spot beyond rules.

Maze: But I don’t have a bow?  I can’t attack?

Phil: Dude, you are a Guard, a freakin’ ranger! Pick a piece of wood and fight man!

Maze settled on picking up a sharp stick and had his PC stand his ground, helped by his other buddies. Thus, Jasper took his improvised spear and set himself for the fox’s charge. Maze rolled amazingly well and racked up enough successes to seriously tap into the fox’s disposition (Mouse Guard’s hit points)  Just as the crafty predator thought he was pouncing a defenseless, scared-to-death mouse, it realized that it got things only half right and had a nice punctured palate to show for it!

The combat’s last round was a classic Burning Wheel/Mouse Guard conflict moment I’m sure.  All 3 teams chose actions that were a perfect triple “Rock/Paper/Scissors”. Edgar/Finn chose “Attack”, the fox chose “Feint” and Jasper/Malcolm chose “Defense”.

This meant that Edgar/Finn tore directly into the Fox’s remaining hit points (with an awesome “jump from a shield into the fox’s face” move) without any chance of the fox defending.  Unfortunately, the fox’s feint also negated Jasper/Malcolm’s action as it tore into their own disposition.

After the dust settled, the fox was driven away, yelping in pain and Jasper/Malcolm’s starting disposition was more than halfway gone.  That meant that the fox and the Jasper/Malcolm team had to reach a compromise.  Edgar/Finn got what they wanted: The Fox was driven away.  Jasper/Malcolm wanted the “party to be unhurt” which I had to honor to a certain extent.  Since the Fox’s goal was to kill one mice and run away, I ruled that Malcolm would be injured in the fight (instead of both team members as required by the rules when you impose a condition to a team).  Thus the fox and the defending team’s goals met halfway.

Finishing the job

After chasing the predator away, the party discovered the source of the unexpected river: a beaver dam.  The PCs managed (i.e. succeeded ) to inspire an implicit trust in mice from the otherwise semi-sentient aquatic rodents and persuade them to allow the patrol to create a new mice path over the dam to finish the lost patrol’s job.

As the patrol pushed further toward the edges of the mice territories, they learned that many beaver families had moved in the areas.  One such family had diverted a stream over the Scent Border, a mice-applied chemical barrier that prevents predators from entering the Territories, wiping it out and letting in the more adventurous predators in.  They finally ended up in Port Sumac, a northern port city, ending “The GM’s turn” (i.e. the GM-controlled adventure).

GM’s thoughts, Session 1 GM’s turn

This game saw me get a better grasp of the Mouse Guard mechanics and trusting Yan with them to help me find relevant rulings when needed. I was amazed at how easy it was to move around adventure elements (i.e. obstacles) based on twists and player input during their actions.  Mouse Guard adventures, while based on an otherwise flimsy mechanical frame, can grow rapidly into fully fleshed epic adventures…

… provided your players make the efforts required. Efforts that many other RPGs don’t require.

Getting into the conflict was a headache, but I’m happy to see how it went once all players had goals they were comfortable with and once everyone started to “get” how the system worked.  I hope to get rid of that “dead time” that comes from setting up conflicts, I trust that with experience, it will be significantly reduced.

I remain worried that some players won’t be able to go beyond the “get introduced to a situation, inspect the tools available, find solution” model of classic RPGs.  I noticed that Eric and Alex often looked on their character sheets to find things to do instead of finding an idea and trying to fit it to their characters and bullshitting me to get a bonus dice or set an awesome scene.

Based on comments from the players after the game, my fears could be set aside for the time being.

Up next: Players timidly explore their own turn.

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