[MG] Death's Wings

[Judd]

Jim, who plays the Lord Slayer in the orc game, did not have his books, so we could not easily get started in our pirate-y swashbuckling human game taking place in the same world as the orc but intended as a much needed break from the Hatred and the Spite.

Since Rich and I were devouring our Mouse Guard pdf's and were excited to play, we read the chargen stuff out loud over skype and get started, played through a fast mission.

Jim made a bad-ass black mouse named Gurney who wields a pole-arm and has a Guard Captain he shamed during training for an enemy.

Rich made a more bookish mouse, interested in cartography and finding new paths in the territories, hoping to make the best map ever devised for Guard use and for his own personal glory.

Something that came up during character creation was that they had the same mentor, so I decided to alter the mission I had in mind and make their first mission to go out in the still snowy early spring and find their missing mentor.

I like playing Gwendolyn as an NPC and I look forward to developing her relationship to the mice.

Gurney

Belief: I believe every Mouse has a purpose for the Guard
Goal: Do whatever it takes to find Finn
instinct: always protect my Patrol-mates

Tander

Belief: I will map all of the territories for the Guard and gain renown.
Goal: I will lead the patrol on new paths.
instinct: Always find alternate escape routes.

I started with a conflict for a spring time freezing rain, describing the snow and the cold rain that was freezing as soon as it hit the ground. The storm's goal was just to grind the mice down, their goal was to get through the storm to Copperwood.

They wore down the storm to 0 in the same moment the storm wore down their disposition to 0. This felt a bit anti-climactic, so I just said that they arrive at Copperwood but rather than being Sick or Hurt, they are only Tired.

Eh, felt a bit flat.

But the next conflict went well.

Finn was chained to a rock, an eight foot (by human reckoning, monolitic by mouse reckoning) stone in a field outside of Copperwood. Jim made a Crime-wise roll to know that in the dark ages before the Mouse Guard, the people of Copperwood left mouse sacrifices here for a horned owl revered as death incarnate. The tradition had long since been abolished.

But there was Finn, chained to a rock and someone, on the outskirts of the field, was blowing a horn that sounded like an owl's screech, summoning the damned thing.

They raced to get to Finn before the owl did.

Owl's goal: Eat Finn

Their Goal: Drive away the owl.

They beat hell out of that owl's disposition, Gurney using his night-wise to teach Tander to know where the owl was by looking for its eyes and the position of the moon. Gurney distracted it below the Finger, taking a piece of its claw off with his pole-arm and Tander drove it away from its swoop at Finn with a sling stone.

They spent arth...Reward Points and helped one another, planning out their attacks.

The owl only pecked at their disposition, causing them to be Angry at the end of the conflict but saving Finn. I reckoned they were Angry that another mouse would do something like this to one of the Guard.

Once the GM Turn was over, Jim wanted to take Finn to his friend in Copperwood's house to rest their mentor up and feed him. Jim wanted to make his conflict about staying in Copperwood before returning to Lockhaven but Rich said there was no conflict there. So, he made a Crime-wise roll to get some names of the the owl cultists out of his friend, Devlin the Smith but she would not talk. She has family in town.

Rich's conflict was a Circles test to see the Governor but despite spending the personna to get his Nature in on the roll, he failed big-time, causing some huge tax. They saw that the Governor's house was being watched by several owl cultists, with actual owl feathers on their helms.

Next game I figured their mission was self-imposed, to bring the owl cult to justice.

I don't think Jim nor RIch have read the comic book yet. Jim suggested that it was a flaw in the setting that there aren't Mouse Guard stationed in every town. I suggested that this sounded like a rockin' Belief.

So, we handed out Reward Points for the night and fiddled with our Belief, Goals and instincts.

Gurney
Belief: The Mouse Guard should unify the towns under oen banner, by force if necessary, under on law.
Goal: I will shame the town for what they allowed to happen to Finn.
Instinct: Same

Tander
Belief: Same
Goal: I will find the reason that the owl cult's existence.
Instinct: Same? Rich suggested that he didn't like his instinct; we'll see if we change it between now and next game.

We had our heads down in the book a bit too much, kind of getting our paws under us for the first game. But now that things are in motion and I am more comfortable with the structure of the MG game, I think the next few games will go easier, more moments to just be in character to balance out the game-y bits as we all figure out how this game works.

[Peter Dyring-Olsen]

Sounds like a great session. Do I spot a little Solomon Kane in there?
I cannot wait to try my hand at MG - reading it rocks my world!
/Peter

[Judd]

Sounds like a great session. Do I spot a little Solomon Kane in there?
I cannot wait to try my hand at MG - reading it rocks my world!
/Peter

i have only read a little bit of Solomon Kane but maybe some seeped in.

I wrote up the session as a kind of short story and might post it up in ENworld's story hour. We'll see.

[Judd]

Thinking about it a bit, the only thing I would have done really different is in the spring freezing rain storm, I would have had each third of the scripted actions be a scene with some freeform role-playing, let the players kind of get a feel for their characters and let the outcome of the dice in each exchange set the tone for the scene.

I thought for a moment that nature is uncaring, that these are tiny mice and that my goal should have been to kill them but unless it is a big ole storm or it is winter-time, I'd rather not kill them in the first conflict of the adventure on their way to a mission.

[Peter Dyring-Olsen]

Do you think it would have made a difference if you'd run the first episode as a one or two-roll Test instead of a full-blown conflict?
And I'm sure the Solomon-thing came about because of the chained mouse and the deal with the Owl. It reminded me of the story Wings in the Night.
And it's wicked cool - very grim and improper. Those mice must have been in a tight spot to make such an arrangement. I think I'll steal that idea. There's room for all kinds of great play when it turns out that there's a good reason for the arrangement.
/Peter

[luke]

I understand that this was a quick question, but I urge you to use the magic mission formula. Set up one or two obstacles involving weather, wilderness, animals or mice. Use the success at overcoming those obstacles -- or twists and conditions from failing to overcome them -- to build up to a conflict.

Doing so prevents conflicts from falling flat. It gives them context.

[Judd]

We played a second session, taking the mission directly from the events of the previous session and it was solid.

Starting with a few simple conflicts and using that as a springboard for roleplaying and later complex conflicts was way-way better.

[Judd]

Thank you so much for the post. It's really useful.

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(and if not, please forgive me)