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I ran my first MG game tonight. It went about as smoothly as a first game can go, I guess. "Oh, wait. Let me look that up...what page is that again?" etc. Regardless, everyone seemed to enjoy it. Here's how it went:
Three members of the guard -- Dain, Quentin and Robin -- left Lockhaven in the rainy early Spring with a simple mission -- deliver mail to the towns of Elmoss, Sprucetuck, Dorigift and Gilpledge.
To begin with, their mission went smoothly. They trekked through the rain to Elmoss then Sprucetuck. Although Dain and Quentin grew up in Sprucetuck, there was no time for family reunions -- there was work to be done!
On their way from Sprucetuck to Dorigift, the Guardmice found the trail had been covered by a swath of snow, mud, water and ice. They tried to find their way across this mess, but Dain, despite the help from the other mice in the patrol, led them in circles.
Lost, they decided to spend the night in a tree stump, hoping that the next day would bring clearer weather and they could find their way. But the tree stump was occupied by a raven, also seeking a dry spot. Entranced by the mice's mail bag, the raven quickly tricked Dain, grabbed the bag and flew off.
But Dain, determined to hold on to the mail bag entrusted to him, refused to let go and rode with the raven to its nest. His friends followed on foot, but exhausted themselves with the effort of speeding over the mud and ice.
In the nest, Dain drops the mail bag down to his friends and then tries to scamper down the tree. But he slips near the bottom, embarrassing him in front of his charges. He's angry at his clumsiness, but tries to hide it and resume command of the patrol.
With the mail bag in hand, the patrol quickly find Dorigift and move on to Gilpledge. In this border town, they meet a refugee from Walnutpeck named Martin. He tries to convince the patrol to help him return to Walnutpeck -- now firmly in the dangerous Weasel Kingdom -- to retrieve his grandmother's rocking chair. Thanks to Quentin's well-intentioned mistruths, the group dissuades Martin.
In town, the players can relax. Dain calms down and Robin gets a good night's sleep. Instead of sleeping, Quentin completes a very fine set of maps of the journey -- including the tree stump and the raven's nest.
Rewards:
---- Mechanics ----
Obstacle 1: Pathfinder ob 6. Made by Dain with help from his snow-wise, Quentin's scout and Robin's pathfinder. He gets 4 successes, failure. Twist 1 introduced.
Twist 1: Raven initiates combat to steal the mail bag. The Raven's disposition is 13, the patrol's is 5. Action 1, the raven feints, the mice attack. The raven reduces the patrol to 0 without taking any damage. The raven could have taken the mail bag without any compromise, but Jon really wanted to hang on to that bag. So I just set up a new obstacle, Obstacle 2.
Obstacle 2 (Dain): Will ob 4. Dain succeeds, with help from a persona point. He lands safely in the nest with the bag.
Obstacle 2 (Robin and Quentin): Scout 3 to follow the raven (could have just been health, since they were running after it?). 1/4. Failure. Mice were given the Tired condition but still found Dain.
Obstacle 2.1: Dain gets down the tree with a 2 nature test. But he fails. Slipping down the tree in front of the other mice makes him angry.
Obstacle 3: In Gilpledge, Martin tries to argue the mice into helping him. Both groups have a starting disposition of 4, but none of them have much in the way of Persuasion or Deception. This lasted 3 volleys, I think. Once I told Quentin he could substitute his Will for a Deceiver roll, he finally knocked Martin down to 0.
Player's Turn: Each player only had their one free check. Each player made their roll. Dain overcame Angry, Robin overcame Tired, Quentin made his Cartographer roll to finish his maps.
---- Thoughts ----
It was hard to convince the players that they didn't have control during the GM's turn. They wanted to visit their hometown, hunt down their enemies, etc. Something to have them do in another mission, I guess.
Their first combat went about as badly as it could. They never even got to make a roll! So I threw in the bit with Dain holding on to the mail bag. By the exact rules, it shouldn't have happened, right? The raven won the combat with no damage, so it should have gotten its goal with no compromises. Whatever. Dain's player really wanted it and the resulting play was fun, and that's what counts.
It wasn't until the end of the Player's Turn that the players realized the advantage of gimping themselves. "Wait, we don't have any more checks?! How do we get more?" That was when it sunk in. Next session I expect a lot more self-harm.
Another Mouseguard game, nice.
I quickly figured out that my mouse was more paranoid than alert and certainly too clever for his own good :)
Especially in our first mission, there just wasn't enough rolling to get much in the way of extra checks. I think we'll all be looking for ways to make that happen more from now on.
Did it feel, to you and your group, like there was the right level of player-input during the GM turn? It's kind of a weird structure and I'm still deciding if I think it's a "right" way to play.
Yeah, I had a couple of big problems with handling player input.
First, when we started on the mission they were trying really hard to play off of their character sheet. The mission had 2 of the patrol going to their hometown, so they wanted to find their enemies and, I dunno, kill em. (Note: this is normally a D&D group, so the urge to find 'the enemy' and kill them is what we're used to) But the mission didn't offer any obstacles in their town, so I pretty much just skipped over their town.
In this case, I think what I did makes sense. In MG having 'narrative control' is a reward for overcoming an obstacle. Control of the narrative is not a right, given to everyone at the table. It's a privilege, earned by stepping up, rolling the dice and succeeding. So to have the players control the story from the beginning, before facing any obstacles at all, seems against the MG spirit.
The other problem I had was with two of my players trying hard to play their instincts. Dain's player kept wanting to sniff out the weather and Quentin's player wanted to make cartography rolls. But, if my understanding of the rules is right, they can only do this in the Player's turn (unless I give them obstacles that they could overcome with cartography & weather-watching). What that tells me is that my next mission should include mapping and weather-watching obstacles. But in this game, I just treated this like narrative color "You sniff the air. Yep, still raining."
But when the fight against the raven went so poorly and the players suggested that Dain hangs on to the mail bag when the raven flies off? That was pure player input and incorporating it went really well, I thought. So it's a hard balance.
Yeah, it seems like a little bit of dynamism is called for. I'm thinking that you re-framed the conflict about the raven as one of protecting the mail and then just made it a kind of extended obstacle...or whatever they're called when you make a series of rolls.
Also, it seems more right to think of narrative control as a reward for challenging oneself rather than winning. You get more control by doing things that make winning less likely. Or am I missing the point?
Well, if the players challenge themselves and then lose the die roll, the GM narrates, right? As far as the GM Turn goes, the only way I see the players getting complete Narrative Control is by winning die rolls.
That's not to say they can't affect the story in the GM's Turn. I can say "You need to cross this stream. Make me a ob 6 Health roll." And they can reply with, "I'm going to make a boat and paddle across." In that case, they've affected the story but they don't quite have full NC.
Oh, right! I gotcha.
Man, even more reasons to love this game. I wrote my next adventure. I took an hour. 1 hour. And it looks like it will be great fun. After an hour of D&D prep I might have single fight ready to go, if that.
Yeah, but a single D&D fight would also create more play time.
Session 2. This was with 2 players that couldn't make the first session. Starting this week, the groups will be combined.
---- Story ----
Gwendolyn calls two mice -- Kyle and Nathaniel -- to her office and gives them a mission; escort a convoy carrying chemicals for the scent barrier from Copperwood to Gilpledge. Heavy rains have washed out the path south of between Copperwood, however. So the mice will have to rebuild the trail as they go.
With the sun shining for the first time in weeks, the two mice reach Copperwood without incident and head out with the convoy of 3 wagons pulled by 6 beetles. Not far from the town, the trail disappears, washed away by heavy spring rains. Nathaniel, who is familiar with transports and building, along with Kyle and his knowledge of stone, are able to build a new path. This one should be strong enough to withstand any weather!
Closer to Gilpledge, the convoy passes by a pond overtopping its banks. Frogs are everywhere, drawn by the abundance of insects. One larger frog notices the convoy and leaps towards it. Those beetles look delicious.
Kyle and Nathaniel fight valiantly to defend the beetles from the frog. Eventually they drive the frog off, but in the commotion of battle, the barrels have fallen off the wagons and rolled into the pond.
Kyle begins to build a boat so that they can retrieve the barrels, but he's so focused on the nearby frogs that the boat ends up being pretty poor. The mice are able to retrieve the barrels, but only after a lot of work and bailing of water. Both mice end up angry; Kyle at himself, Nathaniel at Kyle.
The barrels recovered, the mice continue into Gilpledge.
In Gilpledge, Nathaniel contemplates his anger at Kyle and decides that it's not such a big deal. Meanwhile, Kyle takes a walk in the woods to try to calm his anger, but is interrupted by a pile of barrels, similar to the ones he just delivered, their contents intentionally spilled on the ground.
Kyle tells Nathaniel of his discovery and the mice seek out the head of the warehouse that's storing the barrels, Maren. Maren checks the empty barrels against her records and confirms that they were delivered in the evening and were handled by the night-shift manager Walmond.
Walmond tells the mice that he's had a lot of temporary laborers lately; it's been quite busy handling all these scent barrier barrels. On the night in question he had a worker fill in for the missing laborer Curt. He doesn't remember the mouse's name, just that he was a 'little grey fella.'
Curt doesn't offer much information. That night he was feeling particularly unwell, after a dinner at the inn, The Skinny Bandit. He did see a 'little grey mouse' at the inn, though. He was wearing a light-blue cloak, like those worn by guard members.
With this thin knowledge, Nathaniel stubbornly tries to find the mysterious mouse but cannot. Kyle meets with Warren, the guard's sciencemouse responsible for maintaining the scent barrier. He suggests that they gather up all the guard currently in Gilpledge to see if anyone knows anything. None of the guard know the 'little grey fella', although a few remember seeing him. They didn't recognize him, and just assumed he was a fresh Tenderpaw.
---- Mechanics ----
Obstacle 1: Pathfinder 6 to rebuild the destroyed path. Nathaniel succeeded with help from Kyle's stone-wise and by tapping his nature.
Obstacle 2: A close fought battle between the frog and mice. The mice end with 1 disposition, earning the frog a major compromise. The compromise offered was Twist 1. I think there was a tie in here that Nathaniel broke in the frog's favor.
Twist 3: Survivalist 5 to build a boat. Kyle earns himself a check by using his Alert trait to give himself -1D. Fail with 3 successes. Kyle and Nathaniel are made Angry.
-- Player's Turn --
Nathaniel overcomes his anger with Will 2 check, 2/2.
Kyle fails to overcome his anger, 1/2. I introduce the spilled barrels.
Nathaniel rolls 1/1 Circles check to find Maren.
Kyle rolls 2/2 Circles to find Curt.
Nathaniel takes a -1D (Stubborn trait) on a Circles 5 test to find the 'little grey fella.' Fails with 1/5.
Kyle rolls 1/1 Circles to gather up the other guardmice in Gilpledge.
---- Thoughts ----
I did a better job of communicating the value of earning checks. As a result, the player's turn was much longer and added a lot to the story. This added its own complications, though. I had to improv a lot of story in Gilpledge, which took me by surprise.
For a bit, it looked like the players were going to roll through both obstacles unscathed, which would have made the game pretty dull. Only a series of bad rolls against the frog allowed me to earn a major compromise.
In retrospect, I probably could have pushed for a more onerous compromise, seeing as the mice only had one disposition left. But I already had the boat obstacle written up, so I just went with that.
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