G is for Guard- Mouse Guard

Mouse Guard is an Eisner Award winning bi-monthly comic book series by David Petersen.  An excellent official Mouse Guard rpg game was created by Luke Crane- it uses a simpler version of the Burning Wheel system. Oh yeah; It won Best Role-Playing Game at the 2009 Origins Awards (beating D&D 4th ed!).

As I've said before, Mouse Guard is pimp as hell.  It's like Lord of the Rings meets Stewart Little.  Its about tiny medieval mice living in a properly scaled world.  Its not like Redwall where badgers and mice hangout together in castles- in Mouse Guard a badger could eat a whole mouse town in less than half an hour.  Mice are pretty much the most advanced species, the bigger an animal gets the more it acts like a real animal, thus a wolf or bear is probably scarier to your Mouse Guard character than a red Dragon would be to your D&D character.  The only other creature to use tools is weasels, they are about three times bigger than a mouse and are essentially bloodthirsty barbarians.  I really love Mouse Guard, the comics and the rpg.

Mouse Guard rpg features diceless character generation, instead you sit down as a group and each answer a lengthy questioniare.  Its an d6 system, 1-3 being failures, 4-6 being sucesses, the better you are at something the more dice you roll.  Evey part of the game just drips with atmosphere, you feel 100% like you are in the Mouse Guard world, its very immersive.

Probably the best thing though is the adventure layout.  You are given a clear mission,and the GM puts a few obstacles in the way - if you successfully overcome all the obstacles than you can complete the mission, good job. -Heres where it gets good, if the party fails the game doesnt stop- the GM can impose ethier a twist or a condition on the party. Heres an example:

The Mission - take a road that got washed out during the spring rains and deliver mail to the town of Barkstone.

The Challenge - take a pathfinder check to find your way safely to Barkstone. (Success: you get to Barkstone safe with mail. Failure: GM chooses one of the options below.)

• Twist - a curious Raven spots the shiny buckle on the mail bag and swoops in to try to steal it, -combat. 
• Twist -you drop the mailbag in a fast flowing creek swollen with snow thaw. The bag is sealed with wax and it should be possible to recover it, but the creek runs close to the weasel kingdom downstream.
• Condition- the party makes it to Barkstone with the mail but they had to trail blaze through wet spring mud most of the way, the party has the tired condition for the rest of the adventure.

  This works great, failure = adventure in Mouse Guard. Its a very interesting approach and really fun to play, actually I think it works particularly well as a family game. I played it with my family and had a really good time, its a bit lighter theme wise than games like D&D, and yet still totally badass and heroic.

Yeah, Mouse dueling Owl. Hardcore...

http://www.mouseguard.net/

Superhuman Ability Scores

Something I noticed in the MouseGuard rpg rules recently struck a chord with me. In MouseGuard one of the attributes frequently used is called Nature, every creature has a Nature score. Nature represents the strength of the creatures innate abilities and is different for every type of creature.  For example an Owl's Natutre encompasses being silent, having excellent hearing, flying, and being a predator; a Mouses Nature encompasses escaping, climbing, hiding and foraging. Nature is ranked from 0-7, a high rank means the creature is very faithful to its nature, a low score means the creature acts in a way untypical for its kind.  There are ways to both gain and loose nature in MouseGuard but that isn't my current interest. What really got my thinking was that in MouseGuard your character has to stay in that 1-6 range, if your Nature drops to 0 or exceeds 6 there are possibly dire consequences for your character, Nature 0 means your character become completely unmouselike, unable to view the world in the way that his fellow mice do, you might even lose your character to the GM. Nature 7 means your character has become too focused on acting mouselike and starts losing his heroic traits.

Anyway, how does this relate to D&D? well a trend I've noticed in my own games is the eagerness of characters to improve their ability scores which is something I'm not particularly keen about. Although the methods of improving ability scores are rare and difficult I would like to take some of the emphasis off better scores and focus it more into story and character goals. To that end I propose a cap on the limits of character ability.

If a character's ability score exceeds 20 then something begins to break in their mind, eventually taking a self-destructive turn.

Strength: You are stronger than any mere mortal and you know it, you become obsessed with pushing your physical limit and proving your strength. 

Dexterity: You find it impossible to focus, you always need to be moving. Additionaly you develop a paranoia and flinch constantly without provocation.


Constitution: You begin to over-indulge in many things and refuse to take care of yourself.  You become overconfident in your bodies ability to endure the ravages you inflict upon it.

Intelligence: Your mind withdraws into itself and into a realm of pure intellect, eventually leaving the physical world behind.  Your body becomes an empty shell.

Wisdom: You increasingly become certain of radical and dangerous convictions. You are willing to die and kill to prove your beliefs. 

Charisma: You either develop multiple personalities, become a raving megalomaniac, or both.

If a characters score exceeds 20 they being to suffer from the above problems. Eventually they will either die or become NPC's as the problems worsen. The better a player acts out the characters spiral into madness the longer I will let them keep control of the character. If the player doesn't acknowledge the affliction in game then the character will become an NPC much faster.

I haven't used it yet but I really like this idea in theory. I can have exceptional villains and also explain why they are so crazy and evil.  Any thoughts?

Legendary Creatures pt 4

Liam vs Snake
Mouse Guard Fall 1152

-Liam Kenzie and Saxon are investigating the disappearance of the grain peddler. Suddenly they are attacked by a giant black snake.
- Saxon strikes at its mouth with his sword and chops off a fang.
-Kenzie smacks the back of its head with his staff  exclaiming "I can't hold it! we need to retreat!"
-Liam spies a knothole in a nearby tree, the party hides within for a little while.
-Liam is shaken, he thinks its impossible to fight anything as big as that snake.
-Kenzie calms and inspires Liam by reminding him of one of the guards mottos "Its not what you fight- but what you fight for."
-The party emerges from the tree, the snake is gone but they discover a nest full of snake eggs.
-Kenzie and Saxon enter the nest to destroy the eggs while Liam stands guard.
-Suddenly the black snake returns forcing Liam to face it alone.
-As the serpent strikes Liam leaps into its mouth and stabs his sword straight through and out the back of the snake's head.
-Monster slain.

In game terms:
1- Snake surprises them but fails attack roll.
2- Saxon scores a hit.
3- Kenzie hits.
4- Liam sees a safe place. perception or something.
5-Party evades snake and all 3 make it to the hiding place.
6- Kenzie inspires Liam using lore, probably some kind of bravery bonus here.
7- Snake is gone so party emerges.
8- They split the party to destroy some eggs, good idea but- NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY!
9- Snake comes back, youngest hero stands strong.
10- Liam full out charges, no thought to his own defense.
11- Crictical strike to snake brain.
12- XP all around!

Notes:
I like the lore element, Conan used it and it also features in The Hobbit regarding Smaug a bit.
Like Conan -Liam does not fight the snake till he really has to, and like Conan he charges at the things face, in this case literaly into its mouth. Its an all or nothing attack, I hate to think what would happen if it failed.
To make an attack like that the hero would have to allow the monster a full attack against them with no saves, maybe auto crit or something if successful, but terrible damage to the hero if he doesnt kill the monster.

Next up: Smaug the Magnificent