D&D 5E A cat and 21 mice in a PC's backback

[jaffab]

Hi all,

Starting a campaign as DM with a new troup, and as part of the character generation, I allowed the party to buy from the standard equipment lists, plus anything else not on the list that they felt that they needed. When I do this, normally a party will ask for mapping materials, maps of the area etc.

But this party wanted a cat for one of the PCs. And of course, they needed something to feed it, so they also purchased 20 mice, all stuffed into their backpack.

So I am looking for something interesting to happen to this combination.

In real like, the cat would have killed the mice, there will cat poop all over the contents of the backpack, mice blood would probably soak into the backpack and those make it attractive to all kinds of beasts, and at the first sign of fighting, the cat would stick up a storm causing the character to fight with disadvantage.

But I dont want to make this a done deal - I want some area of chance, some player action, something interesting to occur.

Thoughts?

 

[plisnithus8]

Cats are great hunters; the mice aren’t needed.

 

[LordEntrails]

Mice chew, they would eat their way out of a backpack in hours, or less given 20 of them.

A cat wouldn't hang out in a backpack unless trained to do so, and even then... Most cats I know may hang out for awhile, but after a few minutes to a few hours, it's going to start meowing insistently until let out, petted, fed, or otherwise do some cat thing.

 

[Nevvur]

The whole thing seems kind of morbid, especially since, as plisnithus8 points out, the mice weren't necessary to begin with.

It sounds like you're basically planning to land some consequences for dumb ideas on their heads, which is fine in my book. Just be gentle, new troup as you said. Personally, I would just skip straight to stating what those consequences will be and see how fast they change course. That is, at the start of next session I would recommend they immediately discard the mice and shoo away the cat, and the universe will pretend they're not terrible people just this once. "Get a Familiar if you want to torture small mammals in my game."

If for some reason you don't want to spoil the surprise that will otherwise await them in this backpack of horrors, just tell 'em they catch a whiff of mouse bits and I suspect they'll fix it themselves quickly. No need for complex systems to demonstrate the consequences of their bizarre behavior.

If for some reason they still refuse to address the rodent situation, invite a player to leave a slab of ground beef and a turd in the toilet for a few days so he can describe for the party what its like to travel in their company.

Also, the cat fled at the earliest opportunity. Nothing short of death or being caged will keep it in the PC's company after being stuffed in a backpack. But don't be surprised if they settle for a dead cat.

 

[ScrubbWizard]

Next time the players look in the backpack, have the cat mysteriously disappeared. And the mice look really well fed ...

 

[jasper]

Next time the players look in the backpack, have the cat mysteriously disappeared. And the mice look really well fed ...

And Ben the fattest mouse of them all looks hungry and eyes the weakest pc.

 

[Oofta]

I wouldn't penalize them, I would just explain that I like to run a semi-realistic game and that cats (let alone 20 mice) don't live in backpacks. If they insist, I will politely ask them to try to stuff our cat Beelzebub into a backpack and see how well it works. I'll have some gauze ready.

It all comes down to tone and what kind of game you want to run. Want a silly/cartoon world where anything goes? It can be fun. Want a more serious game where things work like they do in the real world unless overridden by magic/rules simplification? That's what I do.

But I'd rather be up front about it, laugh at the joke and then tell them it's not going to work. If someone wants a pet, that's something we can work on but I don't do silly games.

 

[cooperjer]

Another idea is to tie the cat and mice into a story. The first idea that came to mind was that the cat is really a were-cat from a small peninsula that has a larger population of were-cats. This particular one committed some crime and thus was permanently, until dispelled, forced into cat form and dropped off in a small town with a memory wipe. Maybe, over time the came regains some memories and begins to try to communicate with the party and free itself from it's permanent cat form. The first idea that came to mind for the was that they were forced into mouse form by a hag to eat in a stew; however, the 20 worked together to escape. Now, the 20 will work to get any kind of adventuring group to find the hag and get the transformation spell from here to change them back, or maybe the spell ends when the particular page in one of the hags tome is shredded.

Other than that, as others have said, cats are lazy and tend to consider humans their subjects for the use of petting, feeding, and providing a warm place to lay. I don't know much about mice.

 

[BoldItalic]

The first day, the 20 mice consume a portion of the party's rations, equivalent to one extra party member. The mice breed rapidly and each day at dawn, there are suddenly twice as many mice as before and their rate of consumption of rations for the day is double that of the the previous day.

Also, the cat is a vegetarian.

 

[jaelis]

Whenever they open the bag, roll a d20. If the result is even they find the cat is dead. If it is odd, the cat is alive.