Mouseguard

[Stormonu]

Yeah- but the feel of the game I guess... I mean having never read the comics I think I'd be mainly influenced by things like Secret of NIMH, and my own imagination.

Like, I have no idea if say... Owls can talk in Mouseguard, but in mine they would.

Really I was overstating the canon problem- if I told my friends I have no idea what the actual comic is like, but I have X idea they'd be cool with it... Most of them at least.

I guess I'm not sure I'd like to get someone's hopes up if they're a fan of Mouseguard only to have them actually play something that has nothing really to do with Mouseguard the comic whatsoever. If that makes any sense.

Actually, I think it's more based on Redwall (and Watership Down) than Secret of NIMH.

I've only read the first four comics, and I don't recall seeing the other animals talk, though it may be a case they have different languages (kinda like Keehar in Watership Down).

By the way, the first two adventures in the rulebook are straight out of the comic's first couple of stories. It should be pretty easy to follow canon if you want. With that said, I think you can go quite far out of canon and you should be okay - there's a lot of directions you can take the game.

 

[MortonStromgal]

Mouseguard is Burning Wheel light with some tweaks. Both are amazing games, if you want more crunchy details go with Burning Wheel, if you want something with less cruchy details go with Mouseguard.

 

[Woas]

Interesting... Maybe I should look into the whole Burning Wheel thing.

Is the player / DM turns thing a BW thing or a MG thing?

A Burning Wheel thing, I believe.

The GM/Player Turn set up is completely a Mouse Guard thing. BW does not have such a set up.

As to the original question. Mouse Guard is a wonderful game. It's what I've been playing most recently so it's fresh on my mind. The book has a section about Mouse Guard canon, (like for example in Mouse Guard only mice and wessels can 'speak' and actually understand one another) and other back round info form the comics for those who aren't in the know. The book is really full of knowledge about the setting in general.

Are there any other questions more specific you had in mind?

 

[kaomera]

+1 Mouseguard is brilliant, both the comics and the game.

Personally I had a year and a half of flailing about trying to figure out Burning Wheel, and MG pretty much just made it all click. I think the biggest advice I'd have regarding the game would be: do what the book says, not what you think it should say based on previous RPG experiences. At least I know that was the biggest thing I had to get right to make it work.

 

[lin_fusan]

Mouse Guard has about 4 or 5 different subsystems (aside from d6 dice pool) that are interconnected, but feels like totally different systems. It takes a while to realize why you do things with subsystem 1 to affect subsystem 2, which affects subsystem 3, etc.

I think you have to tackle Mouse Guard like a game designer and ask yourself what the subsystem achieves and what it promotes in play.

Or go to the Burning Wheel forums and read over all the questions and answers.

 

[Paka]

4 or 5 different sub-systems in Mouseguard?

 

[lin_fusan]

4 or 5 different sub-systems in Mouseguard?

I'm being a little loose in definition when I say "subsystem". When teaching the game, I tend to break down the ideas in 4 or 5 discrete chunks as below:

1) Except for certain circumstances (as in the Conflict rules), there is no failure in skill/ability tests, only degrees of success such as "I succeed, but I'm not Injured" or "I succeed, but first I must take care of this problem" (which requires another skill/ability test).

2) Each character has A Belief, an Instinct, and a changeable Goal, like alignments in D&D but more personal and less strict. For playing toward these personality descriptors (and sometimes playing against them) you will earn a Fate or Persona point. You spend these points to modify your dice rolls in specific ways.

3) Traits not only describe your character, but they also give you dice bonuses. However, every trait has a negative aspect that you can invoke that will give you a dice penalty, but give you bonus "checks" or bonus actions later on.

4) The game is split between a GM's Turn and Player's Turn. The GM's Turn is standard GMing; you assign a must-be-solved-now mission and the players have to tackle it. On the Player's Turn, the players can spend "checks" or bonus actions to do what they want to do, be it mission related or something completely different.

5) Skill/ability advancement. In order to improve a skill/ability, you have to succeed AND fail at a certain number of tests. At any given time when you are about to roll the dice, you should be thinking in-character "I really need to pass this Fighter test in order to rescue Silas from the weasels" but also while meta-gaming "But if I fail this Fighter test, I'll increase my Fighter skill by one".

6) The Conflict rules are for more protracted situations, like combat with a super-dangerous opponent, or winning over the crowd in a debate with a corrupt politician. It uses pre-scripted actions that works in the manner of rock-paper-scissors (but with four actions).

Z) The basic mechanic of Mouse Guard is a d6 dice pool. If your Fighter is at 4, you roll 4d6 and count each individual die as a success or failure. Each of the subsystems above modify this dice pool mechanic either directly (such as Traits) or indirectly (such as Fate or Persona), but each of the subsystems are tied to other aspects of the game.

OK, maybe it's six subsystems.

 

[JustKim]

If you want miniatures for Mouse Guard, Reaper is going to release a box of 10 Mouseling Heroes in July, followed by another box of NPC types in the near future and possibly a box of villains. Here are some previews:
Reaper Miniatures :: Miniatures

As I understand it there were some available at Reapercon 2010, but they sold out of the first batch in the morning of the first day.

 

[Scribble]

If you want miniatures for Mouse Guard, Reaper is going to release a box of 10 Mouseling Heroes in July, followed by another box of NPC types in the near future and possibly a box of villains. Here are some previews:
Reaper Miniatures :: Miniatures

As I understand it there were some available at Reapercon 2010, but they sold out of the first batch in the morning of the first day.

Those are pretty darn awesome!

 

[JustKim]

This is just a bump to let folks know that Reaper's mouselings are finally, finally available as of last week: Reaper Miniatures :: OnlineStore

You can even buy individual mice through Reaper, though they're a bit more expensive that way.

Halloween mouselings have been previewed for Reaper's Artist Conference in October, however from what I've seen they're probably of limited use in Mouse Guard. Reaper Artist Con & Open House 2010 - Reaper Message Board

Packs of mouseling villagers and villains have also been discussed, but I haven't seen any greens of those yet.