Breaking, Hacking, Burning!

This weekend I had some free time and was nosing around the internet as one does, and I came across a post on the Burning Wheel forums that Luke Crane made a few years back when Mouse Guard was first released that laid out some guidelines for hacking the system.  Mouse Guard is, to this point at least, my all-time favorite roleplaying system, but I've never really thought about hacking it.  Not only that, but Scott Acker and Patrick Riegert did an amazing job with their Realm Guard LotR hack that they did a few years back.  Still, I've been wanting to get into game design a bit, and the idea of trying my hand at my own hack is intriguing.  At the very least, Mouse Guard is probably the first system that I've gotten involved with to the point that I would actually feel fairly comfortable working with it.

I started to try and figure out ideas for what would work as far as a setting.  As Luke outlines in the opening of the post, a proper Mouse Guard hack requires three things to function - team-based adventuring, an over-arching force of nature, and dramatic adventuring that emphasizes on fighting for your beliefs.  Without these things, the system just doesn't hold up and you'd be closer to creating a new game instead of a system hack.  Therefore, the setting and the player characters would need to be characters that would believably need to unite for a common goal, but one with enough grey area involved that there isn't one "right" way to approach the overall conflict.

I've been heavily into the #FolkloreThursday hashtag on Twitter lately, and seeing all those tweets of fantastic creatures has really pulled me a lot in that direction as of late in terms of inspiration.  There are more varied stories of fantastic creatures and beasts than I ever would have imagined.  I've been toying a lot with the idea of trying to make a game that focuses on those types of woodland creatures, but the trouble in doing that with Mouse Guard comes down to what would unite these creatures to fight in unison?  Most of the mythic beings in the Norse and Scandinavian tales that have really peaked my interest are more meddlesome and chiefly are concerned with toying with humans.  This isn't really something I'm looking for in terms of my hack.  Still, I definitely want to go the fey route.  An early idea that I had when first mulling this over was to go with ents, with players acting as sort of woodland shepherds looking over the wilds.  While the premise seems to fit in where I want to take things, I can't really wrap my head around many credible threats for ents as PCs.  One of the main things that makes Mouse Guard work so well is the idea of the number of things that present real threats to the characters, be it weather or run-of-the-mill forest animals that would dine on mice.  With PCs the size and strength of ents, a lot of that is lost.

The Hidden People by Cory Godbey

Then I remembered a book that I purchased a few years back, artist Cory Godbey's excellent sketchbook The Hidden People.  This is a sketchbook that Godbey put together following a trip to Europe and was heavily inspired by the European creature myths.  Fittingly, I first heard of Godbey and saw his work in one of the Legends of the Guard comics.  In The Hidden People, the first chapter shows sketches of The Tree People, a group of humanoid creatures with twigs growing out of their heads that are born from acorns.  There are a few different sizes and varying builds, which plays into another issue I was having with the ents that I'll discuss in a bit.  I immediately began thinking over ideas that could play into a fantasy roleplaying setting, and I believe I now have my inspiration for this hack.

While I'll likely use the sketches as inspiration more so than an actual source material, there are a number of ideas that I'm planning on pulling in order to start building my game.  For one thing, the concept behind the tree people (who will definitely have to be renamed for the system) is perfect in that they are born of the wilds and are largely tied to to the (un)natural world around them.  Just as importantly, they contrast with the ents that I was considering originally in that they are much smaller, and therefore much more easily threatened.  Godbey also uses a few different models for the treefolk, which lends itself more to the Mouse Guard idea of The Territories.  The idea that these creatures can inhabit different parts of a forest and be born of different natural materials (trees, soil, rock, and what have you) gives a bit more customization in terms of player character options, and also allows for a territory system that's a bit closer to the standard game.

So now that I have some better idea of what the characters would be, now comes the tough part: what are they fighting for, and what would cause conflict?  I have some initial idea, in large part inspired by Princess Mononoke.  I'm a Studio Ghibli fanatic, and this is undoubtedly one of their best films.  For those who haven't seen the movie, a lot of it has to do with seeing to the well-being of the wilds, and the demonic corruption of the woodland beasts themselves.  Going off of this idea, the treefolk are the caretakers of the woods, similar to the role the ents play in LotR.  The difference here, though, is that rather than simply trying to grow the forest and make sure it's not destroyed by man or orc, there is a corrupting dark magic that the treefolk are battling against.  This allows for some opportunity for more unique NPCs, as in addition to simple beasts like wolves and bears, there can now be those that are corrupted by the darkness and provide a greater threat to the PCs.  Furthermore, and probably more important in a system sense, it gives a possible conflict for player beliefs.  Is there a way to cure the beasts, or is it wiser to destroy them?  Does the dark influence serve some kind of divisive good, similar to the way fungus helps decompose and renew a forest floor?

Circling back around to Luke's advice for hacking Mouse Guard, I've now largely answered two of the three primary focuses of the system: reasons for team-based adventuring, and something for the PCs to fight for that's maybe not as cut and dry as it would seem at first glance.  This only leaves the nature question to address.  While I'm toying with the idea of having different Nature descriptors depending on what type of treefolk a player chooses and where they come from, I think in general the nature of the PCs could come down to three descriptors: Hiding, Growing, and Renewing.  I may tweak these slightly before settling on the final descriptors, but I'd ideally like to shoot for this overall effect.  In Mouse Guard, if a mouse's nature rating gets too low, they lose what made them mice and can no longer live among mouse society; conversely, if it gets too high, they become too mouse-like and can no longer serve in the Guard.  I like the idea, given the creatures are born of seeds, that the nature descriptors could also somewhat apply to trees.  Perhaps if the nature rating gets to high, the treefolk just become trees instead, similar to the end of the old David the Gnome cartoon, where gnomes who are too old leave their friends and family and die, turning into trees.  Also, if you've never seen the series finale of David the Gnome, it was one of the most depressing episodes of a children's cartoon series ever.

So this is where I've landed, and as I tinker a bit more I'll try to share more of my process.  I'm hoping to have at least a draft for playtesting by the end of the year, but we'll see how ambitious I am.

As always, feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments.

 

NPC Rolodex - Urias the Bear King

The Bear King by Chris Tulloch McCabe

Born and raised in the village of Kingshearth, seated at the feet of the capital of King's Ferry, Urias began life as the only child to a poor farmhand.  Helping the family by working as a lowly woodcutter as a youth, Urias began showing a talent for hunting at a young age, and was already an accomplished woodsman and trapper by his mid teens.  Through his skill, he was able to secure additional land surrounding his family farm, and by the time he reached adulthood he had one of the largest homesteads in Kingshearth.

Unfortunately, such wealth eventually attracted the envy and scorn of a local noble, Cleofis Grandall, one of the king's closest friends.  Looking to seize the sizable plot that Urias had built and amass even more influence in Kingshearth, Grandall orchestrated a plot with a few of the local trappers and framed Urias for poaching.  The king seized Urias' homestead, which was turned over to Grandall in short order.  Urias was to be arrested, but some of the townsfolk that Urias had helped through the years created a diversion by setting a house ablaze, allowing Urias to escape in the confusion.  Now a fugitive, he retreated to the woods with little more than a rifle and the clothes on his back.

Living as an outlaw in the wilds, Urias survived on what the forest could provide him, living alongside all manner of beast while evading the hunters who had turned against him and the king's men still looking halfheartedly to find him.  He and the fabled bears of the king's wood grew to have a grudging respect for one another, and eventually (largely through Urias' skills in healing) began living side by side.  

Now years later, Urias has grown into a kind of folk hero, a boogeyman that the villagers of Kingshearth use to scare their children into behaving.  He is known throughout the surrounding countryside as The Bear King, the protector of the wilds, and he stalks the forests waiting for those hunters who turned against him to pass beyond the treeline so that he may have his revenge.

Urias, The Bear King, Man, 38 years old

Lifepaths: Born Peasant, Woodcutter, Hunter, Trapper, Poacher, Outlaw, Strider

Will B5, Perception B5, Power B4, Forte B5, Agility B5, Speed B4, Mortal Wound B10, Reflexes B4, Health B6, Steel B5, Hesitation 5, Stride 7, Circles 2, Resources 1

Traits: 

Foul Smelling (char), Outlaw (Dt), Loner (char), Low Speech - wild beasts (Dt), Salt of the Earth (char), Suspicious (char), Intense Hatred (char)

Beliefs:

The bears have been true allies; I will see that they are protected as they've protected me.

I will bring those to justice who betrayed me, starting with the poachers who framed me.

I have lived too long outside the lands of man; I will never be able to return to a life in the city.

Instincts:

Always make sure I have ammo.

Never take a nobleman at his word.

Always check for tracks before making camp.

Skills:

Firebuilding B4, Mending B5, Foraging B4, Orienteering B6, Great Bear Husbandry B3, Great Bear-wise B3, Hunting B5, Tracking B4, Stealthy B5, Cooking B4, Firearms B6, Trapper B5, Observation B3, Royal Parks-wise B3, Authority-wise B3, Inconspicuous B4, Conspicuous B4, Forest-wise B4, Riding B4

Gear:
Rifle, clothes, shoes, Leaky shack, personal effects

Relationships: 

Cleofis Grandall, Kingshearth noble (significant, hateful)

Affiliation: Thornfang Great Bears (local)

Reputation: The Bear King (1D infamous, local)

The Waiting Game

I think it's true of any roleplaying game enthusiast that at some point in your life, your collection outpaces your actual gaming.  Inevitably, you end up with more games than you have either time or players to get on the table.  Sometimes time is the enemy - you're involved in too many games concurrently to be able to devote prep or play time to another game, or simply real life doesn't allow for any more game nights on top of your other responsibilities.  Other times, it's that the game you really want to run doesn't appeal to your playgroup, and so the book sits on the shelf, waiting for either their minds to change or for you to find another playgroup interested in the game.

So for this post, I'll look at some games that, for one reason or another, are still sitting on my shelf awaiting their first go:

Dogs in the Vineyard

Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard starts off the list.  This one is an interesting one, as this is one of the few games that my wife is really on board with playing.  We went to PAX East a few years back and the Burning Wheel guys ran a panel on adjusting your GM style to suit the game system that you're playing, and Dogs was one of the games they mentioned.  When we left the panel, my wife mentioned that the game sounded interesting, at that we should look into getting it.  I grabbed it, but the problem at this point has been setting.  For those unfamiliar with the game, Dogs is based around the idea of an alternate-reality Old West that was originally settled by a people very similar to Mormons.  The players then take the role of God's Watchdogs - members of the faith that go from town to town settling disputes and rooting out demonic influence.

Given the religious-heavy setting, I haven't gotten any other players on board with this one as of yet, and given my wife's reticence to play solo (she's not really much of a gamer, despite her interest in this game in particular), this one hasn't seen play yet.  However, the system is one of the most innovative I've seen, so I may end up trying to hack this one a bit to get it to a more player-friendly setting that will appeal more to my friends.

Swords Without Master

Speaking of innovative systems, another game I've yet to play is Epidiah Ravachol's Swords Without Master.  This one is more or less on me for not playing, as this one comes down to two factors.  For one thing, there's a time issue, as the #SundayAMSwords online game that runs weekly (when there's enough players) tends to not be super convenient for me to be able to jump in schedule-wise.  But the other part of it comes down to me being a little bit shy when it comes to jumping into online games.  Google+ has been an incredible boon for me as far as gaming goes.  I've been very lucky to have had nothing but good experiences so far playing games over Hangouts and PbP games through Drive, but I still always hesitate taking people up on offers for new games, particularly when there's a webcam involved.  Chalk it up to just shyness I guess, but I'm hoping at some point I get past it enough to be able to play this gem of a game.

World Wide Wrestling RPG

Fun fact about me: I am a wrestling fanatic.  And so between my love of wrestling and my love of roleplaying, it's only logical that I would own Nathan D. Paoletta's wonderful World Wide Wrestling RPG.  It's admittedly kind of surprising that I haven't gotten a game of this one rolling yet, given that there's a considerable overlap in my friends of wrestling fans and roleplaying fans, but this one really just comes down to time.  I've got a regular Mouse Guard campaign running along with a Stars Without Number campaign, and so this one is really just waiting for one of those to wrap up so I can get it on the table.  It'll have it's time to shine soon enough.  Also, if you're not aware, Nathan D. Paoletta is both a genuinely wonderful human being and also a fantastic game designer, so if you're reading this you should head over to ndpdesign.com and check out his stuff.

The Burning Wheel

The last game I'll talk about in terms of those that I haven't played yet is also probably the most surprising.  Full disclosure: I am an enormous Burning Wheel fanboy.  Luke Crane's Mouse Guard was actually the game responsible for getting me back into roleplaying games.  I'm a huge fan of David Peterson's comic, and I actually found out about the game because of that.  When I picked it up, I was kind of dumbstruck by how much roleplaying games had changed since I was playing them regularly as an eleven- or twelve-year-old kid.  I immediately fell in love with the Mouse Guard system, and it was actually the first game I ever actually GMed.  Similarly, I grabbed Torchbearer as soon as it came out, and that game was the first and only game to this point that I've played over Hangouts, with an amazing group of gamers that I was fortunate enough to play with.

Here's the thing though: I have yet to actually play Burning Wheel proper.  To this point, all I've been able to play have been it's offshoots.  This one has largely come down to system.  Burning Wheel has one of, if not the most complex combat systems I've ever seen in a roleplaying game.  For a lot of my friends who are roleplayers, who generally were brought up on Dungeons & Dragons like most other hobbyists, the most important rules for a gaming system are how a game handles combat.  This presents a problem with Burning Wheel.  As I've always looked at the game and explained it people, Burning Wheel is more a game that has combat than a game about combat.  A fight really only takes place when it has to, when it's really important, and so the rules are set up to make those really important fights seem as epic and important as they should be.  Unfortunately for players who head straight for the Fight! chapter when they first crack open the book, this means that the rules for combat can be incredibly overwhelming, and that has turned off most of my friends from being willing to try out the system.  However, running my Mouse Guard campaign has gotten a group of my friends much more comfortable in the Burning Wheel system, and we've talked about finally getting this one going after our current game ends.  I really cannot wait.

Feel free to comment below and let me know what games you've been dying to play but haven't been able to as of yet.

Wherein I Talk About Space RPGs

I have always been more of a fantasy guy than a sci-fi fan for as long as I can remember.  I don't know if it comes from growing up in woodsy New Hampshire or if it's something other influence from my childhood, but I've always been way more into swords & sorcery than space operas.  This isn't to say I didn't love Star Wars growing up or that I don't still get the hankering for some space traveling now and again in my games, but it's something that comes and goes more often than not.

Surprisingly, the first roleplaying game I remember playing semi-regularly growing up was West End Games' D6 Star Wars. I had tried AD&D and couldn't get my head around it mechanically at ten or eleven years old, and I snagged a copy of ICE's Middle Earth Roleplaying around the same time period, but since I had the book I was expected to run the game, which I was very ill-prepared for at that age.  Star Wars kind of had everything in it that made it a perfect for me at that time period, which I should point out was also around the time the special edition movies were released in theaters.  The mechanics (or at least what we considered the important mechanics of combat and skill tests) were somewhat easier to follow, it came packed in with a familiar setting, and the best part was that it had rules for space combat and modifying starships.  All of our games tended to center around drumming up cash to buy a new ship or mod out an existing ship, and it functioned as a fantastic campaign device.

I recently had a group of close friends decide they wanted me to run a game for them, and they skew much more to the sci-fi end of things, so I started to look at different sci-fi roleplaying games that are out in the market at the moment.  Unfortunately, I never bought the West End Star Wars back in my heyday and it's currently out of print, so that wasn't an option.  But the big thing I wanted to make sure was included in the system was the ability to both modify starships and rules for ship-to-ship combat.

White Star

One of the first ones to jump out at me was James M. Spahn's / Barrel Rider Games' White Star, which is based on the OSR Swords & Wizardry White Box system.  I should point out that none of the players in the group were experienced gamers and had really only light experience with d20 rules, so this seemed like a good bet.  The character creation process is simple, with a limited number of choices, and there are rules for ship modification and dogfights, so this was the first game we rolled out.  One of us lives outside New Orleans, so we ended up using Roll20 for the game, which may have helped killed this one from the get-go unfortunately.

I should point out that there is nothing wrong with White Star as a system, and in fact I think that the game itself is a very well designed and appreciate the work involved.  It unfortunately was just not the game for my particular group.  Part of it was the lack of Roll20 character sheet integration, as I had to self design crude character sheets to keep track of everything.  But the bigger part I think was that the game itself is just too rules-light and open for me to run with this group, which is by design.  Combat is simple enough, and the space combat rules are seamless, but where the system falls apart for us is in the lack of skill checks.  This probably comes down to me not being a big OSR guy, but given how unforgiving combat in White Star can be for low level players, they needed to try and get creative in how they approached encounters rather than go guns-blazing.  But there is nothing there from a system standpoint.  No skills, which we could've probably gotten around by using attribute modifiers for instead, but there are no rules for increasing attributes when gaining levels either.  This meant that they would never improved as the game went on.  So then we looked at the saving throws (which advance with each level gained) as an alternative, but it was too broad.  It seemed very counter-intuitive that a pilot would be roughly as likely to be able to hack a security system as he would be able to execute some feat of great strength.  We made it three sessions with rules discussions in between before we shelved this one.

Stars Without Number

While we were working through our ill-fated White Star game, I continued researching other systems.  The next one that jumped out at me was Sine Nomine Publishing's much-lauded Stars Without Number.  This one also used a modified version of the d20 system, had rules for ship modding and space combat, and now most importantly had rules for skill rolls.  This addition also allows for slightly more customization of characters despite having only three classes compared to White Star's seven (including races), which meant rolling characters took slightly longer, but not Burning Wheel level by any means.

SWN also benefits from having interactive character sheets on Roll20, and I can say that I likely wouldn't be able to run the game with this group without it.  Between the completely different mechanics for combat vs. skill rolls and the number of modifiers for each combat roll, I doubt my players would've been able to grasp the mechanics without the Roll20 macros.  The game also has a pretty rad ruleset for factions and star system generation, although we haven't yet ventured into this part of the system.  In addition, the game allows for helpers on rolls, which appeals to the BW fanboy in me considerably.

That being said, I still find myself kind of dissatisfied with the system.  Part of this is that I am not a big prepper as a GM, and SWN is a game that requires a lot of it.  Another part of it is that the system is still more or less part of the OSR umbrella, which means it's very unforgiving combat-wise, especially as it pertains to healing.  The healing aspect is likely by design in order to function with the faction turns system, forcing characters onto the sidelines for an extended period while the universe around them advances plot-wise, which would be awesome if we were using that part of the system.  Given that we aren't, we've instead had to improvise our own healing system in the game.  I'm also not completely sold on the rules for Psionics, but that could dwindle a bit the more they get used in play.

D6 Space

Were it not for the group really being reticent to step outside of d20 mechanics, I think I would've gone instead with the spiritual successor to Star Wars, D6 Space (also by West End Games).  Granted it's been years since I've played in the D6 system and it lacks the built-in setting strength of Star Wars, but I still think if I had gotten my players on board with learning a new system we all might have had a better experience with our game to this point.  If the opportunity presents itself down the line for another sci-fi game, or if my players decide to give another new system a try, I think this will be the system I run in the future.  It will be interesting to see how much I've romanticized the system in my memory as well.  It could very well be that it just doesn't hold up as well with time, but given that the PDF is free on DriveThruRPG it's no real risk outside of time spent.  Plus, it has a Roll20 character sheet, which is a pretty surprising bonus.

Feel free to comment with some of your favorite sci-fi game stories or systems.  In particular, if you play White Star, let me know what I'm missing.  I don't enjoy the idea of calling a system a loss, so please try and convert me back into getting that one onto the table again at some point.

Mouse Guard Mission - Dinkle's Tower

This is one of the earliest missions I designed for Mouse Guard, which I posted to the Burning Wheel forums last year.  This was run in 1E , which is the edition I tend to play more often than not.  I've left the Wises and skills in 1E format, since I find it's easier to convert forwards than it is to transpose backwards between editions, so you'll need to tweak a few things to run it in 2E.

This mission is a fairly easy one to run, and I designed it with the idea of being a way to introduce new players to the system.  My Mouse Guard group that I formed a few years back is made up of two players who had never played a roleplaying game before, and one experienced player who had only played d20, so I needed a way to get them involved in the setting and system of Mouse Guard as easily as possible.  For the d20 player especially, I also needed to discuss expectation of combat and themes.  I tend to run Mouse Guard as a "lighter" fantasy RPG, and run at least as many missions that focus on more mundane obstacles like mediating trade disputes between settlements as I do ones that involve heavy combat or espionage.

So for this one, I tried to fit in a little bit of everything to give players a feel for the system and setting.  The basis of the mission is that an important weather station hasn't provided it's annual early spring weather report to Lockhaven, which Gwendolyn uses to try and schedule the first patrols of the year.  The patrol heads out to investigate, and find that the meteorologist's reports went with his young pupil, but that the young pupil has been attacked by a shrike on his way back to town to mail the report to Lockhaven.  This gives new players an idea as to some of the duties of the Guard, with also throwing in a bit of more traditional RPG tasks like tracking and fighting beasts.



It's early Spring, a time when the land has begun to thaw and beasts have begun to awaken. Despite the optimism that a new spring can bring, it is a dangerous time for the mice of the Territories. Beasts of all manner awake from their winter slumbers with angry bellies. The melting snow can turn a well-traveled path into a raging river. Perhaps worse, a slow spring can lead to depleted stores, forcing untrained mice to risk venturing out into the unforgiving cold.

Early spring is a time when mice are at the mercy of the unpredictable weather, and it is because of this that the weather watchtower, manned by the humble scientist Dinkle, was originally erected outside of the town of Blackrock. Fitted with a powerful telescope, it is able to track weather patterns from the north, west, and spy the lakefront storms of the shore towns both to the south and north. It is this tower that provides to Lockhaven an early spring report, advising which areas might be in need of the most urgent assistance from the Guard.

Except no news has come yet this year, and the Matriarch fears the worst.

Assign the Mission: Venture to Blackrock and discover why the communications from Dinkle's Tower have ceased.

===============

(Optional Obstacle: 
- If anyone in the patrol has an Instinct related to checking the weather, roll Weather Watcher Vs Spring 6. If failed, an early warm rain falls, expediting the melting of the snow and causing flooding during the Pathfinder test later on.)

Obstacle: Ob 3 Health
- It is still very early in Spring, and while warm enough for the snow to begin melting, it is still quite cool, and made more treacherous by the water. Those that fail are made Tired on their march towards Blackrock.

===============

Upon reaching Blackrock, the patrol finds the town slowly waking from its hibernation, with some of the townsmice working on repairs here and there after the winter. Any mice the patrol asks about the Tower will direct the group towards the town clerk's office for guidance.

The town clerk, Matteo, is an incredibly overworked archivist, or at least he believes himself to be. Despite being the only ones in the office, the patrol will find Matteo completely frantic, shuffling about papers everywhere and filing in a frenzy. If asked for news from Dinkle, he will reply that Dinkle is typically very well stocked for the winter months, so no one hears from him before the first few weeks of spring when he needs to restock and brings the weather report to be mailed to Lockhaven. When asked about how to get to the Tower, he will reply that he is very busy, giving the patrol hasty (and very confusing) directions to the whereabouts of Dinkle and the Tower outside of town to the northeast.

--------------------
Matteo
Nature 3 ; Will 4 ; Resources 4 ; Health 3 ; Circles 3
Skills: Archivist 5 ; Administrator 2 ; Records-wise 3 ; Archive-wise 4 ; Cartographer 2
Traits: Hard-worker 1
--------------------

Obstacle: Persuader/Deceiver vs Matteo Will 4
- If successful, Matteo will produce a quick map that will provide the patrol with +1D tools for the Pathfinder test to locate the Tower. If failed, he will shoo the patrol out of his office due to his being "incredibly busy," making the patrol Angry as a result.

================

The primary path to the tower is flooded in some areas due to the melting snow, meaning that the patrol needs to find alternate passages in certain areas. 

Obstacle: Pathfinder Ob 3
- If failed, the invoke the Shrike Twist during the journey to the Tower
- Special: If the patrol failed the optional Weather Watcher test prior to setting out, there is a large area of flooding that will not be passable with a mere Pathfinder test. In this case, the patrol will also need to make either an Ob 4 Health test to swim across the flooded area, or an Ob 3 Boatcrafter test to build a vessel that will carry the patrol across the water. If either failed, invoke Shrike Twist.

================

Upon reaching the Tower and Dinkle, the scientist will be confused, claiming to have given his assistant Hennik the report a week ago to send to Lockhaven with the rest of Blackrock's mail. He will assume that something terrible must have befallen Hennik, and will insist that the patrol find the poor young mouse.

---------------------
Dinkle
Nature 2 ; Health 3 ; Will 6 ; Resources 7 ; Circles 4
Skills: Weather Watcher 5 ; Healer 3 ; Instructor 3 ; Loremouse 2 ; Star-wise 4
Traits: Curious 2 ; Oldfur 2
---------------------

Obstacle: Scout Vs. Nature (Mouse) 5
- A successful Scout test finds Hennik injured but otherwise fine (use standard Naturalist stats for Hennik). If failed, invoke the Shrike Twist.
- Special: If Scout test is failed and Shrike Twist has already been invoked, Hennik has been killed by the Shrike. The patrol finds his body impaled in a thorn bush and partially eaten, but with the majority of the weather report in tact. The patrol will need to report this to Dinkle and get his confirmation of the weather report before departing Blackrock.

Obstacle: Pathfinder Ob 3 or Cartographer Ob 2
- If found alive, Hennik is Injured and requires medical attention. The patrol must either hastily make for the quickest route back to town from where they've found him (Pathfinder), or use Matteo's map to discern their direction back to the main path (Cartographer). A successful Healing Ob 3 test will reduce the Pathfinder/Cartographer Ob by 1, due to allowing Hennik a bit more mobility and comfort during the trip. If failed, Shrike Twist (if not used) or Conditions.

=================

Shrike Twist!

At multiple possible points during the mission, the patrol may be descended upon by a hungry Shrike. This bird is also responsible for the disappearance of Hennik, and depending on when the patrol encounters the beast they may find Hennik hiding beneath a thorn bush, trying to keep away from the hungry bird.

Use the standard Shrike stats for the animal.
=================

Player's Turn Suggestions:
Depending on how things play out, a number of possibilities exist for the patrol to explore during the PT. They may assist in healing Hennik, or they might buy/fashion some armor for the boy to keep him safe on future ventures back into Blackrock. If Hennik has been killed by the shrike during the mission, the patrol may try and find a new apprentice for Dinkle. If the shrike was not encountered during the mission, the patrol may hunt down the creature for its attack on Hennik.


Feel free to use, and let me know your thoughts and experiences.

Frontiering in Mouse Guard

A topic that comes up quite a bit among the Mouse Guard RPG community is the idea of setting up a new settlement during the game as an ongoing campaign.  People seem to want to run these kinds of campaigns, but tend to find it a bit daunting and aren't sure where to start.  Part of the beauty in design of Mouse Guard is that with the seasons and the turn structure, the game is fairly encapsulated, and that lends itself really well to building campaigns in chunks.  I think part of the issue for most people in approaching these types of campaigns comes down to pacing and trying to do too much in a single session.

I've found that the main starting point for this kind of campaign is answering out three main questions:

• Where is the new new settlement being set up geographically?
• Who will be populating the new settlement?
• Why is setting up a new settlement a better choice than living in an existing territory?

If you start thinking about these questions during your planning and discussions with your players, it will guide a lot of the early play sessions and give a lot of focus, which tends to be where GMs and players get hung up.  A key part of running a successful campaign setting up a new town is to keep in mind the duties of the Guard.  You or your players may want to set off into the woods looking for great beasts to slay, but the new settlement having a place to sleep or a source of food is usually much more paramount to their safety.  Protecting mice doesn't always mean killing things, and in many cases it leads to much more interesting and far-reaching choices for players.  Getting that buy-in from everyone is key.

A map of The Territories

If you start geographically, it can help give shape to the new settlement before the game starts running.  The planning of the initial missions shouldn't be that different than if you were filling out one of the lesser known territories.  In the campaign I ran with my home group, I wanted to make sure that the new settlement bordered a body of water for trading purposes and also for potential threats for future campaigns, so I chose the southeastern peninsula to border the same lake as Burl, Grasslake, and Lonepine.  Where you plan on putting the new settlement can tell you a lot of what predators the mice will have to deal with, and what resources might be available based on the landscape.  A settlement along the shoreline might grow rice, for example, while one on the edges of the Wild Country might harvest a lot of nuts from the nearby trees.

The who and why for a new territory tend to be linked, so figuring out one will likely give you an idea for the other.  Historically, there are two types of peoples who would voyage into unknown lands to build a life for themselves: those looking for fame and glory or those seeking to flee persecution.  If the mice starting your new settlement are frontiersmice, it's likely that they are going after some resource or trade route, which would give you a good idea of what skills those mice will have. More importantly, it'll give you an idea as to which skills they don't have.  Figuring out where the holes in a settlement's skilled labor are provides easy mission ideas, as it gives legitimate reasons or opportunities for the patrol to be involved in the new settlement.

Conversely, if the mice are fleeing some kind of persecution or conflict with another territory, that means they likely lack many of the skills needed for setting up a settlement on their own, and  that can up the danger factor in the ensuing missions.  Just as useful, it gives you a built-in relationship with another existing territory.  In our game, the mice setting up the new settlement were headed up by the daughter of the head of Grasslake, who had been cast out over conflicts with the patriarchial government in her hometown.  She was a capable enough mouse, but many of the mice that left with her were other female housemice who lacked many of the skills needed to survive in the wild.  This meant that the patrol had a large role to fill in protecting and help building up the settlement, and also allowed for many future sessions related to the conflict with Grasslake.

As I mentioned earlier, for me the key in these types of campaigns is looking at the building up of a settlement from a procedural standpoint.  There's a tendency from players and GMs to go the more traditional RPG route of monster encounters, but for Mouse Guard being ill-suited to withstand a flood can be a much greater danger than a wandering animal.  It also, from a mechanical standpoint, provides much more opportunity for skill development.  A new settlement needs houses for the mice living there - Carpenter, Stonemason, Scientist, Glazier, etc. all can be used for great obstacles during the GM Turn.  Mice also need to eat - Hunter is a knee-jerk skill to use, but buried in the Seasons chapter is this little gem: "Planting a field of seeds for later harvesting is an Ob 6 Harvester test."  The goal of the patrol should be helping the settlement achieve sustainability. After all, the Guard is always needed elsewhere, and there's no telling how long the patrol will be able to stick around.

In this sense, you can spread something like maintaining a steady food source across multiple obstacles and sessions.  Our town was in a marshy area, so there were small fish to catch for the short term.  We secured a rice shipment, and planted rice for more of a long-term food source, and then one of our later missions was to build a mill to convert the rice into rice flour for additional food, and paper for trade.  Taking on this line of thinking can help build a lot more color to your game, and can help your players get more of a connection to the settlement as they go, because they can see a true progression.

If you're thinking about running a campaign like this, keep some of these things in mind when designing your missions.  Mouse Guard to me is the perfect setting to run this sort of game, as everything is a real danger, from unknowingly building a town close to a fox's den or trying to negotiate a trade agreement with a nearby settlement that has resources you need.  If you think of everything that you really need to start a town, you can run missions in the same settlement for years. 

Let me know some of your stories of running your own settlement building missions, and let me know if you have any other suggestions for GMs looking to do so.