labcats | Reading Mouse Guard RPG (Reply)

I'm currently reading the Mouse Guard rpg, which was described to me as "Burning Wheel Lite". This may be accurate, which is fine. BW is a system I just don't click with, and while this may just be because it doesn't work for me, it's also quite possible it's got something to do with my never having read the rules for any version of BW all the way through. I've gotten a couple of hundred pages into Burning Empires, but that's like reading a chapter or two of any other game.

Folks familiar with BW or BE who are reading this should please forgive me if I spend a lot of time on stuff that is old hat to you. It's new to me.

Like BE, Mouse Guard is based on a comic book. I have read none of the source material for either game. I am finding that this is a feature, or, at least, not a bug for Mouse Guard. That is, at the very least, as of page 50, I am having no problem following what Luke is saying or figuring out enough about the source material to understand the feel the game is trying to capture. I don't find the idea of playing mice with missions off-putting; indeed, I now understand why

judd_sonofbert was excited by the idea. All of this is as it should be for any decent rpg.

But, it's also possible that my ignorance of the source material is a feature, because the setting is transparent, allowing me to get a clear view of the mechanics, the reverse of the way I usually picture a good rpg as being structured. On the other hand, when I don't know the source material for an rpg, I deliberately don't read it until I see whether the author has written a game that will work for those of us who haven't read the source material. In other words, mechanics should not obscure setting or game play, and the setting should not obscure the mechanics. So far, so good.

Thus far, the most annoying thing I've hit is on the nit-pick scale. A Mouse Guard PC has a cloak whose color is chosen by the PC's mentor. The color "represents how the mentor views his former student's disposition and personality" (p. 29). But, thus far, at least, there's no indication of what the colors mean.

Also, I can't find a blank character sheet in the book, and I think the text says that there is one. I wanted to see just how much space is permitted for listing gear, since a PC can only carry as much as the player can write down in that space. My first reaction to that was, "Luke, I can write very small."

womzilla thought that this mechanic was not as useful as his favorite Bunnies and Burrows rules, which were "No in-character counting above four" and "When in doubt about whether a rabbit could do X, the player wanting his PC to do it must demonstrate while wearing mittens". The difference in these types of rules could be examined in an essay on rpg generations or on engaging with mechanics vs simulationism vs common sense vs storytelling, I'm sure, but right now, I just note the gear rule as very much a Luke thing to do.

I'm currently reading the rules about Beliefs, Goals, and Instincts. I never got that far in BW. I think I got to the beginning explanation of these in BE, but I got bogged down in the skill list and professions, so I'm not sure. The Mouse Guard rules are making sense, which is the important thing.

And, I even understand, I think, why Mouse Guard could not be written before BE and BW. It's harder to write simpler.

If I have this right, Beliefs are ideals. There's an example of a statement that's too weak to work as a Belief, although no explicit explanation of why it doesn't work. There's an example of something that is "better", but I can't tell whether it is good enough, especially given that the sample characters' Beliefs are all quite different. They're pithier. They're catchier. GMs are supposed to challenge characters' beliefs, and this works even better, we are told, if other characters' beliefs can be pulled in. Two PCs with different, but not diametrically opposed, beliefs are mentioned, but there is no example of how a GM might create a situation that works well to challenge both beliefs and pit them against each other. I'm not quite sure how I'd do this, and I would imagine a beginning GM would be even more unsure.

Goals are concrete and need to be accomplishable within a single session. I presume one mission for the PCs = one session, and if a mission carries over into another session, my gut instinct is to consider the two sessions one, but I could be wrong.

Players choose their goals after their PCs learn what their mission is, which makes sense. They change their goals at the beginning of every session, and they may not change them in the middle.

This lead

mnemex to ask what one does if a goal becomes unviable in the middle of a session. My guess is that this isn't supposed to happen. The players should choose goals that they believe are achievable in a single session. If the GM knows something that the players don't, and realizes that a chosen goal is not achievable, I would assume that the GM should tell the players who have chosen impossible goals to pick new ones. We are not talking about reaching a point halfway through a session where the PC has definitively failed to achieve a goal, but about goals that, through no fault of the player or PC, cannot be achieved.

Finally, there are Instincts, actions that PCs take under specific circumstances. Instincts and Beliefs may be changed at the start or end of a session, never in the middle. Goals have to be changed at the start of each session.

Players get rewarded for acting on their Beliefs and Instincts, and on acheiving their Goals. Players also get rewarded for failing to achieve their Goals, and for acting against their Beliefs or Instincts in dramatic ways. This is wonderful. Anything less would be penalizing players for good roleplaying.

mnemex and I discussed how this differs from what old editions of D&D did with the alignment system. mnemex said that if one wanted to show character development, by, say, having an arc where one's PC started out evil and eventually changed alignment to some flavor of good, the PC lost a level. Players were penalized for this kind of roleplaying.

I said that D&D penalized players for roleplaying, period, but, as mnemex pointed out, that's not exactly true, and it was not the intent of the alignment system. The alignment system was an attempt to get players to stay in character, with the stick of losing a level. I guess that means the carrot was the various cool powers one got from playing certain types, like the Paladin, or from magic items that only worked for certain alignments.

But, one of the things we're seeing in games like the Mouse Guard rpg, or like Primetime Adventures, is the notion that, when there is a binary oppostion -- succeed or fail, follow your code of behavior or break it -- both options should lead to dramatic play, and both options, done well, should be rewarded. I like this.

And, that's as far as I've gotten in the book. But, there are other things I like about it. The art is lovely. The production values are lovely. And, to my astonishment, the price is lovely.

The book is thirty-five bucks in the USA. (Well, okay, $34.95. And there's tax.) I had expected it to be at least forty, and would not have been surprised if it had been fifty. And, I would still have bought it, even though I have been unemployed for a year. I would have bought it at full price, because my local gaming store carries it, and I want to encourage this. And, I would have bought it at $50 because, factoring in what games go for, both Indie and non-Indie rpgs, it would have been worth it. At $35? Definitely a bargain.