Lego and Sawdust

Hannah reports on a session that includes action, adventure and tragedy:

A red wing black bird attacked the patrol in an effort to save her nest. She didn’t harm the patrol in any way, but gave them quite a scare.

The bridge at Greenback Gully was out, so they had to climb down the steep sided gully and then back out. They tried to take the boat with them and succeeded in getting it down into the gully, but couldn’t get it back out. They had to leave the boat at the bottom of the gulley and proceed without protection. [note: they had been ingeniously walking under the boat thus far, as protection from overhead attack]

The last few hundred meters between the woods and Elmoss are a wide open meadow ringed with tall trees, known for its active hawk population. There has been an attempt to grow some tall foliage in a path across the meadow to give some cover for travellers.

For an unknown reason, the foliage along the path had been chopped down and thrown into four main piles scattered across the meadow. The patrol had to leapfrog from pile to pile, with mad dashes across open field between each.

The patrol made it the the first pile with no mishaps.

On the sprint to the second pile, Quinn tripped and was dive bombed by a hawk, but managed to evade its clutches long enough to dive to shelter.

During the third run Floss, the patrol’s noble leader, was attacked by the hawk. Despite the patrol’s desperate and varied attempts to save her, Floss was abducted and killed by the hawk.

The patrol made it to Elmoss with no further trouble from the hawks.

When they arrived they were taken aside by a childhood friend of Jared’s who told them that the guard would not be well received in town because the Western Army had taken over and was poisoning the minds of the people against the guard.

Jared’s friend then took them to a tavern where they met Loralai, an ex-patrol mouse living incognito. She introduced them to others in town willing to fight against the Western Army.

At the tavern the patrol met another one of Jared’s acquaintances, this one a mortal enemy, who recognized them. He ran out of the bar, likely to get help.

—

The evening ended there, and everyone was pretty wired up after losing Floss and quitting on a tense moment. Margaret had wanted to switch to a new character, so we decided beforehand that having Floss sacrifice herself would be a perfect way to do it. I told her that if anyone happened to get caught by the hawk I’d allow her to step in instead, and that’s the way it worked out.

This was the first time I had used music in a game. During the tense “sprinting from pile to pile to hide from the hawks” scene I played some frantic action-movie crescendo type music, with a driving beat. We used small counters on the table to indicate eachplayer’s position, and the kids were pretty into it. Lots of fun.

In our Mouse Guard game, it is early spring in the Mouse Territories. The players were in Lockhaven, waiting with everyone else for travel to open up between snowbound towns so trade can begin. They were called by the leader of the Mouse Guard to travel a few days west to Ivydale and then Elmoss to find out why they hadn’t seen any merchants from there yet.

In Ivydale, a friend of Floss’s teld them about mice in brown cloaks sneaking about talking to people. The players got pulled into trying to destroy a beaver lodge that was threatening to flood the town. The resulting rush of water destroyed the brand new bridge from Ivydale across the river westward, so the townspeople are quite upset.

The players managed to argue some wood and supplies out of the store manager and build themselves a boat to cross the river and continue their journey. Once across they decided to keep the boat and carry it upside down, walking under it as protection against the hawks and owls they have been warned about on this road. As a gamemaster I found this very frustrating, because they managed to fend off many of the encounters I had set up in one stroke. As a parent, I was thrilled at the creativity.

They had a few encounters with hawks, a loud but harmless squirrel and ended the session by finding the body of a young girl mouse on the side of the road. She seems to have been coming from Elmoss, and she has no supplies or equipment.

*cue dramatic organ chords*

Each of my kids has a character in our Mouse Guard roleplaying campaign. In Mouse Guard, each character has a few numbers that describe their strength and such, but the most interesting parts describe their personality.

Each character has a belief (a primary attitude), an instinct (the first reaction to a situation), and a goal (a personal objective). The story lines are often deliberately planned to put a character’s beliefs or instinct to the test.

The cast of characters:

Floss (played by Margaret) is the leader of our little band, with the rank of Patrol Guard. She’s a bit of a loner, preferring to be in the woods by herself than in the city. She’s trying hard to counter this to become a good patrol leader.

Traits that describe Floss: Inquisitive, Nimble, Natural Bearings.
Belief: Trouble comes with crowds.
Instinct: Always make up your own mind.
Goal: To show Gwendolyn (the head of the Mouse Guard) that I can take care of a patrol.

Jewel is a Guardmouse in the patrol. She wears lots of jewelery and fancy gems (and spends time telling us about them). She’s played by our 6 year old Rachel (with help from Jennifer). Jewel is not much of an outdoorsman, preferring to do research and archival work.

Traits that describe Jewel: Curious, Clever, Clumsy
Belief: The pen is mightier than the sword.
Instinct: If there’s work to be done I’ll always offer to help.
Goal: To show that I’m a valuable member of the patrol.

Quinn (Hannah) is another Guardmouse in the patrol. She’s wary and suspicious, with a short temper.

Traits that describe Quinn: Short, Good Weather Sense
Belief: Observation is the best form of action.
Instinct: Trust is hard earned.
Goal: Keep an eye on Topaz the tenderpaw.

Jared is a Timothy’s Tenderpaw (a new Mouse Guard recruit in a mentorship year). He’s quiet and fiercely loyal. His mentor is Floss.

Traits that describe Jared: Alert, Quiet, Tall
Belief: First you talk, then you fight.
Instinct: Always put friends first.
Goal: Keep the patrol safe.

Topaz is also a tenderpaw, under Quinn’s mentorship, played by Joshua. He’s an orphan who grew up in the Guard hall, so he’s wanted to be a Guardmouse his entire life.

Traits that describe Topaz: Curious, Long Tail, Guard’s Honour
Belief: The Guard needs heroes.
Instinct: Always finish what you start.
Goal: To impress Quinn.




That’s the cast of characters. Adventure reports to follow.

I’m expecting that this post will be read by my family and friends, but also some role-playing game folks that I hang out with on the internet. It therefore has both references to my kids and to various games and RPG lingo. If you don’t understand something, just move on. It’s hard to hit both target audiences.

I was an avid Advanced Dungeons and Dragons player as a teen and I played many different, more experimental games in my early 20′s, but then I got out of it. It’s something I’ve always missed.

My dream has always been to get my kids involved in pen and paper role-playing games. The games kept me busy during a time when lots of my peers were out getting into things that I’m glad I didn’t get into, and I’d rather that my kids don’t get into. They forced me to read a lot, and write a lot, and create a lot, and learn a lot, and laugh a lot. I’d wanted to share that with my kids.

I’ve been looking for a suitable game to play, because Jennifer is a hardcore pacifist, and while I am not quite as hardcore, teaching my kids to walk around killing things indiscriminately isn’t really where I wanted to go.

Enter Mouse Guard.

Mouse Guard is a series of graphic novels by David Petersen in which mice talk and have a society (there are no humans). The Mouse Guard is like a Police force or Park Ranger service that keeps everyone safe from the weasels and other dangers. Time they don’t spend helping merchants and solving crimes, they spend simply surviving the world of owls, birds and other creatures that are higher on the food chain. It’s alternately very cute, very sad and very deep. A great place for some good problems to solve.

Luke Crane took the world and adapted it to the game system he developed (Burning Wheel). The Mouse Guard game was highly recommended for playing with new players and kids. I bought it and read it, and read it again, and loved the world, but not the system. So I designed my own based on my experience with a free customizable gaming system called FUDGE (Freeform User-Defined Gaming Engine). It’s simple and the kids love it. They play a Patrol of Mouse Guard members, and are given missions to perform.

I’ll be posting mission logs of how play sessions go, and hopefully some recordings of play sessions themselves.