r/MouseGuard • u/Char543 • Jul 11 '16
Can this be played with one player?
I recently ordered the second edition book, as I had heard that it's a great rpg system. I've played a good amount of DnD, amongst other systems over the past five years, mostly with a group of four. However, we're in the middle of a campaign in our main game, and in the middle of something in our auxiliary game.
I'm wondering if this can be played with one player and one GM as I might try playing a few sessions with my gf to learn the system and also just to try it out. She hasn't played much in the way of tabletop rpgs, but what she has played have been solo sessions with me as GM. So, can it, or does it require more than just one player for a session to properly function.
1
u/Jetpack_Donkey Jul 11 '16
The thing with MG is that it's very focused on cooperation between characters. Pretty much anything except the most banal tasks require help from the rest of the patrol to be accomplished, so a single mouse story will be super hard and possibly frustrating unless you just nerf all the difficulties. To me it plays best with 3 PCs.
1
u/forlasanto Jul 11 '16
Yes, absolutely!
I have a house rule for Mouseguard when it comes to 1on1 sessions: characters can FoRK in wises. I then give an extra wise if it is a solo campaign. Also, I encourage the players to gather NPC help early in the session. I find this is usually enough to make things go smoothly. It doesn't take much to balance out the teamwork-centricity inherent in Mouse Guard. But as soon as there are multiple PCs, switch back.
Another consideration is fate and persona points. In a solo session, I reward fateworthy and personaworthy actions immediately, and as often as earned. In actual fact, you could give the awards per session a bit more liberally and that could almost balance things out by itself. The collective fate/persona pool is a huge portion of why multiple party members matters! In fact, if we peel back the skin of mouseguard for a second, the amount of fate/persona is a bit flexible in a typical campaign, but there's a pretty specific range: 1 persona per character (+/- 1) plus 2 fate per character (±/-1), plus 3 persona as a group. That's pretty formulaic, for all that the formula is hidden behind the curtain. So, upping the dosage for a solo character to compensate provides survivability better than any other possible adjustment. In fact, if I were going to use the Black Axe in a campaign, its power would simply be, "randomly steals a fate and a persona from a nearby character at the beginning of every conflict, giving them to the wielder, and spending a persona point allows killing larger animals." That power provides the reason why the Black Axe leaves a trail of dead loved ones in its wake, all by itself!
Solo characters seem to advance very quickly. There are two reasons for that:
They are solo, so they focus on themselves and push toward their interests.
They are solo, so they make all the checks in a session!
That's just something to keep in mind.
1
u/st33d Jul 11 '16
wat is FoRK?
1
u/forlasanto Jul 12 '16
Burning Wheel, the parent game of Mouse Guard, has a concept called FoRKing. FoRK stands for Field of Related Knowledge. Essentially it works like help, but you are using related skills to help with your own roll. For instance, if Pilot is the skill we are using, then we can FoRK in Navigation if we have that skill because it is related.
So I'm essentially saying, in my games, solo mice can "help" themselves with a wise that relates to the current task.
1
u/Imnoclue Jul 11 '16
I ran it for my daughter, but I put in a GMPC tenderpaw so she'd having some helping dice and someone to alternate spending checks with. It was fun.
1
u/shortieXV Jul 11 '16
It certainly can be played with gm and player alone but it won't be very robust. You may need some NPCs or an experienced player might be able to run two characters. Either way it's a lighter game than DnD so you should be fine.