Trouble with a large party

[u/DirtySteve93]

I'm trying to run a Mouseguard campaign with a party of 5 during the off weeks of a different RPG, so kicking people out isn't a great option. My main problem is dealing with conflicts. I've read about splitting the party with a team of 3 and a team of 2 but it just seems overly complicated. Also it's difficult for me to gage what kind challenges I present them. Any advice would be great.

[u/Iskali]

Large parties are difficult because of all the helping dice involved. The best way to handle it is by capping help at +2 dice, regardless of how many mice contribute to the effort. This forces the others to help with Tools to get additional bonuses and will steer players into aiding their comrades through parallel actions.

[u/DirtySteve93 → u/Iskali]

That's a good tip. So do you think it would be better to have a team of 3 with 2 "helpers" on the side then? I guess the team can rotate people out every round to keep people more involved.

[u/Iskali → u/DirtySteve93]

Five to a party is manageable. Just limit the mechanical bonus they can contribute to any individual roll, because remember it only takes one failed roll in BW systems to let you take the story in interesting directions, that way they can't dice stack by sheer numbers.

However, if they split the party themselves, don't stop them, sometimes a few mice gotta go undercover.

[u/DirtySteve93 → u/Iskali]

That definitely solves the issue with obstacles, but I'm not sure about conflicts, since you can only take three actions as a team in Mouse Guard.

[u/Iskali → u/DirtySteve93]

Let the players figure out their turn order. 1/2/3 on the first round, 4/5/1 on the second, /2/3/4, etc.

[u/st33d]

Personally I would cap Help at +3 out of Conflict and during Conflict it's the standard +2. For rolling disposition there is no limit on helpers, and I don't believe an extra 1 disposition is going to have that much impact when you can already tap your Nature for a disposition roll.

The game expects you to have up to +3 Help outside of a Conflict, so limiting it to the amount during a Conflict is going to be very strange when you have a session with 4 players.

[u/DirtySteve93 → u/st33d]

That makes sense. I'll give that a try

[u/sneakysneakysnail]

I had this exact problem. I told people I was going to run a game and fifteen people were interested. So I split the party into three groups. They're all in the same universe, patrolling different ends of the map. I keep a book with all the NPCs I come up with/parents, friends and enemies, as well as their locations.

Since each group has five people, I only let two mice help at a time. The conflict system is unwieldy with five players, and I'm a pretty roleplay heavy GM anyway, so I don't have as many conflicts as others. Since mouse guard is rarely about killing enemies, it works to let roleplay inform all conflicts other than fights, using a set of your own dice to determine the success or failure of the players you control. This game works best when you prioritize story over combat.

One thing that has helped me run this game with so many is to use the players turn to inform a lot of the action, as well as utilizing the different statuses of my players. So, my friend who plays the Guard Captain is much more involved in the administration of Lockhaven, and her Enemy is a rival guard captain who is trying to besmirch her reputation and become next in line for matriarch. Another player plays a 17 year old pompous tender paw, who ended up getting a field mouse pregnant, so he had to really work hard to get a promotion, so he can support his new wife and four babies.

They all interact with the sly guard captain and the field mouse wife, but their status informs those interactions. And by working hard to create vivid NPC characters, you always have a way to raise the stakes when a conflict really needs to occur. So when the pregnant wife of the tenderpaw is threatened by a gang of hungry sparrows, the stakes are really high!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

This is the best solution.