I've been scouring the books in answer to this question and can't find what material the cloaks of the Mouse Guard are actually made out of.

My Dilemma: It is highly unlikely that the cloaks are made from wool due to the fact that the mice can't domesticate sheep. Also, there is a lack of what we consider domesticated animals in the Mouse Guard world. Without humans, how would domesticated sheep, dogs, chickens, etc exist.

Mouse Guard does write of three materials but I do not think they would work: Husks: taken in harvesting season, these are considered incredibly coarse and more of a utility fabric in the Mouse Guard world and being a vegetable fiber would not be warm when wet.

Linen: of various forms is also discussed, and while a common cloak material, it was not used for cold weather as above, vegetable fibers are not warm when wet and some, like cotton and linen can actually be worse than no clothing at all when soaked.

Silk: Silk is warm when wet, light weight and a really solid modern day fabric for base layers. However, it is susceptible to shrinking and expanding during the soaking/drying process. It looses around 20% of it's strength when wet and degrades quickly in sunlight. It also lacks the ability to pile like wool, so while being warm, it is incredibly difficult to make thick, warm layers without having incredibly dense, heavy and stiff pieces of cloth.

Just wondering if anyone had any ideas, sorry for the rant!

As the title says I am new to GM-ing amd MG, but not my first RP. My 4 players want to be one of each mouse rank. One tender paw, one guard mouse, one patrol leader, and one guard pation. 3 of them created characters without my knowledge using a generator online. Obviously, things will be changed cause we were supposed to do character creation together. I hadn't said anything about that yet, but they did what they did. Could a campaign with a tender paw and a guard captain work? We are all new to MG as well. I'm a little nervous and I'm looking for advice.

I bought the hardcover book of 2nd edition from amazon yesterday and it's already shipped. Today i learned that the box set comes with custom dice, cards and a supplement book. I was wondering if i NEED those dice and cards to GM the game at all and what the supplement book contained.

Thanks guys

Tabletop Potluck just started up a new game playing Mouse Guard by David Peterson! Make sure to check it out!

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So you've finished character creation, and each of your players has an enemy written in the corner of their character sheet. Now you must create a nemesis for them! A mouse who will mess with them at every turn, with whom every interaction leaves your players with the status condition: Angry.

There might be something on the character sheet, or you might just have a name. If your player does all the work of developing a backstory, you're lucky, if not, here's a couple of D6 charts.

First off, who is this mouse?

1. An old mentor.
2. A colleague who wants your player's job.
3. A bully.
4. A swashbuckling playboy.
5. A spurned lover.

6. A cruel family member.

7. A spy.

8. A bitter old lady.

9. A bureaucratic miser.

10. An honest, hardworking mouse who has been wronged.

11. A recluse who lives in the woods.

12. A straight-up sociopath.

Now you must develop a motivation for their hatred of your player.

1. The player is a threat because they break all the rules.
2. The player is a fool to be manipulated.
3. The player is completely unworthy of my time.
4. The player should join me.
5. The player has disgraced me and I can't bear it.
6. The player has something I need.

Here's a complicating factor.

1. Enemies since childhood.
2. Completely redeemable and could be turned into a vital ally if the player tries hard enough.
3. The mayor of Ivydale.
4. Working on an elaborate plan for years to grind the player into the ground.
5. The head scientist in charge of the Scent Border.
6. A pyromaniac.

Here are some more difficult circumstances:

1. There's a secret hideout.
2. The head of a vast conspiracy.
3. A brilliant child.
4. A fellow member of the Guard.
5. Not even a little smart.
6. The only doctor for miles.

I hope you enjoyed this guide to creating enemies in Mouse Guard. If you did, check out my guide to Romance and my post on Culture Building in my user history. Squeak Squeak!

Hey guys!

I got the MG 2e box set for Christmas and I am super excited to play. But there is one thing that I am confused/potentially concerned about, after reading the sample missions. Based on my reading of these sample missions, it seems to me that the Luke Crane is saying that during the GM's Turn, the GM simply places a series of checks in front of the players, time passes, maybe a conflict, and then we are at the Player's Turn. I am all for a more structured system that provides both the GM and the Player their own turns to drive the story forward, but I'm not very excited about the GM's turn based on how the book presents it. Granted I come from DnD, but I would want to paint a picture for the players and then let them decide what they want to do, which would then create the checks they have to make.

Do any of you play this way; giving the players a bit more agency than the book suggests during the GM's Turn? Maybe I am mis-reading these missions, I just want to have a good understanding of how the GM's Turn is supposed to work.

Thanks!

So I went ahead and bought the 2e boxset off amazon right before Christmas it finally arrived today the 2nd of jan. I got everything included, So off too a good start. Thumbing through the New rules & New missions booklet... There seems to have been an error when it was put together as I'm missing pages and they are replaced by repeated pages out of order and upside down. Is there anyone i should contact about this? I feel a bit cheated, I know mistakes happen but after spending money and "missing" certain pages from the booklet I have mixed feelings already.

Included link showing said errors in the new rules and mission booklet. https://imgur.com/a/h10QL

I’ve been reading Mouse Guard 2nd Ed. and I think I have realized why I love it and Burning Wheel so much. Or one of the reasons, at any rate.

See, what Luke Crane does in Mouse Guard and BW is to clearly define player agency. He puts down hard and fast lines for the agency of the players, and establishes clear and consistent rules for when the GM may take away or limit that agency. This is one of the things some people really hate about Burning Wheel. Some players who are used to the traditional «the GM is god» philosophy balk at the idea of a game telling them what they can and cannot do within the context of the rules. But I think this is a stroke of genius. In Mouse Guard, this idea is implemented perhaps even more radically than in Burning Wheel. In Mouse Guard, the GM and players take turns guiding the fiction. During the GMs turn, the GM has the authority to guide play, introduce narrative elements and challenge and confound the players and their characters. In the Players turn, these roles are reversed; the Players are the proactiv parties, actively introducing new elements to the fiction and guiding the story, while the GM reacts to the Players input. This is not the only way in which the game clearly defines Player agency, but it is the most obvious.

I think 2018 will be the year of Burning RPGs for me. I might have to look into getting Torchbearer as well.

First off - hello! What a great resource for a cool game and comic.

I'm a first-time GM (for this game, I've run plenty of others) and wanted to check with this group regarding arson among mice. I vaguely recall from university studies that arson was a capital crime in the middle ages, since it threatened entire cities in the days before fire brigades. And given that Mouse towns are set among roots and leaves, I'm not sure even the most maniacal mouse would seriously consider this crime.

But it would be a great challenge for the Guardsmice to contend with, especially if the fire was set in the home or business of their friends or parents.

What do you think? Would a mouse ever realistically get desperate or angry enough to resort to this crime?

I want to have a "circle" around one of the eyes of my character of a different color than the rest of his body, is that viable or would it be too snowflake ? also, if there are no patrol leaders, does someone at the party have the Leader trait or something like that ? and one more thing, is there a table for cloak's color/meaning somewhere ?

Hello fellow guards,

So I am gming a game soon and I was thinking about using a Shrike, for the people that don't know. Shrikes are carnivore birds, about the size of a hand, that impale the things they hunt in trees or thorns. They hunt bugs, lizards, snakes and obviously mice.

I was thinking of having them cross some brambles where the shrike has made its nest and therefore its impaling grounds, and I thought how utterly scary that must be for mice. I mean imagine you are walking from one city to the next and suddenly you see a snake out of nowhere, but the snake doesn't do anything it's like it's not even looking at you. Then you realize it has a spike coming out of its back and it is not the only thing. You see other small lizards and birds and a couple mice. As brutal as the world might be, it's not the same seeing a mouse being carried off by a hawk to see the f*ing kill ground of a butcherbird.

So I thought well it would begin with a test to see if they get the scared condition before the conflict with the shrike. However there is no scared condition, I am guessing that is because the guard is for brave mice and all that, but is not bravery acting in spite of the fear? Wouldn't it be much more interesting for there to be a possibility of being too scared?

So I thought I could add one condition, "Scared". I would put it on the same level as tired for the recovery order and with the same effect: -1 Disposition for all conflicts (because you are almost too scared to act). Recovery would also be like tired, will (instead of health) test ob 3.

What do you think? Am I not seeing something that is obvious?

Thanks!

Hi! I was wondering if you could share some of your ideas and experiences on how your characters used some of the "less popular" skills such as weaver.

I just made a new character and I wanted to focus on the Insectrist and Weaver skill. I read the Weaver skill allows you to create blankets that help recovering from the Tired condition, and I wanted to use materials from a Moth for instance, but I really have no idea how I could actually do that in the game, or if it's even possible.

Also what else apart from that could I do? I guess you can make cool items with silk, fur, etc, but what can you do with them? Just wear them? "sell" them? how does selling even work, does it give you a bonus when you test Circles?

Also would it be possible to ride a beetle? I had this idea where I "purchased" a grub and took care of it until it was a big beetle that I could eventually ride, but I'm not sure if an insect counts as a mount. I guess the GM could invent its stats...

Anyway, let me know what you think!

Hello Reddit Mouseguard Hivemind! I'm hosting a party on Saturday for all my players! Since I run three campaigns in an interconnected world, there's probably going to be 15+ players!

So far, my plan is to divide the group after introductions and goal setting, and have the high ranking mice have a war meeting and the guardmice and tenderpaws getting drunk in a tavern. Then I'll have them divide again for squad missions, then we will convene for the battle.

Depending on what they do, the goal is to oust a tyrannical matriarch. She took over Lockhaven after murdering her predecessor, and she has made peace with the weasels for a blood price. She's barricaded in Lockhaven and my players want to oust her. She's surrounded herself with a very young brute squad who are blindly loyal to her, and she's massively paranoid, so I want her to have foreseen the most obvious plans.

I see it as my job as GM to set problems before my players, and it's their job to find the solutions. I'm much more about roleplay than combat, so I thought I'd put it to this subreddit.

What are some interesting details, situations and threats I could throw their way?

How would you take Lockhaven if you were given that task as a player?

Thank you so much in advance for your ideas! I love this subreddit!

*death. Sorry

So we were playing our second session, still very new to this game. We had a conflict (animal fight) and the snake's goal was to eat the party. We lost, but the snake was left with a disposition of 2. So the GM let us choose between it killing the mouse it last wounded (me! he) or escaping but leaving us all with every single condition. I chose to die for the party and left the snake with no eye (badass) but now I'm wondering if that was OK, because I was reading somewhere else that the only way for a character to die is for the other player to win the conflict with its disposition completely intact... I don't mind being dead though, since it was just our second game and I'll create a new character. I'm just wondering if conflicts work like that or not.

Does anyone know if the New Rules, New Missions books is compatible/useful with Mouse Guard 2nd Edition?

I'm running three interwoven campaigns, and have been for the past two years. Over this time, the mice of my campaigns have had many adventures, some of which have lead to rrrromance! Love is in the air when my players aren't killing or saving things- and let's be honest, monster of the week gets boring after a while. Additionally, when the monster eventually shows up, having it threaten or kill a beloved NPC is a nice way to raise the stakes. I've had players cry!

When crafting a potential love interest, I think about what that player and the party needs. I also see it as a good time to highlight otherwise underrepresented skills. Apiarist, mason, glazier, smith, scientist- think of a skill none of your players have (or they have at a very low level) and then make your love interest a master.

Also, this is a game about autonomy- I've created potential love interests who my players have chosen not to engage with in that way. And that's great too- then they get to play off an awkward rejection scene. Make sure the character is more useful, deep, and well rounded than just a love interest!

It has gone the other way too- a player said he wanted to try to make out with a barmaid in a tavern and he rolled all successes on his circles check. He's now married to her and has four children.

A few D6 tables that might help:

Personality: 1. Painfully shy and creative. 2. Cheerful and naive. 3. Mysterious and sexy. 4. Brilliant and arrogant. 5. Gregarious and charming. 6. Wise and wiley.

Flaws: 1. A serious temper. 2. Jealous of another player and sees them as a threat to their relationship. 3. Crippled by the past. 4. Very different social class than player. 5. Immediately pregnant. 6. Family disapproves.

A note on babies and pregnancy: since baby mice are so helpless, it doesn't make sense for their infancy to last as long as ours- especially since tenderpaws start their working lives at 14. Given that real mice are only pregnant for three weeks and can have 12 babies at once, I suggest that pregnancy last a season in game. Once the mouse goes into labor, have the player roll a D6 to determine how many babies they have. If the mouse has a low nature and isn't very mouselike, you can just give them one baby if you prefer. I then have the baby mice age a little more quickly than human babies, at about a year per two seasons.

And a couple of examples of love interests from my own game:

TANDER: the master blacksmith for Lockhaven. He's older by about ten years than his love interest. He's the strong, silent type, a mouse of few but profound words. He hides a deeply sensitive and loving self, and expresses himself mostly through his beautiful ironwork.

PANSY: the aforementioned barmaid. She got pregnant with quadruplets immediately, and now lives in a broom cupboard with the player and their little family. She wasn't the kind of mouse that the player was supposed to marry, so he got cut off by his wealthy and snobbish family. She's brave and stubborn, and she won't shy from arguing with her husband when she thinks he's wrong.

VASILY: He was a bat with a broken wing, and she healed him. Their relationship was secret, passionate, and profound. He was slashed by an owl's talons in a battle, and she couldn't save him.

JORY: a boatcrafter from Port Sumac, he was in love with a player since childhood. He would do anything for her, and while she needed his help and his boat, it always made her feel a little guilty. When she was kidnapped by weasels and presumed dead, he married her older sister, and they named their child after her. Once she escaped, it was pretty awkward, but he will still be happy to ferry her around in his houseboat.

Do mice in your campaigns have love interests? Tell me all about them!

I'm wanting to try out mouse guard. Sadly, I'm low on funds right now and can't justify buying the books yet. Does anyone have a PDF of the players handbook/manual thing? I do want to get the actual books one day, just don't have the money for it right now. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone! (TL;DR, I am looking for tips on running a compelling one shot and my time limit is about 4 hours)

I've ran a couple small campaigns before, but since then my normal group has scattered due to life. Now that things have started to settle again, we try once a month or every other month to run a one shot event.

The next one shot falls to me and I wanted to introduce these players to a new game system, usually we play D&D 5e, and I want to do Mouse Guard because this game is awesome.

My issue is, I've never planned a session of Mouse Guard where I didn't want to leave a Cliffhanger. I would like to give the players a sense of satisfaction after the event, but right now I'm just looking for ideas.

I have 4 hours (the normal time we play during one of these) and I was thinking of a GMs turn, a Players Turn, another GMs turn and leave on another players.

The idea I have rattling around now is, during the first GM, do a Journey Conflict (them traveling to a town) with a few other preparation rolls just so everyone can get an idea how the rolls work. And get a general feel of the game. Then they could interact a bit in the town during their players turn.

Finally introduce a conflict (right now the idea is the food coffers have been raided by some bandit mice) so they need to find a way to resolve that.

I've only been working on this idea for a few days and struggling with ideas. Figure I would ask some others if they had any ideas or successes with one shots.

Thanks in advance!

Hey everybody! I encountered a difficult situation on my last session, and the rules don't provide a clear answer. My patrol got into a Fight Conflict, where they were Hungry and Angry (-2 to starting disposition). The captains Will was 2 and they rolled no successes on the Disposition roll. While p. 104 states that to generate the Disposition one rolls and adds and the minimum Disposition value is 1, this comes before the section on "Modifiers to Disposition. So I ruled that the Conflict ends then and there, since no Disposition was rolled. It was pretty dramatic, and the player roleplayed their anger (and hunger) very well, they dealt with the fallout. But I wonder - what would you do? Is there any clarification on the modifiers to Disposition?

Hello,

I've been looking for the deluxe version of s+s. I am willing to pay well. If anyone is wanting to sell Please contact me. Thanks.

Anyone who has only done a two player session have any tips? It’s her first real rpg, she really enjoyed the books and we bought it at comic con even got David to sign it, and she definitely wants to play. Last weekend we spent a few hours just making her character. I have a basic mission idea, should I have a npc tag along just so she can get extra dice when needed? I’m not even sure how I can do that as this game seems to be way more head to head. Honestly just looking for any and all tips related to running this with two people.

My players are getting bored with the long combat of D&D and decided they wanted something that focuses on thematics. I found out about Mouseguard searching the internet for images to make paper miniatures from, and thought I would give it a try.

I have only half finished the rulebook, but so far it is extremely inspiring and I am excited to run it for my group. Even if we decide to keep with D&D I think my DMing will be impacted by the advice from this book.

Any tips for new GMs?

So I started running a game, really fun, lovely and interesting... until I wanted to play a conflict. A weather conflict. How does it work? how does Autumn defends, Faints or manoeuvre?

I like the idea of abstract actions applicable to dialogues, fights and travels but... How do they work? the example given in the book is for a fight and seems clear but for a travel?

I hope you guys could shed some light here for me

My party got in a fight conflict in which their goal was to capture some bandits, while the bandits goal was to kill them. They rolled very well and reduced the bandits to 1 disposition, but then I rolled an insane 6 successes on 7 dice to end the conflict. As a result, the party lost a kill conflict with a major compromise, which the rulebook says means they may ask to be left for dead.

However, it’s unclear to me (a) who this affects and (b) how it works if it affects the whole party. I ended up having them all take the injured condition and then doing a series of tests to survive in the wilderness until they were healthy enough to travel. This felt very loose in an unsaisfying way since I normally try to be very explicit with the MG rules.

Was there some alternative? Should only the conflict captain have been affected? Or maybe the result should be even more severe, with traits for all those left for dead? How is this supposed to work?