The General's Tent

For the past four months I’ve been running a play-by-post Mouse Guard game at the Burning Wheel forum. It’s nearing the end of the first player turn and although we’ve experienced some player turnover I’d say the game has been very successful. In that time I’ve come to grips with Mouse Guard’s unique system and wanted to share my thoughts.

If you aren’t familiar with the game, Mouse Guard is based on Luke Crane’s Burning Wheel RPG and it elevates roleplaying and character development over combat mechanics. The game play is structured into a Game Master’s Turn and a Player’s Turn. During the GM’s Turn the GM assigns the players a mission and challenges them with a couple of obstacles that are usually resolved with a single test by one player helped by the others. Both success and failure of the test move the plot forward. Success is straightforward while failure gives the option of applying conditions like Tired or Injured to the player, or adding twists to the plot.

The GM’s Turn ends when the mission is completed or there is a natural break during a longer mission. During the Player’s Turn the players spend checks they’ve earned in the GM’s Turn to further their own goals or recover from conditions.

These two mechanics: GM/Player’s Turns and failures causing plot twists, are what makes Mouse Guard unique and interesting. They also make it challenging for new players to understand. Now, before I start expounding my Mouse Guard theory to you I want to state that having fun while playing Mouse Guard wrong is playing it right. Don’t feel the need to change a working game to match someone else’s idea of “the right way.”

Plotting The Mission

Mouse Guard art by David Petersen. Used with permission.

The GM’s job in any roleplaying game is to make an interesting plot and let the player’s fill out the details. Plot twists are a staple of roleplaying games and so GMs new to Mouse Guard including them when plotting missions.

The first step to making a story a Mouse Guard story is to pull all the plot twists out. Make the plots straight forward with a defined, achievable goal. If the patrol is being sent to deliver new orders to a patrol stationed in a distant city than that patrol will be in that city, waiting for orders.

Boring, I know, but your players and Mouse Guard will more than make up for a boring plot. In Mouse Guard failed obstacles result in twists that move the story forward in a new direction. For example, in my game when the patrol arrived in Pebblebrook, the distant city, they failed their check to find the other patrol. This doesn’t mean that they didn’t find the patrol, it means that some twist has occurred. In my game the players tracked the patrol to a bullfrog which had ambushed it.

Players are expected to fail a sizable percentage of their tests in Mouse Guard. In fact, they can’t progress their skills without passing and failing tests which use their skills. Failed tests always result in the plot moving forward. Either the player’s succeed but incur a condition such and Injured or Tired or everything suddenly moves sideways.

Why This Works

Mouse Guard art by David Petersen. Used with permission.

It’s fine to design a plot with twists in Mouse Guard. The secret is to pull them out and introduce one when the player’s fail a test. The end result will likely be very similar to the original plan but with a winding and twisting plot. The advantage is that you are less likely to try to railroad players into twists. When players succeed they succeed with no hidden surprises. When they fail they are fully expecting something exciting and interesting to happen. There is a nice feeling of control for the players who understand that their actions drive the game.

Mouse Guard even encourages the GM to follow their player’s suggestions for twists and conditions. During the forum game I’m not worrying about players adding or changing bits in my scenes. When we started the Player’s Turn there was confusion about how the player’s checks worked and what the results of their actions were. Because of this confusion an NPC was invented and introduced by a player. Instead of shutting down my player I let it play out. Recently I’ve reintroduced the NPC to build on what the player started. Mouse Guard is about cooperative storytelling.

Applying This To Other Games

Although Mouse Guard is my current favorite roleplaying game I plan to apply the principles of plot twists to every rpg I run. It works well, makes game planning easy and helps me resist railroading my players; a bad habit I’m still fighting while playing Mouse Guard. I think it might even be useful when outlining stories for fiction: create a straight plot and let the twists come up organically. Maybe even create characters for my characters and roll for things.

Tyler