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The Harnish
Germany
Duisburg
NRW
Cult of The Harnish Leader
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Our first session of Mouse Guard took place this afternoon. You can read about the character creation session here. We added one additional player today who took over one of the pregenerated characters I had prepared last night to avoid bogging down the session with more character creation - I created the basic character with the player filling in all the critical names and details about his relationships and BITs. His character is a slightly paranoid patrol guard who worries about getting poisoned and is highly suspicious of any strangers. The other group also added another player (our 3rd female player, who is an experienced RPer) who took up the role of a scientist/healer patrol member.
After the new characters were added, I briefly explained the basic rules to both groups going over the dice mechanics, Fate/Persona points, and explaining how to use their traits. I went through all of this pretty quickly since it's much easier to learn the rules, in my experience, in the course of play. However, I also knew that I needed to give them an idea of the basics about BITs so that I could get the "fate/persona" economy up and running as quickly as possible. Once that was done we divided into our two groups and got started.
Overview
Prior to the session I had exchanged emails with the new GM and outlined the basic overarching plot for our first season. The basic idea is based on the events of the Fall 1152 series except that the rebellion plot is much more insidious, involving a shadow organization that is trying to undermine the Mouse Guard's authority in the territories by aiding the weasels in raiding the outlying villages as well as planning a direct attack on Lockhaven. Our two groups are going to be interacting with various parts of this plot and will be taking the story in various directions depending on their successes and failures. The format also gives us the opportunity for players to cross over between the groups during future missions, which ought to make things a lot easier should we be missing a few players at a particular session. For the first missions, the other GM ran the Grain Peddler mission. I figured this was the best choice for a newbie to the system since the book uses it as a detailed example in the Mission chapter. It also set up that group to discover the plans to Lockhaven. For my own group, I choose the Deliver the Mail mission since it also provides a good introduction to the game and would fit in to my plot idea.
Summary
We started out with the mission briefing with Gwendolyn in which she assigned the Patrol Leader Thomas the rather simple job of delivering mail to the town of Elmoss. Spring had finally arrived and with the receding snows, a satchel full of mail was now ready for delivery. Gwendolyn also took the opportunity to speak to Thomas about his tenderpaw Mullan who had been caught that winter pilfering sweet cakes from the fortress's kitchens. Thomas assured the Matriarch that Mullan was well in hand, and despite her rebellious streak, would someday make a fine member of the guard.
We then moved on to the the group making their way to Elmoss, attempting to follow the now washed out path to Elmoss. This was the tenderpaw Mullan's first chance to shine as the group's designated pathfinder. Unfortunately she failed and thus the group wandered well off the trail before they realized they were lost.
I let this failure stand rather than introducing a formal twist or using a condition since it sent the story in an interesting direction by bring Mullan's abilities in to doubt, especially since it played off both her belief and her Mentor's training emphasis.
The next scene had the group attempting to rediscover the trail - the group's newest member, a patrol guard named Alberto, took over the pathfinding attempts, with the rest of the group lending a helping hand. Alberto fared no better, but the group did discover a hollow stump in which to set up camp for the night. Vidar set to making a fire, while Thomas, frustrated by the apparent incompetence of his fellow guard, set off to do some hunting and foraging. Mullan, meanwhile, put her instinct to work, scouting around the camp area for any signs of danger.
A couple of failed skill tests occurred here and I took the opportunity to introduce an Animal Twist (the appearance of a raven). Vidar also failed his survival test to start the fire - rather than having him simply "fail" to get a fire started (making the veteran look pretty incompetent), I instead allowed him to succeed but gave him the Angry condition which fit well with his fiery personality.
At this point, Thomas was out foraging and Mullan, returning to the stump, spots a raven sitting on a branch, peering down in to the hollowed out stump. She starts yelling just in time to alert the others (but not Thomas who was too far away to hear), as the raven swoops in and makes a grab at the mail bag. A fight ensues, with some really memorable exchanges including the raven batting Vidar's sword out of his hand only to have the now weaponless veteran punch it in the eye. Tess at one point also leaped on to the raven's back but seconds later fell off as the raven took to the air. Thomas returned to camp just in time to see the raven fly off with the mail bag in its mouth.
Unfortunately the group's poor luck really hurt them - they blew a few major exchanges and got taken out pretty quickly at that point. The end result was the raven only ended having to make a minor concession which was that the bag tore and a few pieces of mail fell out before the raven flew away. It was an excellent conflict but I was caught a bit off guard because I had never run one with multiple teams and the mechanics threw me a bit until I re-read the section.
At the end of the fight, Tess was unconscious (having been knocked out when she hit the side of the stump), Vidar had a deep cut, and Mullan was exhausted. The patrol regrouped and discussed their options. Thomas took a quick look at the remaining mail, some of which had been torn open, but settled for just stuffing it in his backpack and then trying to deal with the situation. His first impulse was to return to Lockhaven but the others, especially Tess and Vidar, insisted they go after the satchel less they all look stupid. Tess also took an interested in the mail in Thomas's bag and sneaked a look at several pieces during the night by creeping up on Thomas while he slept and raiding his pack (she's the character with the "Always exploit knowledge of others" trait). What she discovered was that one of the opened envelopes contained several sheets of parchment detailing the layout of the village of Pebblebrook, including the location of several tunnels leading across the scent border that guards the territories from the denizens of the Darkheather. She shared this information with Mullan while the group broke camp although the two were otherwise unsure of what to make of the information.
This was an interesting scene because I took the opportunity to introduce evidence of a conspiracy (i.e., the maps of Pebblebrook) but the group's leader didn't recognize it as anything significant. Luckily Tess's player spotted the opportunity to follow her instinct and grabbed the mail - she also is unsure what to do with it but knows it's potentially important.
The next morning Alberto turned up evidence of the raven, including several feathers that had fallen out after Tess's attempt to ride it, and after some time, the group uncovered the raven's nest high up in a nearby tree. Mullan, anxious to redeem herself, volunteered to climb the tree and scampered up to the top without incident while the others kept a lookout for the raven. She recovered the mail pouch, minus a few shredded pieces of mail, and descended to rejoin her patrol.
With time running out, I decided I needed to wrap things up quickly and having beaten up the patrol pretty badly already I opted to let the success stand and move in to the player turn.
At the point, the group navigated their way to Elmoss and I turned the game over to them so that they could wrap up their business - most chose to spend the checks they had earned to try and recover from conditions. They met varying levels of success and that's where we ended things. I wish I had dedicated a bit more time to this part of the session since it's important for character development but we were already running long so next time we'll pick up with another short players' turn to flesh out the events in Elmoss before I start pushing them on their next mission which involves finding out who those plans were meant for.
Analysis
Overall, everyone had a good time and the session ran quite smoothly although I really need to have one more re-read of the rules since it's been a while since I read the entire book and I'm kind of rusty on some of the finer details of mission twists. With a few more sessions the players also should have a better feel for the rules and their BITs ought to start firing on all cylinders. As for the other group, they also looked like they were having a good time and had an interesting set of of events including finding the grain peddler unconscious in the bushes and chasing the snake off only to have to run when it returned. That to me is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole session because the outcome of the Grain Peddler turned out nothing like the comic book.
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Yoki Erdtman
Sweden
Södertälje
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What an entertaining AP report, thanks for sharing Michael.
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