I can't help but be intrigued by what I've read about Mouse Guard. I dismissed it intitially - who wants to play mice? - and moved on, but then I read about the interesting mechanics involved over at WrathOfZombie's blog, and how they'd been applied to Pathfinder. And then I went in search of more info, and read through all of the Chatty DM's Mouse Guard experience over at CriticalHits...
...and then I read some reviews of the Burning Wheel system, and downloaded the Mouse Guard book as .pdf, and now I'm reading it...
It's fair to say there's a lot to take in, it weighs in at 320 pages which is a lot more than I was expecting for a game about mice. I can see that it will fit nicely with my style of DMing, and given my players' positive reaction to the shared storytelling we had in our PDQ# game, I'm hoping that they'll take to playing a more story focused game.
The Burning Wheel system - and hence Mouse Guard - seems to turn things on their heads in a way that I think will be interesting to experience, and even if we don't enjoy it I think it will enrich my skills as a DM, and a player, to focus more on character and story. It's interesting to read about Mouse Guard from a player's perspective too... I'm naturally interested in a game that could make us rethink how we play, just like Descent did for the dungeon-crawl boardgame. Burning Wheel itself looks to be a hefty, Tolkienesque fantasy affair - much heavier and more complex, and more in Dave's realm than mine - and much as I'd love to play/run it, I think we could do with a gentle introduction.
I'm itching to run MG, which is why I'm trying to get the book read and assimilated into my brain - which may take longer than I'd thought! Will keep you posted...
Update: Didn't take that long; the book's easy to read and beautifully presented, although there are some ambiguous bits of rules-text here and there. Consider it assimilated!
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I'm right there with you, though maybe a little bit behind. This is one of the those things that I don't want to get into (it's mice, after all), but I see myself inching toward it ever so slowly.
ReplyDelete-Tourq
The system's the main draw for me - although I've always said I'd happily play anything - as opposed to the setting, but it could be pretty easily adapted, really. It's a useful source book, as well as a game in its own right.
ReplyDeleteCould prove to be more useful as a stepping-stone to playing Burning Wheel games than anything else, depending on how the players take to the whole mouse thing. From a DM's perspective it looks refreshingly simple, yet complex where it's needed.
"You want me to play a Fricken Mouse?"
ReplyDeleteI think that was my first thought when Tom first suggested this game to the games group, but he seems keen on it and so we are going to give it a go next week.
I'll just have to view it with an open mind,the rules sound rather good and getting back to rpgs will be a great.
Well, I've just been reading through Realm Guard - a LotR setting hack for Mouse Guard, seemingly made to circumvent the whole "mouse" issue by making the PCs Rangers instead...
ReplyDeleteIt would take a bit more work - and annoying book-flipping - for me to run it smoothly, but the rules are exactly the same. I think people will prefer the setting, although you may have to excuse my lack of canonical knowledge!
Mouse Guard never, never again. It really was that bad.
ReplyDeleteHeh - say what you mean Dave...
ReplyDeleteMG was disappointing, but at least I finally got to wheedle out of people what it was they wanted to play! Looking forward to Pathfinder tomorrow.