The dice
• 1-3 always fails, 4-6 always succeeds
• Two parts to the game: GM’s Turn is where I set the story and confront your characters with obstacles. This turn ends when the patrol achieves its mission or when you reach a safe haven. Players’ Turn follows the GM’s Turn and is where players take control of the story in order to heal, to finish up tasks, to find friends, or otherwise pursue their characters’ ambitions. This turn ends when all players have spent their ‘checks.’
1. Checks are earned each time you use a Trait against yourself and these are spent to gain opportunities (tests) to accomplish stuff you want. You cannot spend two checks in a row; you get to spend a check and then another player gets to spend theirs, and so on back to you. During the Players’ Turn, traits cannot be used to earn checks.
2. Tests are used to recover, equip, investigate, and so on. For example, you may decide to make a Resource test to buy a suit of armor. You get one test for free; toget more tests, you need to have used a Trait during the GM’s Turn in a way that hindered your character or the patrol. 2. After the Players’ Turn, everyone reads their Belief, Goal and Instinct and is rewarded with Fate and Persona points. End of session.
• A focus on teamwork and role playing. Beliefs, goals, instincts , traits, friends and enemies all have more to do with how you play your character, rather than what your character is. Teamwork vs. individual actionss. While in most other RPGs, conflicts are handled individually with each player acting on their own, in MG conflicts are resolved as a team and everyone on a team is equally subject to its success or failure.
• Gear may be used to aid tests and conflicts. Specialized tools like boat paddles, snow shoes or a map give a +1D to an appropriate skill roll, while weapons and armor have unique properties. In a social conflict, “Weapons of Wit” count too, like strong evidence, promises and deception. Remember though: mice can only carry a few small things and you’ll only ever get a +1D for using any tool, no matter how big or well-crafted it is.
Traits are distinctive characteristics such as Clever, Determined, or Long-Tailed and are the main catalysts for roleplaying your character and developing the story. Traits can be both good and bad—a Fearless mouse can gain bonuses when fighting, but penalties when discretion is needed; a Compassionate mouse may hesitate when killing, but make friends easier. Some traits derive from your hometown, representing qualities that typify that place. For instance, Sprucetuck mice tend to be Inquisitive and Rational.
• Beneficial uses of traits have three levels and all traits begin at level 1.
1. Level 1: +1D bonus to a single, appropriate test per session.
2. Level 2: +1D bonus to all applicable abilities or skills.
3. Level 3: once per session, reroll all failed dice in a test where the trait was used.
• You may only use one trait per test to help you at one time and before the roll is made the player should describe how the trait is benefiting his character’s action. You may use other traits in the same test to simultaneously hinder you, however.
• Characters are limited to a maximum of five traits.
Abilities
• Nature: rated 1-7. This is a rating of your ‘mousiness’—the higher your Nature, the more mouse-like you are.
1. Nature may be used like a skill to do mouse-like things: escape from danger, climb, hide, and forage for food.
2. Nature may also be ‘tapped’ to perform a heroic act or to substitute for a skill youdon’t know.
• Spend a point of Persona to add your Nature rating to an ability or skill.
• Use Nature to substitute for any skill. However, if Nature is used this way and the roll fails, your Nature rating is temporarily reduced by the marginof failure.
• Will : rated 1-6. Test to recover from Anger (Ob 2) or Sickness (Ob 4), to resist persuasion and deception, or to aid mental Beginner’s Luck rolls.
• Health : rated 1-6. Test to recover from Tired (Ob 3) and Injured (Ob 4), strength and endurance obstacles, or to aid physical Beginner’s Luck rolls.
• Resources : rated 1-10. Represents resourcefulness or wealth; either way determines whatmaterial resources you have access to. You get a +1D when in your hometown. See common resources list on p. 238 for obstacle ratings. Failed tests may reduce a character’s Resources rating.
• Circles : rated 1-10. Use Circles to find people or to collect information. Characters get +1D in their hometown or with an already friendly contact (34). Failed Circles tests may produce a new enemy who is insulted, cheated or scorned by you.
Skills
• MG is not about winning over every obstacle. Failure is equally important since it produces twists and conditions that further the story or which allow your skills to improve. See the (P)ass and (F)ail circles in the Advancement column to the right of each skill. A skill can increase only once you’ve passed a number of tests equal to current rating and failed a number of tests equal to the rating -1 (not really relevant for a one-shot.
• Beginner’s Luck: If you don’t have a skill to do something, you can substitute Nature. But this prevents your character from learning new skills and risks weakening your natural mousiness. To teach yourself a new skill, attempt it on the job. Roll Will or Health, add appropriate bonuses for wises, gear and player help, then make the test using half the total number. Keep doing this. Once you have made a number of tests—passed or failed doesn’t matter—equal to your Nature, you may add the skill.
Wises are specialized knowledge skills, like river-wise or owl-wise. They can be used in two ways:
1. To augment another skill
2. To know academic or obscure information relevant to your wise
• Weather-Watching. This skill is unusual; if successful the character doesn’t merely predict the weather; the player gets to describe what that day’s weather will be.
• Twists: a failed attempt to use a skill or ability may result in a condition, a twist, or both. A twist is a sudden and unforeseen direction to the story that occurs as a result of the character’s mistake. This new situation may introduce different obstacles or make existing obstacles more challenging.
• Checks : This means ‘hindrance,’ as opposed to ‘confirmation’ or ‘tick mark.’ Using a trait to get in your own way earns you checks against that trait. So you can hurt yourself a little now for gain later. Checks are like currency “for whatever you want—to recover, to find an old friend, to fashion new armor, to pick a fight or buy a gift for your love”.
• Earn Checks by…using a Trait in a way that impedes you. There are three levels of hindrance to choose from—see Earning Checks on the character sheet. After choosing to use a trait like this, you earn a number of checks equal to the severity of Trait used. Checks may be donated to other characters in the Players’ Turn (74).
• Spend Checks by…
1. Buying opportunities during the Players’ Turn. This costs one check per test ‘purchased’ each test provides a chance of you gaining or doing something that you want.
2. Buying recovery tests for disabling conditions like Angry or Injured. This costs one check per condition during the Players’ Turn and two checks each in the GM’s Turn.
3. Instantly advancing your traits to the next level. This costs three checks.
• Tests are simple obstacles that you need to overcome, like crossing a stream or foraging for food. Tests require a single skill roll and may be either independent or versus. • Independent tests are generally against a natural object with a fixed difficulty. For example, crossing a creek needs three successes from your Health. This is notated as ‘Ob3 Health test.’
• Versus tests are against living opponents and the side with the most rolled successes wins. Extra successes for the winning side mean a proportionally greater win. For example, a disagreement would be resolved with a Persuader versus Persuader or Persuader versus Will test. In any versus test, the GM always rolls first and shows the result to the players.
Rewards
• Fate: “luck and good fortune.”
1. Earn Fate by acting on a belief or instinct, or by working toward a goal
2. Spend a Fate point to reroll sixes and add those successes to any test.
• Persona: “a reserve of inner strength.”
1. Earn Persona by acting against a belief or instinct, accomplishing a goal, or through group-voted rewards at end of session (MVP, Workhorse and best roleplayer)
2. Spend a Persona point to add +1D to any roll or to tap your Nature. Tapping yourNature adds its rating to any other ability or skill, even if it isn’t within a mouse’snature to do so. A failed roll will reduce your Nature by the margin of failure.
Ever wanted to be a mouse with a sword?
Originally Posted by Drone
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Re: Ever wanted to be a mouse with a sword?
In, I guess?
Looking forward to this. Love the artwork accompaniments
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