Session Recap: Mausritter and the Moathouse

This past weekend at PAX Unplugged I had the pleasure of testing out Mausritter with some friends and some people I just met. So, here are bits of recap and some thoughts on the system!

Some background: we gathered at a free play table at the con to play. I had the idea of reskinning the Moathouse from T1 The Village of Hommlet to be a mouse-sized fort, built out of what was once a mouse shelter used in human experiments. This was my first time running Mausritter, and my second time with the Moathouse. I have also never played Into The Odd, which I understand is a big inspiration for Mausritter. The players were mostly 5e, only a couple had played a more neo-old-schooly game with me before.

We made our characters together at the table, mostly following the random creation rules. But, hey, it's a one shot, and if they didn't want to be striped or have a lumpy face I wasn't gonna stop 'em. This was a bit last minute, so I didn't have any pregens set up. Next time, I would throw together a bunch. Character creation is definitely quick, but not when we only have one list of random characteristics and everyone has to roll them in order.

The bandits were changed to bandit mice, and I obviously had to change the giant rats (to cockroaches, best I could come up with). I also appended mouse to about half the nouns I said (mouse-door, mouse-bridge, mouse-office, etc.) Lareth the Beautiful is now Lareth Smoothfur, an old lab mouse, who is convinced that the experiments he witnessed were part of some divine process, and he replicates them crudely in his tunnels built under his old old cage. The mayor of mouse town gathered up a gang of mice to go figure out why people were disappearing around the fort.

Some highlights:

• One mouse burned down the spider's tower. As it fled out the top, another mouse rode it down the fort wall like a horse, whereupon a third mouse stabbed it with a human sized quill (their 2-handed weapon).
•  A tick ambushed a mouse from the ceiling, but the mouse dodged out of the way and put a barrel on it. Then threw the barrel out the window.
• Bandit-mice rolled neutral on their reaction. The PCs argued with them, until winning them over with the story about riding the spider like a horse down the wall. They decided to become the bandits' supplier of beer and grain, and tell the mayor it was the spider all along.
• On their way back, one PC started a mutiny and was quickly stabbed to death.

All in all, a good session! I'm pretty happy with how it all ran, so let me do a quick pros/cons summary from both me and the players:

Pros:

• Fast combat. Seriously, lightning fast. Makes it hard to go back to rolling to hit. A great combination of brutally swift, but with just enough of a buffer to keep the PCs from dropping instantly. 
• The general idea of just moving forward assuming the PCs are competent enough to do what the players want. The idea that if the PCs approach an encounter stealthily, they just win initiative. No futzing with stealth checks and perception and surprise, they can just do it if they plan, all handled in fiction.
• Real cute art. Real slick layout.

Cons:

• Possibly just a player preference, but from the feedback I got, they wanted just a bit more of a skill system. Some of them definitely wanted to know explicitly how stealthy they were, at least more than "always sufficiently stealthy if you say you're sneaking." This didn't bother me, and is the sort of thing I might add for my players in an actual campaign if they wanted.
• Character creation is definitely fast, but having only one copy of the game and passing it around for each person to roll on the different tables was pretty slow. I think combining fur color, fur pattern, and physical details all on one table could work. (I also only just now notice the instant mouse generator linked in the pdf...)
• The birthsign was also never once brought up once we start. The backgrounds informed mouse personality much more. I think a small mechanical bonus/minus for birthsign might add a little spice in the right place, but I'm not sure what those would be.
• Armor is maybe a bit weird. Had a player disappointed when upgrading from light to heavy, and the only benefit is not having to wear a shield. The player asked what bonus he would have if he kept the shield and heavy armor, and, by the rules, it's nothing, which is a bit unsatisfying. Not sure how else to have it work though.

Unused Rules I can't comment on but looked fine on my read through:

• Hex crawl procedure 
• Spellcasting
• Character advancement

I ended up with a longer Cons list than Pros, but that's not to say I didn't like the system. I'm really looking forward to using it again, nitpicks aside. I'm also on the lookout now for adventures that can easily be reskinned to a mousey scale. Maybe some of the Dolmenwood stuff? I may post in the future on mousifying other old schooley products.

One Piece: Dials

I’ve been watching One Piece recently, and I’m finding it hard not to start stealing D&Dable ideas from it left and right. I’m going to give that a try right now. Presenting: Dials!


A dial is a swirled shell from an extinct magical creature that used to live high up in the skies on land made of ancient, fossilized clouds. The sky people use them to power much of their technology, and, on occasion, will trade them to explorers from the ground level who manage to make it up there.

Dials have the ability to absorb and store energy, or sometimes matter, and then release it when a discreet button on the shell is pressed. Each dial can only absorb and release something specific, so different dials have wildly different uses.


Impact Dial - These dials absorb blunt impacts. The momentum of a blunt attack is completely negated if it hits an impact dial. A palm-sized dial can absorb 6 points of damage, and once fully charged, will deal d6 damage if used in combat. These can easily be charged up simply by hitting them with a hammer, or even your hand if done enough times. If positioned and braced carefully outside of a combat, their destructive power is even greater, as if multiple hammer blows all landed simultaneously on a single point.

To charge: an impact dial in combat, first let your enemy automatically hit you. Then, make a saving throw. If successful, you have negated the attack. Otherwise, you're hit automatically.


Axe Dial - Same as Impact, but it absorbs slashing attacks. These are much rarer, and function as "+1" Impact dials. Their energy is released over such a small area that it could easily cut through an iron bar.


Heat Dial - Stores thermal energy, and emits a flame. A handheld heat dial on its own probably won't be useful in combat, but it's basically a portable stove-top / blowtorch.

To charge: Put in a fire, or similarly high heat environment for an hour.


Flavor Dial - These dials absorb whatever smell or flavor they are immersed in. They can be used to flavor something, or if you're more devious, they can emit capsaicin or farts in the faces of your enemies.

To charge: Put in a flavorful environment. Hang above your pot when cooking, or keep it in a bag full of spicy peppers for a day.


Breath Dial - These store whatever gas they are immersed in. Like Flavor dials, but they actually store and emit a large volume of gas. Whether that's air, poisonous gas, or hydrogen. They can be tuned to emit the gas to generate force, but not as great as a Jet Dial.


To charge: Simply keep it surrounded by the gas that you want it to absorb. Above a campfire to fill it with smoke, or in a gas filled cave.

Jet Dial - An advanced, rarer form of the Breath Dial. These emit their stored gas all at once, causing a rocket-like force.


To charge: They need to be charged up with both force and gas. So, they would charge easily in a high pressure atmosphere, or they need to be pointed towards the wind and blown into, whether you strap it to a windmill or blow into it like a balloon.


Flash Dial - A dial that absorbs light. When activated, emits a blinding flash of light all at once. Lamp Dials are related, but release their light slowly over time.

To charge: Sit it in sunlight for an hour, or in firelight for a day.


Tone Dial - Basically a handheld recorder. Make a sound into the shell, then press the button to replay it.

To charge: Just speak into it!


All of these dials can come in widely different sizes. Your average adventurer might mostly want handheld dials, but larger ones have both more capacity and can generate a much higher force when used. You wouldn't take a car engine sized breath dial dungeon delving, but you could use it to build a jet-ski.


In general, I think inventor type characters should be able to tweak the intensity of a dials emitted force. For example, a character that modifies his Heat Dial to emit all it's stored force at once as a big fireball. Or, as mentioned above, modify a breath dial to propel itself forward.



I generally like that a dial does something super specific, but that the effect has a super wide range of uses. They're another tool to have on your belt to solve open ended problems.


What type of Dial did I just find? d20
1-3 Impact
4-6 Heat
7-10 Flavor
10-13 Breath
14-16 Flash
17-18 Tone
19 Axe
20 Jet


How big is this dial? d12
1-9 Handheld
10-11 Loaf of bread sized
12 Car engine sized

There are more dial types, and examples from the comic here: https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Dials


PS: Not gonna lie, I really want to play in a game where I can be fighter who has a shield completely COVERED in impact dials