Mausritter - Call the Banners! A campaign format
Play Game of Thrones with cute critters.
CHEATING DEATH
Death is an underwhelming narrative device in an usual TTRPG table.
When you have Players embody and enter the roles of their Characters, the narrative will constantly push for them to bond, and bicker, and evolve. Every choice allows the PC to grow in depth, and allow that story to become richer.
Death is the antithesis of those choices. It's the end of their story, of their journey, of their arc. Death in other media is timed, planned ahead; foreshadowed even. In TTRPGs, it's a bad roll. A hard combat. A bad day.
Surely, that is not always the case. Sacrifices can leave a meaningful impact, or fighting a great combat to the death for a harrowing victory. But most of the time, a PC is simply dying in a random ditch somewhere because the Players didn't think through this dungeon on that particular day. Maybe they were distracted by real life problems, or simply tired that gaming night. And now their narrative progress is gone, and they have to start over new bonds, new bickerings, a new evolution of Character.
That was a problem when we played long term campaigns for deadly games, like Alien RPG. We wanted the deadliness to exist, and their fear of combat to be real throughout, but what would happen if a Character actually died on the second half of the campaign? The introduction of a sudden, new element, and the loss of an arc and relationships.
That may be a hot take, but hell, what a dull result that would have been.
That problem only grew when we started thinking about a Mausritter Campaign. The premise of being a mouse denotes fragility; but my table emotional investment in narrative arcs would crumble under the deadliness of nature.
What if, then, the most important narrative arc was not the individual, but the collective? A story of a Group, progressing that Group, bonds and bickers of the Group. The loss of an individual could keep the story intact!
... such as Crows, Stonetop, and many other systems that have since then come into my attention with base building rules and structure.
How would that look like here, in Mausritter? And how would this be different enough from other systems to make it fun?
CALL THE BANNERS!
You are one of the smaller mice families. An old threat, generations dormant, resurfaces; one which the realm of critters is not attentive to any longer.
You are the leaders of this Mice Family. Decide together who each of you are.
Gather your mice. Fly your banners to the other realms. Call your old allies - and foes - into your ranks, or face the destruction of your history, alone.
But choose wisely, for every ally may mean a new enemy, and no army can fit every single critter around.
THE BANNER SHEET
Grab a Mausritter character sheet; this will be your ARMY sheet, under the control of all Players.
Give it 6 STR 6 DEX 6 WIL stats, and fill six slots with the following conditions:
2x STARVING: -2 STR. Clear: establish one source of food supplies.
2x UNTRAINED: -2 DEX. Clear: find one military leader.
AFRAID: -2 WILL. Clear: give them hope.
Each condition requires a separate event to clear.
Give it the basic D6 weapons.
ALLIES AND SUPPORT
Each type of Ally you gather fill up pack slots, like items. Their benefits are varied and can progress if the relationship is deepened; use the Factions table in the Mausritter book and give each Resource listed a benefit, in order, like so:
Noublemouse
- Ambitious Knights - military leaders
- Legal advocates - Raise WIL by 1.
- Stocked storehouses - Food supply. Raise STR by 1.
Rat Bandits
*Ruthless Gang - military leaders (causes more mutiny and fights in the warband)
*Secret hideout - Raise DEX by 1.
Cat Lord
Terrifying Presence - Mighty Ally, gives Hope to the war effort.
Hired mercenaries and bandits - Raise STR by 1.
Exorbitant wealth - either a food supply, better weapons, or light armor.
And so on.
MANAGING THE WAR EFFORT
A stationary army causes problems and runs out of food. For every full day without moving a hex, the Army roll a WIL save, or they cause problems in that hex.
Players can move normally without the army, but moving the army requires two watches and at least one PC to guide them.
Players can send their warband to solve their problems, if it requires combat. But armies are hard to keep on a leash after they are sent.
This was most if not all I had ready. Leaning into the Factions that are already existed with a little bit of improvisation on the listed resources felt like a nobrainer; they even have goals ready!
My own idea at the time had a full hexmap with detailed info on each, and some big realms defined they could ask for help. If I get this down on an actial layout, I will be sure to add them back.
I also had the group be not a House, but a Night's Watch style band of fuckups. You would need little to no adaptions from the proposed idea to run it like so, and players can be lowborn stuck into servitude to a group defending a border the realm forgot existed at all!
But most of all, this campaign allowed the Players to die and not wash away their entire progress and story, for the story was about their Group, and even at death, the Group - and its story, alliances, and progression - always survived.