Mouse Guard RPG: Mice with swords? Yes.

[Bulwer]

This got linked on boingboing earlier today, and I just read it: it's a review of the indie RPG Mouse Guard, based on the graphic novels of the same name.

Here's the review, and here's the game.

I'm not familiar with the source material, but I read the Redwall books and loved 'em, eerily convenient prophecies and vaguely racist undertones and all. The reviewer says, "either playing a mouse with a sword speaks to you on some level, or it doesn’t." He's got me, I'll admit it.

The game looks fun: not too crunchy for its source material, capturing the right kind of feel. What do you guys think?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

That looks totally cool, and I'd totally get into something like this. Definitely original, and I really like RPGs that break the kill-XP model set by D&D. (Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I also don't want to do that all the time)

[elliott20]

I tried that game once. It was... for the lack of a better word, very frustrating. The game is structured in a way that I basically felt doomed at every turn... it was surprisingly bleak of a game.

[Bulwer]

The review said something about Setbacks that get thrown at you when you fail. Is that frustrating?

[elliott20]

yeah, that was essentially it. It felt like I was constantly climbing a mountain that would grow two feet every time I climbed one. Maybe we weren't playing it correctly since it was just a one session demo, but still, it just felt like it wasn't for me. But then again, I have always liked pulp action style games more where the game is less about trying to succeed and more about succeeding while being stupidly awesome about it.

Maybe it was just my own playstyle that I couldn't really get over.

[Lapak]

The review said something about Setbacks that get thrown at you when you fail. Is that frustrating?

Having read the first collection of comics (only), that sounds about right for the source material. Pretty much every plan that members of the Guard tried ended in failure early, even when they were trying to be clever. Even when they weren't trying to be clever, just to advance the plot, the world often got cruel on them. Taking one scene as an example: two mice were far from the 'main plot' enemies, but had discovered their plans. As they discuss how best to get the information out, an overwhelming threat that was completely unrelated descended on them, and the only reason one mouse was able to escape was because the other one sacrificed himself as a distraction.

Only at the end of the arc did things go more or less right.

EDIT: It did give the feel of 'mice in a regular-sized-world trying to survive' pretty effectively - there weren't humans or anything, it was strictly animals, but when some of those animals are full-sized wolves and such mice have a hell of a time guarding their borders.