Natures. They're weird. [Mouse Guard]

[SilveryCord]

In Mouse Guard, when your nature rises to 7, you become too mouselike and become more cautious, and if it goes to 0, your character goes crazy. Having a high nature is usually pretty good (using it, tapping it, etc).

Other creatures, however, have set nature values (presumably because they're not as varied as the PCs), but they occupy a big range in values, with Snapping Turtles having Snapping Turtle Nature 8 (Mean, Swimming, Snapping), while Bees have Bee Nature 2 (Buzzing Around, Pollen Hunter, Swamp)

So I'm guessing "Having a low nature means you're more humanlike" means relative to the species? Is Nature really more a measure of physical strength, as in the case of the turtle and other big creatures, or what? I've read over most of the fluff, I'm just interested in what you other Guardmice have to say about it. (At least this is a slightly different iteration on the typical D&D Alignment thread)

[TroubleBrewing]

I haven't anything to contribute to the discussion (or any way of answering your question), but I just wanted to point out how psyched I was when I saw that somebody else read Mouse Guard. I love the series, and I just finished downloading the books to play the RPG.

Anyway, sorry I couldn't be any help answering the question.

[Totally Guy]

Nature represents the ability of the creature to do the nature related tasks.

In a weird way acting within their nature is the game's way of keeping the creatures acting like those creatures.

So the Bee is attacking you? How is it doing that? Bite/Bite/Claw? No! It's Buzzing Around!

The Turtle is attacking? How? It's snapping at you! Acting like a turtle is the optimal strategy for the turtle.


The mouse nature a little different because they're sentient. It varies. What's the advantage to low nature? Fast skill learning. A mouse with 1 in nature learns a skill after using it once! That's amazing!

So is the Bee human-like because it just has a 2? Well no. Not really. It's not learning any skills. It's only acting within its nature.

What about the Weasel? Hmm... a weasel is sentient and does possess skills. Maybe the nature translates that way for weasels as well as mice.

[SilveryCord]

The Weasel nature is basically the opposite of Mouse nature: Being aggressive instead of running away. So it would make sense to say, maybe weasels with a higher nature have more opportunities to be human, because while they may naturally be more aggressive, they have more space for their nature to be taxed? I guess what I'm saying is, a Weasel Overlord with Nature (Weasel) 7, is very very Aggressive, Gloating, Clever, and Burrow Stealer-y, but at the same time, when he stops to reason in a humanlike way, he can do so much better than other weasels, because even though he becomes less weasellike when he acts outside his nature, he is still more weasellike than other weasels?


Edit: I'm probably overthinking the above

[Totally Guy]

Maybe. As NPCs they don't really learn skills as PCs do so there is no advantage to low nature.

A good thing about Mouse Guard is that in most cases the fluff and the crunch reinforce one another.