I'm about to run my first session of Mouse Guard. The group has never played it. We'll have a 4 hour session. What should I emphasize and what should I leave out?
My feel is that the flavor of the game is mainly:
- the two-turn session
- pushing beliefs, goals, instincts, and nature.
- the frailty of mice, and the different worldview of being a tiny creature.
- character interconnection.
- the mechanic influence of seasons.
- players using traits both for and against themselves
- conflicts
On one hand, I loved the "Recruitment" chapter, and would like to run through it with the group. On the other, the author himself strongly suggests running a mission with pregens for the first session.
On one hand, the conflict between Lieam and the snake sounds cool. On the other, it means stopping action to explain the mechanics.
On one hand, running a few obstacles with tests and maybe test-based twists sounds manageable. On the other, it could be missing excitement.
So this is it. I'm not sure. I feel it's a system with a lot of parts, and I'm doubtful on which parts I can safely remove. Am I wrong in my description of the game?