Mice With Swords

Is it just me, or is there something awesome about mice with swords? Redwall is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of animals decked out in fantasy form, but I've recently discovered the Mouse Guard RPG.


I recall seeing the Mouse Guard comics at the game store a few times and picking it up, thinking to myself, "That looks cool. Too bad I'm not into comic books."

The Mouse Guard RPG is based on the comics by David Peterson. I came upon it by pure chance but was immediately intrigued. It turns out the game uses a stripped down version of The Burning Wheel, an RPG system I had heard lots about but never played.

The thing that I like about it, besides the fact that mice with swords are awesome, is that there are actual relationships built right into the game. In character creation, you invent one friend/ally and one enemy/rival, and they become a part of the game world, people you can call on for help or people that the GM puts in your way.

You must create Beliefs and Instincts for your guardmouse. A couple examples for these: It's not what you fight, it's what you fight for (Belief), and  Always draw my sword at the first sign of trouble (Instinct). So when trouble comes up and you draw your sword, you just played your instinct and you'll get rewards at the end of the session for doing so. Players are rewarded for roleplaying their characters well.

Lastly, I very much enjoy systems that use dice pools, and this one does! There's something satisfying about rolling a handful of dice. It may be why I also enjoy Warhammer. 


There are tons of other cool and interesting features of the game that I won't get into here, mostly due to laziness. I am quite looking forward to running a game of Mouse Guard in the near future. I'll report back on how it went, with a step-by-step of the rules in case anyone is curious about how it works. I'll also leave a link below to the official site. Check it out!

Mouse Guard