I really enjoy a lot of things about Mouse Guard (and there are some frustrations, too). I’ve heard some people talk about Mouse Guard as a potentially no-prep game, but I think that’s nuts. The prep I do is a key component of my fun as a GM. When I lock in the scenario up front, I can act like an impartial referee and appreciative audience when I GM. When I try to dynamically scale the mission for the players I feel like the success of the mission and the fun of the session is all on my shoulders. I think no-prep games are valuable (the game I’m designing is no-prep), but it’s not a gameplay-neutral decision. Some games work better with prep.

I have a few quotes that will hopefully help me make my point. The first is about fantasy in general, rather than epic fantasy in particular, but I really like it. In the denouement of the brilliant Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, Susan and Death (who speaks in ALL CAPS) discuss why it is important for the children of the Discworld to believe in the Hogfather, their equivalent of Santa Claus:

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying that humans need . . . fantasies in order to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little–”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET– Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME . . . SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point–”
MY POINT EXACTLY.

Fantasy helps us believe in important, real things – things that we might feel hokey about expressing in our modern, cynical world, but things which are nonetheless vital to us. Fantasy is a way of looking at ideas, ideals, themes, and philosophies that are all-too-easy to believe don’t fit in our everyday lives. So what about epic fantasy? That’s a bit harder since the genre isn’t well defined, but everyone agrees that The Lord of the Rings qualifies. Here’s a quote from the movie version of The Two Towers:

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo; the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going… because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

For me, what distinguishes epic fantasy is the scope of the threat. I think that the core of an epic fantasy story is a protagonist defending what is good about the world (for some definition of “the world”) from forces that would destroy it. It’s about linking personal action and personal virtue to bigger and broader things, things worth saving. In the cynical world we live in, for big issues and small, it seems like there is a constant pressure to be small-minded, hopeless, and complacent. Dishonest politician? They’re all like that. Your boss wants you to start cutting corners to hit an impossible deadline? Nobody will trace it back to you. There’s a problem that will fester if you don’t have a conversation about it? Best to avoid the potential conflict… Epic fantasy heroes don’t give in to that: they stand against the tide of evil. Epic fantasy stories don’t tell us that it’s easy to do that, because it’s usually not, but they tell us that it’s right to do that, and it’s nice to get that reminder from time to time. Fantasy helps up believe in difficult ideas, and the difficult idea that epic fantasy asks us to believe is that individual virtues matter, that doing the right thing matters. Sam Gamgee saved a world by being a good friend. Sure, it was a fantasy world and not a real one, but Tolkien made it real enough for us to see the truth and importance of that idea. When so many forces in the world want us to believe that everything is going downhill and there’s nothing any of us can do about it, I’m glad that Epic Fantasy is out there saying “You shall not pass!” and reminding us that we all have the capacity to stand for what’s right, in big ways and small.

Plus, there’s wizards and magic and sword fights and a bunch of other awesome stuff.

Open issues as of 0.62:

• Will supporting character players get bored if they can’t get spotlight after finishing their subplots?
• It’s easy for the spotlight player to forget to explicitly spend their story dice to bring in their traits. Is it because everyone starts talking about the spotlight character during the initial “present adversity”?
• There’s a strong tendency to roll from “narrate the results of an exchange” into the “present adversity” step, even if you’re not the one who’s supposed to present adversity
• It’s easy to forget to bump a trait’s die size when winning an exchange
• People want to jump to wrapping up the chapter before narrating the final exchange
• The “how to group words” explanation is clunky
• Write a “strategy guide” for how to play adversity?
• Talk about some of the asymmetries and reasons behind them explicitly rather than trusting everyone to pick up the subtleties
• Figure out how to stop the spotlight player from starting the chapter with aggressive scene framing
• Figure out how to guide people away from “find the conflict” style play
• Figure out how to guide people away from “we freeform roleplay for a while, then we decide to use the mechanics” style play
• Add summary tables along with the rules in addition to quick-reference chart at the end
• Analyze the probabilities, especially for different numbers of players
• Consider using colored dice rather than die sizes to differentiate story/action dice

Resolved in 0.62:

• How do Supporting Characters work after they’re done with their subplot?
• How should finishing plot segments interact with spending bonus points?
• Figure out who narrates on ties — consider the “third party” solution we tried in the playtest
• Describe “who talks when” explicitly as design exercise to improve communication of procedures (praxis thread)
• The similarities and differences between the way the alignment track works for PCs and NPCs is potentially confusing
• The “world creation” example needs character created from “fact about the world” style seeds
• Distribute the world creation example through part 1 rather than all at the end
• The 3-stage/segment 3-segment/plot relationship needs clarity earlier in the rules
• Clarify the that only adversity player gets extra spotlight dice for winning chapter — lots of people seem confused by that
• Rewrite the Dark Mirror example to eliminate LOTR semi-references
• Bring active/passive explanations from glossary into main rules text

Changes in rev 0.62:

• Added mechanical benefit for completing plot segment/subplot
• Added post-subplot mechanics for supporting characters
• Additional plot/world creation examples
• New Dark Mirror example
• Clarified: 3 segments per plot, 3 stages per segment
• Improved explanation of active/passive threats
• Clarified difference in NPC/Supporting Character alignment tracks
• Added mechanical benefit to Supporting Character alignment track
• Supporting characters must interact to adjust their alignment tracks
• Adversity player narrates ties

When completing a plot segment or subplot, the player is granted a mechanical effect equivalent to spending two bonus points (e.g. thwarting an NPC, radically modifying a trait of your PC and a trait of an NPC to perform a trait handoff, etc.) in keeping with the stated segment goal. If there’s no way to do that mechanically (e.g. if your goal is to defeat a character who was never officially statted out as an NPC) you receive one bonus point.

When the plot segments are created, each supporting character identifies two particular protagonist or antagonist plot segments to either help or hinder. They note these down in the second and third blocks of their plot tracks (if hindering, add the dice in reverse order when you win a chapter as adversity: d20, d12, d10). Once they’re done with their subplot, they no longer use the plot track for their own spotlight dice. Instead, these dice can be used to replace the dice of the corresponding protagonist or antagonist. After the player in question becomes the spotlight character in the appropriate plot segment, the supporting character player may roll his set of dice (and mark off the “done” check in their own segment). The supporting character can then swap as many of his rolled dice for the story dice of the player he is targeting as he wishes.

example: Peter the protagonist has become the spotlight player by rollinga 16 and a 10. Fred the supporting character has completed his subplot and has been building up dice to hinder the protagonist in the protagonist’s current segment. He chooses to roll the d20, d12, and d10 he’s checked off, marks the “complete” checkbox that would normally indicate plot progress, and gets an 18, an 11 and a 4 on his dice. He decides to replace Peter’s 16 with his 4. Peter is still the spotlight character, but he must play the chapter with spotlight dice showing 10 and 4 instead of what he rolled initially.

• How do Supporting Characters work after they’re done with their subplot?
• How should finishing plot segments interact with spending bonus points?
• It’s easy for the spotlight player to forget to explicitly spend their story dice to bring in their traits. Is it because everyone starts talking about the spotlight character during the initial “present adversity”?
• There’s a strong tendency to roll from “narrate the results of an exchange” into the “present adversity” step, even if you’re not the one who’s supposed to present adversity
• It’s easy to forget to bump a trait’s die size when winning an exchange
• People want to jump to wrapping up the chapter before narrating the final exchange
• Figure out who narrates on ties — consider the “third party” solution we tried in the playtest
• Figure out how to stop the spotlight player from starting the chapter with aggressive scene framing
• Figure out how to guide people away from “find the conflict” style play
• Figure out how to guide people away from “we freeform roleplay for a while, then we decide to use the mechanics” style play
• Describe “who talks when” explicitly as design exercise to improve communication of procedures (praxis thread)
• The “how to group words” explanation is clunky
• Write a “strategy guide” for how to play adversity?

Old issues still on the list:

• The similarities and differences between the way the alignment track works for PCs and NPCs is potentially confusing
• The “world creation” example needs character created from “fact about the world” style seeds
• Distribute the world creation example through part 1 rather than all at the end
• The 3-stage/segment 3-segment/plot relationship needs clarity earlier in the rules
• Talk about some of the asymmetries and reasons behind them explicitly rather than trusting everyone to pick up the subtleties
• Clarify the that only adversity player gets extra spotlight dice for winning chapter — lots of people seem confused by that
• Rewrite the Dark Mirror example to eliminate LOTR semi-references
• Add summary tables along with the rules in addition to quick-reference chart at the end
• Bring active/passive explanations from glossary into main rules text
• Analyze the probabilities (d20 may not be as scary as some initially thought)
• Consider using colored dice rather than die sizes to differentiate story/action dice

• The similarities and differences between the way the alignment track works for PCs and NPCs is potentially confusing
• The “world creation” example needs character created from “fact about the world” style seeds
• Distribute the world creation example through part 1 rather than all at the end
• The 3-stage/segment 3-segment/plot relationship needs clarity earlier in the rules
• Talk about some of the asymmetries and reasons behind them explicitly rather than trusting everyone to pick up the subtleties
• Clarify the that only adversity player gets extra spotlight dice for winning chapter — lots of people seem confused by that
• Rewrite the Dark Mirror example to eliminate LOTR semi-references
• Add summary tables along with the rules in addition to quick-reference chart at the end
• Bring active/passive explanations from glossary into main rules text
• Analyze the probabilities (especially that d20 — everyone seems concerned about it)
• Consider using colored dice rather than die sizes to differentiate story/action dice