Mausrítter - that difficult second album

Ready to go.

So, after a few days of delay due to work and the busy social life of the kids in the last week of the school holiday, we returned to Mausrítter on Saturday evening. We quickly picked up where we left it, and they interrogated Ernie, a member of the Dedratz bandit gang, discovering that most of the mice in Stumpsville had been captured to be given as a gift to the Cat Lord, Balthazar. The cheesemakers would be safe, as the Balthazar was a legendary gourmet, but the rest of the mice were likely to become convenient playthings and snacks. They also found out there were only four more rats in the town. Leaving Ernie trussed up with the sleeping town guard snake (an idea which would prove fatal to Ernie), they headed out to see what was happening in the great hall. The Troubadour mouse got his disguise kit on and pretended to be Ernie. Through a mix of bravado and cunning, he got the snake flute off the other rats (who were in the middle of a huge cheese and wine party). They released the snake, only to found that Ernie was missing and the snake had a more-than satisfied look and a suspicious bulge in its stomach.

Drawing the snake down into the great hall, a fight developed, with one of the player mice going down almost straight away to a critical (Into the Odd's engine is brutal). Through clever use of the snake, which ate a further two rats, and determined battle, they defeated the rats. Interrogating the survivor, they got an agreement to be shown the hideout that the rats were using, perhaps four miles away to the north. They helped to secure Stumpsville's doors, and set out in the morning with their rat prisoner to find the townsfolk. They stopped at Oaksgrove to report on the trouble and to ask for help for the survivors.

We left the game at that point. It was interesting, as the eldest was getting into character and the youngest was enjoying himself but doing a full mess around. It was the kind of behaviour I hadn't seen since when I first played RPGs (I was his age and it was with school mates) and it was a bit frustrating, but he seemed to enjoy himself. We pressed on and prevailed.

Looks like I'll need to generate the woodshed adventure site as they want to go on. Nathan is also asking about D&D and other games; are they more complicated with more options was his first question. He observed that although games like Minecraft Dungeons (which Aidan loves) have the vibe, they have a lot less options. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

4 September 2022