(Header image from the beloved children’s novel, Redwall by Brian Jacques)

Redwall was my childhood. Most people I know (nerds) had some form of exposure too. If you are reading this blog you probably read at least one of these glorious books, but I think I may have been one in the top 1% of Redwall enjoyers. I didn’t just read the books over and over again, and get the rare audiobooks from the library to listen to on summer roadtrips, I lived in Redwall.

Every single day, during all three recesses, and for hours after school, my best friend Steven and I would play heroic church mice and chivalrous badger knights and clever squirrel rangers (I always played a bow-wielding squirrel, heavily influenced by my love of Triss). My loving and long-suffering mother made us tunics and foam weapons to use as we fought off weasels and pine martins and returned home from a hero’s journey to eat hotroot soup and treacle pudding. I was larping well before I had heard the term, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

Redwall was the basis for my longheld love of fantasy. It is natural, then, that once I got into ttrpgs I would seek out a game to return to my roots, but nothing quite fit the mold. The Humblewood campaign setting for D&D5e was promising, but the default assumptions in D&D require magic as commonplace, which isn’t a pillar in Redwall. Mouseguard, beautifully illustrated, uses a form of the Burning Wheel system, and I just don’t know if I am ready for that yet. I still hope to play Root (the RPG, the board game is delightful) at some point, but the themes seem more in line with Game of Thrones than the bravery, friendship, and cunning that fills my childhood books.

So for me, that left Mausritter by Isaac Williams as the clear choice. I still had some hesitancies (like you can only play mice, and I really want to play as a squirrel), but it has a lot going for it. The theme is exceedingly cute, the rules are quite light (character creation and combat rules cover a total of 4 pages), and it is an old school revival/renaissance/revolution/resurrection (OSR) game. This summer at the Secret Sunday Sampler is our hot OSR summer, or HOSRS for short, and we are definitively answering the age old question, “What is OSR?” and this seemed like the perfect game to start.

I can practically hear you screaming, “Does Mausritter do Redwall well?” Uhh… No. But it was a perfect introduction into the OSR and I think you should play it anyway.

The Rules

The rules are based at least in part on “Into the Odd” by Chris McDowall, and I was able to read both rulebooks in an hour and a half while on a flight. These are rulebooks you can actually ask your players to read. But being short isn’t a guarantee of quality, and I promise you, these are rulebooks of quality.

Creating characters is unbelievably fast: there are only three and a half main stats, plus a few more rolls for items, name, and moon sign. We did our character creation together in 15 minutes at the start of the session, and it led to some beautiful moments. Two mice were born under the same star sign, so naturally they were twins. Bratty, catty, mean-girl twins.

Normally I have a distaste for rolling for stats, imbalances in power can feel really bad. Mausritter mitigates this in two ways:

1. Your starting gear is determined by a matrix of your highest stat and your hit protection score. The worse stats you roll, the better your starting gear and vice versa, and if you roll really poorly, you get extra goodies. I love it.
2. To quote Quintin Smith talking about Mausritter‘s more knightly cousin Mythic Bastionland, “Having a player character who is worse is only bad if the game is about being useful.” This game is about being in constant danger, and choosing to act anyway.

The Vibes

“Wow okay! The rules are so light and mice are so fun, this seems like a great first game for me and the kids I know” – You while reading this.

Well… Maybe. Remember when I said that this game isn’t quite hitting Redwall’s vibes? This game is intensely deadly. No one has plot armor. If you take even a bee sting, you may go unconscious and be in serious danger of dying. FROM ONE BEE STING!

Hopefully you don’t run into a cat, which will absolutely kill you. Cats are the equivalent of dragons in this game, but somehow they made them so much scarier?? Mice can’t deal a single point of damage to these beasts without gathering a literal warband first.

Mausritter does not provide a lot of handholds or fudge factors to keep your brave mice alive. Depending on the age of the kids, you may need to make some adjustments to the game. I don’t know your kids, I am not their dad, just be aware that despite the cute wrapping, this game lives up to the OSR reputation of being absolutely ruthless.

The Use Case

I am expecting this to be true about most of the OSR games I test out this HOSRS, but this game is perfect for a few things:

• Introducing new players to rpgs. Mausritter plays the way I was expecting D&D5e to play when I first got into the hobby. You get the full experience, rolling for stats, delving into dungeons, and serious threat of death.
• Unexpected one-shots: You can prep a game in 30 minutes, roll characters up at the table, and finish a satisfying adventure in 3 hours. (Everyone, do shorter one-shots. I have never been upset by a 2 hour one-shot.)

I want to say this game is great for long term play, but honestly I don’t know. If PCs continually get replaced in the meat-grinder, I could see a serious loss of interest, but if they survive? Those will be the stories of legend. You can guarantee those mice fought tooth and nail in every single session.

Acknowledgements

Mausritter can be purchased here.

Thank you to Isaac Williams for writing a game that I have been dying to play for years, and for writing a game that exceeded all of my expectations. What a phenomenal introduction to the OSR.

Thank you to my wonderful players that brought their minimal sheets to life: to the twin mean-girl mice Raggadorr and badmelon, the tin miner mouse Pres, the bee wrangling mouse bogle, and of course the late, wise, and mysterious mouse Gemelli.

As always, thank you to kraftpaperhat for designing the Secret Sunday Sampler brand and logos.

P.S. I love this game. I don’t know if I can recommend it as a first ever RPG for a game master. Because the rules are so barebones, there is not a lot to cling to as a safety blanket. This extends to the adventure “Honey in the Rafters” that comes in the box set. There is just an illustration with a few points of interest, a few stat blocks, and a few adventure hooks without any obvious through line connecting everything together. I really enjoy these types of adventures, but your mileage my vary.

P.P.S. Mausritter month, a community crowdfunding effort to make cool new stuff for the game is coming up! Check it out here, and sign up to be notified when it launches! I am really hoping to get a solid supplement for other woodland creatures so I can play my beloved squirrel with a bow.