In my weeklogs I’ve been mentioning my Mausritter campaign for a while now. As of the moment of writing, I’ve played five episodes of it, and with that, it’s my longest running campaign as GM ever. (My previous attempt died in scheduling issues after two sessions.)

I thought it would be nice if I give a sneak peak behind the screen, without giving away too much for players. I actually started out not using a GM-screen at all, for I find it puts too much distance between me and the players. But since I found the very cute small (Dutch) Mausritter GM-screen, I’ve been using it to hide my little world map.

The world map and the factions

In the section for the Game Master, the Mausritter rules suggest you prepare a map based on 19 hexagons, configured themselves as sort-of a hexagon. The middle hex contains some city (in my case, it is called Berryhill), and for each other hex you roll some dice to determine it’s contents. For Berryhill, I decided it was right in between a forest (to the east) and a human town (to the west), for these map to the four terrain types the tables have: farm land, human town, forest and river.

After some rolling with dice, I found myself with 19 hexes filled with stuff like: a fallen tree, a stone wall, a abandoned car, an old farm. Using the other tables to specify specifics about these places – and a bit of my own imagination – I made the old farm a headquarters for rats, the fallen tree the former home of a owl sorcerer, and the circle of stones the home of mice who formed a bat-cult.

Mausritter also instructs you to create factions. I added some to the city of Berryhill itself (it has a school with teachers, a city council and a united front of parents, but so far, we haven’t really stayed in the city that much), and I have added some to the world: those Old Farm Rats, the faeries secretly running the bat-cult, the cat Fluffy who reigns with terror. The book comes with examples and I took the frogs verbatim.

The players hit the world

What I also prepared, was not one, but four different encounter tables and four different rumor tables, each representing a cardinal direction from Berryhill. This is maybe a bit overkill, but I had so many factions already, and I wanted them to show up in the appropriate regions.

As soon as I got players, the world was already too small: they were from a mushroom farm, they decided, and that was not on my map. I placed it on a hex just outside of my map, and resolved some rumors and encounters from the North and East tables. This lead the first group encounter the Old Farm Rats, as well as a pigeon interested in magic.

The second session had a group of all-new players, which basically meant I could start fresh. One of them was a tourist, he said, and I placed his big mansion a bit further north from my map. They adored the frogs and took a liking in the Mug of Truth the frogs were after – meanwhile I panicked: I took this from the book and I actually had no idea what this Mug was. In my interpretation it was a bogus story, but when most of them returned in the third session, I had to make it a bit more of a real thing.

In the third session, some players from the first and second session blended, creating a more cohesive story line. In the fourth session, they burned down the ‘Old Barn’, and at this point in the campaign I felt more flexible and pivoted and stopped calling it the ‘Old Farm’ and actually went with ‘the Burning Barn’ as a major event in this world.

Bigger maps

I love that the story runs itself at this point. There are a lot of players who return to the sessions, but there are also new people every time. The existing players have their own goals, and with the backstories we come up for the new players – based on the random backgrounds and some story hooks from the world – we so far always end up with plans that move the story forwards.

What I prepare is not what is going to happen next. I only take the things that they did last session, and think how that might change my world. They burn down the barn? Sure, humans are going to extinguish the fire with chemicals, and most of the rats will flee south, but the remaining rats will get high on the chemicals and their new leader – now calling himself Garyolo the Great – seeks ways to sell the stuff for profit.

Luckily they went to the barn, otherwise I just had to be patiently waiting with this story. But I have so many more situations like these in my notes, just waiting for them to stumble upon them. It’s a nice thing to do during easy runs: look at our real world and see what things are left there that could be something else for mice.

I’ve been very religious about the map: the players may not look at my hexes. In fact, I haven’t really told them that they are hexes – although I suspect some are aware by now. I want them to draw their own maps, to make their world even more real. This also gives me an opportunity: if it’s not on their maps, I can move things slightly still, but as soon as it’s there, it there.

As they started with their second map on a bigger paper, I also expanded my map. It now contains 140 hexes instead of 19, and a lot of it is still empty. Last session they visited a hex on the very corner of my old map, so while they were roleplaying among themselves with the new player, I rolled up some stuff for every hex surrounding them. This way the world can just grow. They haven’t visited those places, giving me an opportunity to add details to these sparks. But to me, this is a great balance between light preparation and improvisation.

The future

I have no idea how long this campaign will last, but I hope it will take us further. The fact that it’s only every two weeks gives both me and my players time to relax in between sessions. I’m looking forward to the session of 31 March, for I’ve been saying it’s winter – rolling a lot of ‘sleet’ for weather. Once it’s spring in our own world, it’s also spring in Berryhill, and that strangely excites me a lot.

I will try to do another update after session 10!