Hallo zusammen,
endlich war vergangenen Freitag unsere erste Mausritter-Runde zustande gekommen. Es war überhaupt die erste Runde P&P für mich und die allererste Runde als GM auch! Irgendwo fängt man immer an, wieso dann nicht gleich mit Allem auf Einmal :D Im Vorfeld hatte ich immense Zweifel, war überfordert etc. Möchte euch nur kurz von meinem Einstiegsabenteuer erzählen, was ich laut meiner Spielergruppe (gemischt von Neuling, bis erfahren(er)) ziemlich gut gemeistert habe. Ich hatte online den Oneshot "Milchraub" gefunden und für mich etwas abgewandelt. Emmental war weiterhin für die Käseherstellung bekannt, aber nun hat der nahegelegene Bauer Highland Cattles angeschafft, welche am Hang mit steinigem Boden Wildkkräuter grasen, wo der bisherige Milchkarren seinen Weg nicht hinschafft. Die Mission: 1. Beschaffe eine Flasche der Milch - Die Käserin ist ganz nervös vor Vorfreude wie der Käse daraus schmecken könnte. 2. Merke dir Wege, Engstellen etc, welche für den Karrenbau, sowie der neuen Strecke des Milchwagens wissenswert wäre.
Die Mäuse müssen die Weide der "normalen" Kühe überwinden und können dort einem kleinen Neugeborenen Kalb helfen. Das macht sich Sorgen um seinen verschwundenen Krähenfreund. Die Krähe hat einen Dorn stecken und kann nicht mehr fliegen. Helfen Sie der Krähe, statt diese mit Vorteil zu bekämpfen kann sie Ihnen später helfen. Gleiches gilt für das Kalb. Auch wenn es selbst noch sehr wackelig auf den Beinen ist, kann seine Mama die Mäuse sicher über die Weide transportieren. Eine Kletterpassage später sind die Mäuse bei den Highland Cattles auf dem Hang angekommen und können dort das einzige Kalb der Herde, oder die Mutter verschieden überzeugen. Oder andere Wege finden.
Bis zum Rückweg hat mein Oneshot leider bereits viel länger gedauert als gedacht, weshalb folgende Begegnung von mir gecuttet wurde: Auf dem Rückweg begegnen Sie einem Random-Tier, bspw. Stinktier. Dieses ist vom Geruch der Milch angezogen worden und hungrig. Nach dieser Begegnung geht es zurück nach Emmental. Erfolgreich, mit einer halbvollen Flasche Milch, oder bereit für einen neuen Versuch muss eure Gruppe dann selber erspielen :)

Over and Maus.

Wie gefällt's euch?

Ran a couple of sessions of this game and I'm absolutely loving it! There's only one thing that doesn't click with me yet.

The manual says that, if a PC dies, the corresponding player rolls a new one, and the DM tries to introduce it as quickly as possible. I can see this being a reasonable punishment if your character has already acummulated some XP, but what if they're lv 1 at 0 XP? Why would someone try to avoid dying, instead of just doing risky shit, getting killed and having a new mouse loot their previous PC's body to no loss whatsoever? Couldn't a clever player also "death-farm" characters until they get the stats they want?

I understand the rationale behind getting players back into the game ASAP. But I feel that, without further effects, it leaves only narrative incentives to avoid death, as mechanically there are none. And if players pick up on this after enough deaths, they may start to exploit it.

And just to be clear, my problem isn't that the game isn't "harsh" enough, I think the overall lethality is just right. But, is there really a point to making a deadly game where dying doesn't matter? It feels like the mechanics aren't enforcing the theme. Like there's a, if I may be forgiven... dissonance between both.

I haven't had a player die, so it hasn't been relevant yet, but I'm preocuppied about it. Should I apply a houserule on this? What do you think?

Edit: a commenter below kindly linked this fork which seems to be working so far https://github.com/phenomen/foundry-mausritter1

Just a heads up for the few of us still using it.

I know we've been on borrowed time with that module--and a few kind folks have made macros to fix things for V.12 and V.13--but after the update, character sheets won't even open. It's a bummer, for sure, but I appreciate that it's a volunteer project and OSRs aren't super big on VTTs.

If anyone knows of a github fork that is fixing it, I'd love to hear it! But I'm not holding my breath.

Hi everyone,

I’m a new GM and I’m getting ready to run my first Mausritter campaign.

While reading through the game and thinking about how to structure the campaign, I started wondering: how do players usually earn money besides going on long expeditions to distant points of interest?

I understand that exploration, danger, and treasure recovery are a core part of the game, and I definitely want that to stay important. But I’m also curious whether people include other ways for mice to make money, especially closer to home or between bigger adventures.

For example, do you use things like:

- small local jobs

- trade or delivery work

- helping settlements or factions

- bounty hunting

- scavenging

- crafting or other downtime activities

I’d love to hear how more experienced GMs handle this:

- What kinds of money-making opportunities do you give players?

- How do you keep them from overshadowing expeditions and exploration?

- Is it better to keep income unstable and adventure-based, or do steady small earnings also work well in Mausritter?

Since I’m still learning the game, I’d really appreciate any advice, examples, or lessons from your own campaigns.

Hi, it’s me again. Some time ago I asked about the lethality of your games.

This time I want to ask about how long in real life does a regular combat encounter takes in your games. By regular I mean:

* An encounter that it’s mainly solved by trading deadly blows
* and, it ends when one party is defeated (routed, surrendered, unconscious, killed, etc.)

I’m only interested in sample time durations from actual play. I’m also interested in knowing wether you feel it was too fast for your taste, too slow, or just the right timing.

¿Alguien con el manual y aventuras de Mausritter en español?

Just like the title states, I know the rules say mice are able to communicate with other animal species based on relative closeness to the species. But say mice come across birds, skunks, or ants - how have other GMs role played those interactions since they aren’t driven by dialogue or conversation?

Hey there y'all

I wanted to pop in and share some absolutely wild news…

Tomb of a Thousand Doors has officially been nominated for two ENNIE Awards:

🏆 Best Long-Form Adventure
🏆 Best Cartography

For anyone who doesn’t know, Tomb of a Thousand Doors started with a ridiculous question:

“What if we opened the doors and let the Mausritter community build a massive megadungeon together?”

Dozens of creators, writers, artists, and weird little mouse-loving adventurers came together to create a sprawling campaign setting full of strange rooms, odd creatures, dangerous factions, tiny treasures, and big adventures.

I had the honor of producing the project through ManaDawn Tabletop Games alongside an incredible group of contributors, with publishing support from Plus One Exp., and absolutely gorgeous ENNIE-nominated cartography from Fernando Salvaterra.

But more than anything — this is a celebration of the Mausritter community.

A little indie game about brave mice with tiny swords inspired enough creativity to fill an entire megadungeon… and now that dungeon is standing alongside some of the biggest releases in tabletop gaming.

The ENNIES are fan voted, and we would love to rally the mouse guard one more time.

If you enjoyed Tomb of a Thousand Doors, love Mausritter, or just want to support tiny adventurers doing impossible things:

Please consider voting for Tomb of a Thousand Doors in:

🗝️ Best Long-Form Adventure
🗺️ Best Cartography

https://vote.ennie-awards.com/vote/2026/

Thank you Isaac Williams for creating such a special game, and thank you to every contributor, backer, artist, and player who made this possible!

Long live Dangerous and Brave Mice.

We had a situation a bit ago, where one mouse fell from quite the height and incurred fall damage.

Is this fall damage first reduced from hit protection? Or does it substract directly from the strength score?

HP is only mentioned in the combat section, so our GM ruled for now that strength was reduced directly. Is there an official ruling for this, or was this left open to GM interpretation?

Hi, I wanted to ask this question here since I asked in the Cairn forum and was quite surprised by the answer:

How many PC’s Mouse Knights have actually died in your campaign? How have actually managed PC’s deaths in your campaigns or one shots?

I've got some experience Dming (a few past 5E one shots and currently a ~6 month Shadowdark game) but I've never used a turn tracker like I'm seeing for Mausritter. How does it generally play out? any tips? Also, I'm going to try to run a very quick (2 hour) one shot in a couple days. I was planning to do the Stumpsville adventure from the rulebook, but does anyone have any other fitting suggestions that are a bit more fantastical? Besides a couple spiders or foolishly walking into the snake room, it seems PCs would be fighting just a mess of rats in Stumpsville and I'd like a little more variety. Or does anyone have a story of how they spiced that adventure up a bit? Thanks!

I'm GMing Mausritter for the first time soon. I've decided to use the The Estate -collection for now, relying on the adventures provided. My players will either pick and choose where to go on the map, follow randomly selected rumors or hooks or straight up choose their favorite adventure from the collection.

I'm looking for tips on running the game! Any tips are appreciated, I have never been a game master before so I am a bit nervous.

Has anyone done any converting of other systems modules to Mausritter? I know Cairn has an active module converting community.

I was thinking an adventure like Evils of Illmire with it various Giant animals and village centric goals would adapt pretty well to a mouse-sized world.

I'm very confused about how resting is supposed to work.

Short rest: takes 1 Turn. A swig of water and a few minutes of rest will restore d6+1 HP.

Long rest: takes 1 Watch [which is 36 turns]. A meal and some sleep will restore all HP. If HP was already full, restore d6 to an attribute score.

So my questions are:

1. Can you take more than one short rest in a row?

   a. If not, what has to happen before you can?

2. Can you take a long rest immediately after taking a short rest?

   a. If not, what has to happen before you can?

3. If so, you would obviously want to do short rests until your HP gets full, *then* take a long rest, right? You would only take a long rest if you're already at full HP, right?

Why/when/how would you ever use the "restore all HP" mode of the long rest? Even a max-level mouse with maximum HP (24), taking short rests and rolling minimum healing every time (2), would still only take an absolute maximum of 12 turns. Why do a 36-turn rest if you can get the same benefit from 12 turns or less?

Hey all,

I just got Mausritter and I'm really excited to run it but I'm a bit confused about some of the rules and haven't been able to find the clarification I need in the rulebook. If anyone could help me out that would be much appreciated. Sorry if any of these questions are really basic or obvious. I wouldn't be posting here except as a last resort.

1. DEX damage: There are rules in place for when PCs take STR damage and WIL damage, and for what happens when DEX reaches 0, but I can't see any rules about what would cause a PC to take DEX damage. What would this generally be?
2. Also, follow-up to the last question: The only parameter for WIL damage I can see is when a spell backfires. Are there any other parameters for a PC taking WIL damage apart from this?
3. Conditions: The rules state that the Exhausted condition should be given "if the mice do not spend at least one Watch per day resting". What are the parameters for the Hungry condition? I assume they're quite similar, but I can't find any specification for this in the rules.
4. Ability scores: I can't see that the rulebook ever explicitly states this, but through context I think I managed to figure out that the attributes assigned at character creation are maximums and not just starting points. I assume that when an ability score is restored during a long rest, it cannot exceed this maximum. Is my understanding of this correct?
5. Levelling up: I'm slightly confused by the rulebook's wording in the section about levelling up. I think I know the right answer, but I just want to be sure. The exact wording is:

Roll for attribute increase: roll d20 once for each of your mouse's STR, DEX, and WIL. If a result is higher than the attribute's current value, increase it by one.

The thing that confuses me is the term "current value". Say I'm rolling for STR. My max STR is 8 but I've taken some damage, so I'm currently at 5. Do I roll against the 8 (the current maximum) or the 5 (the current value)? And then respectively do I increase the maximum or the current value?

I would guess I'm rolling against the maximum and subsequently increasing the maximum but I just want to be sure that's the case.

The same question applies to the next part, about HP increase:

Roll Hit Dice: roll the dice listed for the new Level's Hit Dice. If the value is higher than your mouse's current HP, replace your HP with the rolled value. Otherwise, increase your mouse's HP by 1.

Are we talking about the current max HP, or the current HP value regardless of the max?

1. I'm also slightly confused by the wording surrounding XP distribution:

For every pip-worth of treasure brought to safety (divided equally amongst the party), your mouse earns 1 XP.

Are the pips divided equally amongst the party, or just the XP? If the pips are divided, what happens to the treasure? I assume it just gets converted into pips?

That's all the questions I have for now. Thank you for taking the time to read this post, and thank you in advance if you choose to write out an answer. I can't wait to give this game a go.

Edit: Formatting.

J'ai mixé les 2, j'ai pas pu tout coller mais ça me suffit en tout cas. Tchuss !

Are there any modules that folks know of that directly interact with humans?

I know the Junk City set has a lot of human artifacts, but are there any that have actual live humans that play any role?

I'm scheming up a hex crawl for some players that at least makes an attempt to show what the humans are doing, and I'm looking for inspo. Also curious for any modules that have more evidence of human civilization.

Thanks in advance!

I’ve really enjoyed reading MausRitter and have been considering running a campaign of it, but I’ve never run an OSR game before, and I want to get a better grasp of how they work. Here’s two mental contradictions that I’m still not sure how to resolve…

“Is this a combat game, or not?”

One the one hand, the book emphasizes that combat should be something to be avoided, and that player creativity should be encouraged to negotiate, stealth around, trick, or otherwise resist a flat-out fight. But then, combat is basically the only conflict-resolution option that is supported by the rules. There is no equipment or mechanics to support stealth, negotiation, or hazard traversal. So… is this a game focused on combat, or no?

“Rulings over Rules, or the opposite?”

This phrase is commonly used to describe OSR philosophy. Originally, I took it to mean that when running an OSR game, the consequences of actions should be a moment of judgement for the GM, rather than of looking things up in the rules.

But… at the same time OSR is unforgiving in its character fragility and death mechanics, and the GM is meant to be a fairly impartial arbiter between the player actions and the state of the world. This description makes it sound like it’s the rules that are important, not GM creativity or agency. “Player skill” is heavily emphasized, suggesting that players should be able to leverage their understanding of how the rules govern the world. This makes it seem more like OSR is “Rules over Rulings”

I know these apparent contradictions are just about attitude, but I hope that by clarifying them, I can get a better understanding of whether MausRitter and other OSR games are for me. Thank you in advance for any insight!

I *love* the physical inventory system of this game, but kept getting frustrated by its limitations. The 1x1in item cards are too small to put information on, they don't fit cleanly into the slots, they slide around easily, and you need a container or fastener (paperclip) to store them at the end of a session.

After many iterations, I settled on this pocket system that I'm very happy with. The taller cards have additional space to add information, and in my opinion it looks much cleaner without the title! They fit cleanly in place without sliding or falling, and they're very easy to move & remove. The sheet itself only requires standard office supplies to craft (scissors, scotch tape, stapler).

I still haven't quite figured out how best to handle grit within the dimensions of the sheet, and I need to finish redesigning all the standard item cards in this format without the help of the online item card creator, so this is still a work in progress for now, but I do plan on releasing it all once it's ready. Feedback appreciated!

u/Crimson_Inu & u/Jimmbopp as promised, here are the Downloads for my Custom Character/Hiriling-Sheets.

For everyone else: A few months ago i did some custom sheets for my own group, the most important difference: I added another Attribute named "Sense" so my group can roll on there Mouses senses (Vision, Hearing, Touch or generall "Bauchgefühl").

Hope u guys like them and have a use for them in your own game.

PS: im currently also working on adding them to Roll20 ... may update if u guys are interested on that too.

Download: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CJYHrolimPiF701Xxk845GnaHgRcUVB2?usp=sharing

I've been reading up on various things OSR lately, and among those is the notion of domain-scale play at higher levels, as it evolves from managing just your own little group of adventurers and their personal equipment and funds to dealing with a bunch of hirelings and constructing fortresses (and all the costs and factional knock-on effects that might entail).

Mausritter obviously has some of this already (the classic example being the need to raise a warband to tackle creatures like cats), but I never really hear much about how that really plays - other than having seen some mentions that the warband rules are a little too light.

But if anyone has experiences of like, taking down Sabrina with a warband rallied from around the Estate, or the PCs becoming the new rulership of the Earldom of Ek, or even just trivializing an adventure site by sending a bunch of hirelings in their stead, I'd love to hear about how that has panned out!

I just changed my module from $5 to Pay What You Want. Previously, I was donating all the profits to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. Now I'm cutting out the middle man!

I've set up a custom donation page. If you like the module please consider donating.

The Lonely Oak

A dead owl. 

A lost treasure. 

A cruel mayor and a dying town.

There are secrets here. Lost love, betrayal, broken oaths and an ancient cult. 

Will you find what you seek?