Mausritter is probably the cutest TRPG I’ve ever encountered, players take on the role of mouse adventurers on a quest for treasure in the giant and dangerous world. I picked up a copy of the boxed set, primarily because I thought it would fit with some of players wishes for a more light hearted and fantastical game. However, once I’d read through the rules I realised that this is one of the best written systems I’ve ever read and played.
Based on the Into the Odd rule set, with various rules from other sources grafted on, Mausritter probably qualifies as rules light, and it certainly falls into the OSR genre of games. At its core, Mausritter uses a roll under D20 system, and in an unusual but refreshing twist, does not have attack rolls with characters instead just rolling damage based on the weapon they’re using. Aside from the speed benefits of this, it makes slugging it out a dangerous prospect and encourages players to think of alternative approaches.
In true OSR fashion, experience is gained based on the quantity of treasure that the adventurers manage to haul back to civilization, this combined with a quite limited inventory system leads to interesting player choices about what they bring back. It also means there is sometimes value to revisiting a site, perhaps with more hired porters to carry back the excess loot.
The first session I ran I used the introductory module from the rule book, which had our band of heroic mice investigating what has happened to the mice of Stumpsville. As introductory adventures go it’s very well written with plenty of opportunities for players to learn the system, as well as come up with creative solutions to obstacles. There’s also some good plot hooks for a wider adventure, which my group have already latched on to.
I strongly recommend checking out Mausritter, the entire ruleset is available for free on itch which means the barrier to entry is basically none-existent.
The box set also gets my approval as well, it includes all the materials ready to go. While you can print all of these yourself, it took a lot of the hassle out of the setup. On top of that I’ve since been using the physical character sheets and item tokens in a stripped back version of the system to play “the dice game” with my kids.
osr rpgs review
Mausritter is probably the cutest TRPG I’ve ever encountered, players take on the role of mouse adventurers on a quest for treasure in the giant and dangerous world. I picked up a copy of the boxed set, primarily because I thought it would fit with some of players wishes for a more light hearted and fantastical game. However, once I’d read through the rules I realised that this is one of the best written systems I’ve ever read and played.
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