There has been some interesting chatter on GMs Wanted regarding anthro animals, PC familiars, and the like. I have always been intrigued by the whole Bunnies and Burrows game concept. One of the earliest RPGs, it poses the interesting challenge of playing a character that looks at the world like a rabbit.

I have been thinking about the best way to systematize this game, and am reaching out for advice on the subject while simultaneously gauging interest in such a game.

So, I'm starting from the premise that the players are animals. I think limiting this to rabbits is, well, too limiting. So I think it makes sense to offer some alternative animal choices into the mix. The other starting point is that I think these animals need to live in a fantasy setting - they are the animal observers of this fantasy society, however, so have a slightly different perspective. My sense is that these animals seem like animals to humans, but they have anthropomorphized qualities - they have slightly expanded item manipulation, can speak amongst themselves, and have a crude sense of mathematics and engineering. I could even see them sporting some limited magic and/or psionics.

GURPS did a take on the original game back in the 90s, but I suspect that is at least in 3rd edition rules, if not 2nd. Plus GURPS is a bit too realistic, IMO, for a game about semi-intelligent animals. I've thought of using D&D 3.5 rules, but the classes, specifically the weapon use, seems a bit out of sync. A third thought is d20 Modern. With broader classes and less focus on weapon feats, it could work - but does it have enough of a fantasy feel. And the last option I thought of was to use something like Cartoon Action Hour, which I think has an optimal complexity:simplicity ratio for PBP gaming.

Another challenge I've been struggling with is story flow. What would these animals be doing? In Watership Down, the literary inspiration for this kind of game, the characters are all rabbits searching for a new home. That is certainly interesting, but is not really something that is duplicatable. Any thoughts on that topic would be welcome as well.

I see a lot of potential in a game like this - just not sure the best way to crack the ole egg.

You might look at the Mouse Guard RPG.  It's based off of a comic book line, and is pretty much anthropomorphized mice facing all the dangers that come with, well being the size of a mouse.

It's built using Burning Wheel so it's a mix of crunch and more story gaming elements.

Might serve as a starting point.

In reply to nauthiz (msg # 2):

There is also Cairn which was just released by some good folks who took over a failing kick starter and did a good job with it.  Personally I'd be up for playing either a mouse guard or cairn game.

Again, as usual, I'd suggest using the Window, FATE or Lady Blackbird. Blackbird is based (in part) on mouse guard and takes all the crunch away.

I would suggest taking Humans out of the environment entirely, perhaps like mrs. Bigsby and the rats of Nim. They could be there, in the background as an overarching threat. This sounds like an interesting game. Good luck with it!

I would like to second Mouse Guard, as it's basically the best thing, and I for one would love to see some Mouse Guard games going up on RPoL. :P

B&B is based on the book Watership Down. Good book, very Wind in the Willows-ish, but a bit darker, a little more weasels and stoats and less Mr. Toad.


MG is very good, and a very complete game world, ready to rumble.

Could pro'ly be adapted to a "mixed animal" game, but would take some tweaks on the premises of the game world and society.

Thanks for the recos. I'll check out the mouse guard rpg, but I am familiar with the comics. It is a little too much like fantasy where the race is mouse instead of human. Not precisely what I'm looking for but might work. I'm not a fan of the window or fate. I'll check out lady blackbird as well.

EDIT: I have to say, the elegance and style of Mouse Guard is certainly enviable. The system is definitely interesting as well.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:57, Wed 03 Sept 2014.

Michtim: Fluffy Adventures is an indie roleplayinh game of anthropomorphic animal adventures focusing on the personalities of characters rather than skills and stats.

The default is lighter, more heart-warming stories, but the system seems robust enough to handle darker themes. Check it out at http://www.grimogre.at/michtim/

Mouseguard has really weird pacing. It jumps to only the most important events, no tracking how you get somewhere. Want to go three countries over to talk to a wizard? Alright! You arrived and found out he's not home, now what? (Notice the complete lack of anything in the middle. Mouseguard would give you a single chance for a random encounter regardless of what or how long that middle time period is. Makes the game feel like we just keep skipping forward.

Not good or bad, but certainly a major factor in personal tastes to be accounted for.

___
Savage worlds would be a good system. Don't know if any supplements address furries, but then, is there a real need? (This really depends on you)

Very flexible system. Even has a My Little Pony version (fan made of course, not that you would know by looking at it)

Is that pacing defined in the game rules? Seems like that's a gm thing, not something that would necessarily be adjudicated.

Consider however that the games rules are designed with certain expectations. The expectations are not always clarified (see DnD 3.x) but that doesn't change the potential mechanical effects.

I'm certain a good GM could play at any pace, but when I tried it as players things just kept feeling weird trying to play through like it was a normal game. I suspect freeform players would have had less issues though. Things would be off, we would get places and end up with too much stuff, and we advanced super fast on the sample missions because we did so much between the key mission points (this is probably the biggest issue with pacing) from all the travel that was supposed to be skipped over, so we ended up ranking green-to-veteran skills on many skills in just one mission.

That's very interesting. Did you play via rpol or was it tabletop? I'm still assimilating the rules. They are interesting, but one thing I really am not liking the looseness of is the conditions. I'm also not sure id want to use that system because the world I have in mind is not the same as the mouseguard world. That's too medieval society with mice. I want an animal society level game. Still not sure d&d or d20 modern wouldn't fit better.

It was tabletop.

I still think Savage Worlds or similar (or even my system RnR) would be better. Still some structure but without classes and mechanics are light and flexible enough to easily handle unusual settings.

And yeah I always prefer classless, but in this case, classes by their nature must make assumptions about the setting and so require a lot of care and often modification to fit unusual settings.

What's your system?

I'm a big fan of ratkin 'cadged ones' Which are pritty much rats of nimh.

Played an ratkin engeener who use to be a cadged one, NEVER would take human form and seldom even went crinos, spent most my time inside things taking them apart and putting them back together ways they wheren't supuse to be. Lol called her Glitch, kinda plaied her like Gadget's long lost and totally Insaine cuisine. Lol. XD

Made a crazy stuff like an auto-hatchet, and think the craziest thing she did before going into a loser free form game was making a spirit fetish from a Vulcan canon x.x. Because it's one thing to mount a Vulcan canon to a Vehical but why stop there when you can lock the berrel down to make it fire a single shot, and then imbune that shot with rage and shadows before shorting it?

Lol

It was quite enjoyable, I wouldn't mind a game where it stuck at the rats of nimh kinda level though lol no shapeshifting and spirt magics!

Though if I whent with glitch I would still make her unstable and a bit Insaine, it wasn't turning into a wererat that made her crazy, just made her MORE crazy

Besides a modern day or dnd kinda setting you could also go with fallen Londen or that island from sunless sea.  In fallen Londen the rats are well respected for how well organized they are and the quality of guns and clocks and such they produce but not to well liked because well lot of them are goons and steal from people.

In the sunless sea thing they live on an island with a bunch of genpigs they are at war with

My system is Roads and Ruins, it is currently in test play. I made it with the idea of being like an onion, a simple core, with optional additions. It also relies more on "soft caps" which makes rule of cool easy to use.

The full system is simpler similar too, but lighter than, DnD. But you can use just the core for a really simple ruleset. It is easier to show then to talk about though. I'm autistic so writing has always been difficult for me, so much of my test play game has been trying to find a better way to write everything.

Sounds interesting. Where can I get a copy?

Been busy. Most of it is currently posted in a game right now. I can post the core rules somewhere public this weekend though.

Thinking about storyline for a game like this - which continues to be my biggest challenge in thinking. Following the templates I have to work with (Watership Down chief among them), I've been trying to think about this from the perspective of a single society based around a single animal type (and a single community within that type). But I see the benefit of individuality on the storyline - and came up with the following as a framing story:

Forged for mutual protection against predators, the Alliance of Boulderwall is a loose coalition of woodland animals. Each society remains independent for the most part, but all swear fealty to a single King, elected from among a council of elders every Spring. The remaining members of the council lead their own people and provide soldiers, supplies, and support to the Boulderwall defense.

This is a very rough draft, but the idea is pretty simple - it allows for a pretty decent fantasy world overlay on top of an animal backdrop. I'm still thinking these are, for all intents and purposes, "normal" animals. No swords and armor and buildings and such (see previous comments re. Mouse Guard).

I'm open to thoughts and commentary on the above.

I find that if all the PC's are from one (or a limited number) of "races" available, then the "other" races have a chance to be factors in the storyline. There is something about, for instance, having a rabbit or mouse in the group that makes all rabbits or mice seem less of an "outside" society, less unknown or alien.  It also avoids awkward rulings on how much stronger a rabbit is than a mouse PC, and they can just be NPC's and faked if/when it becomes necessary.

(As for some players not wanting to play if they can't play their specific preferred animal - pffft. If you have a good game concept, you'll find all the players you need, don't let one dictate changes to your story.)

But it depends what sort of "fantasy" flavour you want, and what sort of story.

I got called in on a special project (I hate being liked by the bosses, they always give me work cause I'll do it right), so I haven't finished moving all the data over but the basics are there which should be enough to build from.

https://sites.google.com/site/...g/home/rnr-srd-v-0-2

If you explore the site, you will find a link to the older srd pages which have an old version of the rules which you can see the total concept with all the add-on rules together (before I had tried to make them separate parts) including how powers work (powers include magic, tech, mutations, etc) and other things found in crunchier games.