Today I played Mausritter with my kids for the first time. I’m proud of my start, so I want to share it here.
The both rolled their characters. Then I introduced them to the Stumpsville premise straight from the book. I like to get into action quickly, so I told them: You travelled for a while and so you are hungry now. (Gave each a “hungry” condition and explained condition mechanics.) You should be in Stumpsville soon, do you want to take a short rest and get rid of the “hungry” condition at the cost of a ration? Alternatively, you keep your rations full and continue right away.
Right away they have to make a meaningful decision about their resources. Play it save or take some risk? I tell them exactly what the choices will cost. Pay a ration or press your luck? One of them decided to eat a ration and one continued right away.
Now you can see Stumpsville before you, a big stump with an entrence between the roots. At a large boulder before the entrance is a wheel of cheese which smells very very delicious. All hungry mice have to pass a WIL save or they blindly run for the cheese.
This communicates that lesson that careful play allows you to avoid rolling dice and that this is a good thing. (The tradeoff that careful play might result in more random encounters comes later.)
In our game the hungry mouse failed the WIL save. Cheeeeese!!! The other mouse notices the rat skull. It’s a trap! What do you do? Quick witted the player immediately said he grabs his colleague and stuffs a ration into him to keep him away from the trap. Danger avoided at the cost of one more ration. Afterwards they retrieved the wheel of cheese quite carefully.
It worked very well to set the tone with in-game action within the first minutes of play.