No Mice, No Meowsters

No Mice, No Meowsters designed for mischief for all-ages!

No Mice, No Meowsters is a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) designed for all ages, it’s made for kids, teens, and adults to all feel comfortable and engaged playing. 

No Mice, No Meowsters really pulled off the engagement element well for my whole family.  My kid, partner, and I all enjoy this game and played a few rounds with everyone, including my 2.5yo, interested and participating.  Everyone gets to help guide the story and also participate in gameplay.  

It provides a great opportunity for side-by-side play since any adults present are not in that GM “authority” position like with other tabletop RPGs, and children have the opportunity to be the guide without being pressured to lead a whole game.  This helps kids really participate and talk more since they have equal stake in the story.  For adults, you get to play too and get to have fun anticipating how everyone else will change the story. 

No Mice, No Meowsters ever growing setting

There are guide tables to help pick a starting point, a “two-footer”, friendly neighborhood animals, etc. to set up your particular game session.  After this, your goal is to stop your “two-footer” from completing whatever it is they are trying to do within a timeframe.

This also works very well in freeform versus using the tables (which the game encourages to “make something up yourself”).  If you want to have cats on a spaceship trying to make the humans land on the moon instead of Earth (like my kid did), the game still works just fine.

Right now, I rolled from the tables and got: 

• Your “two-footer” with important papers is trying to get you in a basket by high noon
• You are in the garden with a yarn ball
• An animal friend mouse wants to show you something

You fill in further descriptions and details on your drawn map sheet as you play each round. For example, maybe, for your scene description that round, you say that the papers have the letters “VET” on them, or you say there is a big tree in the garden that you can climb later.  You then add those to the map and narrative to keep the story moving.

The story grows as each player takes their turn, meaning that every gets a hand in creating it, and it can also be anything that you want.

Your mischievous cat character! 

No Mice, No Meowsters comes with prepared character sheet templates that are very easy to fill out.  You bubble in from multiple choice options that help you develop your cat’s personality, look, and background.

This really helped with my kid (2.5yo) who wasn’t sure how to start and hadn’t really made a structured character before.  We were able to ask “does your cat like cream?” or “is he afraid of rugs?” and we filled out the sheet together with what he wanted.  

All the attributes that you have are story-telling guides, so your character doesn’t have numerical stats to keep track of while playing, which is also great for younger kids who are maybe still learning to count. 

Unique mechanics in No Mice, No Meowsters:

As the name may indicate, No Mice, No Meowsters has no dice in the actual gameplay portion.  Instead, it has a token and collaborative story-based mechanic. 

Earning tokens for your cat: 

• You spend tokens to complete important or challenging tasks
• You earn tokens by doing something fun, relaxing, descriptive, etc
• If you try to do a task without a token, it follows the “you do that, but…” rules

For example, if you want to jump up into a tree, but don’t have any tokens you can still choose to do that, but maybe you don’t quite make it.  Now your cat is dangling from their front paws only.  

Alternatively, you could try to earn a token first to get guaranteed success by describing the environment (i.e. saying you notice a birdbath in the garden), rolling around in the grass, or letting a “two-footer” pet you.

This was really easy to keep track of and gave a good balance of there being action moments and RP moments.  It also really pushed for collaboration.  We would coordinate having one cat earn a token by being cute and distracting a “two-footer” so someone else could spend their tokens and be naughty elsewhere.  

Storytelling rounds: 

During each storytelling round, the group collectively agrees how to fill in the environment, advance the story, and interact with any non-player characters versus having the adventure pre-planned.  So, you’ll draw any new features discovered on the map and coordinate how everyone will proceed.

At the end of the round, you color in a wedge in the timer wheel to count down to the pre-determined time limit, and seamlessly start the next round of description, discussion, and mischief.

During the round, there is a guide role (anyone can jump in with this at any time), but it isn’t player 1’s turn then player 2’s turn. It is one round for everyone to work together and discuss how the round will play out.

Having a collective round versus set turns really encouraged everyone to participate and stay interested.  Sometimes, my kid will lose interest in a game while others have their turn and start getting really fidgety… this one he was engaged the whole way through because it was like it was always his turn.

It also really helped us have a dialogue.  We were constantly discussing and coming up with ideas between a couple 30 yo’s and a 2.5 yo.  I got to bounce ideas off my kid and he came up with some crazy ways to solve problems.

What did my kid think about No Mice, No Meowsters?

My kid loves this game.  

He wants to play again and again, and I honestly don’t mind (this is way more stimulating for everyone than Candy Land).  

He helps draw the map, he comes up with ideas, he listens, he meows, he acts out what his kitty does… this is very much one of his favorite games because he just has fun and gets to be creative.

Overall thoughts on No Mice, No Meowsters:

No Mice, No Meowsters covers all ages, it is easy to pick up, and it is fun.  This game is great for practicing role playing, getting comfortable with TTRPG’s, or just having a fun time.  It was also very good at helping us practice collaboration, and I think could be a good team-building or family-bonding tool.

It is purr-fect for our family, and I hope you enjoy it too!

Where to find a copy of No Mice, No Meowsters:

You can pick up a copy of No Mice, No Meowsters at:

https://trouser-mouse.itch.io/

The creator of No Mice, No Meowsters can be found at:

https://twitter.com/trouser_mouse

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