Well I managed to get a quick game in last night.

Well I managed to get a quick game in last night. It was my first time running a PbtA game and everyone’s first game playing one, which wasn’t ideal, but everything went fairly smoothly.

Character creation was fantastic. With about half an hours work we had a team that worked together well. Everyone had strong ideas about who their character was, what they looked like, and how they felt about each other. We even ended up with an awkward love triangle, which was just perfect.

Following the first session advice, I dropped them into a bank heist. ‘Murder’ (Our Outsider, a shapeshifting crow) was in the process of setting up a bank account when the bank was robbed a pair of villains. Adi, our Nova, gathered power, while the Unicorn, our Bull, beat on one of the villains. He had set up some bombs, but Adi casually hurled them out into the sky, while Murder smashed him into the ground with her powers. 

At which point, the other villain revealed himself by taking hostages. Some back and forth occured, with a few failures complicating things (Poor Murder did not do nearly as well against the second villain) and the Unicorn taking bullets aimed at her teammates and the civilians. Eventually, Adi unleashed her powers and telekinetically grabbed the villains weapons, disarming both him and the situation. 

Situation resolved, the team handed the villains off to the police who were just now arriving, and received fairly reserved thanks from the Police Commisioner, along with a request that in the future they be a bit more careful about escalating the situation – They had, after all, turned a simple robbery into a situation that threatened innocent lives, and the property damage they had caused both within the bank and without could easily match the amount being stolen. Adi and Murder listened and felt contrite – They would be careful to escalate situations less, and try to act more appropriately (-Danger, +Mundane), while the Unicorn felt herself grow more confident in her actions – She’d stopped a robbery damnit, and she wouldn’t be made to feel bad for it. The bad guys were in jail, and it happened because she jumped straight into the situation (Police Commisioner lost influence).

Overall, I loved it. Everything was easy. The group aren’t too experienced, but everything gelled perfectly. The Influence system did really well (although I could have been implementing it more thoroughly throughout the session) and there were a few things I definitely didn’t give enough focus to, but overall, I’m happy.

And for a very short session, we managed to achieve a fair amount. Considering that includes character gen, it’s nothing short of amazing.

#MasksRPG #Halcyoncityjailbreak