Hallo everybody.

Hallo everybody.

Hallo everybody. I’d like to ask something about the game and the system, before to make my mind and jump on the kickstarter bandwagon.

First of all. Are powers (and equip) equipped with tags, both narrative and mechanical? Ie. When I create/choose a power, is the power “Forceful” “Area” “+1Damage” “Very far” “Ice” etc.?

I ask this one because I didn’t like the Worlds in Peril rpg approach, so I’d like to grasp the differences between Mask and other PbtA games, specifically on this point.

Also, is there a way to interact with scenes, for example to “lock” a fight within specific “places” or “situations”, gaining the chances for fight a “difficult” enemy? Ie. I’m a ground-based fighter, but I’m against a dastardly flying enemy, that is shooting me from apart: there are specific game rules that I can use to “force the enemy in a room” or “to make me followed so we’ll fight in a small, low, alley”? Something that I can roll, and if I succeed, I have those kind of choices to gain that “narrative location/situation advantage”?

Is this true fro NPCs too? I know, PbtA games have master don’t following the same PCs rules, however, suppose to have a ground-bsed Villain, can I ask my flying-heroes PCs to roll a sort of “Defy Danger” move to “force” them to enter that low, cramped building, because “Ehi, the Villain is inside, we can’t stay around the building forever”?

Thanks in advance for the attention.

13 thoughts on “Hallo everybody.”

  1. Another question: how much Mask is related to “teenager superheroes”? Is this theme deeply related to the rules, moves etc.?

    Or can I simply ignore the “teenager” part, and use it as it is for a more classic superhero campaign, or something similar (enhanced guys in a secret dark urban war)?

  2. Powers are just a word. They have no mechanical weight like weapons do in DW. The Nova however has a few specific ways they can use their powers but it is also more dangerous for them. 

    There are not. There is only the fiction.

    When you Unleash your powers then “change the enviroment” is an option to choose but it doesn’T get more defined then that. 

    You can’t force players to roll anything in any PbtA game really. You can just set up situations where they trigger a specific move. 

    Masks doesn’T work without teenage superheroes or at least people behaving like them. The dichotomy between adults and non-adults is hardwired in the rules. 

  3. Indeed. On pretty much every level, Masks is way more about emotional and interpersonal drama and coming into your own than it is about punching villains in the face. You could probably use it for an Avengers-y action game, but there’s a lot of the system that wouldn’t be helping you and a few parts that would be hindering you.

  7. 😀 sorry Tim, too many backed project… I’m trying to limit the kicks to the games I’d really have a chance to play (and to persuade my friends to play with). Now, I feel this one is too narrativ-ey, even for a PbtA game, to appeal my groups style of play.

    For the same reason, I’m pretty deluded from Blades in the Dark (that I backed in a rush, before having the chance to read the beta): very very limited mechanics, almost no tags at all, unappealing moves, playbooks etc. 

  9. Andrea Parducci Our group did not like the system where, intead of suffering damage, emotional conditions are inflicted on characters. While being all emotional is the latest rage in rpg’s making a person feel (for instace) guilty instead of bleed after a katana attack just broke it for us. We felt that the emotional conditions were completely arbitrarily imposed by the rules, and did not really flow from good fiction.

  11. Wynand Louw mmm… I understand. So, if I get hit by PowerPuncher, I have to go for “guilty” or “insecure” if I want to stay in the scene. No, I feel I don’t like it too.

    I prefer different types of “stress”, as in Cortex Plus, so when I get punched, I NEED to boost Exausthed or Injured, when I get intimidated I have to boost “Insecure” or maybe “Angry” etc. It’s very thematic and very narrative related.

    In alternative, I like the Fate way, so every character has X blank spaces, and when he takes a “condition”, he fill in the space the type of condition. So you could end 3 time angered, or 3 time injured etc. Of course, this way you couldn’t suffer all those negative effects I see in the Masks sheets, but however you could suffer some kind of aggravated situation, something like 1st Injured > -2 to Engage, 2nd Injured > you need to Defy Danger before to Engage, 3rd Injured > You cannot engage, you need to find another way. Etc.

  12. Actually, unless the gm makes a hard move that forces a condition on you, you can always choose some other option when you get hit by a bad guy. Take a Powerful Blow gives you other choices besides conditions: you can give ground or lash out at someone on a 7-9, or your powers can go out of control on a 10+. You never get forced out of the action, either, since you can always choose another option.

    For what it’s worth, I think conditions are great–making all the “damage” emotional is about the most elegant way I’ve seen to support having a physically invincible character like Superman and a (comparatively) mundane, squishy human like Robin on the same team. It’s a lot more sensible to me than having to eyeball every hit based on how tough the character is, like you have to do in Worlds in Peril–and it keeps the focus on emotional drama rather than broken bones, the latter of which just aren’t really important to the genre (most of the time).

    That said, some of the Conditions are definitely easier to link to the fiction in most situations. Like, Angry pretty much always makes sense, Insecure and Afraid are easy enough, Hopeless I can see as a last dregs kind of thing… but Guilty? I feel like I have to stretch things a bit to feel Guilty about getting hit by a supervillain. That’s probably one that you get hit with by other mechanics most of the time.

  13. James Etheridge “For what it’s worth, I think conditions are great–making all the “damage” emotional is about the most elegant way I’ve seen to support having a physically invincible character like Superman”

    Absolutely. I say conditions as a necessary feature, in a superhero game. But the mechanic behind the conditions can be really different, and I was speaking about that. Did you played Cortex+ or Fate? If you did, then you understand what I was saying.

    “That said, some of the Conditions are definitely easier to link to the fiction in most situations.” This is the point. Nothing in the system (I suppose) stop the player to choosing “inappropriate” condition, just to stay in the scene. If those conditions are something like “Hit Points”, then you can bet a lot of players (well, in my groups, at least…) will try to check all of them, before to go down. So, things become silly when they check inappropriate conditions.

    In Cortex+, for example, you can’t choose Insecure, if hit by a truck. Or you can’t choose Exhausted if embarrassed by a Sexy Girl from Outer Space 😀

    In Fate, you have empty “boxes”, so you fill what is appropriate in that situation. In the 2st box you could write “Punched in the face”, in the second “Hit by a running Truck”, in the 3rd “That Alien Girl really makes me mad!” etc.

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