Just finished our first session of Masks, and a couple questions came up that I didn’t know how to answer. Any help is appreciated.
1. On someone rejecting someone’s influence: Does the “immediately act to prove them wrong” option require action other than speaking? Twice in the first session I was asked if they could just respond with a retort for that option.
2. On bringing your doom closer for the Doomed: Is that meant to be entirely player/character choice? For most choices it seems obvious that it is, but our Doomed took “Injuring innocents” as hers, and then she chose to overexert herself and it resulted in a failed unleash your powers, which then resulted in heavy, shattered glass falling on surrounding civilians, injuring them. What it comes down to is, when it’s an accidental fulfillment of the requirement for bringing your doomed closer, does it still go into effect?
How your player come to choosing to overexert her character? (7-9 on a Move, etc.)
I’m not sure if I understand what you’re asking, but I’ll try to answer anyway.
There was a skyscraper that got distorted due to villain activity, and she attempted to restore the whole thing at once. That seemed like the kind of thing even a Nova would have difficulty with, so I said she was overexerting herself.
As always, all personal opinion/how-I-run-it etc:
#1. I think “prove” is the key word in the line. If someone tells you you’re a menace to society and you retort with “Nuh-uh, YOU’RE a menace to society, get bent!” or the like, that’s clearly not trying to prove anything much at all ‘cept that you’re a brat. The obvious route in that scenario is action, ie. helping society, but I think there’s certainly room for doing some verbal turn-around where your hero explains why they do the things they do (proving their actions right), or puts a spin on things that otherwise undermines the influencer’s viewpoint (proving the accuser wrong).
You don’t have to successfully prove something to them, but I think there should be a clear attempt, ’cause the action has you marking potential because you’re proving something to yourself, too. 🙂
#2. I think if bringing your doom closer isn’t something you’re desperately trying to avoid but situationally can’t/won’t (the Doomed is hard choices for days), then it’s almost always going to be an accidental outcome, so that seems totally fine to me.
When I pick “frightening loved ones”, I don’t think it’s often gonna be my hero actively jumping out and yelling boo at my family, as much as it’ll be my rescued girlfriend avoiding my touch after I’m done trashing her kidnappers with my body transmutation powers, or my folks at home watching my nemesis almost kill me on the evening news — which aren’t things I have much direct control over as a player. But because I chose that particular doom option, I knew situations like that were on the cards from day 1, and importantly want to see them happen (else I wouldn’t’a picked ’em!), so I feel like there’s plenty of implied consent for the GM to make those situations happen like any other playbook-specific hard move.
Matt Morton My gut instinct is to agree completely. I actually explained my reasoning for both decisions (which I made as you describe) exactly the way you described here.
I just want others’ opinions to know how to judge my own.
Yup, I was asking that ^_^ In our game we had some doubt about how to use that “Brings your doom closer”: can the GM use them as you did? can they use for a fail, or a 7-9, in a move (maybe Unleash your powers)? That’s something that came up also in our playtest report, so I was wondering how you managed it.
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Mauro Ghibaudo I agree with what Matt said, making hard moves is called for with at least some of the options, if not all. I also think that sometimes it will just happen from following the fiction, in which case you bring your doom closer by accident or bad luck. I also think the “Tell them the consequences and ask” principle applies a lot here, especially for the overexertion option.
– “Sure, you can try to put the skyscraper back to how it was, but if you try that you’re overexerting yourself. Do you still want to give it a go?”
– “Sure, you can transform into the spitting image of a nightmare demon to terrify your enemy, but you’ve got all these cameras on you and you know you’re family must be watching. They’ll be terrified. Still going to do that?”
– “Sure, you can branch off from the team and chase after the villain’s lieutenant while they fight the main guy, but it sounds like you’re going into danger alone so you’ll have to mark your doom track. Is that still your planned course of action?”
I’m curious why you keep bringing up the 7-9 result. It seems like you’re looking for a specific example of something you ran into. Can you say what you’re looking for? Maybe I or someone else can offer advice.
I am fully on-board with both of Matt Morton’s answers.
I’m looking for ideas about how you all manage (or would manage) that aspect, and what you said so far is great; I was bringing the 7-9 things because Unleash your powers: “On a 7-9, mark a condition or the GM will tell you how the effect is unstable or temporary”; given the text, something like “Sure, you can pull it off, but if you do you overexert yourself” on a 7-9 couldn’t be viable (it isn’t neither an unstable nor a temporary effect), but based on the few sessions we played I think it could work. That’s why I brought up the 7-9, I think it could be an interesting option.
About the “Sure, you can try to put the skyscraper back to how it was, but if you try that you’re overexerting yourself. Do you still want to give it a go?”, my doubt is that there already is a move to see if characters can pull it off: Unleash your powers. If my powers allow it and I roll and hit, then I can do it.
Sure, players (I wouldn’t say just the GM) can decide it’s such a big stunt it’s somthing that normally the character wouldn’t be able to do, so the overexerting, and I cansee example in which this is true; but while reading the new version of the Doomed I wondered abou the GM saying something like the skyscraper example above without a fail (or a 7-9, or a golden opportunity, etc.) preceding that: Doomsigns are a very limited resource and a very important one, and I’m still not sure about how quick they are gained, so I was wondering if the GM making a call like that (again, without a fail or the like) is how Brendan Conway thought that mechanic, and I’m interested in seeing how other people played it.
Mauro Ghibaudo ” my doubt is that there already is a move to see if characters can pull it off: Unleash your powers. If my powers allow it and I roll and hit, then I can do it.”
In regards to this, I think I can point to Brendan’s session of Masks on the Kickstarter page. At one point in the video – about 18:00 – 19:30 – one of the players wanted their character to make all the drones fall out of the sky and become nonfunctional with a single unleash your powers roll. She rolled a 10+, but Brendan gave her a lesser effect than she described.
I suspect this is because you aren’t adult superheroes yet. You’re not the coolest or best superheroes around, and some things are going to simply be beyond your limits under normal circumstances. This is the kind of thing where only a Doomed or Nova could maybe do it (outside of one’s Moment of Truth) if they choose to spend burn or mark their doom track, I’d say.
As an extreme example, sure, your doomed has the power of telekinesis, but can they really pick up and move the entire planet on a regular 10+ result for unleash your powers? Someone needs to have an idea of what scope of things they are able to accomplish normally (player or GM is fine). If something falls beyond that, it’s overexerting yourself at the least, and requires a Moment of Truth at the most.
Again, all how I’m interpreting the game.
I agree on that, the planet thing was exactly what I had in mind when saying “I can see example in which this is true” XD Let’s hope in the final rule there will be something explicitly addressing this, for the sake of clarity.