The post further down by Matteo Suppo about genderqueer characters makes me wonder: how many people have played, or seen played, a trans Janus whose masked identity presents as their true gender, but whose mundane identity does not?
I could see such a character concept working well, but also really poorly. I haven’t had anyone play the Janus in my own games, but I get the sense that the skin is maybe most successful when the mask and the mundane are both true identities, which isn’t the case in this scenario at least when it comes to gender.
I had an idea for that concept. Before that it’s the Protege whose mentor is in the Illuminati.
I don’t see them as opposites; you can be Sadie and Mr. Wow!. The playbook moves play at being bifurcated. I’d only do it with a group I trusted though.
The identity of someone who’s in the closet is a true identity as well as the identity of someone who’s out.
It would work badly if the gender becomes the only defining trait of the character. But it seems that the playbook can help in that, forcing you to choose 3 important things for your mundane identity.
I imagine that Victor/dark matter would take schoolwork, because they want to become a medic, a best friend who knows about the secret identity (and probably thinks it’s pretty rad) and helping with household chores, because the parents work a lot.
Not in Masks, but I did play another supers character with a similar setup.
Well you could always use Janus to play a genderfluid character. Sometimes you feel masculine, so you become Monsieur Kickass, and sometimes you feel feminine and become Sally Sanderson.
However I’m not sure the Janus playbook says both sides are equally true. You could certainly play it that way, but look at the moment of truth-it says the mask is a lie. So your mask identity would be the false persona.
Although the mask could be metaphorical, so in the case of Batman for example, it would be stop pretending to be Bruce Wayne, and just go Batman while in a tux.
Either way the moment of truth might be saying not both sides are the real side. Maybe it wants the player to come to a choice?
Although you don’t have to take a moment of truth, so you don’t have to take that advancement.
I read the moment of truth as “it’s not another person who’s doing these things. It’s always you”