Question: Has anyone used the playbooks as villains instead of heroes?
The reason I’m asking is that tonight we got together to play a session of masks and the group thought it would be fun to be villains for a change, so I allowed them to do it.
The game went really well and they had a blast and want to keep playing the villains (teens of course).
In our group we have a Protege (weapons and gadgets and impossible fighting skills) his mentor has power mimicry (with skills) and weapons and gadgets, we have a Doomed (with body transformation (electric), psychic constructs (electric) and vitality drain that works in unison with transformation), and last but not least, our bad ass Beacon (with phasing and martial arts, a fun character with the personality of Deadpool).
So any suggestions or thoughts on a villain game
Sub
I think they sound Dangerous. 😉
How do run missions? As they say, heroes are reactive, villains are active. Do the young villains just decide to rob a bank or whatever each session?
Well, in our first session last night, we built characters the same way as you would for a hero. They chose their playbooks and worked on interesting backgrounds for their characters and why they do what they do.
Starting with the Doomed: He was young when he saw a government task force attack his mom (Doomed named Gorgon) and dad (Nova named Electron) at their home very much in the vein of Gen-13, they were members of a super powered black ops team and decided to leave that life behind and focus on a family, they went into hiding, but were found and attacked. They were killed in front of the boy that would become known as Killshock. The boy was taken to the facility where they broke his mind and attempted to turn him into a weapon (combining both parents powers, kick starting powers) after each failed experiment and no signs of power the facility was going to kill him. He was saved by a man named Raiden, set up with a false identity and put into the Brookhaven Academy (a prep school).
The boy was bullied constantly until the fateful day where his powers activated and he sent out a electrical blast combined with a vitality drain and became Killshock. He decided that he was going to use his power to get revenge on anyone he could, learning that he must feed on others to stay alive. So now he uses his power in attempts to crush humanity.
Second we bring in the Beacon: He was a young Japanese boy raised by a secret organization of monks that would use special abilities to fight the forces of darkness. The organization was infiltrated by an Oni Lord who would kill the great leader and replace him. He would use the boy to retrieve artifacts of great power so he could bring fourth hell on earth. The boy would find out and retaliated against the Oni Lord but to no avail. The Oni would use his abilities to trick the young warrior into believing he was cursed. As a result of it he turned on the organization and killed them all except his grandfather (who was one of the greatest fighters in the organization). Upon his exile the boy realized that he had the ability to phase through matter that would add to his unique martial arts skills. The boy would sneak back into the temple where he would take a mystical artifact known as the Aka Manto (The Red Cloak) that was once believed to belong to a malicious spirit, the predecessor to the Japanese Urban legend.
He would flee and head to America where he would start a new life as a villain named Red Cloak. His emotions and the influence of the Aka Manto drive him, but his grandfather believes that he can repent and overcome the Aka Manto’s influence.
Lastly, we have Stryfe, he is a Protege of the infamous villain named Raiden, who trains Stryfe to follow in his foot steps. When the boy was younger his family left him to his own demise where he would be taken in by Protective Services. He never felt at home, so he would bounce from foster home to foster home eventually doing time in Juvie. He would develop a knack for fighting and thievery and he began to live on the streets until he was captured once again and thrown into Juvie, where a wealthy philanthropist named Richard Mason comes and takes him as his ward. It is later learned that Richard and Raiden are one in the same. He follows his mentor’s rules and training.
All in all it has been interesting.
There’s a Capers version of Masks on SomethingAwful.com’s Tradgame forums. They rewrote all the playbooks to be about teenage dysfunction, failure (XP is called Curses!), and it’s splendid.
Interesting, I like that idea.