‘Power Level’ in Masks
In general we don’t care about the power level of our heroes in Masks right? I mean look at the Nova.
However, there is something that occurred to me. How you fictionally set up your character can have a huge impact on the general power level in your game.
Let’s have a look at the Legacy and the Protege. When you are playing Kid Flash you inherit all of the Flash’s rogues. When you are Superboy you get Luthor with an eye on you. If on the other hand you are the new Question or training with Luke Cage the stakes are much smaller.
Another aspect of this are the “When the team first got together” questions. When the notable foe you defeated is The Trapster that is different than let’s say Venom. It sets a certain tone and expectation for the team.
Have you found the same to be true in your games?
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Seems true.
But it might be worth having a conversation about “power level” before answering those questions. Like you would for a lot of supers rpgs. Of course you can run it blind but there can be a clash of fighting a Galactus kind of guy in the get together, when you expected to be more of a street level guy.
You can also set the Nova power-level to be “I can change the worlds’ reality” with the world being his neighborough, even if that’s actually not the real point of the playbook.
We’re running a street-level campaing and, speaking about it, we decided to put some playbooks aside (Nova among the others).
This reminds me of the New Warriors taking on Terrax, a Herald of Galactus, right off the bat.
(It also reminds me how out of character they were in Civil War getting out maneuvered by a group of D list villains and then fighting a guy that explodes in a residential neighborhood, but that’s another story)
The lack of a pregame discussion about power level was one of the reasons the most recent Masks campaign I ran flamed out. As such, I recommend having that discussion in the strongest possible terms. Also establish the tone of the campaign upfront, and don’t be afraid to say no to ideas that don’t fit the tone. If one player is constantly going “I change into Godzilla and sit on a building!” while the other players are getting disowned by their parents, y’all aren’t on the same page.
Oh, bonus advice for Masks GMs: keep the PCs together as much as you can for at least the first arc, and start with a clear external threat. My campaign failed because I tried to build my first arc around driving the team apart and then putting them back together, but the players need to be emotionally invested in keeping the team together before you throw wrenches into the works. Otherwise, they’ll just wonder why you sold it to them as a team game when they’re all off in their little worlds.
It also is easier to ramp up the power encountered and used by the characters than to wind it down after punching Galactus in the face.
Another note, the Beacon kind of needs a ‘high’ power level because their whole deal is playing in a league that is above them.
That does not mean Galactus though.
The City Kingpin might be enough?
I don’t know if this assessment is true. The thing about the Teen Titans or Young Justice or the X-Men is that you’re dealing with people of varying power levels all the time. Young Justice, for example, each person on the team brings their own baggage to it, regardless of power levels. Robin deals with folks like the Joker AND Poison Ivy …
I think we’re talking about tone rather than power level. But it looks to me that Halcyon City is inspired by a DC Comics sort of tone where anything goes and you can get it to fit somehow.
Yeah it can definitely changes and fluctuate but there is a difference in where you set the ‘normal’ level.
I think it’s good to look to the various superhero team movies and shows for an issue like this.
You don’t always see everyone fighting the big bad guy at once. The honor of dueling the major villain is usually reserved for the strongest person on the team or the character with the most personal stake in the fight. At the same time though, the other members of the team are doing damage control (saving lives and property), battling with minions or lesser villains, and maybe even leading/calling out threats.
There’s always something to do in a crisis situation.
Even when the team is doing battle against a cosmic-level threat, and it’s just Galactus and The Nova duking it out in space. There can be all kinds of stuff going down on the ground. Common criminals could be taking advantage of the chaos, and buildings might get hit by stray attacks from the fight above, with people who need help evacuating. Don’t forget the scientist who runs up to one of the members of the team and hands them an experimental weapon they must get to The Nova right away if they are to have any hope of beating Galactus!
I have already come up against this issue (with having a group of 7). I kind of went for the “discover what happens as it happens” approach for the first session and I have realised that in order for people to understand what constitutes a use of their powers in normal terms and what constitutes them “unleashing”. It became evident that for some of them they had very little room to grow. My first engagement was set up and they were not in the right point of town, their first statement was “You can teleport? Just teleport us all there”.
I guess it depends on your players, but for my next session I’m going to be making it much more clear what makes sense as far as the extent of their powers go.