Dear Community!
I’m looking for people interested in creating a west marches-esque group.
For those not familiar with the concept, the structure would consist of a loose group of individuals, and when enough people find they have time, they sit together and have an adventure of some sorts together, meaning there are no strict constellations of players.
I think that kind of system can easily work for Masks, and I’m just looking for people willing to give it a try.
The setting that would allow people to slide in and out of commission is still in its infancy, but for now, all player characters are part of a school for fledgling supers, getting guidance from more established heroes and growing into their own. If you’re thinking along the lines of Xavier’s school for gifted youngsters, or U. A. High school from My Hero Academia, you’re in the right ballpark.
Since this is such a loose structure, anyone is welcome to join, no matter their circumstances, although a European timezone would be favorable.
We’re using discord for VOIP and roll20 to both play and file information.
James Etheridge, have you any relevant experience that might be good to share?
I would be interested
Blaze Azelski Well, I did gm a dnd group for a year, if that’s relevant. I’m not massively experienced with Masks though.
Novataros I added a link to the discord. Comment if it’s expired.
I actually tried putting together a Living Halcyon City setting kind of along these lines a little over a year ago, and it didn’t work well at all. To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend it for Masks, and I’ll share my experiences to illustrate why I say that.
The thing is, Masks is very tightly focused on the PCs’ personal stories. Their relationships with each other and with the NPCs they interact with are baked into the mechanics on pretty much every level. Influence is addressed at the end of every session, and comes up a lot in the basic moves; people shifting your labels and the self-identity that comes along with them is a big thing. Sharing triumphs and vulnerabilities, comforting and persuading one another are all vital parts of the team dynamic, which is itself an important part of the game. Hooks are one of your main structural tools as a GM, and because of the way they play off of one another they tend to fall apart if you don’t have a steady cast.
So, when we tried to do an unstable drop-in drop-out setup, what happened was that we didn’t really have a campaign, we had a series of one-shots which weren’t linked together in any kind of emotionally satisfying way. The sessions didn’t build on one another, at least not in the player-story-focused way that Masks works best with. World-building over time worked okay–with the caveat that you’re less free to strike out setting elements when new characters who might depend on those elements can come in at any time–but relationship building, drama building, those didn’t. And without them, it just didn’t feel like Masks. It might have been fun to play, I don’t know, but for me it wasn’t fun to run.
Also, there’s the related problem that a rotating cast like this pretty much requires that you allow more than one of a given playbook, which means that each of those stories is diluted a bit. The Doomed isn’t as special or tragic when there are two more Doomed at the table.
Now, if you’re more interested in superhero action with a rotating ensemble and don’t care so much about intercharacter relationships–e.g., if you’re looking to recreate Justice League Unlimited or Batman: The Brave and the Bold instead of Young Justice–then this kind of setup can work fine. You won’t be getting the juiciest parts out of the system, but the system won’t really be fighting you the whole way either. I’d probably recommend looking around at other systems like Worlds in Peril or Heroes of the City, though, just to see if they might have more of what you want and less of what you won’t get much use out of.
James Etheridge Fair points, but I’d still like to see for myself how viable this system turns out to be. Thanks for your insight though! I’ll keep it in mind.
I want to say James is absolutely right. PbTA games are great b/c they’re story games: your mechanical flexibility is less important than the teamwork of creating backstory.
In D&D or something, Two clerics can focus on different domains and be very different; in Masks, two Proteges will have the same role (well trained, mentored, equipment potential leader.) They’ll have the same triggers when they express themselves.
2 more things:
1) It’s also more likely than in a group game that someone else will defeat your nemesis when you aren’t there, or have BETTER dramatic ties to them. (“Hey, I fought Ursa Major twice, you only fought him once!”/ “Yeah, but he beat up my brothers!” / “Oh, word?”/ “Hey, I’m Ursa from another dimension!”)
2) Your discord link is dead.
“Super High” is a weird setting for Masks, turns out. (We tried it in Living Halycon.) Few of the playbooks are really High Schoolish the way Monsterhearts are; there are no real rules for classes, so you’ll have to make them; and Janus and Transformed are bad puzzle pieces. The Transformed since how unaccepted can you be if you’re in a regular school curriculum? The Janus b/c being a hero and being a dude are reconciled if you’re taking powers classes and presumably known to administration. And if there’s ONE telepath who dislikes you, then Captain Mosquito is Larry the Bug-Loser.
Fair enough, and best of luck to you; I was just advising on some problems I had with the setup. And like I said, maybe it’s more fun on the player side; if the timing is workable, I might join in myself just to see.
Though speaking of problems, I will second Adam’s thoughts on super schools. They cut out secret identities as a believable setting element, and also they leave you too focused on high school drama when that’s not everyone’s cup of dramatic tea.
My original plan for Living Halcyon before the other prospective GMs talked me into the school thing was to have basically a mix of JLU and Young Justice, a sizable league/team of young heroes under the light handed guidance of an adult hero league. I don’t know how it would play out, but I think it wouldn’t tie the players’ hands as much as a school does, conceptually speaking. May be worth considering as an alternative.
For what it’s worth I don’t quite agree with the notion it can’t work, though I do think it’d be worth considering what the end of session wrap up needs to be in a west marches style game. It’s easy to say that gaining and giving influence means that having adhoc groups will dilute or make less meaningful this game end each session, in which case I feel the answer is to change what happens instead of throwing away the concept entirely.
For example, I’d consider making it less about growing into or away from the team as growing into or away from the “community”. If this is a highschool setting then this makes perfect sense to me… who you end up hanging around with each session could lower or rise your self esteem with regard to how you are within the wider school group, not to mention bring you towards people more often and away from individuals that you cross paths with and don’t gel with as a character.
I also don’t think it matters if you have multiple people with the same playbook because I find it rare that people specifically have the same actual character just because of the playbook. In fact in my game I have more problem with how many people have essentially picked variations of the same abilities (certainly in how they use them) regardless of everyone being different playbooks!
I for one think it would be incredibly interesting to have two doomed players happen to fight alongside each other, arguing about who has it worse, etc.
There are some things other things that would probably need mixing up. For me the Bull would need to be somewhat more promiscuous in the sense of finding a crush and a rival in every group they team up with, and narrowing those down to only one of each should the next group contain two or more of any category.
But in general I think that Masks is actually well suited to a setting where there is a common tie that would mean everyone that might team up has a reason to be aware of each other, the school type scenario is perfect for that.