Thinking of writing a hack/expansion of Masks with adult playbooks tentatively called ‘No City for Old Capes’. It will be about what comes after you’ve really had your moment of truth and more or less cemented who you are at your heart. A focus more on how you try to change the city and its inhabitants, and how you’ve chosen to interact with them on YOUR terms. It is just in the brainstorming stage, so I’m working on Playbooks and would like your opinion on the ones I’ve thought up so far:
– The Family Man (Handling your obligations, taken to the next level, each choice in the field can positively or negatively effect those you care about. How do you keep at it, knowing that you may be putting them in danger?)
– The God (You ARE superior to humanity in nearly every way and every time you’ve tried to fix them, they screw it up. How do you handle being a perfect being in a imperfect world?)
– The Bridge (All about keeping up a positive relationship between earth and your home. How do you make each side understand each other?)
– The Monster (You can’t go back to thinking you are still human, but you can still keep the damage you cause to a minimum… Right?)
– The Comeback (You were forgotten or disgraced, but you are going to show you are still relevant in this city. How will you get back in the spotlight?)
– The Mentor (You can mold the next generation if they give you a chance, but push to hard and or too soft and they will push back. Can you you find the right balancd to teach them right?)
– The Activist (You’ve taken up a cause and know it will help the world if others take it up. How do you navigate the press and alter public opinion?)
– The Retiree (Something happened to bring you out of retirement, and you aren’t very happy about it. What do you have to do to solve the problem and get back out of the business?)
What do you think? Is it a futile attempt to try to shoehorn in a concept? Is this better handled with Masks as is? What playbooks, themes, moves, etc would you like to see represented?
Sounds interesting, for my games we moved over to Worlds in Peril but this could be fun if efforts put in. Perhaps something for heroes who try to do good but are never seen as heroes by community? or a Celebrity one? (Kinda like The Star taken to next level?).
Last one would be considering those Villians who turn good during adult stage or long villian career.
The Labels rules drive a game-play that will create fiction about characters who are adolescent in important ways (i.e. Their identities are in constant flux, depending on what the people around them need and expect them to be).
That is far more deeply embedded than the super heroics. So a “grown-up supers” game is a much further drift than (for example) “adolescent zombie-hunters” or “adolescent theme-park workers.”
You might have an easier time drifting a game about imposing your will on a malleable world (e.g., Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorceror, or Misspent Youth) than drifting Masks.. Or grab a supers game that already highlights themes of family, like With Great Power.
No disrespect intended to Masks, I just worry that you’re trying to bend it into a shape it will resist.
Writing playbooks is a mug’s game. Don’t do it.
The only scenario where I’d use Masks to play adults is one where society still gets to tell you who you are – the X-Men leap to mind. Then as you advance you more firmly cement in your own mind what it means to be a mutant, etc.
I like the concepts at least.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have been so harsh. These seem like really good grownup superhero archetypes. You might go a bit farther using these as templates in a more traditional point-build system, or a Cortex system
I mean, the media judges the old as well as the young. If you’re constantly being told to stop hero’ing (by your wards, your children, other heroes, the gov’t) it makes sense stats would move.
I like the idea of old hero trying to have a last Hurrah, while the young ones tells them to stay retired. “It’s a new world, you can’t understand it”, “This is not how we do things now!”, etc. Interesting concept. Capture old glory, at what costs, your old enemies are no longer, or they retired, how can you stay relevant in a world that no longer needs/wants you?
Maybe use something like a Morale stat?
Still thinking of how to handle it closer to Masks while perhaps drawing some from the games Tony mentioned.
The concept I am trying to put together is that the labels aren’t so much how you see yourself and how the world sees you. But how you see the world as a whole. Higher numbers being a more narrow-minded, know I’m right viewpoint.
Something Like:
Dangerous (The world is out to harm you and those you care about)
Unnatural (The world is meant to be another more ‘normal’ way)
Dependant (The world depends on those with Powers too much)
Weak (The world is incapable of being more than what it is)
Uninterested (The world just accepts the great without understanding the significant)
No room for a hero to think that the world is amazing, and people are capable of much more than they imagine? Thinking Captain America and Superman, in their roles as the moral beacons of their respective continuities.
Tony Lower-Basch So far everything is in a very embryonic form, but I do really enjoy hearing your thoughts on it. I’m (currently) thinking the focus of it being for more of a cynical stories of the sort where Superman is beginning to see that people depend on him too much, and how he reacts to that worldview (high Dependant label). Stories where Captain America thinks people are taking the progress that’s been made so far for granted and the world has started to stagnate because of it (Uninterested). Not sure what sort of Playbook those to would fit in right off. So far I do have an example of the mentor archetype (Batman dealing with some of the hard to handle robins), and The God (Dr. Manhattan being/seeing himself as perfect and humanity getting in its own way).
The choices you make with rhe moves should allow more freedom to handle how blind your hero is or isn’t to humanity’s capabilities.
So the intent is that the game forces the players to portray their characters as bitter and jaded, but they’re allowed to choose (to some extent) what flavor?
Tony Lower-Basch To a point, perhaps…. But maybe I am thinking too negatively and wanting them to fail. Perhaps flip what I said about higher score being more jaded, maybe it’s about avoiding that bitterness?
Tony Lower-Basch is right, but I don’t see a problem with that.
ALL superheroes are adolescent in important ways. They live in a constant soap-opera of worst enemies, best friends, jeopardised loves and changing lives – while trying to hold to the core of who they are.
“Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.”
As long as characters are still prone to adjusting their self-image, I think Masks can be made to work.