Yet more asking for help… say the PC heroes are up against two villains. For the sake of the example one is a slow lumbering type who is able to fire off energy blasts like a Gatling gun. The other is a small fast agile type who is mainly trying to avoid being clobbered.
Is it really just as easy to directly engage one as the other? Would the effects of trading blows with each be the same? I know the ethos of the game is not to apply modifiers to the roll but should speedy agile guy not be harder to hit than stationery Gatling bloke.
Also if Gatling Chap is peppering the area with suppressive fire how do I represent that as a threatening environment for the heroes?
I’d handle most of this with the fiction and NPC moves and not worry so much about the rolls. For suppressive fire, when one of the heroes steps out, make them take a powerful blow or directly engage to “dodge/defend”. Give the NPCs “moves” that help sell that they’re speedy agile guy and slow energy blast guy. For example, maybe one of the speedy agile guys moves is to dodge a near hit. Things like that.
Shaun Ramsey thanks Shaun this all makes sense.
If speedy guy has super-speed, they can’t be directly engaged until someone overcomes their super-speed. Directly Engage is for an exchange of blows — if you can’t hit someone, it’s not an exchange of blows. If one of the heroes has super-speed? Great, go for it. If no one does, they’ll have to do something else: maybe they use their vibration powers to shake the ground and trip the speedster (sounds like Unleash Powers to reshape the environment, yeah?).
Difficulty isn’t a number to be rolled — that’s boring as heck! Difficulty is stakes and costs: what can be jeopardized by someone when they overpower you, and what it takes to stop someone who is more powerful than you. A speedster isn’t hard to fight because you have to roll a 12 or whatever… they’re hard to fight because you can’t punch them, and while you’re still trying to do that they’ve already thrown three hostages off the roof and are running away.
Unleash Powers is for getting thru the area of fire.
When you unleash your powers to >>overcome an
obstacle< <,
Adam Goldberg I always read “Unleash…” as doing something beyond the norm with your powers – pushing their limits in some way. To quote the rulebook “It is definitely not the “use your
powers” move—you’re probably using your abilities on nearly all of the basic moves. This move is for those situations when you do something intense with your powers,” I can see someone like Captain America dodging from cover to cover or using his Shield to deflect some bullets etcetera without having to “Push” his powers as that move would suggest. That said I wouldn’t like to just give Cap an automatic pass through the danger, there should certainly be some risk of being hurt. Is there anything equivalent to “Defy Danger” in Masks – for resisting or avoiding environmental hazards without having to go all Dark Phoenix as a default?
Captain Am’s powers are toughness and acrobatics. It’s a straight implementation of Act Under Fire, but w/ more upsides.
Where is Act Under Fire? That sounds like it could be ideal but I think I missed it? Sorry for all the questions btw – I’m a longstanding GM of other systems but this is new to me and I really enjoyed our first session of Masks and want to make sure I give my players the best experience I can.
Remember, to do it, you have to do it. You don’t roll “Directly engage” and then figure out how that success means you overcame the impossible – if the guy’s super-speed makes him unhittable then saying “I punch him” doesn’t get you a chance to roll dice for “Directly Engage” because he’s too fast, and you miss.
Then he laughs at you because fighting you is funny to him the way you move in such slow motion like you’re covered in molasses.
On the other hand, if you’re a sniper sitting on a rooftop a mile away and you shoot the bad guy whose powers are melee related, you also don’t roll Directly Engage a Threat because there’s zero chance of trading blows; they’re not a threat. Whether you hit or miss there depends more on what the fiction demands.
Grey Kitten Thanks. In the example I gave I deliberately didn’t mention “super speed” though as I knew that would just exclude all chances to hit without a fictional basis – I was more meaning someone who was far more agile and trying to avoid being hit than the other example character. I do get what you’re saying about fiction first, I’m just looking to clarify how to make something harder (because the fiction means bouncy acrobat bloke would be harder to hit than less mobile guy)
Unleash Powers is used exactly as its trigger says: when you’re overcoming an obstacle, extending your senses, or reshaping the environment — full stop. Use the triggers, that’s how you play the game. If you’re dodging incoming gunfire with your super athletics or your adamantium shield, you are Unleashing your Powers.
When the book says UyP isn’t the “use your powers move” it means you don’t roll it just to use your powers! If a player is all “I’m set fire to the grill and heat up some hotdawgggggs!!” they do not roll to Unleash! They just charbroil some dogs and you move along! If someone flies to school, they just DO, they don’t roll for it — unless someone is trying to blast them out of the air! Or they’re using their flight to scan the area for the bad guy! Or they’re flying so fast as to create a tornado that wrecks the area!
Alfred Rudzki Thank you!
That text about it not just being the “use your powers” move is, more than anything else, a reminder to not roll that move when the thing that’s being done is covered by a different move. If someone is throwing fireballs at a foe, they may be using their powers, but they’re using them to directly engage, not to unleash. If someone is using telepathy to read surface thoughts, they aren’t unleashing their powers–they’re piercing the mask. Check to see if another move fits better, and then check to see whether the thing they’re using their powers for is overcoming and obstacle etc.
To the question about being slightly more agile than normal:
If I’m trying to run down a character and I’m rolling dice, we’re not rolling to find out if I catch them. Not exactly. We’re rolling to see how complicated my life gets in the attempt. In both cases–slower and more agile–it’s about seeing what complications arise and following through on the fiction to make sure the status quo 1) changes and 2) does so coherently. Hit or miss, running down the agile character takes more time, takes you further away from where you want to be, and makes you more exhausted. Hit or miss, you probably catch up to a slower character, whatever other things go wrong as you approach or as you ignore other problems.
I think it’s also worth asking: why’s the fast fellow sticking around? Are they trying to escape? What’s keeping them lingering around if they’re just trying to avoid getting hurt? Let your NPCs make simple choices. If they want to avoid getting hurt, the best way to do that is to just high-tail it out of there altogether. If something else is keeping them in the scen, make sure to advance their agenda accordingly if things go well for them. Use a clock to track their goal.
And finally, in a game about people with super powers, it’s also possible it’s just not that mechanically interesting that one of them is more agile. It might make for colorful narration and, sure, you can require slightly different fictional positioning to take them on albeit less extreme than in the super speed examples above. But maybe you’re looking for granularity you don’t need; the characters don’t need to know it’s the same die roll, and neither does the narration of outcomes. Even in a game with something like Defy Danger or Act Under Fire, chaining those moves as a mere difficulty modifier is probably not a great idea. It’s ok for the characters to be bad-ass and not every character you feel like fleshing out in description needs custom moves or special mechanical attention.
Firndeloth Dinsule That really helps – thank you!