Can someone help me understand the Nova’s burn? Do you have to roll to generate burn one turn and then use it on the next?
Can someone help me understand the Nova’s burn?
Can someone help me understand the Nova’s burn?
3 thoughts on “Can someone help me understand the Nova’s burn?”
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There aren’t really ‘turns’ in Masks; how long the spotlight stays on you and how much you get to do before it moves to someone else depends entirely on the fiction at hand. So it’s very possible for you to generate Burn and immediately spend it before someone else acts, if it makes sense in the moment for you to do so. It’s also very possible that after you generate Burn the spotlight will move to someone else. It just depends on what makes sense at the time, as determined by your GM.
But to zoom out a bit, yes, you have to roll to generate Burn (taking whatever action in the fiction your Nova takes to do that, of course) before you can spend any.
You can still use your powers for the basic moves even if you never generate Burn, though, so you can choose to zap a villain with lightning to Directly Engage, or use your pyrokinesis to burn through a wall and Unleash your Powers, or what have you. Your Flares just give you more control, more options, and so on.
What James Etheridge was saying about there not being turns, but I have seen multiple Editors (GMs for anyone wandering by) that would give others the opportunity to have the spotlight after a Nova(or Doomed that took it) generated burn. Basically burn can be used for powerful moves (the flares), but getting it takes a move. Making a move doesn’t necessarily mean the spotlight goes somewhere else, but it is pretty likely.
If you are playing the Nova you may want to ask “I want to generate burn and then spend right away, is that OK?” So you will know if the spotlight is moving on after getting your burn points (plus makes it more likely that you can chain actions if you ask ahead).
I think some of the comments here made me realize my issue with burn generation, where some players sort of abused it: In online game settings the person should have to wait for the spotlight to be on them before allowing them to generate the burn (and not as an aside in text form).