My second homebrew playbook, the Regressed. This playbook represents a teenage superhero who used to be an adult, but was somehow de-agified back into a youthful body and mind. Now, stuck as a kid with all of their adult responsibilities looming on one side, and the respect and stability that comes with it, and the fear, insecurity, freedom, and comfort of childhood on the other, they must come to terms with their own feelings regarding themselves, their past, the future, who they could be, and how their first go-around of life turned out.
Mechanically, the Regressed is not pulled toward any one Label. None of their moves involve rolling a particular Label, substituting one Label for another, or shifting a specific Label up or down. But they do have several ways to quickly shift their Labels around to explore themselves and become new things from session to session. Their Extra, Caught In Between, pulls them between sharp outbursts of either radical reinvention or authority and competence.
As with the Host, I do have some ongoing Masks games, and would like to eventually use this for actual play! So any critique or suggestions on how to improve are welcome. (The art for the Regressed isn’t done yet, so please excuse the blank space on page 1.)
I wouldn’t know about comic books. But Young Justice has non-aging Superboy, and Xmen Evolution has the ancient, ageless Wolverine hanging out and going on missions alongside the kids. I was also thinking about Dragonball GT, in which the main character is de-aged to a child early on in the series, and Princess Bubblegum being de-aged into a teenager in Adventure Time. Amethyst in Steven Universe has the physical appearance and personality of a high school age kid despite being hundreds of years old.
Some shows have episodes where an older character gets teenified briefly, for an episode or so. Justice League has it for Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Green Lantern. Ben 10, Futurama, Sailor Moon – it’s not an uncommon trope. In Jackie Chan Adventures, Uncle gets a de-aging talisman that lets him fight alongside the younger characters for a bit.
I’m sorry if it bothers you? It wasn’t my intent.
Didn’t seem creepy to me. I thought of movies like Big and Freaky Friday etc. Seemed like a good opportunity for angst and some humour about fitting in- perfect Masks stuff
Yeah, I don’t get the creepy angle either. But neither can I think of an example in the supers media.
I have, however seen lots of the converse… kids whose package of super powers comes with an apparently adult form. See Shazam/Captain Marvel. The YJ episode “Misplaced” is one of my favorites. I love the role Captain Marvel plays in it and can definitely see that dynamic being replicated in Masks.
Jim Crocker That creepy angle never even occurred to me and if it happened at my table I’d shut it down. Thank Odin nobody’s forcing us to play something in a way we don’t like.
Jim Crocker Oh. Oooooh. Okay, see, I didn’t realize where you were going with ‘creepy’. No, no, I intended this playbook for largely comedic purposes. My group has a lot of silliness between its occasional dark and broody panels, and very little, uh, ‘romantic’ content. In a dozen (6 hour) sessions or so, we’ve had… I think one kiss between teammates? We definitely use the system to be more cartoonish, and less of the overly sexualizing comic book stuff. That’s one reason I didn’t really make the transition from watching superhero cartoons as a kid into comic books. I picked up a Teen Titans and was like “Holy crap, how are wrinkly old men drawing Starfire in this pedo string bikini shit and not creeping themselves out?” And just put the whole thing down.
So, at least I understand your concern now. So, no, I did not envision someone using Masks as a statutory rape simulator. Please don’t do that! It’s bad.
As for not having any hard examples in the genre, that’s kind of the point. All the big archetypes have playbooks already, or are getting them. I’m trying to explore new real estate. So, I have inspirations, which aren’t 100% the thing. Once we get a chance to playtest, I’ll post about how it goes. We’ll see! It could be a flop. It’s possible! You have to risk that to innovate.
I get what you’re saying about being overwritten, though. In Masks, I think a lot of that flavor text would go into, like, a adjoining page of the book. Like, “Here’s the Newborn.”, “Here’s a page talking about the Newborn.” in Halcyon City Herald Collection. Maybe I could offload a lot of that, and add other helpful advice (GM Moves, please don’t use this for rapey purposes, move examples, etc) to a third page.
I think all the moves are flavorful, But when I level up in a game I want to new abilities they give me new permissions or bonuses to things I do well. I I think learned a thing or two, how do you do, path not tread AND “but my hormones!” are basically untakeable by other skins.
If this was monsterhearts I could see how it’s problematic but for masks it comes off as intentionally silly.
I kind of question the moment of truth a little bit. While I do not have much experience playing masks, the Moments of Truth always seem to be…not necessarily a double edged sword, but sort of change the story of the hero. It seems like they are all…You do this crazy incredible thing that is awesome and sort of the apex of your story, except…this other thing happens as well, which adds a new dimension to that story. When I read the Moment of Truth here all I see is you do this crazy awesome thing, but then no side effect, or additional dimension to the story.
Adam Goldberg Christopher Onstad Thank you for the advice. In particular, I do think the Moment of Truth needs that sort of story-propelled-forward-ness. It didn’t seem as satisfying as the Host’s came out. I will think on this!
Jim Crocker This happened to Ray Palmer in a run of Teen Titans just post-Zero Hour. Not disagreeing with the creepy, though.
It’s a weird, niche comic book trope, but it has happened to many heroes including Tony Stark (https://www.cbr.com/iron-man-look-back-in-armor/), The Vision (http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Jonas_(Earth-616)), and the entire DC universe (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Sins_of_Youth).