We just finished getting all caught up on Cloak and Dagger on Hulu, and I was thinking about how I would write them up in Masks. The story has been rewritten a little to fit in with contemporary society and more mature expectations, and that has moved Tyrone and Tandy away from the playbooks we might typically associate them with.
In the show, Tandy feels like “the Reformed”. She has a past life she can call on (more than one actually), and specializes in calling people out on their shit. She could also swing a Delinquent pretty clearly.
While you could call him a Janus, to me Tyrone is acting a lot more like a Legacy. This is interesting to me, because it brings the family questions down to a much more human level.
Tyrone as a Legacy? Not sure I buy it, but it’s an interesting take. Tyrone feels tonally more like a Doomed to me.
In the show, not the comic. His powers are not killing him or threatening the world (at this point anyway), and he is more defined by his family than by his inevitable fate. His brother who died at the hands of his family’s greatest enemy, who is still at large. His father, who was once influential in a NOLA krew. His mother, a whirlwind of activity trying to make up for what she she’s as her moment of weakness. And Tyrone, trying to live up to the expectations put on him by his family, his school, his preacher, and himself.
Of course, he is also mad as hell and has a bit of a self-destructive streak. So it can go both ways 🙂
I am talking about the show, never read the comic (the comic never grabbed me).
I see his family as a strong pull, no doubt.
I see his powers as Doomsigns, coupled with his incredibly sad visions.
Only seen the comic, not the show (yet), but … guy who has anger management issues, a very serious problem with how society sees him and his, and powers that are radically changing his identity … and we’re not looking at the Transformed? Okay.
Well, he is one of the archetypical “Doomed” characters. In the comics his powers begin to require he feed on others, leaving them cold and afraid, though Dagger can stave off the hunger with her light. His is a teleport nobody but Tandy wants to go through. He also had a point where he was literally dissolving, and made a faustian pact to get out of it. It didn’t go well.
Jason Cox Again, only talking TV show, I still see Doomsigns, I still see tonally Doomed.
I am not arguing, just providing supplementary info 🙂
Jason Cox Sorry if my response was terse, wasn’t my intent.
I think your Legacy take is really cool!
Tyrone’s problem in this point of the series, I think, is coming to grips with The Life. He has little to no control over his powers, he is afraid. He is kind of an Anti-Beacon; has powers but would rather not. That in a way makes him like a very low level take on The Nova.
In general, though Masks playbook have a problem with Nice & Average characters. When people try to assign characters of some fiction to playbooks, they will usually struggle with the well-adapted ones.
1of3 I haven’t actually found that with Masks, but maybe I just see the translation differently. That more than one playbook could map to a character has always felt like a strength of the system to me, because who the characters are and what they want changes over time (and also depending on who writes them).
I also think a playbook doesn’t completely define a character so much as give them a framework of affordances to build from.