Its probably just me but I’d love to see a spinoff of Masks focusing on Adults as part a superteam.
Its probably just me but I’d love to see a spinoff of Masks focusing on Adults as part a superteam.
Its probably just me but I’d love to see a spinoff of Masks focusing on Adults as part a superteam.
Isn’t that literally every other supers rpg?
Worlds in Peril if u want a Pba game
Since very few super RPGs emphasize the relationships and psychologies of the protagonists — no, it’s basically no other supers RPG.
Worlds in Peril doesn’t emphasize the emotions or strained relationships of the heroes.
The closest would probably be City of Mist, with its moments of truth and sacrificing parts of your life, but I don’t know how well its see-sawing civilian-mythos dynamic supports true superheroic play. We expect our heroes’ powers to be fairly static, while CoM has you transforming what you’re capable of pretty often.
You’d have to change very little to run a CW-style adult supers game. They’re only adults in name; their behavior is very teenager-esque.
Well, you might need some new playbooks; The Legacy doesn’t make a lot of sense as an adult superhero, for example, but most of them work fine.
So yeah, I dunno. What else do you feel would need to change to make an “adults” version?
The only major change I would make for adults is getting rid of the rule that all adults have influence over you.
Alfred Rudzki Hitchcock I think there are some supers subgenres that City of Mist meshes with. The focus on gritty real life with the Logos themes and the investigation focus makes it seem like the urbun supers and detective supers subgenres (Spider-man, daredevil, Bat family).
I think you’d mostly want new playbooks to reflect the different kinds of stories to tell; adult superhero stories are still very much about conflicts between labels. The Marvel Civil War storyline, for example, is mostly about Captain America choosing to reject influence that Iron Man accepts. The best Batman stories are, in many ways, about Alfred and Dick trying to raise Bruce’s Savior and Mundane, while The Joker and corrupt politicians try to raise his Danger and Freak.
Alias/Jessica Jones is all about a hero who has had her Savior label dropped so low that it’s inflicted conditions.
The trick would be changing who gets influence so that it reflects the more focused social priorities about adult heroes. Arc Gamedirector is right that it should NOT be all adults (In fact, “all children” would make more sense. Think of how much it affected Darwyn Cooke’s Batman when he frightened the child he was trying to save).
Something like either “Teammates, mentors, confidantes, lovers, rivals, and nemeses,” or playbook-specific relationships? Mark Potential when someone who has influence over you changes from one category to another?
Edit: At least SOME playbooks would also need to give influence to “public opinion.”
Michael Kailus That’s an interesting take. I wonder if the take on influence in the Nomad playbook (from Masks Unbound), which has a short list of influence-recipients, could be adapted for more general use.
AD Kohler Yeah, maybe with a few playbook-specific “starter” influencers, too.
I’d be curious to see what would replace the “adult moves” (would they just all be available?) and whether or not “Moment of Truth” would still be relevant. You’d also want to look at what replaces the built-in story endgame.
Adult superheroes can very rarely actually retire from the life, often dying but then being rebooted instead; maybe instead of “Moment of Truth” you have a “Moment of Ultimate Sacrifice” which lets you take total control of the fiction for a moment in exchange for your character being comicbook-killed. One of the other advanced improvements could be “find a way to bring back another character who has made the Ultimate Sacrifice.”
Hmm…can we open it as a Game Design match ?
* Subscribes *
Michael Kailus nailed it.
I’d love an expansion or new KS by Magpie Games doing it officially.
Cortex Plus’ Smallville captured this really well, and though ostensibly about teens initially, it grows the characters to adulthood and deals with many adult characters even from the get-go. The teen focus isn’t baked in to the rules the way it is in Masks. The two most important traits are Values (ideals) and Relationships, and “damage” is expressed with Conditions as well.
It’s a must-have to change playbook with adult theme:
Father/Motherliness, Experience/Veteranism, Idealism vs Pragmatism, Justice vs Law, Legacy vs Family Values…ecc
Never played Smallville.. But that new Masks version would be nice to play
I really like the archetype of a retired hero coming back, retaining all of their knowledge and abilities from their prime, but maybe struggling to get back into the swing of things, while also having to cope with the ways the world has changed since they quit. Examples include Logan, Black Lightning, and The Incredibles.
Many Adults theme revolves about rejecting influence!
Sir the Media call you “The Monster for Criminals” … “I’m not a Monster Alfred, I’m a Dark Knight”.
“People see America in You…You are a Flag!” “But I wanna not this America, I have nothing to do with this Flag now!”
Ecc…
I love the Retired Hero inspired by Jonathan Sourbut
The Parent! What to do if you are the adult in the Legacy Family with your Legacy Girl and his Delinquent Boyfriend ?
I hope to create some connection to be playable as a Game Itself or as a Growing Up season of Masks… Hmm PROUD TO BE in this G+ Group!