Question about one of the Doomed’s Doomsigns:
Portal: Mark your doom track to appear in a scene with anyone you want.
A player of mine, playing the Doomed, is thinking of taking this sign and asked me if it worked like: “I wanna crash another PC’s scene that’s going on right now” OR “Like the portals abilities, but driven by who rather than where.”
Anyone who has played a Doomed, GM’d a game with a Doomed, or played in a game with a Doomed, how did you interpret this doomsign, and how did it work out?
I could see it doing either of these. This falls on narrative Fiat “yes your power can do that, but would it make this scene that this PC is in more interesting?” If yes then go..if no..than lets not right now.
So, crashing another PC’s scene already in progress, in any way other than asking the relevant player “Hey, is it okay if I crash this scene?” and getting an affirmative “Yes” answer is not a rules question … it’s being a jerk. Don’t support players being jerks. It never ends well.
As to how I’ve run it … differently than this person is imagining. A Doomed with this sign has the option to be creepy-AF to people (almost invariably NPCs) who think that they can avoid whatever intimidation or retribution the Doomed wants to dish out. So this Doomsign is about the villain chuckling with a sense of invulnerable security, inside his massive fortress, and the Doomed walks out of the shadows behind them. IMO, it’s the Doomsign for people who want to be the cause of locked-room mysteries, not chaotic-everywhere players who just want to be in every scene.
I think of it as … both? But more the first one.
Remember that Masks’ driving force is playing to see what happens next. NOT playing to play out a specific story that you or certain players want to make.
If your Doomed wants to crash a scene by using Portal. Let them. Remembering to ask questions like how and why they’re choosing to appear in a scene.
For the ‘How’. Note that Portal isn’t necessarily a supernatural, circular ‘opening between dimensions’. It could just be preternatural stealth or planning that allows the characters to be right where they want to be. Maybe in Kim Possible-esque fashion, they call in a favor for a helicopter ride to the scene.
For the ‘Why. It could be that the Doomed was somehow keeping track of the situation. But it’s also valid for the ‘why’ to be totally based on destiny or chance. ‘I just happened to be in the area’.
It’s also a gateway for shenanigans that the PCs might otherwise have a hard time accessing narratively. Such as time or dimensional travel, or warping across space to visit alien planets. Because notably, the Doomsign doesn’t specify that the scene has to be ‘ongoing’, or that they have any idea of where they’re going. It just happens.
Doomed players tend to shy away from Portal. But it’s an interesting Doomsign.
Tony Lower-Basch Interesting, thank you for the example.
To be clear, my player was using “crash” jokingly, and would definitely not be a jerk to other players. The character might be “crashing,” but my players and I would work things out so no one playing feels ill-done. Just want to make sure I don’t give the wrong impression about my players, who are great folks and work to take care of one another at the table!
Here’s a clarifying question. I rarely “point the camera” at scenes none of the PC’s are in. Did you give the Doomed heads-ups when there were NPC scenes he or she might want to portal into? ( I could imagine doing this through visions or the like.) Or did the player just inform you who they wanted to have a scene with, and you figured things out from there?
No, it was more like “Arrrrggggh! I hate that Tyrranar got away after all he put us through. That’s it. I want a scene with him. Marking Doom track,” and then I’d narrate Tyrranar in his impregnable dimensional fortress, tossing … man, I don’t remember what souvenir he’d claimed from the battle, but I remember that he had… and the Doomed narrated their creepy entrance.
Interesting. I had definitely read this as referring to narrated scenes you could jump into, rather than causing the camera to turn to start a scene with an NPC to walk in on. The latter is a lot crazier.