I’m curious if other people have done similar meta comic book ideas that my group are about to do in our game such as:
-Not really defining where the city is so that geography, city buildings, etc are where they need to be for the story. Sort of like how Gotham one day is under a fault line the next is beside a swamp.
-Have other GMs take over after a arc is complete. This is like other writers taking over and themes, moods, etc shift or even full on alternative universes but same characters.
-Give a comic book title for each arc that may be spoilery but in a comic book way, ie; “Death of Superman”
Hmm. That GM shifting for different arcs idea sounds enticing.
last thing has problems with Play to find out.
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Not in Masks, but I did a Monsterhearts game where one person GMed an arc (I was one of the PCs) and then I took over and did “season 2.” It was fun to have the slight change in focus.
I do the first part, being very vague about the map, so the players can bring anything into the city.
I also do the 3rd one, I’ve tried both ways. I named Issue/session 1 after the session, but for session 2 I pre-emptively named it, based on where the characters ended last session. I also described what the issue cover looked like-which I don’t see as a problem because comic covers always lie/make Superman look like an asshole. It’s normal for the comic book cover to have almost nothing to do with what happens inside.
I’ll frequently give arcs titles, but usually after a narrative arc is pretty well manifested.
I’ve done the cover thing–and as others have said, misleading covers are such a big comics trope that I don’t see it as a violation of play to find out. I also borrow some other elements of comic structure–the biggest and best example I have is the crossover event. When my game went into a short recess over a holiday break, I created a comics crossover event. I wrote up a bunch of comics titles participating in the crossover and one-sentence blurbs. Before they left for the holiday, I asked which other title their character made a cameo in–and when they came back from break, I had a love-letter featuring each character and the actions they took while appearing in someone else’s book.