What I was looking for earlier are the Bonds from Dungeon world. Apparently they are more involved in the mechanics than the relationships of Masks are. Can anyone elaborate on that and/or tell me if they’d work in Masks??
What I was looking for earlier are the Bonds from Dungeon world.
What I was looking for earlier are the Bonds from Dungeon world.
They wouldn’t quite work in Masks. In DW, Bonds are relationships that you count up and treat as modifiers when assisting or interfering with one another. However, Influence and the Team Pool fulfill these mechanical roles of assistance/interfering already in Masks, so Bonds don’t quite transfer over at all.
That said, since when making a Masks character you create relationships and give out Influence, it is easy enough to simply give Influence to the characters you create relationships with — functionally identical to DW Bonds.
I do feel this would give a bigger importance on relationships, and encourage players to explore those chosen……they may need a few minor changes for when developing additional ones, as well as adding it to the closing session questions. But i recall seeing a list of additional mask relationships that could be used for this….plus copy those from Dungeon World with minor tweeks to fit the setting to further expand this list (or allow custom ones)
I don’t have the book, but I read some place you can get an xp for resolving a bond. Make that an end of game move or something and that’s all I would need.
Any particular reason that you want the XP bit? I’m just curious, because the End of Session question for Masks is already about your Relationships with the team.
It could help for shorter games to give a quicker potential advancement.
More like incentive to interact with the bonds. Some players love to roleplay and don’t need it, others do. I have a mix of both.
The set of relationship mechanics in Masks is a lot deeper than the equivalent mechanics in DW. The difference is that the masks mechanics are split across a bunch of different named mechanics (Influence, starting relationships, team pool, and end-of-session), while bonds are much more self contained (IMO less interesting because it means character relationships don’t intrude into many aspects gameplay in DW the way they do in masks.)
Again, I don’t have all of DW’s rules, but just the “ask a player if you resolved you bond, if they say yes gain an xp” could be a neat addition to the “Conversation” of Masks. I understand that the game has lots of relationship mechanics built in.
I find my group is bad at not working together for dramatic purpose. And if they had something in front of them that says “I don’t trust _ because they stole from me” and they can get an xp for role-playing it, maybe they’ll be more interested in trying.
Don’t forget that Comfort or Support, and the team moves, also contribute to building character relationships and developing ties, and reward players for doing so by offering potential, clearing conditions or other interesting effects.
I think the idea is that, in DW, bonds between characters change somewhat infrequently, if they’ve been resolved in a session you get a new one for next time. In Masks, with all its different mechanics around relationships, the relationships between characters can shift repeatedly in different ways throughout a single session (often with mechanical rewards or effects, like label shifting or condition clearing). At the end of a session, a DW style bond resolution wouldn’t really be as relevant compared to the Masks end of session move which is a bit more flexible to what might have happened.
I completely forgot about the Celebration/Vulnerability Team Moves! Those are great, and I think most involve the chance to hand out Potential? Unless I’m remembering wrong?
Yeah. In Masks a love triangle can fester & change but in DW it’s binary.
So like, I can see the nuance of these mechanics, but some of my group aren’t great roleplayers or are new to roleplaying in general.
All I’m saying is the relationships are a great starting point, and I’d like more of them, and maybe a mechanical effect to them that will draw my players into using them more. As it is, we wrote the relationships down session one and I’m not sure I could tell you my own, let alone the rest of the group’s. (I am playing now, but GMing next)
I don’t aim to replace or diminish any of the other, totally well written, social mechanics. Just thinking about adding some bonds/relationships to help players drive their own interpersonal storylines. If, at the end of a session they can gain an XP for having resolved a bond, there’s maybe a higher chance they’ll use all the fun provoke, comfort, support and vulnerability moves in order to tell a few of their own stories rather than just follow mine.
One tip is to ask “Are you changing his/her labels?” whenever it comes up. Call for the moves; players will do them naturally, esp Triumph and Share Weakness.
Perhaps if you really want to incorporate it somehow you could fold it into the Masks end of session move? So, if they pick “grew closer” or “grew apart”, get them to write down a summary of what they’ve said as a new “relationship”, based on their answer to the question there, and then give them the usual effects of that move.