Has anyone put together templates for Villain Deck style character profiles?
Has anyone put together templates for Villain Deck style character profiles? Seems like that would be an awesome thing to have.
So a little while back, my table established that in our version of Halcyon City, Rosie the Riveter was a badass…
So a little while back, my table established that in our version of Halcyon City, Rosie the Riveter was a badass superhero during World War 2. It was just a bit of table chatter, so we haven’t really dealt with her legacy in-game directly yet, but I’ve given some thought to what that legacy actually is, and I figured I’d share.
So, World War 2 was when a lot of early superheroes were emerging. There were heroes and villains before that–avatars of various deities, alchemists, the occasional time traveler or other aberrant–but WW2 was the Golden Age, the first real generation of supers. And a lot of them joined up with their nations’ armed forces, to go and Fight the Good Fight.
But at the same time, villains were also emerging, emboldened by the sudden lack of competition. Most of the able-bodied heroes had volunteered or been drafted and been sent overseas, so America was going through a war-time economic boost and there weren’t many heroes around to defend it.
Enter Rosie the Riveter: the Woman of Steel, stronger than a rhino and tougher than a tank. She lead from the front, on billboards and TV spots and in the crime-ridden streets of Halcyon, encouraging women with powers everywhere to come out of hiding and fight villainy on the home front. And lots of new female heroes did exactly that.
It became a huge movement, and while the boys in capes were overseas fighting the likes of Ubermensch and Hitler, a whole generation of people were growing up with women as the only superheroes they’d ever really seen firsthand. And those people would eventually be known as the Silver Generation.
That legacy left a lasting mark on superhero gender dynamics, and gender dynamics in general. So in our version of Halcyon, if you ask the average person on the street to name their favorite superhero, they’re way more likely to name Plasma or Melonica than they are to name Sir Percival or Dr. Impossible.
In keeping with tradition, I made a relationship map for Masks: Ministry of Thunder, a game I’m playing in on…
In keeping with tradition, I made a relationship map for Masks: Ministry of Thunder, a game I’m playing in on TavernKeeper. Kumu has some foibles, but it’s collaborative and web-based, and much easier to modify and expand than MSPaint, which is what I was using last time. I suspect it becomes more useful if you know CSS. Anyway, recommend giving the site a look if relationship maps interest you!
Revelation from Sunday’s game: since a Beacon can change playbooks after fulfilling their Drives, then the list of…
Revelation from Sunday’s game: since a Beacon can change playbooks after fulfilling their Drives, then the list of Drives could actually be the steps for a secret ritual to grant a person superpowers.
The GM section advises “You can always adjust a villain’s danger and longevity by giving them more conditions or…
The GM section advises “You can always adjust a villain’s danger and longevity by giving them more conditions or taking away conditions,” but here’s something a little more codified. Untested, grain of salt, insight welcome, etc.
Villainy Marches On
When something fundamentally changes about a villain–they gain or lose a core source of power, they return from death, they permanently swap bodies with their heroic nemesis, they accomplish a longterm goal, and so on–do all of the following:
>Rewrite their villain moves to match their new abilities or outlook.
>Re-examine their drive, and adjust it to be in line with who they are now. Drives should rarely shift radically, but when the villain changes enough to trigger this move, the specifics are likely to change.
>Give them a new condition, which starts off marked. Their first scheme should involve the action necessary to clear this condition.
Taking a small crack at a Kryptonite-style move, if you want that kind of thing in your game.
Taking a small crack at a Kryptonite-style move, if you want that kind of thing in your game. It’s a rough-cut thing that I haven’t played with, so take it with a grain of salt.
When you are exposed to your superheroic weakness, mark potential and choose one. The effect persists for as long as your weakness is present.
-Lose access to one or more of your powers.
-Your personality undergoes a radical temporary change. The GM will shift your labels.
-Take a powerful blow from the exposure, and mark a condition at the end of every scene.
How have your tables handled it when the Doomed finally defeats their Nemesis?
How have your tables handled it when the Doomed finally defeats their Nemesis? The one time it happened with me, it coincided with the end of the campaign, so we didn’t need to figure anything out going forward. Curious how others have handled it, in case the situation arises again.
In retrospect, this movie might be a pretty good Masks resource, because Yellow Jacket is an interesting take on a…
In retrospect, this movie might be a pretty good Masks resource, because Yellow Jacket is an interesting take on a Doomed. Minor spoilers ahead, not much you wouldn’t get from the trailer.
So, Doomed Yellow Jacket. His Doom is insanity, brought on by working with imperfect Pym Particles without the proper protection, and by a lifetime of perceived betrayal and rejection.
Hank Pym is his Nemesis, a hero from a previous generation and his former mentor, whose inventions and refusal to take him into his confidence are what set his Doom in motion.
The plot is driven by Yellow Jacket trying to take his Nemesis down, by recreating Pym’s powers in his Sanctum. He eventually pushes his Doom far enough that he can take the Burning Bright Doomsign, ignoring the “you can only create a lesser version” requirement and perfecting his shrinking tech. You also see him use the Teleport Doomsign to appear in Scott’s daughter’s bedroom; it’s not instantaneous transportation, it’s just that he was so small he could get there without anyone noticing.
He’s a villain, but he hits all the right marks. Give it a look if you want to see a Doomed who isn’t Raven!
Oh yeah, and Scott is a Protege, obviously. Interesting to see a Protege whose unique power is one that his Mentor used to have but doesn’t anymore. Might have to steal that idea. :)
Short chain of interesting thoughts I’ve just had:
Short chain of interesting thoughts I’ve just had:
For being such a superficially physical and self-focused powerset, Superspeed is a surprisingly good fit for a Nova. It works with all the Flares, it has appropriate scope, and a reckless speedster who doesn’t have a handle on her powers yet is a suitably frightening prospect. This lead me to:
Looking at the Nova’s Flares actually seems like a pretty good way of imagining novel uses for your powers. That’s not really where the heart of the game is, but it can help make your action scenes more interesting, and maybe help spark some ideas for players who feel they don’t have much to contribute during those scenes. Which lead finally to:
In any system where there’s an apparent gap between the scopes of PC abilities, looking at the character options with evidently wider scope and imagining how to recreate them using the options with evidently narrower scope is probably a good thought experiment to try. This is obviously easier in more narrative and less simulationist systems, but asking the question “how can I do X when I only have Y” and genuinely trying to find an answer should be a helpful mindset even in more rigid systems.
Not entirely Masks related, but I figured I’d share. I think it’s cool that this game is indirectly going to lead me to richer experiences in other games.
Just finished watching Dark Matter, a show about amnesiac shadowrunners waking up on a space ship and doing missions…
Just finished watching Dark Matter, a show about amnesiac shadowrunners waking up on a space ship and doing missions while they try and figure out who they were. Had a few thoughts on how to adapt The Sprawl to run it, and thought I’d share.
Originally shared by Jamie Frost
Just finished binging the first season of Dark Matter. Took an episode or two to push past the “I’ve seen every one of these character archetypes done better elsewhere” phase, but once they got past that and everyone started to get some depth it was actually a pretty good show. Also seems like a pretty great setup for a game, though I’m not sure what system to use for it.
I almost want to say The Sprawl, just set in space instead of in a city. You’ve got megacorps, a team of badass professional scoundrels working shady jobs for whoever pays the most, socialization outside the crew is pretty much restricted to contacts and contracts, and everyone has someone after them. Augmentation isn’t really a thing (for the most part), but it’s a close fit otherwise. Only thing is that there are a couple of important facets of Dark Matter that I think would need to be addressed in the mechanics somewhere.
First, everyone has a secret, something about their past that gets revealed at some point during the game. When that secret is revealed, it creates complications for the entire crew and occasionally comes with some kind of boon. The Sprawl’s Directives could work here; you get XP when you explore someone’s past, super simple. But I think there needs to be more to it than that, since uncovering a secret always says something about the world at large; I’m trying to avoid spoilers here, but in Sprawl terms a couple of characters named new corporation-level factions and a couple of others got the equivalent of free augmentations.
One idea for how to handle it: each character has a countdown clock for their secret, which advances when you learn a new fact about it. When the clock is filled up, things come to a head, and you get a free advance. Simple and dirty, but I think it works?
Regardless, when a secret is fully revealed, it sets the theme for an entire session, because it inevitably gets the secret’s keeper entangled in something they can’t handle as well as they think and the team needs to come and help them out. This seems like the sort of thing that the table just has to buy into as a group, I think.
The other thing that needs representation is mistrust. Between missions, especially when missions go badly, scenes play out where at least a couple of crew members have found reasons not to trust one another and they need to work through that. I think the easiest thing to do would be to invert or reframe Links; in the Dark Matter hack, your Link score with someone goes up when you find something that reinforces why you shouldn’t trust them. When you hit 4 and roll over, your downtime scene is about that distrust boiling over into a confrontation, and what you do to get past it.
Directorial note: downtime scenes should be longer for this hack, I think. The character conflicts are actually more important than the jobs in the show, so they should be given appropriate weight.
I think that about covers it. Thoughts?