Author: Jennifer “Rani” N

I’ve got a question about character knowledge and the Assess the Situation move. When a player uses Assess the Situation, how much do you take the character’s personal knowledge into account?

Last night my group was facing a highly advanced alien robotic lifeform. Our Delinquent, who is 100% human, has a low level of education, and has never been to space or dealt with anything more advanced than a smart phone rolled to Assess and decided to ask how to break this super advanced cage made by the super advanced alien robot. She rolled an 11 and I didn’t really want to say “you have no idea”, cause she had a good roll, so I ended up waffling some response that honestly sounded like BS to me.

But at the same time, the team does have an alien (the Outsider) and a cybernetically enhanced person (the Transformed) who would have had knowledge relevant to this particular question. And I was a little sad to not give them the opportunity to use it for this particular obstacle.

Should I have stuck to my first instinct, which was to say “you have no idea” and give the other two members the opportunity to put their knowledge to use? Or is it better to reward the player for a successful roll, even if it requires a bit of a stretch?

I’m currently attempting my first time DMing a Masks game (and my first time DMing ever) and had a couple of things come up that I’m not quite sure how to handle.

1. I have a team that includes a few ranged characters, engaging a villain who is a “punch them with his fists” kind of guy. If a ranged character is attacking someone who can’t reach them, is that still a Directly Engage, since they can’t really trade blows?

2. Another character directly engaged a different villain, and chose the “create an opportunity” option. He used the villain’s cape to temporarily blind her and give an ally an opening to strike. But it looks like a villain should make their Condition Move before anybody else makes a move. So am I supposed to have her make a Condition Move first, or wait until this teammate takes advantage of the opportunity and sucker punches her? And if she gets sucker punched, is that another Directly Engage move?

I’d appreciate any advice. Thanks!