Author: Ross Hunter

Quick pre-google+ shutdown request for advice.

I appear to be running an ongoing open table game of Masks at a local games cafe (offering a one shot at their RPG night has mutated out of control!) So from week to week I might have any combination of new or returning characters and be picking up existing story threads or launching new ones (or both). Has anyone done anything similar?

If so I’m particularly interested in a) any mechanics advice – how you may have handled influence for example from week to week, b) any good ideas for fictionally justifying a rotating cast and c) how did it go – particularly did you manage to get into some heavier emotional teen angst amid ott young adult supers action?

Regarding b) thus far I’ve gone with a soft reboot of reality as the time stream resets – as happens when time displaced harbingers battle time eating super beings – and then the next week most of the team got sucked into a quantum disturbance ending up who knows where. This week the only hero common with the previous two sessions may have set up a new team in the hope of effecting a rescue although as the last thing they said tonight was “are we the baddies?!” who knows.

Running one-shot games of masks, do you do anything differently compared to the first session guidelines in the book?

Things that seem to have worked well for me in the past include:

Starting with a social situation that brings older heroes and the influence moves into play early. But then try to get the older heroes out of the way so they don’t get all the spotlight.

Building up to a fight, especially as in a one-shot I try to use important villains from the hero’s backstory / extras etc. “They just show up and attack” seems a bit anti-climactic if they’re a big deal.

Lean hard on things like the beacon’s drives when looking for things to introduce into the fiction. If it’s something the player picked they want to see it do, since we’re only playing once, why not include it.

Do you have other ideas about this?