Masks PBP Call in Volume 2: Bwahahaha!

Masks PBP Call in Volume 2: Bwahahaha!

Masks PBP Call in Volume 2: Bwahahaha!

Okay, playing these villains has been infuriating to me because they have made the right rolls at the right times with just enough of the wrong ones to stay interesting. So, basically, I suffer but I have enjoyed it. This was the first official team mission I based off of many of the troped “villains snatch something from a gala event” style thing to make the guys break into a nice formal event with a new emerald that can obviously power a super laser.

On the way there they blackmail a Tony-Starkesque businessman, defeat two heroines, and then make a surprise entrance that sent people running and the rest of the heroes on edge. They then demolished them in a nasty fashion before heading out. Kudos definitely to our Transformed who just plowed through people and our Beacon who discovered his courage.

Next up: Cape Convention Capers!

Botched rolls are the best rolls.

Botched rolls are the best rolls.

Botched rolls are the best rolls.

In our first session, the Outsider (Citizen 1) got a mission, which turned out to be a media assignment. In the second adventure, what she thought was a socialist weekly turned out to be “Haly”, the city’s #1 teen magazine.

During the interview, she tried to play it cool and focus on the plight of the worker, the success of collectivism, and her team’s good works. Unfortunately, she failed to reject the interviewer’s influence, so she ended up dishing about the Bull’s attraction to a certain heroine named Gadget Girl.

This attempted romantic sabotage went completely sideways when the staff photographer asked the Teen Soviet for some foldout poster pictures. While her male teammates liked the photos, her handler demanded biweekly, in-person chats about how her mission was going.

On the plus side, she looked damn good.

Ran my first session of Masks this past Saturday with six (!) players.

Ran my first session of Masks this past Saturday with six (!) players.

Ran my first session of Masks this past Saturday with six (!) players. Notes on gameplay below, with a summary of events at the bottom:

– Despite the players being evenly split male/female, there were 5 female PCs and 1 male PC. Diverse playbook art works!

– I felt unsteady on my feet at first, but the big fight that kicked off the session went well. Splitting focus between 6 PCs is a challenge, but I kept in mind that every player move requires an interesting response and everyone got something to do.

– Some interesting Directly Engage outcomes: the Nova used her biokinesis to make an enemy bruiser punch himself into unconsciousness. She elected to open up an opportunity with her 7-9, meaning taking a blow from him in return was still an option. Since she was zapping him at range, I narrated that he was staggering towards her while battering himself bloody and fell on top of her as he blacked out. She decided “Afraid” was an appropriate condition. 🙂

– More than once, there was some interesting back-and-forth between NPCs and PCs, or between PCs, that I had to pause to remind myself of the influence rules. For instance: the goody two-shoes got caught sneaking back into her dorm after curfew by the headmaster. Roleplaying the power struggle between the two was so entertaining that I had to remind myself, “Oh, right – are you rejecting his influence or letting him influence you?”

I imagine I’ll get more graceful at this with time. If nothing else, it served as a good signpost for the scene’s climax: okay, enough banter; now it’s the moment of truth. Will Nessa accede to the headmaster’s wishes or stand up for herself?

– One thing I definitely need to do is make sure the supervillains use their influence more. If every adult has influence over the PCs, they should take advantage!

– I’m sure this has come up before, but a place on the playbook to record influence would be nice! It was unclear whether it’s a player’s responsibility to record who has influence over them or who they have influence over (or both). Does anyone have any best practices on this that they’d like to share?

– This session ended with several heroes going off to investigate things on their own. I have no objection to that – one of them did it to clear a condition through reckless behavior – but wonder how the game works when the party is split up. I imagine the team pool no longer comes into play. Do challenges need to be staged down?

– I played fast and loose with the powers, as the recap might hint at. The mechanics of how the powers work (as opposed to the playbook moves) are fairly loose, so it shouldn’t be a big deal.

As for the session itself:

The setting was Boston, 4 years after a Mutants & Masterminds campaign I’d run before (which borrowed a bunch of villains and organizations from the Champions setting, to complicate things further). After a dimensional invasion wrecked a chunk of the city, a high school for superpowered teens was built on the remains of Boston Latin School. Students are taught how to live with their powers, not how to become superheroes. In fact, costumed crimefighting is expressly forbidden by the administration.

With that: our heroes were watching a Red Sox playoff game in the Protege‘s luxury box when the sound of a melee caught their attention. Power Crusher and Pulsar, along with some armed thugs, were kidnapping a woman from the adjacent box. The Nova used her biokinesis to (temporarily) jellify Pulsar’s legs. The Transformed flowed through a vent in his liquid metal form and overpowered two of the armed thugs, while the Outsider caught the third by transforming a patch of carpet into flypaper. The Janus found a woman who seemed to be directing the kidnapping via a radio, and nabbed her before she could flee. The Protege and the Legacy dodged blows from Power Crusher until the Nova could double back and puppet him into unconsciousness.

The kids snuck back onto campus, but the Legacy was caught by the headmaster. He reminded her of the school policy against costumed heroics, but she refused to promise not to intervene in future threats. The Nova handed in an incomplete math assignment, then shrugged off her teacher’s insistence that she come to office hours to review it. The Janus and the Protege passed their “drop a VW Bug off a roof” Physics challenge when the Janus “borrowed” another student’s hover powers. The Transformed spent lunch period in the library after being mocked by the popular girls. And the Outsider realized the “substitute” English teacher was a visitor from her home dimension, there to prank her!

Do you want to play Masks and maybe playtest a new Playbook?

Do you want to play Masks and maybe playtest a new Playbook?

Do you want to play Masks and maybe playtest a new Playbook?

Originally shared by T. Franzke

Greetings Heroes!

I will run a One-Shot of the Masks RPG.

I will also use this opportunity to playtest The Newborn Playbook Alberto Muti and I are writing. So one of you will get to play it and be the first one to ever do so.  

If you don’t have access to the Beta Documents, they will be provided on time.

See you in Halycron City!  

Well, I just found a group that’s going to be playing Masks, and I’m curious, since I don’t know much about it and…

Well, I just found a group that’s going to be playing Masks, and I’m curious, since I don’t know much about it and…

Well, I just found a group that’s going to be playing Masks, and I’m curious, since I don’t know much about it and my ST isn’t on right now. What is a Powerful Blow?

I love themed comics. We talked a little before our last Masks game start and here’s our extended team.

I love themed comics. We talked a little before our last Masks game start and here’s our extended team.

I love themed comics. We talked a little before our last Masks game start and here’s our extended team.

All powers come from the Source (which we referred to as the AllSpark). In one way or another magic touches most things Super in this world.

Our planned team consisted of:

A Slayer like lady, tattooed and mystically enhanced (the Bull).

Mike Masters aka Mage (Sorcery Nova)

A bestial shapeshifting emissary from the Eastern Wilds (Outsider)

A vampire (Doomed)

The Revenant (a lightning/frankenstein styled Transformed)

Finally kicked off a new campaign!

Finally kicked off a new campaign!

Finally kicked off a new campaign! Our party rallied around Billy the Elf, who started out as a catspaw villain for the evil Spider Networks, and turned into the best friend superheroes could have. Why? Because his magic cleaned up property damage!

So we may have destroyed Santa’s Workshop, but now we’ll give very little credibility to our nemesis, a hateful blogger who gave our team the nickname The Disasters, since it’s all fixed.

Unfortunately, Billy the Elf only had a limited lifeforce, granted to him by the leader of SpiderNet. When we invaded their lair, the Bull (Panther) and her rival the Outsider (Citizen 1) had a heart to heart. They used their time flying up an elevator shaft to open up, with C1 (who crushed hard on Panther) being told that if C1 wanted to be a better teammate, she could stop pissing Panther off.

Again a great session(s) in our historic superhero campaign using Masks.

Again a great session(s) in our historic superhero campaign using Masks.

Again a great session(s) in our historic superhero campaign using Masks.

Decided to divide the thing to two parts to have each time relatively similar weight, though the latter worked a bit better in the end. First half was 1942 game with Legacy and Doomed as playbooks and was a grim and gritty world where the heroes were adults and fugitive heroes fighting agains both Japanese invaders and Hydra controlled Californian government. The game ended up to be one of urban decay, a bit like in Daredevil. This took us from 1500 pm to 1800 pm. Three hours for a short session. After game talk and food break took about half hour so we started new game about 1830 pm which took us to about 2330 pm. The latter ended up being 5 hour game which was great.

Latter half was the younger selves being on tropical island on a school expedition / filming camp like a thing. The jump from “future” to past allowed me to introduce a boy who died in the earlier session and also foreshadow quite a bit themes that could be happening in the “future”. Legacy and Janus teamup worked well here, also the NPC supers cast is more extensive here so the drama worked better. While Masks works well for our older charactes too, it really shines with the teen angs. The plot didn’t go really far as we had a big theme of fighting school bully, competition for the film roles and Legacy and Janus both hooking up with their girlfriends more closely. We went full on on the Bro gang with the Legacy and the bravado was awesome to watch. 🙂

Really love this game – still not giving out potential fir the characters as we keep them stable for most part. For test purposes both did unlock an additional move from their playbook.

Oh boy, lets see. Last issue of our game went off the rails.

Oh boy, lets see. Last issue of our game went off the rails.

Oh boy, lets see. Last issue of our game went off the rails.

When we last left off, our heroes had a stunning victory over the Clear-Sky Crusader under the orders of the M.E.D.C.  His report about the X-9 Weapons system was that the villainous Countess Spider was one who perpetrated the theft of the experimental military weapon. Further that she had been one of the primary nemesis of Harbinger, Vanguard’s mother for a long time.

Our team decided to take the direct route into the Lair of Countess Spider, flying straight to her front doorstep as it were. Infigar being a prince of sorts decided that he would try to gain an audience with her as a foreign dignitary. It sort of worked too, the Countess did want to see the heroes, but not as ambassadors. Countess Spider weaves a web of information, she’s manipulative and knew that the heroes would eventually come knocking on her door.

Before they entered into her chamber however, Mindsnap decided to break off from the team disguising himself as one of the Guards in order to sneak around and gain information independently of the others.

Our other heroes entered into the meeting area where the Countess revealed her intentions for the weapon. The X-9 was a series of molecules that when separated would violently try to re converge into one molecule. Casing these molecules into a bomb and setting them at certain points she could potentially destroy the entire city.She was going to hold the world hostage, having a kill switch that could level the entire city on a whim. With that in place she would be above all laws, she would be put up on a pedestal. 

Her goading seemed to get to the team and Infigar attacked her, to which Vanguard responded by trying to protect her mothers nemesis. Of course Madam Spider being a manipulator started to weave dissent among the heroes using that as a lynch pin, until finally she felt that she could defeat them with her hired mercenaries. Ordering them to flood in and capture the heroes.

Meanwhile Mindsnap was very successful in his independent investigations. After going to Madam Spider’s own room he found one of her tablets where she would most likely keep information and pocketed it. Of course even with his successful sneaking around he was bound to eventually get caught. And he was by Martyr, one of Madam Spyder’s lieutenants.

The quick thinking Mindsnap used an illusionary rhino to scare Martyr out of the doorway and make an opening for him to run. Of course Martyr gave chase. Mindsnap might have gotten away had he not tripped on a corner sending him tumbling. Leaving Martyr to draw his unholy sword and slash deep into Mindsnap’s chest.

Mindsnap might have been defeated right there had something not been released from him by that swipe of the blade.

Either due to their team being disrupted, or the fact that they were just outnumbered. The fight in Countess Spider’s room was not going well. Many of the soldiers seemed to be beating the ever living crap out of Vanguard as she went to the nines to protect her teammates from harm. But it was quickly looking like the heroes were going to get swarmed.

Quick thinking from Infigar had him using Delivar, his personal aircraft crash into the side of the building causing rubble and debris to rain over the swarming crowd of mercenaries. Kinetica and Vanguard used the opportunity to clear a path to the ship to make a hasty retreat.

As all three heroes were getting in the ship, Infigar decided to stay behind, closing the door behind Kinetica and Vanguard and sending both away on Delivar so that he could go to help Mindsnap. 

On the ship, Vanguard broke down emotionally. All the weight of protecting her team plus some choice goading by Countess Spider about her Grandmothers allegiances sent her int tears, confiding in Kinetica about how she didn’t feel ready to be a hero. Kinetica offered moral support, telling her that Vanguard was the most amazing hero the team had and that she was already doing great things. This brought the two of them closer.

Infigar found Mindsnap, but not in the way he was expecting. Mindsnap had fallen nearly unconscious, bleeding heavily from a chest wound. What was more surprising was the man across from him, Martyr was unconscious as well, his right arm ripped off his body laying in a pool of his own blood. Other mercenaries had found Mindsnap when Infigar had, and the two had to work together to get Mindsnap out of there, sending Delivar to smash another hole int he mansion.

They returned to M.E.D.C. headquarters, who put Mindsnap and Vanguard into medical rooms. And left Kinetica and Infigar in a meeting room. Infigar was angry that M.E.D.C. had sent them on this errand but as Commander White pointed out, they only wanted the team to fight the Clear-Sky Corsair. She was however sympathetic and didn’t tear them a new one for going against orders, allowing them to go home with Vanguard.

Infigar and Kinetica however decided it was best to go home alone, with Infigar trying to share with Kinetica how he wished to integrate better into this world. Kinetica told him that he should be more casual about everything and be more personal with people, which Infigar took on as his new goal in life. 

Mindsnap was badly injured, and he constantly dreamed of some dark entity which haunted him. Something that he was trying hard to fight against.

Vanguard was picked up by her grandmother who told Vanguard that she was effectively grounded. Vanguard tried to resist her grandmother but couldn’t bring herself to break away from her grandmothers influence, despite sitting on a secret that her grandmother might still have something to do with the Nazis.

And finally Kinetica tried to return home, remembering that her mother had asked her to get Orange Juice before she came home. Of course the store that she usually went too was closed so her only option was a gas station a mile away where she paid too much for smaller cartons of inferior orange juice. Almost revealing her powers to a random stranger. And when she finally did get home she found that the bag ripped on the way home and lost most of her orange juice.

So, last session we tried to assault some futuristic time travelling punk bandits, and everything went wrong -…

So, last session we tried to assault some futuristic time travelling punk bandits, and everything went wrong -…

So, last session we tried to assault some futuristic time travelling punk bandits, and everything went wrong – including some significant body count. My Legacy was wracked with guilt. 

This session, I grabbed the engine of their DeLorean-syle time machine, unlocked my remaining powers, including legendary superspeed, and ran to turn back time. I pushed myself to the limit, burned myself out, and it didn’t work anyway. 

But… bloody hell, this was an intense ride.