Category: Masks: A New Generation RPG

Okay, so last question actually revealed that I may have been trading harm incorrectly, so I want to ask about that here. 

The heroes are all going against Scare Chord, the musical terror! With music that literally terrifies, he assaulted the heroes while they were partying at the Sidekicks Lounge, a local nightclub. 

Modern Villain

Drive: To perform and share his art with the world. 

Conditions: Angry, Afraid, and Insecure. Scare Chord doesn’t get Guilty or Hopeless. 

Moves: Cause mass panic with a strum of his guitar. 

Send a sonic wave of terrify and batter enemies. 

Push a bystander into a ‘fight or flight’ reaction. 

Here he is! Pretty straightforward, m y thought was he’d hand out afraid conditions like they were candy to help keep the heroes from engaging him directly. (5 on 1 is just not fair!)

So, first his big entrance, in which he inspired mass panic-making the crowd freak out and try to run. (Give the heroes a crowd to calm and save!) Mahina and Amalgam were on this-Mahina Unleashing her Powers to Temporarily calm the crowd and ease their stress, while Amalgam used Defend to protect them from harm and direct them outside. Amalgam had to expose himself to danger, so I just asked-does he let himself get put into a bad position while arranging this, separated and unsupported, or do they mark a condition to push themselves to try and get people out? They chose to put themselves in a  bad position (and I mentally noted to make sure they couldn’t help with Team that little phase) and moved on. 

Next we had Peekaboo and Triplepoint both charging in to take out our villain head on. Peekaboo opted to create an opportunity and to take something away with there 11 total (making Scare Chord lose their guitar). 

Now, trading harm, I decided that since Peekaboo hadn’t resisted harm, that meant Scare Chord got to hit them full on-so they strummed thier guitar as it was pulled away, and hit them with a powerful wave of fear-making them mark Afraid and then rolling to take a powerful blow. Which is second sort of question-do they do both? or are they supposed to ch oose one or the other?)

And w hile the team did struggle to take down Scare Chord, should he be doing more things actively instead of just when directly engaged? I don’t think he ever attacked anyone or inflicted any conditions except when heroes got a  miss-could I just have him decide he didn’t like TriplePoint knocking him through walls anymore and hit him with a sonic wave to make her quiver in her boots? 

Okay, so played more Masks (you know, because yet again, I’m here posting silly questions). 

First thing came up with one of our teen heroes Swarm standing on a building, looking down at a bunch of superpowered boxers robbing a bank-and of course she uses her powers of bug control to summon a swarm to attack them from afar-and gets a 10+! Great for her, except when she picks ‘create an opportunity’ by distracting them for an ambush, and ‘Impress or Frighten the opposition’.  Just passed up on ‘resist or avoid their blows’ and so I felt the need to trade harm-but the villains are all melee style brawlers. They can’t retaliate in the first place!

So, I hedged. I told her that the bugs were killed long before they got to the boxers-thier short range powers actually killing and slaughtering them. Sure it was a distraction, but its obvious they’re not being ‘really’ hurt, and asked them to mark a condition against the seeming frustration of not doing much direct harm, even if it did distract them from the coming ambush. 

Thing is, I’m not sure how much I like that, and the player argued (perhaps rightfully) that they had no means of retaliation from their position. I figured that no matter what without a lined up shot they couldn’t make a powerful blow, but conditions were happening on trade harm if you didn’t resist or avoid damage. 

But, what say you gentlemen and ladies of cape and cowl? Whats the est solution?