Masks: A New Generation RPG – Page 18 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

Did somebody say more MASKS? No? Well, let’s fix that!

More MASKS for your viewing pleasure, as episode 4 of Misfits hits CharismaToAC!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJUN40hLLq8

My duo of players, The Protectors, took on The Scarlet Songbird for their first foray in Halcyon City National Bank.

My duo of players, The Protectors, took on The Scarlet Songbird for their first foray in Halcyon City National Bank. I’m sure I did a zillion things wrong, but as I told the player, it a learning process for me as well as them. Highlights – since the Scarlet Songbird (SS) is an older guy trying to reclaim his super villain status of bygone years I described as looking like Stan Lee from the Marvel cameo appearances. Torn, our Transformed (looks like Swampthing) created a crater in the floor trying to punch SS. SS cried out “Tally Ho” and flipped up onto Thorn shoulders… then flipped over to put his back to the teller partisan. Shadow Wing (Legacy) flew at him with the intent of ramming him. SS vaulted over her by using a hand on her head. “Have at thee, knave!!” Shadow Wing slammed her head in the partisan… up to her neck. SS (and some of the banking staff) was laughing pretty hard at all this. Torn smashed SS’s lute and wrapped him up with a network of vines extending from his hands and fingers. Police arrived and took SS into custody. SS parting comment, “I say, Jolly good time. We will have to do it again.”

I need to master move of my GM moves and get my agenda glued into my brain. Further adventures will get better.

Hello!

First game ever just last night.

It was a simple issue: Dr.Ghost tried to lure supers with hostages in a research lab to trap some of them

and the team (with a starlight-personified newborn that looks like a nova, that attracted the DR. interest) arrived in place

i had the whole game a strange sensation

they keept doing nothing but “trying to restrain” the villain with raw superpowers (telekinesis, solid light projection, shapeshifting and magic)

They just resisted or body/energy blocked the villain soft moves

i am used to other PBTA where the player should just react to the “what do you do?” question, but in this case, with other “power” moves triggering

one: only when they try to damage the enemy

and the another: only when they try to defend someone/thing else

in a situation in which the villain had as a purpose “grab you and trhow / lure / take / telekinetically push” inside the “cage-chamber” they felt compelled to just “oppose” with the unleash move

where i am wrong? i love this game and i love PBTA but something broke in this frist session and i am afraid they will quit the playtest if i fail the next too..

PS: i tried to being understandable although i am not properly skilled in english, sorry for eventual errors. ^^”

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?

Illustrating the team that starred in Leah’s throwback Masks session, the Suffra-Jets:

Illustrating the team that starred in Leah’s throwback Masks session, the Suffra-Jets:

Ms. Quantum (The Brian) is a precocious but socially-inept gadgeteer. The Hurricane (The Nova) has earth-shaking elemental powers and a great deal of anxiety about using them. Wolfhound (The Outsider) was raised by wolves and is slowly integrating into human society. Norma Conquest (The Bull) hails from medieval Normandy and is zealously devoted to proper royal succession being respected.

For our throwback adventure (a one-shot set a generation before our main campaign, featuring adult heroes from our…

For our throwback adventure (a one-shot set a generation before our main campaign, featuring adult heroes from our campaign as teens), the action took place on a movie set, where the villain had reality-warping gels on the lights that made movie magic real.

So, in addition to turning the people in rubber alien costumes into real aliens, the lights triggered this custom move;

When you are caught in the spotlight roll + conditions.

On a 10+ choose one:

Time for a punch ‘em up! Directly engage one of your teammates without warning

Two from the 7-9 list

On a 7-9 choose one:

You try to be heroic, but wind up in a slapstick pratfall: mark Insecure

You get caught monologuing and share a secret you shouldn’t. Give Influence to the person you betray.

It’s all connected! You spot something that reveals you in particular are in more trouble than you thought.

You give in to some of your worst instincts and respond villainously: mark Guilty

One a 6+, mark potential. You look like the version of yourself as a hero you’ve always wanted to be. Do something cinematic and choose one:

Clear a condition

Choose one of the options from Directly Engage without rolling

Quick question about influence.

Quick question about influence. When you have influence over someone, you have +1 against them. All adults have influence of PCs.

Does this mean that all (adult) villains have constant +1 against all PCs?

About the Basic Moves. Some doubts.

In Defend: “you expose yourself to cost, retribution, or

judgment.”

How can you explain this with an example?

In Provoke Someone: “For PCs: On a 10+, both. On a 7-9, choose one.

• if they do it, add a Team to the pool

• if they don’t do it, they mark a condition”

What about that? You can’t activate the effect of the two options

simultaneously.

Thank you, very much. 😀

Title

Ran a Masks session for our group for the first time last night. My adventure was a one-shot set a generation before our main campaign.

Ms. Quantum (Brain, and in the present, Doc Quantum—the most respected hero) was recruited to do robotics work on a movie set, and some suits from the studio asked her to bring in the Hurricane (Nova, presently Lady Hurricane, retired from heroing and the therapist for our Protege-turned-Transformed) to add some lightning and explosions, without telling the director.

The film, “The Peril of the Planets,” featured invading Phobosians, who are ultimately defeated because they have never encountered the Earth phenomenon of ennui.

Wolfhound (raised by wolves, the Outsider) and Norma Conquest (timetraveller, the Bull) tagged along with their teammates and turned out to be needed when the shoot began and real aliens entered through the spaceship sets.

The team pieced together that special gels on the lights were making everything more like the movies: the men in the rubber suits became real aliens, the safety officer turned into the dangerous Ruligan, and the team got caught in the beams, too.

Wolfhound pulled off an incredible, cinematic feat of climbing and leaping to defeat Ruligan, but Ms. Quantum wound up monologuing (and sounding more like a villain than she intended). Norma Conquest swore fealty to the director (missing her old lord, William the Conqueror) and was commended for her swashbuckling by film star Errol Loxley (grandfather to our usual campaign’s Beacon).

Behind the whole scheme… Jeanne (Jenny) Blague, an intern who was trying to defend the director’s existentialist vision. The Hurricane took her down with lightning, defusing the immediate threat.

But when the director admitted he wasn’t even French, and he didn’t care too much about his vision, just about seeming deep, Jeanne stormed off the set, saying it looked like all anyone cared about was cheap laughs…. the origin story of Commediennemy (who we’ve fought in our usual campaign).

I’m giving the “Nerds on a Roll” podcast a listen, and in the very first episode, fighting the very first villain, a…

I’m giving the “Nerds on a Roll” podcast a listen, and in the very first episode, fighting the very first villain, a Mask rolls an 11 to Directly Engage a Threat. He chooses to create an opportunity for a teammate, and to resist or avoid their blows.

The GM narrates the fiction, then announces that “the way villains work is, as soon as you hit them, they get to make a move.” He then proceeds to make a move (not sure which one) and has another villain join the fray.

The part that I’m confused about is the part I put in quotes. That’s not the way Dungeon World (which I’m much more famililar with) works, and I can’t locate where in the rules it is stated or implied that this is how Masks works. It seems really strange to me.

Is the quoted inerpretation accurate, or is it just a matter of a GM getting a rule wrong in the first session of a game he may not have run before? If it is correct, could someone give me a page number to study? (Or if it’s wrong, just out of curiousity, does anyone who listens to the podcast know if the GM starts getting it right in later episodes?)