For anyone thinking of having a Star in their campaign, I thought this NYker profile was fascinating.

For anyone thinking of having a Star in their campaign, I thought this NYker profile was fascinating.

For anyone thinking of having a Star in their campaign, I thought this NYker profile was fascinating. It’s profiling a livestreamer, whose life is built around the things his fans may demand of him. This is one of several unsettling examples.

“The disruptive power of the community was on everyone’s mind. For the past six months, Denino had been struggling with fans over his girlfriend, a platinum-blond streamer named Caroline. Viewers thought that she was taking him away from the stream and using him to boost her own career; they called her “the leech.” They bombarded the subreddit with hateful posts about Caroline and Denino, approached the couple in real life to harass them, and staged a boycott that cut Denino’s viewership and revenue by a third, demanding that he break up with her. Denino resisted for months—Caroline made him happy—but eventually he relented. “It just got too much, dude,” he told me. “It was just easier to break up with her than to deal with it.” He showed me a chart of his earnings, which had doubled the week after he and Caroline broke up.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/ice-poseidons-lucrative-stressful-life-as-a-live-streamer

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/ice-poseidons-lucrative-stressful-life-as-a-live-streamer

We’ve been going for about six sessions and I just closed our first arc.

We’ve been going for about six sessions and I just closed our first arc.

We’ve been going for about six sessions and I just closed our first arc. To commemorate it, I commissioned an artist to make this cover for the team. Clockwise from the top left we have Gaia (the Transformed), Azine (the Reformed), The Meme (the Innocent), Zasha (the Outsider), and Null (the Delinquent).

After they destroyed the City Museum in an attempt to stop The Meme’s future self, Swift Rift, a judge remanded them to the custody of the one hero willing to intervene on their behalves: Macho Talon. In the first step to expand her crime-fighting/social-media empire further to greatness, Macho Talon has unveiled the Macho Squad. The Macho Squad is a teen super hero team in a world that hasn’t been ready to even consider such a possibility in the last decade. Especially after the tragedy that befell the last teen superhero team, Teen Force. Can the Macho Squad forge a brand new path in this dangerous and exciting world.

Hopefully my group enjoys it just as much as I do because I can’t wait to see how far they will go.

One of the highlights of DexCon this weekend was playing Masks as a PC for the first time.

One of the highlights of DexCon this weekend was playing Masks as a PC for the first time.

One of the highlights of DexCon this weekend was playing Masks as a PC for the first time. I played a haughty Outsider: Xanthea, a demi-goddess raised on Hyper Olympus. She had stunning beauty (a divine radiance she could dial up and down) and alien weaponry (A golden discus that responded to her mental commands).

I’m GMing my home campaign, so it was a treat to be a player character here. Many thanks to the GM and other players of this one shot!

At a recent Masks session, my sister guest-starred as a Legacy.

At a recent Masks session, my sister guest-starred as a Legacy.

At a recent Masks session, my sister guest-starred as a Legacy. She was the child of adult heroes that had already been introduced in the campaign, and their powerset didn’t match one of those listed for the Legacy. So we took her parents’ powers (weather control) and created a track of abilities for them:

*Temperature control

*Precipitation control

*Wind control

*Lightning control

*Flight

This worked well. She picked Temperature control, wind control, and flight. Which are pretty cool on their own! But the lack of lightning and rain, snow, hail etc. also gave the sense she had room to grow into her heroic mantle. It’s cool to break down a classic powerset into a suite from which the Legacy has to choose what they can do already and what they aspire to get to do.

We just finished getting all caught up on Cloak and Dagger on Hulu, and I was thinking about how I would write them…

We just finished getting all caught up on Cloak and Dagger on Hulu, and I was thinking about how I would write them…

We just finished getting all caught up on Cloak and Dagger on Hulu, and I was thinking about how I would write them up in Masks. The story has been rewritten a little to fit in with contemporary society and more mature expectations, and that has moved Tyrone and Tandy away from the playbooks we might typically associate them with.

In the show, Tandy feels like “the Reformed”. She has a past life she can call on (more than one actually), and specializes in calling people out on their shit. She could also swing a Delinquent pretty clearly.

While you could call him a Janus, to me Tyrone is acting a lot more like a Legacy. This is interesting to me, because it brings the family questions down to a much more human level.

Had my session 1 GMing masks this weekend.

Had my session 1 GMing masks this weekend.

Had my session 1 GMing masks this weekend.

My team: Tsunami

Loto Manuia / The Duke (Beacon) – Big Hawaiian football offensive lineman who is friends with everyone.

“Kelly” Min Sun Yoon / Blink (Janus) – Korean girl with anti-mutant tiger-mom who has x-rary vision, superhearing, and can teleport short distances.

Jo Nakamura /Samurai (Soldier) – Japanese genderfluid AEGIS foster, being raised by the Smiths

Yuliu “Jane” Chu / Lightshow (Newborn) – AI/Android living with the woman who created the AI, has solid light manipulation powers.

Started off with the Smiths informing Jo over breakfast that they were going to be away on assignment, not sure how long. When Jo got home from school, “Auntie Jessie” was there. She was super-cool, and gave Jo access to all kinds of AEGIS stuff, weapons, technology, and information, that the official channels had been denying.

She gave orders to find out more about the girl at school who just developed powers and determine how to proceed. It took a while before the Smiths got the text Jo sent asking them about Auntie Jessica and responded with “WHO?” When the AEGIS agents suspected Carbine was in their house, we ended with a cliffhanger scene for Jo as the Smiths texted “GET OUT NOW!”

Liam Lyans, the school’s most popular boy, football quarterback, Student Council president, etc., is screwing up everything. He fails a math test and his GPA drops so low that he’s off the team and prohibited from participating in any extracurricular activities. Cheerleader Willa Weston can’t date someone who’s not on the football team, so she publicly breaks up with him. She immediately marches up to Loto and declares “It appears I need a date for Homecoming.” He strong-arms her. “That’s my boy, Liam, I gotta have his back. Good luck getting a date.” She’s furious and humiliated by this and declares him blacklisted.

Jane, being an AI, had no trouble scoring 100% on her math test, but on the custom move, she rolled a 6, so that meant that Christy Price cheated off her test – badly – and also scored 100%. They were both called to remain after class and explain. Jane had no idea what was going on. Christy tried to throw her under the bus, but it backfired. As punishment, because the world isn’t fair, Jane was forced to tutor Christy (and Liam, as it turned out). She was made from educational software, originally, so she’s really good at it, but the students she’s working with are difficult.

Jane found an angsty love-note in her locker. She didn’t try to figure out who wrote it or show it to anyone except her mom. She did prevent the school bully from picking on the class butt-monkey, and got him to hospitalize himself trying to kick her ass. He punched where her face had been, hit the wall instead, then cracked his nose trying to headbutt her. Her guess is that the note might be from the kid she helped, but the line about not knowing he exists confuses her.

During Social Studies, Jennifer Stone cries out and suddenly everyone and everything in the class is pushed away from her and pinned to the walls and windows (which are cracking). Loto tries to fight his way toward her – this is what offensive lineman do, after all. Plus he has experience withstanding Hawaii waves. Kelly is pinned against the window. She could teleport and be fine, but that would expose her, so she simply pushes against the gravity and climbs off the window, helping other kids off in the most mundane way, saving them just before Jennifer’s powers lash out again flinging Loto to the ceiling and exploding the windows. The team take turns getting their friends safe and trying to comfort and support Jennifer, calming her enough to stop her power flare. Most of the class is rushed off to the nurse. Loto volunteers to stay with Jennifer (bringing her with the crowd could be bad). She dismisses him and asks Kelly to talk, saying she’s not sure the power came from her, and asking the girl to go with her to a health clinic.

Kelly’s parents find out she skipped the last few classes to go to Planned Parenthood, and subject her to an awkward discussion about sex, STDs. She’s grounded, and forced to back goodies for her mom to give out at her anti-mutant hate-group meetings. She considers mischief, but doesn’t want anything that could be traced back to her, so no laxatives in the brownies.

They try to support Liam and help him get over whatever’s making him spiral, and discover that he’s Wildcat, sidekick to the White Lion (his older brother Logan, the perfect all-American boy he’s trying to live up to). He’s come to the conclusion that his after-school hero activities are more important than math tests, football, or Willa because he found something. He leads Tsunami to his own house under which is the lair of what looks like Dr. Wrath. His dad might just be a notorious supervillain. What is he supposed to do with that?

The team tried to follow-up on La Espada at AEGIS HQ. Agents were keen to get their report on Dr. Wrath’s lair and what they found there, but blew off their questions about seeing Daniela Santana or her sister. They insisted it was being taken care of. Loto wrote a note that they assured him they would get to Daniela to tell her that her sick sister was being taken care of. He didn’t leave with a feeling that she would actually get it.

Loto’s final scene for the night was waking up to a light in his bedroom from a portal La Espada cut through reality. She looked at him and asked, “You ready to help me fix what you screwed up?”

Last night’s Homecoming dance episode of our Masks RPG was lit.

Last night’s Homecoming dance episode of our Masks RPG was lit.

Last night’s Homecoming dance episode of our Masks RPG was lit. We decorated for the “Arctic Bliss” theme, made a playlist of high school dance classics, and then had our teen superhero characters attend Homecoming. What could go wrong?

While the others picked out their outfits, Torque (The Outsider) was busy faking his death. Panic (The Delinquent) saw his robot body turned into paper clips by his alien overseers. It was tragic! But…

…he showed up at Homecoming in his new, much-more-human body. Hooray!

Of course it turned out his powers had transferred too, and were much more unstable, which we discovered when he accidentally reversed gravity. Oops. (Playbook change: Outsider —> Nova)

Sonia (The Soldier) was asked to the dance by Kevin, and, suspiciously, her Forge handlers gave her permission to go. Furnace turned up and they had a heart-to-heart, and even shared a brief kiss. But it turns out the Forge somehow got a tracker on Furnace!

Captain Bowmaster (The Beacon) had a full night: dealing with his mom chaperoning, flirting/fighting with Red Cent and Katya (who may or may not be the same person…). Oh, and he was crowned Homecoming Prince!

Halfpenny (The Protégé) struck out with his date, Katya, by dropping her on a dip.

In response to a crisis at the dance (punch spiked with superpower drug Invictus) he took drastic action: ingesting some Invictus and the Bad Penny, he transformed into a monstrous new form! (Playbook change: Protégé to Transformed)

The day was saved, but the ramifications of the Salvatores’ actions are bound to be major. But no one can deny this was a Homecoming night to remember!

This was something I was thinking about for a hot minute, especially since this sparked a semi-heated discussion in…

This was something I was thinking about for a hot minute, especially since this sparked a semi-heated discussion in…

This was something I was thinking about for a hot minute, especially since this sparked a semi-heated discussion in a chatroom I lurk in, and I wanted to know what everyone here thought about it.

From a narrative and mechanical perspective, what do you guys think about using the advancement “Someone permanently loses Influence over you;

add +1 to a Label” when it’s used against other PCs?

Example;

Alchemy, the Transformed, levels up and takes the advancement, permanently removing influence from their team mate Valkyrie, the Star.

[Edit: should’ve probably clarified that this isn’t something I’m planning to do myself, so this isn’t a “should I? shouldn’t I?” Question. This is just a “What are your guys’ personal opinions about it?” Sort of deal. Still cool to already see 2 different responses already!]

Hi everyone!

Hi everyone!

Hi everyone!

I’m hoping to run Masks as an open table soon, trying to follow some of the principles set in the Alexandrian’s guide to open table gaming.

However, I’m anticipating some hiccups, and I’d love advice on how to address them. For example, Influence is an issue, since the cast will be changing a bit each session, probably. I’ve ran Masks before, but not enough to properly anticipate some problems I might see in play.

Has anyone else ran an open table Masks campaign? Any advice or suggestions, or other problems you might anticipate?

Thank you all!

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/38659/roleplaying-games/open-table-manifesto-part-2-what-an-open-table-needs

I ran the Homecoming dance episode of our campaign last night (fuller recap coming soon).

I ran the Homecoming dance episode of our campaign last night (fuller recap coming soon).

I ran the Homecoming dance episode of our campaign last night (fuller recap coming soon). I thought folks here might enjoy the custom moves for dancing I came up with:

____________

When you bust a move on the dance floor, roll +Freak. On a hit, you attract the attention of anyone you want, or gain Influence over one onlooker.

On a 7–9, choose a complication:

–You attract unwanted attention also

–You take a condition due to your awkwardness

On a miss, the GM will tell you what happens.

__________

When you initiate an intimate moment at Homecoming, roll +Mundane. On a hit, the other person must reciprocate or mark a condition.

On a 7-9, they get to ask you a question you must answer honestly.

On a miss, the GM will tell you what happens.