Tag: Daniel Krashin

Dear friends:

I have a question about playing the Innocent. Part of that playbook is finding out what your character’s older self did that turned them into a villain. How is that supposed to work in the game — does the player decide on that, or the MC, or both together? I feel uncomfortable writing up this NPC myself and so does the MC.

Just looked at the new update for Masks, and wanted to say that it’s really lovely to get to see the “Masks guys” in a little more detail including their interactions, and also see Fronts used for Masks in the GM section. As a GM, I find this kind of material incredibly helpful in planning my own games.

The idea of starting the game by merging the respectable young superhero team and the outsiders is brilliant and I am sorely tempted to steal it for my game.

How are people personalizing Halcyon City? In the one shot I played, it just felt very generic. The characters were awesome of course and we started building up NPCs but the setting was sparse.

I was thinking that when I run Masks, we might spend a little while establishing a feel for H.C. and then move towards building a team of characters after that.

What would be the best playbook for someone who has a mistrustful relationship with their power source — maybe even to the point of arguing with it, like Blue Beetle from Young Justice or Deathlok or even Elric? It seems like sort of a Doomed/Nova cross, except that the hero could spend a lot of time arguing with his suit (or sword or whatever) about the right way to be a hero.

There’s a neat mechanic in the Faceless playbook from Apocalypse World that lets the character talk to their mask and get advice, maybe I should write a playbook for this.

I also have been watching Young Justice and Luke Cage, and I was thinking of setting a Masks game earlier in the continuity, in the fictional 70’s,so the heroes would be among the defining members of the Bronze Age, facing serious threats and Social Issues that their Silver-age mentors can’t even understand. This is the “Hey Green Arrow, your sidekick is a junkie!” era.

Also, talking muscle cars, Afros, and kung fu, of course, but really looking for that goofy 70’s mix of greater psychological realism side-by-side with comic book goofiness, without the modern Dark age deconstruction of comic book tropes.

Has anybody tried such a thing? Mechanically, it makes little difference but it’s hard to emulate specific sub genres like that.

Any suggestions on how to run Masks for super villains? Any experience with this?