Tag: Wright Johnson

Does anyone else feel Masks doesn’t do a great job of giving PCs a reason to be heroic beyond the social contract,…

Does anyone else feel Masks doesn’t do a great job of giving PCs a reason to be heroic beyond the social contract,…

Does anyone else feel Masks doesn’t do a great job of giving PCs a reason to be heroic beyond the social contract, and that the rulebook doesn’t explain how to handle villainous PCs very well?

I’m aware that allegiances frequently shift in the source material and that the game is all about PCs finding out who they really are, but I’ve always wished that there was a little more incentive for the players to stay on the straight and narrow. I’ve found in multiple previous campaigns that players who seem committed to the game’s theme in theory deviate from it pretty rapidly when they realize the game doesn’t explicitly prohibit that.

Does that make sense? Is there anything I can do as a GM to mitigate the problem when it comes up? Am I being too precious about genre emulation?

My Tuesday group was going to play Blades in the Dark tonight.

My Tuesday group was going to play Blades in the Dark tonight.

My Tuesday group was going to play Blades in the Dark tonight. One of our players was out sick, though, and we didn’t want him to miss out on Blades. I started talking about a great Monsterhearts game I was in, and everyone was immediately like, “…Could we play that sometime? I mean, it’s not like you can run a oneshot of it tonight, right?” I cheerfully assured them I could.

I just got done running the first session. We used Jackson Tegu’s Small Town Allswell as a base, and kicked things off with a party. By the end of the session, two somewhat innocent people were dead, the monsters had all hooked up with each other, and they were all moments away from being attacked by a horde of mind-controlled classmate zombies.

Long story short, we’re now playing a monthly Monsterhearts game in addition to our Blades game. Thanks, Avery Alder!

Just come up with a great concept for a Beacon and thought I’d share.

Just come up with a great concept for a Beacon and thought I’d share.

Just come up with a great concept for a Beacon and thought I’d share.

You know Baby from that movie Baby Driver? This would be a character with his supernatural talent behind the wheel, and the rest of the team would be younger kids who don’t have their driver’s licenses yet. You’d have to get the whole group to agree not to take any of the powers that make cars obsolete, I suppose, but the idea of the team carpooling everywhere in a borrowed station wagon with a team logo amateurishly stenciled on the front is too good – and too quintessentially Masks – to pass up.

I wonder if retrofitting the vehicle rules (or perhaps the whole Driver playbook) from AW 2e would work?

Need a clarification on something that’s been bugging me for a while.

Need a clarification on something that’s been bugging me for a while.

Need a clarification on something that’s been bugging me for a while.

So if an NPC who isn’t an adult but does have a significant relationship with a PC is clearly trying to shift said PC’s labels, but the NPC doesn’t already have Influence over the PC, what’s supposed to happen mechanically, if anything? And if nothing is supposed to happen mechanically, why not?

I’ll be running a four-session Masks multi-shot on Wednesdays for the next month or so.

I’ll be running a four-session Masks multi-shot on Wednesdays for the next month or so.

I’ll be running a four-session Masks multi-shot on Wednesdays for the next month or so. Any tips to help the game run smoothly in that format?

Just wrote my new favorite custom move:

Just wrote my new favorite custom move:

Just wrote my new favorite custom move:

When you respond to negative comments on social media, roll +Superior. On a 12+, you manage to stop yourself from commenting and spend your beautiful finite life doing something you enjoy. On a 10+, you keep your cool and fire off the perfect comeback (which makes some people mad anyway because internet). On a 7-9, pick two:

* You write a really long screed. Someone responds with “tl;dr.”

* You go off on a weird tangent which makes total sense to you. Most commenters misinterpret your point.

* You get a fact wholly orthogonal to your point wrong. Most commenters ignore your actual point and seize on your mistake.

* You offhandedly express a political opinion. Perpetually offended dickheads call you an “SJW” and make fun of you for being perpetually offended before exchanging unfunny memes.

* You draw the ire of an Internet Celebrity who is famous among children of all ages for being angry and pretending to have read books. Cue the dogpiling of his sycophantic fans.

* You take the bait and come off like a total shitwizard.

On a 6-, you fail to make a dent in the wave of toxicity. Reluctantly, you close the comments. You are immediately accused of censorship on Twitter by rAwDawG666, a 15-year-old high schooler with a Malibu IP address who also complains about too many bitches being thirsty for his D and the OPness of Torbjörn.

How do you introduce PbtA – and Masks in particular – to players who are only familiar with hypertraditional…

How do you introduce PbtA – and Masks in particular – to players who are only familiar with hypertraditional…

How do you introduce PbtA – and Masks in particular – to players who are only familiar with hypertraditional roleplaying games like D&D and Shadowrun? I’m struggling to pitch the game to some friends of mine who are mainly experienced with D&D and Pathfinder, and I’m curious to hear how other folks have dealt with this issue.