A first for the blog today – a guest post, by esteemed friend of the Burn, Neil Gow! He’s written below about setting up a one-shot of Masks, the ultimate game of teenage superheroes Powered by the Apocalypse. Neil’s a fantastic PBTA GM – I did a multi-table Masks game last year with him – and as a player in the game he’s writing about, can confirm how well it all slotted together. Check out more PBTA posts on here too!

A Short Game of Masks: Getting It Right

I love a good game of Masks – it’s easily the most satisfying superhero game I have played, understanding that the really important parts of any superteam are not the ‘What’ of an encounter, but the ‘Why’ – emotions, relationships and complications are far more important than how many feet someone is knocked back. Sadly, the traditional short one-shot of Masks tends to deliver half of that experience. You get the build up of some awesome interplay, but rarely any pay off. So, when I had the chance to run a double-slotter (a ‘long shot’ if you will…) of the game at the Revelation convention in Sheffield, I was determined to make it count! So, how did I prepare?

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Sometimes Vanilla is the Best Ice Cream

My first decision was to not do anything clever – no special setting, no massive event-based scenario. Play the game with the proverbial straight bat using ‘Halcyon City’ as the background but even then, not complicating matters with any established backstory. 

One Source of Thematic Truth

In a similar vein, it’s vital that your superhero baseline is established. In the past I have learned this the hard way by having a table where their ideas of a superhero were based on The Authority, The X-Men Cartoon, the edgy comics of the 90s and the Longbow Hunters version of Green Arrow. The cognitive dissonance between the table was a challenge to overcome in a campaign – in a long shot game, it could derail the entire thing. I’ve also found that whilst I may have a lifelong history with the genre, other people do not, so my assumptions on what is common knowledge need to be challenged.

So, it’s essential to have a series of common touchstones that people understand, and in this day and age these might be the MCU films, or the CW Arrowverse shows, or more extreme shows like The Boys or Invincible. With respect to the latter examples, I had to put down a strong line that we were NOT playing a game that was anything like those two shows at all, to make extra sure we were all roughly on the same page.

Playbooks: Less is More

There are 20 playbooks in Masks, offering a huge array of choice for players. Most of them have their own special mechanic that is unique to that playbook, but within some of those mechanics is a really dangerous trap for a long shot – so I banned them! Specifically, the playbooks I banned were:

The Doomed – because when there is no consequence, the Doomed just barrels towards their dark fate without a care in the world and dominates a game with their Doom Signs. 

The Harbinger – because in a similar vein, the hero that’s come from the future to warn of a great danger in the past can become the sole focus of the game themselves.

The Joined – is a cool concept, but for that sort of game it requires so much coordination between two players that, once again, it can be either a distraction or a domination.

Additionally, I also vetoed The Innocent and The Nomad because they mess around with some mechanics that can be quite difficult to grasp for newer players at the best of times, so keeping it simple would be best.

I have no problem doing this, but some tables might find it a bit of an imposition. The way I see it, curating the potential experience to avoid road bumps is a sensible precaution. I do the same with Monsterhearts too – always thinking long and hard as to whether to have The Fae or The Chosen in the game as they can be quite the focus of play!

The Non-Plan and the Smash! Start

You have to have some sort of plan when running 6-7 hours of play in one day, but I don’t think you need too much of a plan. I went in with two set things I wanted to do.

Thing#1 – have all of the NPCs and Villains of the piece introduced and bedded in by the lunch break. Nothing new after the break, so we could move on to resolving or progressing situations.

Thing#2 – a SMASH! Start to the game (which the cooler kids might call in medias res…) So the game was always going to start with an invasion from the sea by King Neptuno, Lord of the Fishmen, his fishmen army, and his own mount, the gargantuan Whale-opus! The PCs are there, the danger is there – have at it!

By establishing these two targets, you can build the rest of the game ‘on the fly’. You know you’re going to have everyone up to speed on the mechanics in the first encounter. Brilliant. You know the fallout from that encounter will provide fuel for some great scenes afterwards, and you know those scenes will create the emotional weight to push the whole thing forward to a satisfying conclusion after the break because you have pushed that story shaped stone up the hill, and now you just have to let it roll on down itself!

Trust the System. Literally

Masks is a great system. Trust it. Let character generation happen as laid out in the book and on the playsheets. It works and it delivers.It spews up loads of NPCs, villains and other complications that virtually write your long shot themselves. All you need is King Neptuno and his fishmen and you’re sorted.

Similarly, trust the moves and the mechanics. Influence is an amazing mechanic to free up players who have got stuck in a cul-de-sac of roleplay (it happens, right?) and to bring the all-mighty heroes back down to Earth with a bang when An Adult gets involved. Conditions are oppressive and drive comforting scenes which in turn have the potential to lead to other … complications. 

Don’t second guess Masks. Don’t feel the need to hack it, even in your head. Trust it and it will love you back.

I followed these steps and it delivered an excellent longer session that felt finished rather than only half-baked. Mission Accomplished.

You’re still here? OK, he’s Lord Neptuno!

Lord Neptuno – 2 Conditions
Drive – Destroy the Oxy-Breathers who defile his domain.
Custom Moves – Trident Strike, Arise my Fishmen, Summon Tidal Wave

The Fishmen of Lord Neptuno – 1 Condition
Drive – Obey our Lord, garble-garble
Custom Moves – Surge Forward, Spray Ink!

The Gargantuan Whale-opus – 3 Conditions
Drive – SMASH!
Custom Moves – Tentacle Flail, Vomit Rancid Fish

Neil writes:

You can view my gaming musings at Omnihedron Games – www.omnihedron.co.uk
I also write for the Liminal RPG and have a patreon that offers, for only $3, a monthly 2-page folklore-focused case file and game ideas. There’s a new series on Arthurian folklore in Liminal kicking off in March, and loads of free content posted regularly too – https://www.patreon.com/omnihedron