I'm not an idiot, Black. I know there are bad men in power and the world is not an equitable place -- but you can't throw morality in the garbage just because life's tough!
- Superman
A game of Masks
Old thread: forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?57…
STARRING
PhoeKun as Errant
Raz_Fox as @Sarahphim
Eldest as Ferra
Balmas as Brainstorm
The year is 200X. It is the future.
For almost a century the world felt like it was on the brink of annihilation. Its defenders were legends, of course - paragons who through courage and sacrifice saved humanity from the worst the universe had to offer. Statues were built in their honour, and Neo Halcyon City has holidays to remember them by. But that was then. This is now. All the legends are dead or old enough to be thinking about being dead and it's time to hand off power.
The question is who they're going to be handing it off to.
So ever seen that episode of [url=http://"onlyjusticeleague.blogspot.com/2012/1…"]Justice League[/url] where they go to the future and Batman is [url=http://"youtube.com/watch?v=PETk8eBbfN0"]old[/url]? That's the kind of vibe that I want here.
Over time tech has proliferated. What used to be a C-list supervillain weapon is a civilian sidearm, and while unleashing a giant killer robot on downtown Halcyon is still the supervillain equivalent of 'hello world' the police response comes in armed mechas rather than cop cars and pistols. Metahuman based corporations, both hero and villain founded, have effectively rendered the governments of the world obsolete as a problem solving engine.
Security is... patchy as a result.
Some areas are perfectly safe utopias with around the clock metahuman defense. Some areas are the wild west. If you're in the wrong part of town and you run into the wrong kind of guy all you can do is hope for one of those rare few superheroes who still do things the old fashioned way.
*
So, welcome to Masks! Before we get started I just want to have a chat about genre assumptions. Superheroics can be done in a billion different ways but the same ideals need to be consistent throughout the story, so everyone pitch in with what superheroics means to you. While I get to set the game's initial aesthetic, the specific themes and setting rules depend on the players and the characters.
My baseline assumptions look like this:
- Superheroes don't kill. This is the definitive feature of a superhero to me. Without it it's a totally different genre. I mean, I am totally prepared to extend the courtesy of ridiculous A-team style escapes from spectacularly exploded helicopters or use robots as a chance for people to cut loose. But if you're going to take a life it's going to be totally deliberate and quite possibly the end of your character's story.
As a little side note to that, I will try to avoid having villains who are so reprehensible that killing them would be the objectively correct move.
- This is a superhuman society. We're well beyond the point of hiding it, it's a fact of life. There are superhuman TV shows, cage fights, statues in the streets. Society is shifted accordingly. There's no government around to enforce any registration or mandatory training programs, and there's no central Justice League co-ordinating hero efforts globally. There are a bunch of smaller groups who look after specific areas, either as vigilantes, corporate authorities, or otherwise. Some of these organizations are unironically good - think, like, Batman successfully turning Wayne Enterprises into the supplier for the Gotham PD. But they are territorial and limited in scope and there are entire areas that are poorly protected.
- You have the potential to be the best. You're certainly not there yet, but you are the kind of people who might one day throw down for the fate of the world. You may or may not know and/or believe this in character.
I've set the game in a cyberpunk-adjacent setting, but that's mostly aesthetics at this point - as a MC I have very limited ability to set themes in advance. If nobody picks a playbook that engages with that directly then it really won't come up that much. My villains will be designed as rogues galleries specific to each player character so questions like 'are there evil megacorps?' are mostly going to be answered by 'is the existence of an evil megacorp relevant to anyone?'
Bonus AMV playlist for inspiration:
[url=http://"youtu.be/hy7QZT4one0"]Superhero Intervention[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/iJHASLCXA-w"]Lucky Strike[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/gUjeFa5kS1Q"]Killing 'Cause I'm Hungry[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/fuMnHItjNEs"]Across the Line[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/XkEXZK9V3qk"]ZXC741ASD852QWE963[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/fTcqdlSrE9g"]Little B AKAdemia[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/AJYmDlt8ZiI"]Invincible[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/mzqssCrKq6I"]Put Ya Guns On![/url]
- Superman
Resurrection Roundabout
A game of Masks
Old thread: forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?57…
STARRING
PhoeKun as Errant
Raz_Fox as @Sarahphim
Eldest as Ferra
Balmas as Brainstorm
The year is 200X. It is the future.
For almost a century the world felt like it was on the brink of annihilation. Its defenders were legends, of course - paragons who through courage and sacrifice saved humanity from the worst the universe had to offer. Statues were built in their honour, and Neo Halcyon City has holidays to remember them by. But that was then. This is now. All the legends are dead or old enough to be thinking about being dead and it's time to hand off power.
The question is who they're going to be handing it off to.
So ever seen that episode of [url=http://"onlyjusticeleague.blogspot.com/2012/1…"]Justice League[/url] where they go to the future and Batman is [url=http://"youtube.com/watch?v=PETk8eBbfN0"]old[/url]? That's the kind of vibe that I want here.
Over time tech has proliferated. What used to be a C-list supervillain weapon is a civilian sidearm, and while unleashing a giant killer robot on downtown Halcyon is still the supervillain equivalent of 'hello world' the police response comes in armed mechas rather than cop cars and pistols. Metahuman based corporations, both hero and villain founded, have effectively rendered the governments of the world obsolete as a problem solving engine.
Security is... patchy as a result.
Some areas are perfectly safe utopias with around the clock metahuman defense. Some areas are the wild west. If you're in the wrong part of town and you run into the wrong kind of guy all you can do is hope for one of those rare few superheroes who still do things the old fashioned way.
*
So, welcome to Masks! Before we get started I just want to have a chat about genre assumptions. Superheroics can be done in a billion different ways but the same ideals need to be consistent throughout the story, so everyone pitch in with what superheroics means to you. While I get to set the game's initial aesthetic, the specific themes and setting rules depend on the players and the characters.
My baseline assumptions look like this:
- Superheroes don't kill. This is the definitive feature of a superhero to me. Without it it's a totally different genre. I mean, I am totally prepared to extend the courtesy of ridiculous A-team style escapes from spectacularly exploded helicopters or use robots as a chance for people to cut loose. But if you're going to take a life it's going to be totally deliberate and quite possibly the end of your character's story.
As a little side note to that, I will try to avoid having villains who are so reprehensible that killing them would be the objectively correct move.
- This is a superhuman society. We're well beyond the point of hiding it, it's a fact of life. There are superhuman TV shows, cage fights, statues in the streets. Society is shifted accordingly. There's no government around to enforce any registration or mandatory training programs, and there's no central Justice League co-ordinating hero efforts globally. There are a bunch of smaller groups who look after specific areas, either as vigilantes, corporate authorities, or otherwise. Some of these organizations are unironically good - think, like, Batman successfully turning Wayne Enterprises into the supplier for the Gotham PD. But they are territorial and limited in scope and there are entire areas that are poorly protected.
- You have the potential to be the best. You're certainly not there yet, but you are the kind of people who might one day throw down for the fate of the world. You may or may not know and/or believe this in character.
I've set the game in a cyberpunk-adjacent setting, but that's mostly aesthetics at this point - as a MC I have very limited ability to set themes in advance. If nobody picks a playbook that engages with that directly then it really won't come up that much. My villains will be designed as rogues galleries specific to each player character so questions like 'are there evil megacorps?' are mostly going to be answered by 'is the existence of an evil megacorp relevant to anyone?'
Bonus AMV playlist for inspiration:
[url=http://"youtu.be/hy7QZT4one0"]Superhero Intervention[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/iJHASLCXA-w"]Lucky Strike[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/gUjeFa5kS1Q"]Killing 'Cause I'm Hungry[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/fuMnHItjNEs"]Across the Line[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/XkEXZK9V3qk"]ZXC741ASD852QWE963[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/fTcqdlSrE9g"]Little B AKAdemia[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/AJYmDlt8ZiI"]Invincible[/url]
[url=http://"youtu.be/mzqssCrKq6I"]Put Ya Guns On![/url]
