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Masks: A New Generation
Masks is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you play young superheroes who are growing up in a city several generations into its superheroic age. Halcyon City has had more than its fair share of superheroes, superteams, supervillains, and everything in between. Over the course of three different generations of super-people, Halcyon City has seen it all.
You play members of the fourth generation, young adults trying to figure out who they are and what kind of heroes they want to be. The rest of the world is telling them what to do, but they’ll find their own path amidst the noise. And kick some butt along the way. After all, what’s the point of being a hero if you can’t fight for the things you believe in?
Masks is based on the award-winning Powered by the Apocalypse system developed by Vincent Baker and used in Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts,Urban Shadows, and more. It’s a rules-light system that fuels some of the best innovations in gaming in the last ten years, and Masks has been built from the ground up to incorporate everything I’ve learned about Powered by the Apocalypse games.
When you take an action that would trigger a move, you roll two six-sided dice, add them together with one of your Labels (a stat that describes your hero), and look to the move to see what the results are. On a 10+, you get what you want, and maybe a little extra. On a 7-9, you get what you want, but at some kind of cost or with a complication. On a 6 or less—a miss—the GM says what happens next, and chances are things get complicated for our young heroes.
Masks produces stories like those found in Young Justice, Teen Titans,Young Avengers, X-Men, and more, using the Powered by the Apocalypse rules to provide an easy but useful skeleton for awesome storytelling!
You play members of the fourth generation, young adults trying to figure out who they are and what kind of heroes they want to be. The rest of the world is telling them what to do, but they’ll find their own path amidst the noise. And kick some butt along the way. After all, what’s the point of being a hero if you can’t fight for the things you believe in?
Masks is based on the award-winning Powered by the Apocalypse system developed by Vincent Baker and used in Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts,Urban Shadows, and more. It’s a rules-light system that fuels some of the best innovations in gaming in the last ten years, and Masks has been built from the ground up to incorporate everything I’ve learned about Powered by the Apocalypse games.
When you take an action that would trigger a move, you roll two six-sided dice, add them together with one of your Labels (a stat that describes your hero), and look to the move to see what the results are. On a 10+, you get what you want, and maybe a little extra. On a 7-9, you get what you want, but at some kind of cost or with a complication. On a 6 or less—a miss—the GM says what happens next, and chances are things get complicated for our young heroes.
Masks produces stories like those found in Young Justice, Teen Titans,Young Avengers, X-Men, and more, using the Powered by the Apocalypse rules to provide an easy but useful skeleton for awesome storytelling!
208 pages, ebook
Published September 1, 2016
5 people are currently reading
62 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
February 23, 2021
Masks, a superhero roleplaying game based on the Apocalypse World system, allows you to play a member of a teen super team. Generally, superhero RPGs get bogged down in lots of rules about how powers work. This system avoids that by focusing on the type of character you are playing rather than the types of powers you have. For example, you can be an outsider, a legacy, a transformed, and so on. Each type of character has it's own story arc, so as you play, you try to make progress on your arc. Also, this game puts a strong focus on character relationships, so there is an emphasis on team building during game play. Teams that work well together will perform better. Overall, I would say this is an excellent game for those who prefer a more narrative style of roleplaying.
January 2, 2021
One of my favourite RPGs to date. This RPG is completely narrative focussed and the core book is a very good read.
September 23, 2024
A really great ttrpg! Appealing not only as an excellent superhero game, but also as a teen drama. It’s absolutely perfect for playing a game inspired by Young Justice, Teen Titans, or Runaways.
In particular, I really like how the Moves work to support PC interactions, whether assisting each other during a fight or comforting each other afterward, influencing each other’s sense of self or adding points to the Team pool. My only wish is that there was a little more support for the GM in terms of generating play scenarios, such as villains, etc. Obviously, play to find out and all, but I felt a little uncertain how to begin. In some ways, this is just my own propensity for super low prep games though, and I’m not sure other GMs would have any problem with it.
In particular, I really like how the Moves work to support PC interactions, whether assisting each other during a fight or comforting each other afterward, influencing each other’s sense of self or adding points to the Team pool. My only wish is that there was a little more support for the GM in terms of generating play scenarios, such as villains, etc. Obviously, play to find out and all, but I felt a little uncertain how to begin. In some ways, this is just my own propensity for super low prep games though, and I’m not sure other GMs would have any problem with it.
February 10, 2019
The team focus of the game is interesting, though enough of the game is built around it that there's some friction if one tries to play a less team-oriented campaign. A few bits of it feel like they could use a little more polish, but two out of three of my (other) favorite RPGs (Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts) didn't reach their current levels of nigh-perfection until their second editions, and only a first edition of Masks is available so far. It's very impressive that it achieved this level of quality game design in a first edition.
The use of conditions as the damage/harm system in the game (with the physical effects being a matter of "the fiction", in the parlance of PBTA games) is very well thought out, works amazingly well in play, and brings a new twist to the PBTA philosophy of using rules to drive the fiction in the PBTA-characteristic elegant manner. Other aspects of the game mechanics are similarly indicative that Brendan Conway, the identified author of the game, really "gets it" with regard to what makes PBTA games so revolutionary amongst the legions of RPGs out there, in some ways more so than 1st edition World of Darkness games were in the late '80s and early '90s with their darker, edgier "storytelling" orientation.
Lately, I've been playing more Masks than anything else. It easily fits in the top echelon of my favorites along with Apocalypse World, Dread, and Monsterhearts, all of which focus well on their own particular focus-aspects of roleplaying.
The biggest problem I have with it is the fact that, in the first printing (which is what we have), the playbooks were not in the main rulebook, so I can only have them handy for reading if I print them out or have a device at my fingertips capable of displaying PDFs comfortably. The next printing apparently comes with the playbooks in it, in addition to PDF access, but as one of the households interested in the game from very early on we kinda missed the upgrade.
The use of conditions as the damage/harm system in the game (with the physical effects being a matter of "the fiction", in the parlance of PBTA games) is very well thought out, works amazingly well in play, and brings a new twist to the PBTA philosophy of using rules to drive the fiction in the PBTA-characteristic elegant manner. Other aspects of the game mechanics are similarly indicative that Brendan Conway, the identified author of the game, really "gets it" with regard to what makes PBTA games so revolutionary amongst the legions of RPGs out there, in some ways more so than 1st edition World of Darkness games were in the late '80s and early '90s with their darker, edgier "storytelling" orientation.
Lately, I've been playing more Masks than anything else. It easily fits in the top echelon of my favorites along with Apocalypse World, Dread, and Monsterhearts, all of which focus well on their own particular focus-aspects of roleplaying.
The biggest problem I have with it is the fact that, in the first printing (which is what we have), the playbooks were not in the main rulebook, so I can only have them handy for reading if I print them out or have a device at my fingertips capable of displaying PDFs comfortably. The next printing apparently comes with the playbooks in it, in addition to PDF access, but as one of the households interested in the game from very early on we kinda missed the upgrade.
February 14, 2017
Brendan Conway’s Masks is one of the best game texts for an Apocalypse World hack. There is a difficult line to walk with any RPG text (and especially with game systems that are common—for which the Apocalypse World engine surely qualifies) between giving enough information and too much information. The text of Masks does a great job of laying out what is needed to make the game’s mechanics spin and connect to create the young superheroes story that the game was made to tell. There are plentiful examples, and the moves are broken down to explain both their function and their intention. The world is fully but briefly laid out, and the thrust of each character playbook is summed up so that players don’t get distracted by the superpowers and not see the narrative role that each playbook assumes. I especially like the guides given for each character that tells the player what aspects of the character to embrace in order to get the best experience possible from the game.
All that information is presented in a reasonable order and beautifully to boot. The art is gorgeous and the layout makes reading and skimming to find information both easy and enjoyable. The GM section is thorough and the index is short but complete. In the GM section, I was particularly struck by the detail guidance given to running the first session. A lot of Apocalypse World hacks can give this section short shrift, but Masks’s section is simultaneously detailed and open, allowing the GM to create a wide range of stories but having a solid skeleton on which to hang the first game.
I am hoping to play the game itself soon, so I cannot talk to that aspect yet, but as a text, Masks is solid.
All that information is presented in a reasonable order and beautifully to boot. The art is gorgeous and the layout makes reading and skimming to find information both easy and enjoyable. The GM section is thorough and the index is short but complete. In the GM section, I was particularly struck by the detail guidance given to running the first session. A lot of Apocalypse World hacks can give this section short shrift, but Masks’s section is simultaneously detailed and open, allowing the GM to create a wide range of stories but having a solid skeleton on which to hang the first game.
I am hoping to play the game itself soon, so I cannot talk to that aspect yet, but as a text, Masks is solid.
December 4, 2017
Masks is an excellent game about young superheroes in the vein of Teen Titans and Young Justice. The game is based on the apocalypse engine, featuring some of the innovations that came from later PbtA games such as Dungeon World.
One curious feature of the games is that in the stead of attributes, the core ratings that you use for tasks are "labels", which describes how your characters views themselves (such as "savior" or "freak".) During the game, things can happen that changes these view.
The playbooks are a bit like quick play classes or templates from traditional games, but are less geared around your competencies than your problems. A Legacy deals with the image of those who carried their heroic legacy before them, where the Nova has to deal with the danger their powers presents to others.
The only reason I didn't rate this book at five stars was the curious choice to not have the playbooks included in the book itself. Today that doesn't matter, just go grab the playbooks from the websites. But I've been around long enough to know that these sorts of things often don't age well. When businesses change hands, publishers re-do their websites, etc., the ability to grab electronic content associated with a hardcopy becomes more troublesome than the text of the book might assume.
One curious feature of the games is that in the stead of attributes, the core ratings that you use for tasks are "labels", which describes how your characters views themselves (such as "savior" or "freak".) During the game, things can happen that changes these view.
The playbooks are a bit like quick play classes or templates from traditional games, but are less geared around your competencies than your problems. A Legacy deals with the image of those who carried their heroic legacy before them, where the Nova has to deal with the danger their powers presents to others.
The only reason I didn't rate this book at five stars was the curious choice to not have the playbooks included in the book itself. Today that doesn't matter, just go grab the playbooks from the websites. But I've been around long enough to know that these sorts of things often don't age well. When businesses change hands, publishers re-do their websites, etc., the ability to grab electronic content associated with a hardcopy becomes more troublesome than the text of the book might assume.
January 4, 2019
I played Masks at a con and had a great time without having read this book. Now that I read it, I can see where it all came from. Conway has a very clear vision about how Masks is best played, and with the play examples and design, there's a lot to learn about being a better GM both for Masks and other games.
I may update this review after I have a chance to GM!
I may update this review after I have a chance to GM!
October 13, 2017
Enjoyable read, great setting and advice. Now to see if I can successfully GM it . . .
Read
April 22, 2022Bundle of Holding purchase:
Masks: A New Generation is a game of teenage superheroes dealing with the two great problems of teenage superheroes: supervillains and themselves. Or: trying to figure out who they are and how they fit in the world, while also punching bank robbers and mole men.
This is Powered by the Apocalypse, so the mechanics are all around choosing a playbook (are you a legacy hero inheriting the mantle? A delinquent rebel trying to figure out how far is too far?, etc), and making moves that fit that playbook.
But also, since social combat is a thing, a lot of the damage that gets done (or a lot of the mechanics to track) is how you’re feeling and who has influence over whom.
This isn’t new exactly (or maybe I’ve just been swimming in this soup so long that things sound familiar), but I really dig it.
The other three books in the bundle (besides the core book and some separate reprints of the hero playbooks to make reference easier) are
Halcyon City Herald Collection — a bunch of articles and news about the standard setting of Halcyon City, building out the world with events and characters. It’s fine, but my big question is: why do people keep presenting this sort of book as if they are cut out from a newspaper and taped into a notebook? These days, this sort of collection should really just be a bunch of hyperlinks.
Secrets of AEGIS — an examination of the government agency tasked with dealing with supers in Halcyon City; so there’s files on some characters, some rules for playing a character associated with AEGIS (a setup that I feel pretty meh about), and a playset where monsters are taking over AEGIS (which I like more, go figure).
Unbound — a collection of four new playsets, all pretty standard comic book stuff: alien invasion, gritty neighborhood stories, super high school, and defending the universe against the world-eater — and that last premise doesn’t quite feel like a teen story. It’s all fine, but nothing here feels new enough to set me on fire, which is always an issue with comic book RPGs: they want to emulate the fiction, but that tends to keep things feeling well-trod.
Masks: A New Generation is a game of teenage superheroes dealing with the two great problems of teenage superheroes: supervillains and themselves. Or: trying to figure out who they are and how they fit in the world, while also punching bank robbers and mole men.
This is Powered by the Apocalypse, so the mechanics are all around choosing a playbook (are you a legacy hero inheriting the mantle? A delinquent rebel trying to figure out how far is too far?, etc), and making moves that fit that playbook.
But also, since social combat is a thing, a lot of the damage that gets done (or a lot of the mechanics to track) is how you’re feeling and who has influence over whom.
This isn’t new exactly (or maybe I’ve just been swimming in this soup so long that things sound familiar), but I really dig it.
The other three books in the bundle (besides the core book and some separate reprints of the hero playbooks to make reference easier) are
Halcyon City Herald Collection — a bunch of articles and news about the standard setting of Halcyon City, building out the world with events and characters. It’s fine, but my big question is: why do people keep presenting this sort of book as if they are cut out from a newspaper and taped into a notebook? These days, this sort of collection should really just be a bunch of hyperlinks.
Secrets of AEGIS — an examination of the government agency tasked with dealing with supers in Halcyon City; so there’s files on some characters, some rules for playing a character associated with AEGIS (a setup that I feel pretty meh about), and a playset where monsters are taking over AEGIS (which I like more, go figure).
Unbound — a collection of four new playsets, all pretty standard comic book stuff: alien invasion, gritty neighborhood stories, super high school, and defending the universe against the world-eater — and that last premise doesn’t quite feel like a teen story. It’s all fine, but nothing here feels new enough to set me on fire, which is always an issue with comic book RPGs: they want to emulate the fiction, but that tends to keep things feeling well-trod.
Read
October 17, 2021MASKS A New Generation is a Powered by the Apocolypse Game that is designed to create troubled superheroes. Something Powered by the Apolcolypse does well is force the players to ask questions, so having fractured, curious heroes makes a lot of sense. This marriage of concept and mechanics is what pushes this game beyond good and into wonderful.
MASKS gives you 10 arch-types, each with their own minor sub-goal: The Beacon, the hero excited to show the world their abilities, has goal to experience all kinds of entangling opportunites (from kissing a team member to pushing a villian too far). All of these are fairly interesting though, as with all things, all are not equal.
The DM’s job is simplified, allowing them to focus on the narrartive paths. They do not roll dice, only react to the rolls the players have. This creates a fairly interesting dynamic where once the players are set upon the scene, their job is then to connect the players actions to the next scene, not to make judgements or wiat for the players to move on naturally.
I think this game is fairly clever. A very good switch from the Dungons and Dragons tree that I learned under. I’m really excited to figure out what I missed in my minimal experience mentioned here.
MASKS gives you 10 arch-types, each with their own minor sub-goal: The Beacon, the hero excited to show the world their abilities, has goal to experience all kinds of entangling opportunites (from kissing a team member to pushing a villian too far). All of these are fairly interesting though, as with all things, all are not equal.
The DM’s job is simplified, allowing them to focus on the narrartive paths. They do not roll dice, only react to the rolls the players have. This creates a fairly interesting dynamic where once the players are set upon the scene, their job is then to connect the players actions to the next scene, not to make judgements or wiat for the players to move on naturally.
I think this game is fairly clever. A very good switch from the Dungons and Dragons tree that I learned under. I’m really excited to figure out what I missed in my minimal experience mentioned here.
April 4, 2022
First let me say that I haven’t really been a fan of PBTA games. Not that they are bad but I just find them very confusing and daunting the mechanics that is. But this game really drew me in. The writing is excellent crisp and descriptive and succinct. It really captures the feeling of young justice young avengers and other 18 genre superhero books very well. It’s really giving me some inspiration for my own solo gaming and overall imagination. So it’s worth it to me to have bought it just for the inspiration alone. But now I have to say that I might actually play the game which again is pretty amazing to me because I just kind powered by the apocalypse games to be daunting. But now I’m willing to give it another shot. I will say that I do really like the idea and concept of narrative driven games. And I’d also say that the playbooks in this game are absolutely usable as background builders for characters and other superhero games. So even if I don’t play this game I’ll be hacking it for character creation and development. For example my beloved character Ocelot has always bugged me that I don’t have a decent background for him or even sometimes a sufficient motivation. So I can totally see hacking this game to bring in some more lashing out for him. Anyway great game I highly recommend it.
August 6, 2017
A great concept (teen heroes! teen angst! exploring and defining and fighting for your personality! as a teen!), what reads as a good adaptation of the Powered by the Apocalypse system, and well-written.
My only critique (without having actually played it) is that the text depends too much on having the playbooks at hand to understand them. I'm find with having the core playbooks off to the side as a separate download, but I'd much rather have had abbreviated versions in this book as well to better fit in with the explanations. I'd have also like to see a few more examples of how different heroes could be structured against the common playbook archetypes.
But those are mostly quibbles to keep it from perfection. Overall, a great job.
My only critique (without having actually played it) is that the text depends too much on having the playbooks at hand to understand them. I'm find with having the core playbooks off to the side as a separate download, but I'd much rather have had abbreviated versions in this book as well to better fit in with the explanations. I'd have also like to see a few more examples of how different heroes could be structured against the common playbook archetypes.
But those are mostly quibbles to keep it from perfection. Overall, a great job.
July 31, 2023
This seems to be a really elegant "powered by the apocalypse" RPG. The book is sharp and to the point, and gives great inspiration.
If you want a taste of the RPG system, I can recommend the actual play series "Cape Chronicles"
This really gave me a great companion podcast while trying to grok the system.
http://www.projectderailed.com/cape-c...
If you want a taste of the RPG system, I can recommend the actual play series "Cape Chronicles"
This really gave me a great companion podcast while trying to grok the system.
http://www.projectderailed.com/cape-c...
April 2, 2021
I mean Getting Into It on this book review platform seems incorrect since its, a game, but. Very good system, really cool, the mechanics and theming flow into each other super super well.
September 5, 2023
Good but confusing! I'm running my first game and I wish I had more experience. This book is super helpful and I made a great villain!
December 6, 2023
A very cool system, a very imaginative universe and it left me hyped to prepare a small campaing
February 7, 2017
So, I think I'm more-or-less happy with kickstarting this, but as an RPG it's more like a book one of a setting sourcebook series rather than its own self-contained game. I've gone through it a couple of times and still feel like I'm missing pieces, and while the downloads helped somewhat, overall I don't feel confident I "get" the system. It's possible it's just me, but this is a rare feeling for me, and I've not really bumped into it with other RPG books. Usually after a couple of re-reads, I have a lightbulb moment and get it. I've enjoyed non-mechanics RPGs before (I adored Everway), so it's not the lack of structured framework, but rather the lack of clarity in what to do, exactly, with the framework that is put forth in the book, which isn't aided by the way it sort of jumps around and doesn't really flow from a "where you start" to "how you play" path.
It'll likely stay on my shelf, which is okay. Bonus points for the dusting of queer inclusion in the art, and this is my first real kickstarted project that left me a little 'meh,' so it's not the end of the world.
It'll likely stay on my shelf, which is okay. Bonus points for the dusting of queer inclusion in the art, and this is my first real kickstarted project that left me a little 'meh,' so it's not the end of the world.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews