Masks: A New Generation – Superhero Tabletop RPG | Story-Driven Roleplaying Game for Teens and Adults [Paperback]

by Brendan G. Conway, Mark Diaz Truman (Editor), Amanda Valentine (Editor)

A giant robot is smashing down Main Street. Your best friend tried to kiss you. Your mom thinks your grades need work. Your mentor thinks your team is bringing you down. Oh, and your costume is ripped. Just another day in Halcyon City. A New Generation is an ENnie-award winning superhero roleplaying game in which a team of young heroes fights villains, saves lives, and tries to figure out who they are noble paragons? Dark avengers? Or regular kids? All against the backdrop of Halcyon City, the greatest city in the world. In this book, you
- Ten playbooks for young superheroes, so you can create your own awesome characters
- Rules for superheroic action, interpersonal drama, and changing identity
- Detailed instructions for running the game, building villains, and playing to find out what happens
- Tools for creating your own custom material for Masks Masks makes use of the same rules-light engine as Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Dungeon World, Urban Shadows , and Epyllion to create stories about young superheroes in the vein of Young Justice, Young Avengers, and Teen Titans. So what're you waiting for, hero? Time to get to work.

Genres: Role Playing Games

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superhero TRRPG. Seems epic

[cauldronofevil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like Charlie Brown trying to kick a football I keep buying Superhero RPGs hoping to find something that will play well. Despite the fact that I know no one who would even be remotely interested.

The disaster that is Sentinel comics the RPG I still like reading them and still hope to see some fresh ideas. At least until I get to ‘roll a handful of dice and count successes’ at which point I can tell that little thought has gone into the game.

But even being based “Powered by the Apocalypse” I’m willing to give it a chance.

The book is a digest sized book, which is much appreciated. Glossy pages, which is less so. I can’t say much about the illustrations because there is not very much of it and I don’t think very much of it. It’s not quite comic books illustration but sort of like an ‘attempt’ a comic book illustration that falls a little short. It appears to all be character illustrations giving the book a pretty bland appearance. Not fatal but not interesting or evocative. All the costumes look like work-out clothes to me.

The cover is the closest thing to a comic book scene in the book by.

The Preface starts by telling you the game is specifically geared towards young superheroes and the life changes that they will go through in addition to the fighting crime and all. It’s a slightly different take that I can appreciate.

The City it describes Halycon city - a sort of Metropolis/New York type city that is the center of superhero activity. I’ve seen nothing so far to convince me that this is either a necessary or interesting part of the game. Of course, if a city is going to be important to your game - a map of the city is required. And not provided here.

Generations tells about the history of superheroes and pretty much mirrors the generations of comic books with a ‘golden’, ‘silver’, bronze’ and ‘modern’ age. Again this seems superfluous unless they are trying to setup up a ‘Generation Gap’ type conflict.

”The Basics” on page 27 starts the how to play the game section.

”Moves and Dice” is the section where they encourage you to think of your character as an avatar in a computer game rather than a thinking human being. Your ‘Moves’ are what you have been programmed to do rather than free will or imagination.

‘Fiction first’ is the phrase that means you don’t get to decide what happens before you roll on a table. Before it was called ‘fiction first’ it was called ‘roll-playing’.

”If you have an idea for a particular kind of character, talk with your GM and you’re group to see if it makes sense for the playbook—chances are, there’s a way to make it work.”

That’s a far cry from ‘This is a superhero RPG - make any kind of character you see in comic books!’.

”Conditions” are better done in Masks that I’ve seen them in any other PBTA game. You can get Angry, Afraid, Guilty, Hopeless and Insecure. Having these conditions modify various Moves you can take (-2). Clearing these Conditions require doing some appropriate, for instance, if you are Guilty, you must make a sacrifice to absolve your guilt. Simple, straightforward and most of all PLAYABLE. It will encourage role-playing, but also matter enough that players will care about them.

”Label Shifting and Conditions” however takes it a bit too far. You actually modify your Labels (Stats in other games) up and down according to various roll results. If dad is telling you you’re a great hero, your Savior stat could go up. I understand what the rules are trying to do, it just doesn’t seem to be a very believable way to affect superheroes - even teenage superheroes. Because while we know this is the heroes self-image, it is also their effectiveness in fighting crime.

”Potential” is experience points, which in this case you ONLY get when you fail a roll (roll 6 or less). So I guess the idea is that the more you fail, the more you learn. Philosophically that sounds fine. At the table however, isn’t this going to cause people to do more dumb things in more dumb ways because the more they fail, the better they get? I can’t imagine it wont (see Runequest.)

”Session Move” has every single player at the end of every single session either grow closer to someone (either clear a condition or mark potential), shift one stat up and one stat down or grow further away from someone (removing their influence over you).

So you either gain XP no matter what you did during the game (or heal), rearrange your stats, or remove someone’s influence so they can’t rearrange your stats. Every. Game. Session. Every. Player.

”Chapter 5: The Masks” give the ‘playbooks’ for characters.

The Beacon is a non-powered superhero who is trying to prove he belongs on a super team - even without powers.

The Bull is a very violent strong person with a heart of gold.

The Delinquent is a trouble-maker/class clown/non-conformist. You are still a hero, just also a pain-in-the-ass.

It is annoying that these descriptions are not the full ‘playbook’. They name the moves but don’t really describe them. I know you can download and print them but I’ll be really pissed if they aren’t also printed in the book!

The Doomed is more or less Raven from the Teen Titans. You are doomed to die, but you have awesome powers until then.

The Janus is a hero that wants to keep their heroic and secret identity separate. Isn’t that every hero?

The Legacy is the hero inheriting the mantle of a previous hero and trying to live up to their standards.

The Nova is about someone incredibly powerful that has to keep it in check.

The Outsider is the freak or alien in the bunch, trying to fit into normal society.

The Protege is the same as the Legacy. You have a mentor who is training you. No idea why they are considered different. Big disadvantage not having the playbook in the rules!!! }:{

The Transformed is for the character who is a hideous monster and how you deal with it.

”Fight Scenes” has a very effective sample of the players and the GM in play. It works really well. I’m not positive it would work in real life, but it illustrates how the game works very well.

”Villain Moves” screams how this game doesn’t really work because rather than give the villain super powers that they can use for their ends, you’re told to give them ‘moves’ which is how they use their powers. Okay sure. But it seems a very laborious way to work. Am I sharing the moves across villains that have the same powers? No, because they aren’t likely to have the same motivations. So I have to create different moves for each and every villain. Doable but tedious and error prone. It also doesn’t really reflect the comics. “Snap the annoyances neck” is a move that several villains will have. Yet you can’t really do that unless you just infer that in another move.

”Condition Moves” however are much more interesting and useful. They give suggestions on the kind of things a Villain might due if under the conditions of Afraid, Angry, Guilty, Hopeless and Insecure and definitely add more playability to these types of conditions.

”Behind the Masks” gives ways for the GM to screw the players depending on what archetype they chose.

Unfortunately reading them reveals how much railroading the game is supposed to be. You have superhero character classes that aren’t just ‘archetypes’ (speedster, brick, energy projector, etc.) but your personality, desires and the type of conflicts you will face are pre-destined.

This has bothered me about most PBTA games. They’re not just telling you how to GM and telling you how to role-play. They’re making it mandatory. I can see that some groups could really benefit from that. I just don’t think I’d want to play with those people.

Another example (page 176) makes it very clear that the players MUST buy into the idea that these are kids that can be kicked around by adults. This makes sense for this game, but players I know will fight to the death.

”Building Hooks” talks about hooks in terms of two characters that present different sides of the characters (and therefore make their stats go up and down b their opinion). For example Freak vs Mundane.

”This pairing is about fitting in, usually focusing on one or two angles either the PC is especially strange, notably different from the people around them, and unsure if they’ll ever fit it…. Or they’re especially normal, and they don’t feel different enough.”

Uh, okay. So what interesting happens at the table?

The one example they do have just says to get these two opposing NPCs with the PC. Then what?


Chapter 10: Custom Moves is a really useful guide to creating your own moves for your game. I haven’t seen this anywhere else is very well done.

Spin-Offs is another unique and very useful section which gives alternative ways to use existing rules. Spendable Influence, Custom Conditions, Harm Faster Advancement and. Team Stat I’d like to see more of these. Much more preferable to the usual ‘do whatever you want’ guidelines.

This RPG is consistently rated at being excellent at capturing superheroes with teen angst, but I can’t see it at all. All it really does it have your statistics go up and down in response to NPCs and the results of moves.

The superpowers are completely hand-waved with only vague guidelines rather pigeon holding you based on what class you choose. Of course, it’s not meant to be a ‘generic’ superhero RPG.

The lack of actually seeing the playbooks is a crippling defect however and will put this at no more than 1 star.

[Ryan Beck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have you ever noticed that superhero combat is really just a thematic, emotional debate that ends with a dramatic attack which basically serves as the period ending their conversation? Masks noticed, and has developed their entire game around this concept of emotional conflict. By using this emotional battle, characters like Spiderman can effectively battle Superman by making him question why he fights, and make him give up before he ruins the city and just makes things worse. Centering the conflict around the psychology of the characters throws the balance of powers out the window, allowing the players to choose powers that have drastically different power levels while still maintaining similar levels of effectiveness. With the abundance of superhero role-playing games out there, such as Mutants and Masterminds, Champion, and DC Heroes just to name a few, this focus on the emotional aspect of roleplaying really makes the game stand out.

However, the game's setting is a superhero high school, like My Hero Academia, Teen Titans, or Young Justice. the game's mechanics assumes that there are adults who are better than you who are telling you what to do, and that there are friends who have influence over you who want to pressure you into changing who you are. To me this is just one more innovative element of the game.

There are a dozen other innovations that all fit together. Things like the fact that only the players roll dice, and the GM attacks when the players fail, or the fact that the players can adjust one another's stats in the middle of combat to reflect the mood, situation, and relationship to the other characters. By focusing on the drama of the fight in a dramatic fight, instead of the power of the fight itself, Masks manages to encourage players to choose the most dramatic option, as the GM might not even let the player roll unless the description is compelling and bold, or they can just declare the player succeeds based on what they are attempting to do. This decision helps players focus on the reasoning and emotionality of their performance over their stats and generally strengthens the acting and performance aspects of play. Many games tend to focus on the tactical aspects of gaming, relatively few instead design themselves around bringing out the emotions that brought players to the table in the first place. I now consider Masks one of my very favorite systems, and I hope more games come out with similar innovative and charming gameplay.

[Aaron Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better late iterations of PbtA sensibilities, deemphasizing the super powers and emphasizing the interpersonal.

I have some qualms, but will need to see it in okay to know if they hold water.

[Nano Villa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un sistema muy completo, cada vez me enamoró más de los sistemas apocalypse en los juegos de rol <3

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite ttrpgs of all time, which is saying something since I'm not usually a superhero person.