Masks rpg pdf download

Masks rpg pdf download

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WebIn this book, you get: Ten playbooks for young superheroes, so you can create your own characters. Rules for superheroic action, interpersonal drama, and changing identity. WebMasks: A New Generation is a superhero tabletop roleplaying game full of action, youthful angst, and dazzling bravery. Take on the roles of members of the latest generation of WebDOCUMENTS. MASKS Playbooks - The 10 Original starting playbooks (PDF format); MASKS Core Rulebook - The Rulebook (PDF format); MASKS Limited Edition WebDownload & View Masks - blogger.com as PDF for free. More details. Words: 52,; Pages: ; Preview; Full text; UNBOUND is the third supplement for MASKS: A WebCheck masks rpg game from William Hoffman II here. Like masks rpg game? Just add masks rpg game of William Hoffman II to My Favorites. Embed masks rpg game to ... read more

The young heroes may stage daring raids to destroy crucial Tangee equipment. They may sabotage prison transports and undermine Tangee propaganda. What they do is ultimately up to them. One of the main tasks sitting before the heroes in Iron Red Soldiers is to rescue the adult heroes from the clutches of the Tangee, for example. The PCs need to gather intel on their location, uncover what the security is like there, and decide what equipment they need to pull off a rescue. CLOAKSS, DAGGR, and A. can help with this, but at a cost. Such aid exposes the humans within those organizations to retaliation from the Tangee. Those humans may be captured and tortured, or they may have to go further underground to escape.

And the PCs have to escape the notice of the Tangee themselves, staying off the radar enough so as not to be caught up in the occasional roundups by the avians. Those captured by the Tangee have been traumatized, defeated, and left shadows of their former selves. Their powers may have been drained to make them less of a threat. The Digital Allied Group Gathering Reconnaissance DAGGR is the eyes and ears of the Tangee resistance. DAGGR can supply the team with much needed insider intel but, as they are hiding in plain sight, may become suspect if the PCs use that intel too often. Citizens Looking Out for Aliens and Keeping Supers Safe CLOAKSS is like the old Underground Railroad. CLOAKSS citizens can keep the team hidden and even get rescued supers the help they need, but all CLOAKSS agents put themselves at risk with every action they take. Members of both groups are unlikely to betray the young heroes intentionally. But the families and coworkers and neighbors of CLOAKSS and DAGGR members are not so reliable.

Finally, A. With the first line of defense against superhuman threats mostly gone, A. has its hands full guarding the world and doing its best to protect Halcyon City from villains. Many claim that A. has become overtly corrupt ever since reaching an agreement with the Tangee, but the truth is that A. has, like always, oriented itself around doing the best it can in a bad situation. So it has agreed to not overtly interfere with the Tangee, as long as the Tangee do not interfere with A. operations or assume full dominion over Halcyon City and the Earth. All of the standard playbooks work the way they do in other MASKS campaigns, but some require a bit of special consideration to make them work to their best advantage. The Beacon acts as a ray of hope and delight, even amid the darkness of the Iron Red Soldiers world. THE BULL This playbook is largely unchanged. If the Bull was in school, they should continue to attend. The Delinquent is practically pre-built for an underground rebellion.

Think a bit about why the Delinquent has not yet been apprehended as a dangerous element, however. Have they only just begun to fight in earnest? Or have they been in hiding ever since the occupation began? THE DOOMED This playbook is largely unchanged. Their doom can still be in play as normal, although it may be even more pressing without the aid of any adult superheroes or powerful organizations to keep it at bay. If the Tangee found out about a Doomed whose doom threatens more than just themselves, the aliens would be sure to imprison that Doomed in a heartbeat, so the Doomed should try to stay under the radar. In regular MASKS, the Janus keeps their lives separate to keep their friends and family safe from the repercussions of their superheroic life. THE LEGACY This playbook is still built as normal—their legacy existed up to the Tangee invasion, and members of the legacy likely tried to fight back, especially in the Battle of Halcyon.

Interpret that member of your legacy to have been active prior to the Tangee invasion. Now, that person has been captured and held by the Tangee. Otherwise, the Legacy has access to their moves related to their legacy either through those members who are free, or through flashbacks. THE NOVA This playbook is largely unchanged in mechanics, but their place in Halcyon is even more strained. If the Nova unleashes the full extent of their powers, blowback may come as much from detection as from straightforward collateral damage. THE OUTSIDER This playbook is largely unchanged. The only caveat to keep in mind is that the Outsider should not be a Tangee. Instead, play a member of another alien species that either opposes the Tangee or acts as an outside observer to the Tangee.

When one of the PCs looks for an opportunity to flashback to a prior scene with an important character, the GM sets the scene of the flashback by relating it to their current circumstances. If the PC is looking for advice on how to defeat a dangerous villain, then they should flashback to a training session, or the aftermath of a prior combat. The GM controls the circumstances, but should build on existing fiction and characters wherever possible. Inside the flashback, the PC can make moves as per usual—and the consequences of these moves should affect the PC as normal. If they mark a condition during the flashback, they mark that condition in the present. If they shift Labels during the flashback, they shift Labels on their character sheet as normal. Having the flashback, recalling those moments, recalls those emotions. Close the flashback as soon as the scene ends and return to the present. Since your mentor is almost certainly one of the heroes effective in and capable of contending with the Tangee, they have been dealt with far earlier.

The Protégé has access to their moves through flashbacks and memories—feel free to set up scenes when the Protégé recalls an instance with their mentor that then affects their Labels today. This makes them an obvious target. The Transformed should think about what they do to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from Tangee sweeps. The Brain: Are you the threat the Tangee is looking for? Is one of your creations the real danger that made the Tangee move against Earth? Your shame is still out there, and almost certainly tied into this larger conflict.

The Harbinger: You might come from right around the same time as the disaster that spurred the Tangee to action. Investigate while fighting. The Nomad: You need a very strong reason to tie you to a Halcyon City in mid-alien occupation. or what have you. make good options, too. Oh, and your supervillain parent is almost certainly active and free. The Soldier: A. is still around and active, but focused on dealing with more immediate threats than the Tangee. So why are you assigned to this team? How does A. S think of it? The Star: This playbook is all about celebrity and the public eye, which makes it totally unsuited for the secret, covert war of Iron Red Soldiers. Leave it out.

This playset shifts the game from a four-color city full of wonders and amazing moments as well as dangerous villains and heart-breaking drama into a broken city, essentially subjugated by a cool, calm, and potentially righteous alien foe. The characters are still heroes, but the fight that lies before them is that much bigger, that much more dire, and that much harsher than in normal MASKS. Because of that tonal shift, before you start playing Iron Red Soldiers, have a conversation with your players. Make sure that the themes of loss, persecution, resistance, and hard choices are ones they all enthusiastically want to deal with. Remember that your players are more important than the game. If a player would rather not play with something, some theme or crime or possible threat, feel free to leave it out. html ALLIES Throughout a game of Iron Red Soldiers, the PCs receive assistance from three organizations: CLOAKSS, DAGGR, and A. But these organizations cannot win the struggle—ultimately, that burden falls upon the PCs.

At best, they can provide aid and assistance some number of times, and as they do they will be weakened, reduced, or targeted by enemy forces. If the PCs rely upon them too much, these organizations will be diminished to nothing. To track this, each organization has its own countdown clock, a circle split into segments. Each countdown clock should have the same number of segments, and you can adjust that number based on your desires for your campaign. A longer campaign might hold up to ten segments per clock, and a shorter one, only three or four. Using more segments relieves pressure from the PCs and allows the campaign to stretch on for longer, while using fewer segments puts them under pressure far sooner. You can indicate the general strength of the organizations and the status of these clocks through your description and moves, and you can even directly tell the PCs that an organization verges on the brink of collapse, but do not show them the actual clocks and their segments. After receiving countless worried text messages, Egret, the Janus, calls home from a secret DAGGR base to reassure his mom that he is safe.

He makes the comfort or support move, and rolls a 5—a miss. The GM decides that his mom is comforted… but HUAC can track his call and moves to capture the base. It might be utterly destroyed by the Tangee or depleted of resources to the point where it cannot affect the world meaningfully anymore. Follow the fiction to dictate the exact circumstances. For certain, it can no longer assist the characters. The PCs cannot restore the segments of an organization that has already fallen and filled in all segments of its clock, however. MISSIONS The central drive of the players will be to fight back against the Tangee somehow, and to achieve that end they can undertake missions against the Tangee and HUAC. These missions are a bit more regimented than standard MASKS play, in that they have an objective before the PCs set out, and they can certainly either succeed or fail at that objective.

If the PCs do not currently have a mission, they can choose as a group to start a new mission. Majority rules here—if the majority of PCs agree to the mission, then they start it, even if they have dissenters. But the players are encouraged to provoke someone and pierce the mask to try to get the others to agree! They can also agree to scrap their current mission and start a new one, but if they do, they lose all progress made towards the scrapped mission— they have to start from scratch. This is the goal of the mission, the positive effect they hope to achieve.

Their goals should be smaller. Freeing their neighborhood. Downing a single dangerous ship. Freeing an adult hero. As they gain more intelligence or fulfill other requirements, you can reveal additional requirements to them—but only when the fiction makes it make sense. The point here is for you to outline what the PCs need to undertake the mission successfully—both the baseline components they need to even undertake the mission, and the necessary additional components to succeed. For example, if the PCs want to rescue Champion, they need to know where Champion is being held, first. And even knowing his location, they likely need a security pass or disguises to get inside the facility. with a new Tangee weapon. Follow the fiction when you fill in these mission requirements—go with what makes sense—but do not choose more than five requirements. The more requirements a mission has, the harder and more dangerous it is—keep that in mind. Try to choose the number of requirements at the time the PCs state their mission and stick to it.

You may not reveal every requirement at that moment—the PCs should only know about the requirements that they could actually anticipate or plan for based on the fiction—but you should have a clear number of requirements in mind. This gives you some space to adapt the mission to the fiction. In rare circumstances, you can expand the number of requirements and add another requirement during play. For example, if the PCs screw up spectacularly and reveal themselves and their intentions, then the Tangee might step up security, so the GM might want to add a whole new requirement to the overarching mission. But you should only do so in exceptional circumstances— otherwise, try to keep to the originally chosen set of requirements.

If you have unrevealed or unchosen requirements, you can always adapt those to the new situation, instead of adding a whole new requirement. You can also always choose to introduce new fictional elements to the final missions, without them being actual requirements. Think of the requirements as the problems the PCs really must solve before going on the mission. If they fulfill a requirement over the course of regular play, mark it off. Follow the fiction—if they happen to stumble on a solution without meaning to, then you should still mark the requirement off.

I take a bit of time to think about the requirements for the mission. First, they need to know where HUAC has him, of course—they currently only know that he is being held, not where. Fourth, they need a weapon to depower the new mechsuits that the Tangee have given to HUAC—those things are dangerously powerful, with advanced sensor suites, so they have almost no way of getting in and out undetected if those things are up and running. I figure that once the PCs accomplish the first requirement, and find out where he is being held, then I can fill in the fifth requirement based on that location. I list my chosen four requirements and a fifth empty slot in my notes, and I fill the PCs in on the first—that they need to know where Champion is being held—and the fourth—that they need to find a way past the mechsuits.

The PCs start talking about how to fulfill some of these requirements, maybe by stealing missives from the desk of their school principal, a known HUAC commander, to find out where Champion is being held. I cut to the next day at school, where the Janus and the Protégé are in class and the Delinquent is smoking on the school roof, so they can hatch whatever schemes and tomfoolery they have in mind to secure those plans. can all provide assistance by giving the PCs required resources. If the PCs ask the officers of those organizations for aid, then they can and will assist by fulfilling a requirement.

provides armor, weapons, vehicles, and combat training. When they fulfill all mission requirements, the PCs are ready to undertake the mission. Play it out as per normal MASKS play. If the PCs have not fulfilled all mission requirements, they can still undertake the mission assuming they have the bare minimum of requirements, such as knowing the location of an individual they seek to rescue —but doing so is dangerous. First of all, remove one Team from the pool at the start of the mission for each unfulfilled requirement. Make hard every requirement except for and direct moves whenever that obtaining a guard schedule. When they assess the situation, they only find out about the patrols moments before the guards are actually upon them. Introduce the new cruiser floating above, indicating complication in the middle of the that major Tangee lieutenants are mission when they cannot simply here at the facility right now. back out.

mission indicating betrayal! or was simply prepared in case, they have weapons, tools, allies, and hostages suited to the PCs. The mission surrounded by mechsuits, with the should almost certainly end with HUAC general revealing he has at least one of the PCs captured. They demand surrender, immediately. They have different castes, soldiers, scientists, workers, lawgivers, etc. But the different castes also exist in friction with each other. The warriors vie against the lawgivers, the scientists against the spies, and so on. In the heat of the moment, a squad may break down as different castes push for their own methodologies. Make a Tangee character the same way you would make any MASKS villain, including a drive, conditions, and moves. For their moves, focus on technological powers, trickery, and political maneuvers. Here is an example Tangee character: Eminence of the Fleet Kheit of the Infernal Territory, the de jure leader of Tangee forces on Earth.

While here ostensibly to save existence itself from the timequake, Kheit is really here to obey orders and fulfill the duty given to them by their superior. If they were to receive new orders, they would abandon their current mission without hesitation. Throw them in, especially early on, when they can act with a freer hand—the only force that opposes them at this point is A. Villains make great temporary allies and surprising threats. Maybe the villain endangers a bus full of nuns while the PCs try to get away from a Tangee squad. Use them as supporting characters to help flesh out the full situation.

MIRED IN THE MUCK OF HALCYON As what should have been a case of a giant squashing an ant drags on, the Tangee grow more and more desperate to handle this situation once and for all. Use this. Make harder and harder moves as the campaign wears on and the Tangee become more and more frustrated. Make the tough choices tougher. Let the PCs find an individual Tangee willing to help them for a price. This clock has six segments, and every time the Tangee suffer a substantial blow or setback, mark off the next segment. They try to remain talonsoff. Example moves: Make an offer of technological aid to the citizens of Halcyon city; put out a public display of Tangee-human cooperation; push responsibility for solving a problem onto human authorities.

They still shy away from more direct, aggressive action, except in rare, necessary, isolated circumstances. They deploy their forces across the city, openly supplementing their allies and attacking their enemies. They conscript villains to their cause, and they begin fighting back against any actions they deem as an attack. They no longer pretend at all that the humans are in charge of Halcyon City. Example moves: Deploy a superhuman villain into a dangerous situation; issue a new draconian edict; publicly capture a dangerous individual. Signs of their infighting begin to spill out, along with an ever-increasing brutality from their forces as they get pushed to desperation. They still hold out hope to determine the source of the disaster and put a stop to it, but they consider more and more extreme tactics, from rounding up all metahumans on the planet and transporting them to an offworld prison to time-locking Halcyon City forever.

This clock is not used to track whether or not the Tangee are defeated—it instead represents how desperate they are. Fully defeating the Tangee is a monumental undertaking, requiring them to be driven to the point of desperation while the PCs accrue allies and equipment for a final push against the Tangee. That ultimate victory is something best left to discover during play. But there are new elements to consider when GMing a game with this playset. IRON RED SOLDIERS: AGENDA There is one new agenda that shapes how Iron Red Soldiers ultimately plays out. If they make too big a splash, they become targets. Make sure their choices, no matter how small, have weight. A key member gets hauled in. Steal a list of important prisoners from a Tangee vessel? Expect a demonstration of Tangee brutality against the people of Halcyon City in retribution. MAKE THEM THINK ABOUT THE PEOPLE AROUND THEM Show their families being dogged by police working for the Tangee.

Show sweeps that pick up resistors. Show searches that turn up evidence of connections to heroes, whether real or manufactured, that put their allies and their families in jeopardy. MAKE THEM FEEL TIME PRESSURE Every choice, every opportunity, every threat has a ticking clock attached. If they hear a request for help from CLOAKSS and refuse to help out, then someone important gets taken captive. This time, after HUAC traces their most recent mission back to their school, another student gets hauled in for a few hours and released. Next time, a teacher gets roughed up. Then, a family member gets held for weeks. Finally, their best friend at school becomes the victim of a new Tangee brainwashing technique. Ramp up the stakes more and more and more as time passes. These do not replace any existing moves; they give you more options. GIVE THEM A HARD CHOICE Go to school—and allay suspicion—or go on a mission?

Protect a friend and expose themselves or stay quiet and hidden? Save their friends or save their family? Present them with two equally terrible, mutually exclusive options, and make them pick which way they go. ECHO PAST CHOICES Did they previously choose to go to school? Later, reveal that while they stayed in class, the Tangee successfully rooted out a DAGGR server base and took it captive. Did they choose to go on the mission? Their principal, a HUAC sympathizer, shows up at their home asking hard questions. Every choice they make has repercussions down the line, so show those consequences. OFFER THEM COSTLY HELP CLOAKSS, DAGGR, and A. provide help to the heroes—but they are stretched thin, and any time they help, they put themselves in danger.

The rescued mentors and adult heroes may be able to provide help, but any real aid puts those adults at great risk or taxes their weakened powers. But when they help, every time, the PCs should be reminded of the cost of that help. An attempt to evacuate a CLOAKSS base is complicated when a couple of known supervillains go on a rampage outside. FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT Iron Red Soldiers presents a grim situation, but not one without hope. The PCs can free the heroes of the older generations. They can take out Tangee resources. In the end, after much struggle, they can drive the Tangee from their home. Any game using this playset should never lose sight of that hope. While the heroes may be up for a far greater fight than they have ever faced before, they can still come through victorious. Good luck, heroes. The Titan Elixir he created in his youth made him powerful, smart, and apparently nigh immortal. His heart may be weary, but his body is not.

In his time in Halcyon City, he saw the rise of public supers. He watched the creation of organizations like A. He witnessed firsthand the major attacks, the city-endangering incidents, the world-threatening calamities. Some of them, he stopped himself. Some of them, he caused—though he claims he had a good reason for each one. And all in all, as he looks upon the city to which he devoted his entire life, he is far from certain that it is a good place. Some things are better, for sure, but so much remains broken. Halcyon is a place of unending instability, a city constantly interrupted by time-traveling demons and magical sentient dinosaurs alike. Life continues, it adapts and reshapes to fit those circumstances…but at what cost? What if the morally gray A. had never been needed? The idea was inescapable.

Perhaps even his own superheroic efforts were as much a part of the problem as they were part of the solution. Perhaps the answer did not lie in solving the problems of the present, but in fundamentally averting the core problem, lodged in the past. And when the idea fully took root within his prodigious mind, Bryce began to act. To plan. To build. Soon enough, he hatched his plans and inadvertently created a whole new world—one that he had never wanted. His own memories were scrambled by the transition, his blueprints and diagrams lost to the vagaries of intertemporal shifting. He believes he must have had help from some kind of vastly powerful extradimensional entity, but he has no idea who or what that entity would be. No one on Earth noticed—the Shift created what amounts to an artificial dimension, a kind of pocket universe in which all things are contained.

And that was the key change of the Shift—a new timeline. The Shift stripped the world of its lineage of superpowers and superheroes. It stripped it of the invasions from space and the metahuman law enforcement agencies. It stripped it of the superheroic. No Flying Freedom. No Champion. No Quintessence. No aliens, no time travelers, no interdimensional monsters, no sorcerers. None of it. Where aliens never found the planet, where magic was just too weak to matter, where the brilliant minds of Halcyon City either never arose or were just a shade more limited in scope of imagination and intelligence, and so on and so forth.

Where the impossible stayed just that—impossible. Some minor vestiges remained. Costumed vigilantes with exceptional skill still arose sometimes, often matching up with their counterparts from the unshifted timeline. The Haunt, Pretty Penny, Mr. Street—they all cropped up at one time or another. Many restricted their efforts to isolated neighborhoods. Most were ultimately captured by the police or retired after a few years of costumed nonsense. And in its place grew the Spiderweb. Without heroes to oppose them, they seized the control that escaped them in the original timeline. Simon Seagrim—the Scarlet Songbird in the original timeline—became the master of the Rows. These crime lords turned politicians into puppets and cops into enforcers.

They took Halcyon City and remade it into a city darkened by corruption and greed, by crime and violence. But their wars with each other kept any one of them from ever gaining dominance over the city. They built power and influence, but there was an endless turnover as new, up-and-coming crime lords deposed the old. And, thankfully, no one ever took full control. No one until Sebastian Ibañez. THE SPIDER ARRIVES Sebastian was an enforcer in Las Plagas, a powerful cartel with a foothold in Halcyon. He was smart. Cautious when the situation demanded it. Bold when opportunity struck. The boss of Las Plagas, Max Chicote known as Plaga Roja in the original timeline , took Sebastian in as a favored son and protégé. Sebastian, however, decided to take power instead of waiting for it to be handed to him. His takeover of Las Plagas was near bloodless. Where he could, he won their loyalty with promises, promotions, and persuasion. And if nothing worked, only then would Sebastian remove his opposition.

So one by one, person by person, Sebastian earned control over Las Plagas. And when the vast majority of Las Plagas answered to him anyway, he told Max Chicote that the time of Las Plagas was over. He offered Max his choice of end, be it in pitched battle or quiet and peaceful. When Max chose to go quietly in his sleep, Sebastian honored his wish. With that Sebastian was in charge of his own organization—his Spiderweb. Halcyon knew a fair amount of chaos in those days, as the existing powers tried to fight back. Halcyon, for the most part, now answered to Sebastian, and the Spider as he had come to be known demanded his own kind of order. Not the order of laws or community. The order of iron fists and cold lead. The order of the Spider.

No Spike. No caped heroes rocketing through the skies. No sounds of distant battle echoing down the streets like thunder. People wear false smiles and cautious looks. They peek carefully around corners. They pull their coats tighter around them at night. They worry about their jobs, their families, and their futures. They worry so much it makes them sick. The city bubbles with a sense of danger. The people who live there learn to accept it, but newcomers feel it acutely. And sometimes, even if you are. THE STATUS QUO The Halcyon City of the post-Shift timeline is a battleground. The Spider imposes order where he can, but his rule is constantly challenged. His rivals vie with him and each other for power. They fight in the shadows, in back alleys and side spaces. Everyone knows, if you step out of line, you answer to the Spider. If you put up a fight, you answer to the Spider. If you try to change things, for good or ill, you answer to the Spider. Plenty want to take control of the city from the Spider and fending them off keeps the city in a constant hum of low-level chaos.

Dai Ushi is an up and coming boss in the Helldrake Syndicate. She has her eye on the Spider and his Web, and he knows it—Sebastian did kill her father, after all, back when he was with Las Plagas. The Helldrake Syndicate had been through rough times ever since, and was well on its way to being plowed under, another casualty of the Spiderweb, when Dai rescued it. She carved out a relatively safe existence, even though she ached for her time as the White Cobra, breaking into vaults or jewelry stores. Stories about her circulated among the more ambitious kids of the Canyons, and many came to her looking for help or training.

She wound up teaching them just to keep them from getting killed when they tried to follow in her footsteps. And without meaning to, she became both the leader of the Canyons and the head of a whole mess of thieves—her White Cobra Gang. The Spider had Ennio and Valentino both dispatched in retaliation and gave Luca a warning to stay within his means. Luca might not be a brilliant leader or a cunning foe, but he is incredibly skilled and is absolutely without fear—the Spider deeply misjudged the second Carlotti son. And that seems to have had strange effects on this version of Halcyon City. So now, superpowers are starting to appear citywide.

People who had powers in the original timeline suddenly develop metahuman abilities without warning. Unconfirmed reports of aliens and monsters crop up on the edges of society. There are rumors of people who can pass through walls or lift cars. What they could fix. How they could make their world better. Along with them, a few other important figures have benefited from the sudden advent of metahuman abilities. He wears unassuming outfits, but he has taken to wearing his large brass bracelets, just like he did in the original timeline. His age is indeterminate. In the Shifted timeline, Bryce was incredibly smart but otherwise normal. He tried to fight against the worst criminals in his neighborhood, without the assistance of any of his superscience gadgets or the Titan Elixir.

He failed. He retired from that fight and went to work for a pharmaceuticals company. Bryce lived the rest of his life in a mundane, unnoteworthy fashion. He grew old and frail. But as time went on he became a combination of who he was in the original timeline and who he was in the Shifted timeline. He remembers the entirety of his life in the Shifted world, and those memories have made it difficult to remember everything from the original timeline. But he knows this world only exists because he made it. He knows that he did not succeed in making the better world he had hoped for. And he plans to set things right. He rejuvenated himself with the Titan Elixir he suddenly knew how to produce, and he now aims to fight back against the darkness of this world. Until he does, he fights to make this world better, contending with the Spider and the other crime lords and supporting those he thinks can do the most good.

They have no face at all, just a smooth expanse of flesh. They act with an insane, incredible cunning and a depraved sense of morality. They perform impossible feats of athleticism—the product of a perfect conscious control of every single piece of their body. In the original timeline, Satin was the product of experimentation by an alien overlord. In this Shifted timeline, they seem to have just…appeared in the modern day. No one in the Spiderweb knows who they are or has any memory of them…except for Brass Brilliant. Brilliant thinks that Satin might have come from the original timeline, entirely. Satin is not particularly forthcoming on the matter.

They evidence the same mad banter and rhetoric that they gleefully put on in the original timeline. And just like in the original timeline, they claim to adore Halcyon City—maybe even more so, now. What they cannot stand is order. Boring, boring order. And to that end, Satin has immediately set about destabilizing the Spiderweb. Sometimes that means creating a new gang war. Sometimes that means ambushing a truce meeting and massacring everyone there. Sometimes that means helping new would-be heroes. After all, if Satin came from the original timeline, then they know that little creates more chaos than young superheroes. JESSICA MILES A woman in her 30s with short, slicked back red hair, fair skin, and an athletic build. In the original timeline, Jessica Miles was a former A. special forces operative who went by the name Carbine and acted as a vigilante, hunting down superhumans.

In the Shifted timeline, she followed a similar path, becoming a special forces operative within the American military before returning to her home town of Halcyon City. She found it tough to leave that life entirely behind, and soon enough was working as a cop in the beleaguered HCPD. Unlike many of her brethren, she is neither cowed by the Spiderweb and its ilk, nor has she been bought by them. She sees them as dangerous and has grown more and more willing to do whatever it takes to bring them down. In the original timeline, Tarantula Hawk retired after barely any time at all as a superhero. But in this Shifted timeline, she has lost so much to the Spider and his Web—her brother, her mother, her shop, even her neighborhood—and it has gone too far.

She faced every day with a mix of rage and despair, until the day she woke up with red wings growing from her back and stingers sticking from her fingers. She put together her costume and called herself Tarantula Hawk—a kind of wasp that feasts on spiders. ENTERING THE FRAY The Spiderweb covers Halcyon City, and its people live in the fear that they will touch a strand, and the Spider will come for them. People make do and find hope and happiness and love and joy with each other. They find community in their neighborhoods. And then they find some agent of the Spider, or the Helldrakes, or the Carlottis coming into their shops, demanding protection money, or making threats, or just plain taking from them. And just like that, any semblance of normalcy, of safety and hope, shatters. The city desperately needs heroes willing to defend the people they care about and fight against the all-too-human darkness that surrounds them.

The city needs you. Now more than ever. PLAYING THE SPIDERWEB In this playset, the PCs are young adults living in the same neighborhood in the Spiderweb. They still live in Halcyon City, but their scope of attention is smaller—they care about their home and the people in it, first and foremost. In general, The Spiderweb is skewed towards the lower-power, grittier, street-level side of comic books. That means that the PCs are not the children of world-saving aliens or time travelers. Their powers are more constrained, and the action is more dangerous. The teams of The Spiderweb are less about the colorful costumes, grandiose names, epic battles, and worldsaving heroics, and more about friends, living in the same place, and trying to make their homes better. Fundamentally the battle that The Spiderweb heroes fight is unending, just like it is in the original Halcyon City.

There will always be more people aiming to exploit the people of Halcyon. Even if the heroes defeat the Spider utterly, there will always be someone else threatening to rise up in his place. The night is darkest before the dawn… and they want nothing more than to see the first rays of sunlight. Before playing with The Spiderweb, read through this section on which playbooks to remove, and how to use the playbooks that remain. Both of them reshape the world around them almost at will, but The Spiderweb playset is about a street-level conflict against all-too-human foes. There have been a few people who have tried to fight back against the Spiderweb, but none of them have lasted long. or become something darker. The things that these kid superheroes do are still awesome and exciting, and the Beacon knows it. They may be the ray of hope necessary to lift up some of their gloomier comrades. The Bull fits into The Spiderweb playset nicely. The one piece to keep an eye on is their makers. The base Bull playbook suggests someone made them into a living weapon.

Plenty of criminal organizations exist in the Spiderweb, however, and with superpowers appearing recently, they might experiment. Just remember to keep your elements a bit tamer than you might in a base game of MASKS. The Delinquent should work without any problems or adjustments! The Janus is great for The Spiderweb. In particular: Keep: Joined HCHC , Newborn HCHC , Reformed HCHC , Scion Unbound Remove: Brain AEGIS , Harbinger Unbound , Innocent HCHC , Nomad Unbound , Soldier AEGIS , Star HCHC A few notes on each of these: The Joined: Since the Joined builds heavily on whatever playbook it ties to, it works fine connecting to any of the other playbooks used in The Spiderweb.

Just keep in mind the lower-powered, grittier tone when choosing your options. The Reformed ultimately still has to be redeemable. Picking any of the major players in The Spiderweb—Dai Ushi, Helldrake, The Spider—is a great idea. The Protégé should be tied to one of those vigilantes who once tried to fight back against the Spider and his ilk. Create their mentor the same as you would normally, but veer in the direction of lower-powered vigilante, especially when picking their personal ability and their shared ability. Instead of being one strange face in a city filled with the bizarre and inexplicable, the Transformed is going to be hugely different from nearly everyone else around them. With no older transformed hero to lend them support, the likelihood of anyone truly understanding what caused their transformation is pretty low. Use it! By default, they all live in the same neighborhood, although they may not all have lived there for their whole lives.

This question lets each PC speak to their individual experience dealing with the Spider and his Web. In particular, though, remember to keep the street-level scale of The Spiderweb playset in mind while answering those questions. The initial incident that brought the team together is far more likely to be a dangerous shoot-out between the Spiderweb and the Helldrake Syndicate than a gigantic monster stomping down Main Street. Superhumans are becoming common lately in the world of the Spiderweb. If a PC retires from the life, they leave their heroics behind, trying to live a mundane life within the Spiderweb. If a PC becomes a committed vigilante, they give up their mundane life by and large to fight an endless struggle against the criminal powers of Halcyon City. The difference is subtle, but important; instead of choosing between a superheroic and mundane life, they choose between an unending struggle and keeping their heads down, letting someone else tackle the Web.

Mark Potential as normal, and say how you weather the blow. That -1 ongoing applies to all your moves, except for take a powerful blow. Being seriously injured does not help you avoid further harm. Since then, she and her team have been on the run. but she gets a miss. The GM tells her to take a powerful blow as the pain overwhelms her: she drives the car straight into the wall instead. Rena collapses into unconsciousness as soon as the car hits the wall. That injury still exists within the scope of your abilities. If you have skin like diamond, then choosing this option means the blow somehow managed to injure you significantly anyway. While you suffer from that -1 ongoing, you should understand that your character is lugging around a major injury that constantly inhibits them.

This kind of aid has to come from medical professionals or at least highly experienced medics. Getting medical attention is not itself a matter for another move. But getting medical attention is almost always the source of further complication. Those agendas, principles, and moves still apply; the rules for creating individual villains still apply; and the rules for hooks and arcs still apply. But there are some tweaks involved, along with new tools to ensure you focus on the most important elements of running The Spiderweb. While each of the PCs may have a different reason for putting on a mask and fighting crime and corruption, they all have to agree on one thing: the neighborhood is worth the fight. The existing tools in MASKS do a lot of that work—after all, the Janus has obligations in this very neighborhood!

Communities that are largely rich and upscale tend to have names that evoke towering forests and mountain heights, while neighborhoods without a lot of wealth and power often end up with names that someone else gave them—the Barrens or the Canyons. The neighborhood you design is their home borough, the place that shapes them into the heroes that fight for the people of Halcyon City. Make it an evocative, compelling place, and the characters the players design in response will be awesome as well! Of course, if they suggest adaptations in order to make their characters work—go along with it. I decide on the neighborhood called the Canyons. The setting guide talks about the area belonging to the White Cobra Gang, but not much else. Fortitude—The community weathers loss and tragedy gracefully.

Justice—The community rights obvious wrongs, even at a high cost. Renewal—The community reinvents itself regularly, producing innovative ideas. Solidarity—The community stands together united, especially at times of likely division. During the game, look for opportunities to invoke the virtue through the local NPCs, especially when the virtue puts ordinary people in conflict with the larger forces of the city. I choose solidarity as a virtue. The people who live in the Canyons are often divided, but they come together to honor their shared heritage. Jealousy—The community fixates on who might be getting more than their fair share. Laziness—The community takes the easy route to make ends meet or solve problems. During the game, look for opportunities to invoke the vice through the local NPCs, especially when the vice forces the PCs to deal with problems that adults usually tackle. I choose apathy as a vice.

People from the Canyons know not to get involved; the Spiderweb is here to stay, and any action against it is a waste of time. They might be doing their work in secret, but the effects of that work should be obvious. Make sure the two factions have reason to be in conflict with each other, so that the PCs can get caught in the conflict. You want to make sure you have a clear idea of what these factions are doing in between sessions, and you want to give the PCs lots to investigate if they decide to get involved with one faction or the other. I decide that the drug trade in the Canyons is run by the White Cobra Gang.

I also think that another vigilante will give the heroes a messy ally. In the meantime, I decide that Dee Bradley is working to rob the local credit union, the only independent bank in the Canyons, hoping to get enough money to hire someone to kill the Spider. ANCHOR NPCS Finally, create two to three anchor NPCs who represent the themes of the neighborhood and their interactions with the broader setting. These folks should largely be friendly to the PCs and their cause, people who want to see their neighborhood thrive and flourish. The overall world is hard enough for our heroes; try to avoid characters who are immediately antagonistic to the PCs in favor of characters who offer guidance and opportunities. Use these characters to get across the big ideas of your setting. If you want to show how the Spiderweb corrupts everything that it touches, then create 56 a young entrepreneur who strikes a deal with the Spider that gets way out of control.

At the same time, I think Ms. Take some time between sessions to think about how the two factions pursue their goals. If the PCs did get involved and derailed their plans, the factions will turn their attention directly to the PCs, making plans to eliminate them, co-opt them, or ally with them against each other. Always work to keep a balance of virtues, vices, factions, and anchor NPCs in play. If someone dies or leaves the neighborhood, introduce a new faction or character competing for attention and resources. In this playset, we include information to flesh out gangs as support for the factions of the Spiderweb instead of just random mooks. Default to assigning each gang to a crime boss who directs their efforts writ large.

If a gang is a bunch of unattached goons, then stat them up as a normal villain with conditions but no boss or type. Select a type of gang for a job: minions, lackeys, or brutes. Each gang type comes with a requirement that must be met before they can be deployed against the heroes and advantages that the gang has above their normal conditions and moves. MINIONS By far the most common gang in the city, minions are the ordinary criminals who handle the day-to-day business of the Spiderweb. If the bosses need someone to rob a bank or steal some precious cargo, they send minions.

Requirement: The faction the minions work for has to be present in the neighborhood. LACKEYS No self-respecting crime boss in Halcyon City spends much time alone. Advantage: Lackeys can mark conditions for a villain, even when the heroes target the villain directly. Only when the henchman are completely taken out can the heroes force the boss to mark a condition. BRUTES Sometimes, the bosses need the worst of the worst, a gang or thug squad that bulldozes over everything that gets in the way. Requirement: Brutes can only be invoked by a boss as part of a condition move. Advantage: The heroes cannot directly engage brutes while they act as a gang. Instead, all the PCs can do is run or hide. Think of these folks as an endless parade of thugs or superpowered assassins, the kind of people who cannot be overcome without something balancing the odds.

No matter which type of gang you select, the stakes for the boss are always the same: losing a gang completely means marking a condition. but with a different scope. If the Spider loses a group of minions and marks Angry, he might break the environment by sending goons to burn down a building or lash out at any vulnerability by using what he does know about the heroes to scare them at school or work. Give the gang some kind of unified look, a facet of their appearance that lets everyone know that the group is an organized unit. That might be an official uniform, similar colors, or even just similar weapons. GANG MOVES Create a few villain moves for the gang, just as you would for your normal MASKS villains page of the core book. Choose from the regular list of conditions plus the new condition Confused listed below. The gang treats the Confused condition like any other: they mark it when they get hit hard and then immediately make a move from the condition move list.

You can mark Afraid to show that a gang is scared of the PCs, but Confused lets you show that the gang is falling apart under the pressure of dealing with weird powers. Though not as strong as Brass himself, the five thugs in the gang are bulletproof and hit like a truck. The heroes have to catch them off guard or with a larger force to directly engage. Finally, I decide to give them two conditions: Afraid and Angry. If the heroes can even the odds and inflict a condition, these guys will go down hard. But there are new elements to consider when GMing a game with this playset, to nail the correct style.

THE SPIDERWEB: AGENDA There is one new agenda to add to the core set for The Spiderweb. MAKE THE SPIDERWEB FEEL REAL The Spiderweb playset presents a version of Halcyon City through a dark mirror, a city packed with criminals and corruption in which no friend can truly be trusted for long. The joy of playing young heroes fighting a corrupt system falls apart if the stakes of those conflicts feel too fantastical, if the threats of violence feel silly and overwrought instead of weighty and unsettling. up in a situation where what would normally be a positive trait is actually a hindrance to them. For example being a Mega-Rich Industrialist is usually useful when youre trying to do things that having lots of money or access to resources would help with, but if youre trying to do something surreptitious then it might be a hindrance because you could get recognised by people more easily than if your secret identity is just some nobody.

Similarly, occasionally something thats normally a negative trait might be able to be turned to your advantage. Maybe your Needs To Play Fair psychological quirk thats normally a hindrance to you because it stops you from using underhanded but effective tactics and because villains who know about it can try to use it against you may actually turn out to be a useful advantage if youre trying to persuade people that if they surrender youll make sure theyre fairly treated. This is perfectly fine, and in these situations its perfectly acceptable to treat a positive trait as being temporarily negative or vice versa. to make sure that you occasionally run into others from your world.

Finally, all traits must be approved by the GM. You cant simply add silly traits like Im an Omnipotent Being or I legally own everything in the world and expect it to be accepted that these are true statements about your character. Finishing Touches Your character is now almost finished. You need to determine mundane details like your characters name, secret identity if any , costume, and any equipment they carry around. Generally, you are free to choose these sorts of detail, although in the case of equipment you need to be reasonably realistic in terms of the bulkiness, expense, and availability of what you want your character to have on them. Your traits may have an impact here, particularly if any of them are related to wealth. Many super powers are very destructive to normal clothing, particularly those involving the transforAlso, there may be times when simply mation of your characters body or anything that having a particular trait will affect surrounds your characters body in any kind of enthe campaign in ways other than ergy.

If you have this sort of power, you can either those that directly involve Deter- assume that your costume is made from Morphic mination. For example if youre got Fabric a special hi-tech fabric that changes as you an Alien fugitive on the run from my change or that your powers include some kind of home planet trait, the GM is likely in-built protection for your costume. Character Creation Example Alex is creating a Masks character for Sofias campaign. The first thing he does is to ask Sofia what the Campaign Rank is. Sofia tells him that it is the default of Wc[30]. For his first power, he rolls Mental Blast. For his second power, he rolls Strike.

For his third power, he rolls Energy Control. He notes that he will have to choose the type of energy that he controls. Agility: Wc[30] Fa[40] Strength: Wc[30] Gt[20] Intellect: Wc[30] Gt[20] Nous: Wc[30] As[50] Grit: Wc[30]. Checking out the possible Flexibilities for Corrosion he doesnt see any that he likes, but looking at Darkness Control he decides that he likes the Shadow Construct Flexibility and thinks that his Resistance power can be Damage Resistance due to a flexible shadow construct around himself. He rolls in exchange for also adding the Gate Flexibility. This means that his hero will Now his character will not only be able to telhave two powers at Campaign Rank and three more eport from darkness to darkness but powers at Campaign Rank -1 RS.

Thats quite a will be able to connect two areas of few powers, but it looks like most of them wont darkness with a gate so that people be that strong. entering one will be transported to the other. Alex rolls for his powers in order, starting with the one at Campaign Rank. Continued over page For his fourth power, he rolls Resistance. As with his Energy Control he notes that he will Alex doesnt have any particular type of charac- need to choose what to resist. ter that he specifically wants to play or wants to avoid playing so he rolls a die to see what the For his fifth power, he rolls Corrosion. origin of his hero is. Rolling a 5, he looks on the After this initial power selection, his character Random Origin Table and sees that his hero is has now has: an origin of Transformed.

His hero was once a normal person but some incident has given him or her Wc[30] Mental Blast powers. Gt[20] Resistance Gt[20] Corrosion Next come the rolls for his ability scores. On his scrap paper, Alex initially notes down the seven Alex looks at the descriptions of each of these abilities and initially sets them all at the Campaign powers in the Power Descriptions chapter and Rank of Wc[30]. Rolling 3d6 three times he gets thinks about which ones to keep. He likes the idea a 15, a 12, and an 8. After considering either radiation or vibration both things that could cause objects to physiRepeating this for his decreases, he rolls a 7, a 4 cally degrade he decides that the best thematic and a 6. Again, he looks these results up on the choice is to have control over darkness. He likes Random Ability Table.

This time, he sees that his the idea of his character touching things and makIntellect, Health and Strength are all decreased ing them darken to blackness as they corrode. by -1 RS. Health: Wc[30] Gt[20]. Alex is aware that his character doesnt have a way to see through his own darkness, but decides that hes happy with that. Partly because he doesnt want to have to drop another power or add a limit to his Darkness Control in order to pay for a Flexibility that would let him do so, and partly because he has a slight concern that if he could then there would be a temptation to always surround himself with darkness and that would be boring for the GM and annoying for the other players whose characters would presumably also not be able to see in it.

In preparation for a role in another students film a ghost story , Vera decided to spend the night in an old local abandoned house that was reputedly haunted and which had been the site of a number of disappearances over the decades. She thought it would get her in the right frame of mind for pretending to be in a haunted house while on set. What Vera didnt know was that the reason the house had its reputation was that it was the site of a minor dimensional disturbance. He decides to from another world; and this slime had destrucapply it to his Corrosion power, since that is his tive consequences to the people or things that it main combat ability and he wants to make it more touched, before evaporating into nothing.

It was the occasional drips of this black liquid that had effective than simply punching people. pitted the furniture and floors of the house in After all of the swapping, Alex ends up with the such horrifying ways, and it was the rift that had following powers: swallowed up the occasional visitor to the place. Vera spent the night there with a bottle of wine, trying to soak up the ambience of the place and secretly hoping to see some kind of supernatural experience even though she didnt really believe in them, oblivious to the non-supernatural but Alex transfers this information to his character sheet and calculates his secondary abilities.

Add- very real danger she was in. Alexs character has 70 Stamina. Similarly, sub- By some quirk of fate, some of the black ooze tracting the total number of powers he has 2 appeared from the rift and dripped - not onto ability scores of Fantastic or higher, and 4 adher, but into her wine glass. lips without looking at it and took a drink. She was It is now time for Alex to choose his heros three horrified to discover that she wasnt drinking wine Specialities and to come up with some traits, and but some deep black fluid that burned her throat. to do this he needs to decide what his characters Whether it was the mix of fluid and alcohol, or background is. whether it was some quirk of her body chemistry, Alex already knows that his hero has been Trans- the black didnt dissolve her. Instead it was abformed by something, and that his or her powers sorbed into her system where it interacted with are darkness based, so starts trying to think of every cell in her body.

When she woke up from her faint it was morning, and she was shocked how someone could have gained such powers. to find herself covered from head to toe in a jet Thinking about the power source for the powers, black coating, as hard as armour yet flexing with Alex decides that his character has been mutated her every move. by exposure to something alien, so all the powers will have a Genetic Mutation source. Further, he After her initial panic subsided, she was incredlikes the idea of the character somehow drinking ibly relieved to find that when she willed it to go darkness and being mutated by it.

away it did. It evaporated into the air like smoke. After some discussion with the other players and the GM, Alex decides that his character is Vera Valetta, a promising actor studying film at university and the star of the universitys gymnastics team the group. Feeling rather foolish and still not certain whether or not she had imagined the whole episode, she went home, and spoke to no-one of what had happened. Continued from previous page However, although she felt normal and healthy, she couldnt ignore the incident completely. Three times over the following month she woke up with the black coating and had to will it to disappear once more. Eventually, curiosity got the better of her and she decided to start experimenting to see what she could do. After all, shed seen various super heroes on television and perhaps whatever this was might mean that she could be one too!

Further experimentation revealed to her that she could not only will the black coating to appear on herself, but she could also will chunks of it to appear in the air. It was not as flexible when it wasnt around her, and it lasted only a few minutes before evaporating, but it was just as hard; and with practise she was able to make it in whatever shape she wanted. She was even able to create blackness diffused into the air itself, effectively creating clouds of darkness. However, her joy at this new ability was short lived. The following morning as she watched the news, she heard of the death in a mugging gone wrong. Not half an hour after she had escaped the alley, the same mugger had tried to mug someone else and this time hed ended up shooting his victim. Vera was horrified. With her powers she could probably have easily taken out that mugger, and because she had been afraid of doing so someone else had paid for her cowardice with his life.

She swore then and there that she would join the ranks of the super heroes and never let her cowardice leave another in danger again. She began training that very morning, to get into peak condition for what lay ahead With this back story invented and this is a particularly long back story - your group may prefer to have just a couple of sentences , Alex already has a name for his character and pointers for her Specialities and traits. Her Specialities will be Acrobatics, Perform Acting and Stealth. The former two are clear from her background as a gymnast and drama student, and the third is a combination of her training and the fact that her costume is actually solidified darkness. For traits, Alex is aware that Void as he decides her super hero name should be will only have two points of Determination to spend, so shell need plenty of opportunities to gain more. Therefore shell need negative traits that can often be used to justify gaining extra Determination Points.

Her final discovery came the night before she decided to take up heroics. She was walking home after some rehearsals when a mugger stepped out After some thought, he comes up with the followin front of her with a gun. Not wanting to freak ing positive traits: him out in case he shot her, Vera decided against Wont let others suffer due to her inaction. putting up her protective layer of solid darkness. Are you scared of the dark? Besides, while she knew it was strong she didnt Star of the gymnastics team. know whether or not it would be strong enough to stop a bullet. And the following negative traits: So instead she fumbled around with her bag as a Afraid of accidentally killing someone.

distraction while silently willing a cloud of dark- Secret Identity Vera Valetta, actress. ness to form beside her, blocking out the light of Unsure of her own abilities. the street light. After all, he couldnt shoot her Alex transfers this final information if he couldnt see her. onto Voids character sheet and she is As the darkness formed and her assailant started ready for her first adventure. Her to look confused, she took her chance and leapt costume is already decided by her into it, desperately wishing she was away from powers covered in blackness from him. To her surprise, rather than emerging from head to foot, apart from her eyes the other side of the small cloud of darkness that and she needs no equipment. She very quickly realised that she could make the coating appear and disappear whenever she wanted, which was a start, but was then somewhat disappointed to discover that other than being a very tough protective layer it didnt actually seem to enhance her abilities at all.

She was no stronger or faster than she was without it. However, when trying to test her strength by seeing if she could snap a pair of broom handles in two, she was surprised to discover that they were infused with veins of blackness and they crumbled to sawdust in her hand. Although she had no additional strength, she clearly wielded some kind of destructive power. she had just created, she emerged in the natural darkness at the far end of the alley. Somehow she was able to enter one patch of darkness and leave another. Void Name Vera Valetta Secret Identity Positive Traits Won't let others suffer due to her inaction. Chapter 4 - Combat Combat Basics Super heroes are constantly getting into fights.

Even those reluctant heroes who arent particularly belligerent or aggressive somehow always seem to end up in situations where they need to fight to protect themselves or their loved ones. In Masks, combat therefore plays a major part in the game. Although in real life combat is a messy affair with lots of things happening at once, for game purposes it is convenient to split it up into short periods of time and to handle each persons action or actions within each of those periods in turn. Similarly, even in a simple fist fight, people dont simply stand still and hit each other. They are constantly shifting and moving around. Therefore rather than trying to measure exact distances between combatants to the nearest foot or metre it is convenient to simply split the area in which fights are occurring into a number of discrete areas. tiative returning back to the first group again, and so forth. During combat, time is split into rounds.

Each round is a few seconds of time. If its necessary to count Within a group, the order of actions doesnt matter as long as it is consistent from round a number of rounds before something happens, asto round. For player characters the best way sume that on average each round is 6 seconds long, to do this is to simply go round the table in a but theres no need to be strict about every round clockwise manner resolving each characters acbeing exactly that length. If someone wants to do tion in turn. Similarly, the GM almost certainly something that would take anywhere from about has a list of the characters on the other team seconds then its something that can be done and can simply run down the list each turn.

in a single round. During a round, each person can take one action. Because of the cyclic nature of things, anything that has a duration measured in rounds should be This will often be an attack or the use of a power counted from the action in which it begins to the of some kind, but might instead be moving from one same action in a future round. For example if somearea to another or performing some other action one uses a power that lasts for 4 rounds when that can be done in about seconds. activated, the power will come to an end at the end of that same heros action in the fourth round While theoretically everyone is actually acting at the same time, you should resolve each persons after it was activated.

action in turn. To determine the order of actions, use the following guidelines: The person or group that throws the first punch and thereby starts the fight goes first. Then the second group takes their actions. Then the round ends and a new round starts with the ini-. Think of it like weeks: if something that takes three weeks begins on a Thursday, it will last until the end of the week, for two more whole weeks, and then until the Thursday of the week after. It wont stop exactly on a weekend because weeks - like rounds - can be measured starting at any point. Areas And Movement Just like time being measured in rounds, movement and distance are measured in areas. An area is a location of around to square feet, or around 20 to 30 square metres thats not an exact conversion, but those sizes are approximate anyway; and an individual area can be smaller or larger than that size range and which is one story high. Generally this will mean that when indoors one room or corridor is usually a single area.

However larger rooms or outdoor locations may comprise of two or more areas. When drawing a sketch map for the players, the GM should try to divide larger spaces into areas using obvious geographic or architectural features rather than worrying about trying to get each area absolutely identical in size. During a fight, characters are assumed to be moving around within the area that they are in, rather than standing in one place. Therefore anyone in an area can make melee attacks against anyone else in the same area without needing to spend their actions moving. Ranged attacks can also be made against people in the same area or in any other area that can be seen from that area. Again, the fact that people are usually moving around means that exact positioning and line of sight calculations are not needed.

The GM may make exceptions to this when someone is trying to start a fight by sniping with a ranged attack. The target may be stationary for example sitting at a desk and therefore not be in line of sight even if the area they are in can be seen. As their action, characters can move to a different area. The distance a character can move as a single action depends on the type of character:. Player character heroes should always be able to move three areas even if they have a Health of Great or less unless theyre grappled or restrained in some manner, of course! Characters who can swim all player characters are assumed to be able to swim unless theyve got a relevant negative quality stopping them can move one area in an action. For most normal people, leaping wont get you out of the area you are in, and isnt a viable form of movement.

However, particularly strong individuals can leap larger distances. Characters with a Strength of Decent or higher can leap into an adjacent area. Characters with a Strength of Fantastic or higher can leap over a single area or up a single story onto a roof. Characters with a Strength of Wondrous or higher can leap over two areas or up two stories onto a roof. Characters with a Strength of Single Shift or higher can leap over three areas or up three stories onto a roof, plus an additional area or story for each rank above Single Shift.

Super powers which provide additional methods of movement will have their own speeds and restrictions. A person with restricted movement or speed The most common form of action in combat will be the elderly and infirm, children, people who are to physically attack an opponent. This may be as crawling can move only a single area in an action. simple as punching them, or it may involve shooting them or firing blasts of cosmic energy at them. Normal people can move up to two areas in an action. All these types of physical attack are resolved in the same way: Super heroes and villains can move up to three areas in an action.

If the attack is in melee, roll a Combat vs Combat Contest. If youre unsure about which category something falls into for example if theyre a robot If the attack is at range, roll an Agility vs Agilor an animal you can optionally use ity Contest. their Health rank as a guide. Those with a Health of Terrible or less In either case, the attackers ability is the active move one area; those with a Health one and the defenders ability is the passive one. of Bad to Great move two areas; As with any other contest, if one of the characters and those who have a Health of is a player, that player should be the one who rolls World Class or more can move three the dice whether they are the attacker or the de-.

fender and they may spend Determination before rolling in order to guarantee a particular level of success. See the Basic System chapter earlier in this book for full details about rolling Contests. The exact results of the attack depend on the level of success that the attacker gets, and the exact type of attack being made. In each case below, the effects are explained in more detail in the Damage section later in this chapter. Melee attacks with a blunt weapon this includes unarmed melee attacks have the following effects depending on the level of success: Failure - The attack misses Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage to the target.

Major Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Slamming the target. Major Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Stunning the target. Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage to the target. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Stunning and possibly Killing the target. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing norlunt rojectile mal damage and possibly Stunning and possibly Melee attacks using a non-sharp projectile this Killing the target. includes force blasts and shots using mercy bullets or blunted arrows have the following effects depending on the level of success: lunt hrown Ranged attacks involving the throwing of a blunt object this includes most improvised attacks in- Failure - The attack misses volving throwing objects have the following effects Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing nordepending on the level of success: mal damage to the target.

If the attack was a. Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing nor- Major Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage to the target. mal damage to the target. Major Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage to the target. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Stunning the target. If the attack was a Called Shot, it hits. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing norethal hrown mal damage and possibly Slamming and possibly Ranged attacks involving the throwing of a sharp Stunning the target. weapon this includes throwing knives and shuriken have the following effects depending on the level of success: ethal elee Melee attacks with a sharp weapon such as a sword or claws this includes melee attacks using an ap- Failure - The attack misses pendage or weapon made from energy have the Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing norfollowing effects depending on the level of success: mal damage to the target.

Melee attacks that use a lethal projectile this includes normal bullets and arrows, and all energy blasts except force blasts have the following effects depending on the level of success:. the normal attack types, the effects of these attacks are explained in more detail in the Damage section later in this chapter. Normally, moving from area to area and attacking must be done as two separate actions. However, if you desperately want to hit someone in another Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing norarea immediately or if you are more concerned mal damage to the target. If the attack was a with pushing them than with damaging them you Called Shot, it misses. can make a charging attack. Failure - The attack misses. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Killing the target. Unusual Attacks Although most normal situations will involve one of the above types of attack, sometimes someone will want to do something a bit more unusual.

As with. A charging attack lets you both move and attack in the same action. The attack is likely to be less accurate, but if it hits its more likely to knock the opponent over or back. When making a charge attack against an opponent, you first move into their area; and then roll either a Combat vs Combat Contest or a Health vs Combat Contest - you use whichever of your Health and Combat ranks is the lower. The attack has the following effects depending on the level of success: Failure - The attack misses Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Slamming the target. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing normal damage and possibly Slamming and possibly Stunning the target. Sometimes you dont want to actually hurt someone, merely restrain them.

In these cases you may use a grappling attack. To make a grappling attack, you must be in the same area as your opponent. Make a Combat vs Combat Contest against them. The attack has the following results depending on the level of success: Failure - The attack misses Moderate Success - The attack hits, doing no damage but putting your opponent in a Partial Hold. Major Success - The attack hits, doing no damage but putting your opponent in a Full Hold. Massive Success - The attack hits, doing no damage but putting your opponent in a Full Hold. You may also Crush your opponent if you desire. If you already have a Partial Hold on your opponent, you may roll a new grappling contest against them in your next action in an attempt to improve the.

If this improvement attempt fails, you do not lose the existing Partial Hold. Moderate Success - If you were only in a Partial Hold, you have broken out of it. Other actions may force you to let go of your op- Major Success - You have broken out of the hold. ponent, but this must be judged on a case-by-case basis. Massive Success - You have casually shrugged off the hold. You have broken out of it and this You cant maintain a hold on an opponent if you are has not taken an action, so you are free to do Stunned or Slammed, or if an opponent successfully something else this round. gets you in a Partial Hold or Full Hold. If you already have your opponent in a Full Hold, you may Crush them as your action without needing While most actions in combat are either moves or attacks, occasionally there are other combatto roll the dice.

related actions that you might want to employ. Crushing inflicts your Strength rank as damage to your opponent. This damage is reduced by armour natching but not shields and does no other special effect. If someone else is holding onto an item and you want to snatch it off them, you need to make a Strength vs Strength Contest with the person who scaping is holding the item. Okay, so someones just used the grappling rules above to get you in a hold. Now what? Well, you can The snatch attempt has the following results dealways try to wriggle out of it. pending on the level of success:. If youre big and strong, but your Combat isnt up to the job of escaping a hold, you can try to simply break out of it using brute force. To try to break out of a hold, make a Strength vs Strength Contest against your opponent.

Note that you dont get the normal -2 RS penalty to actions taken while held when you do this. The breakout attempt has the following results depending on the level of success: Failure - No effect. Youre still held. Because catching an object must happen when the object is in the air rather than waiting for your turn, you may take this action during someone elses turn; although you must then skip your next action, having used it in advance. If you are trying to catch an object that has been thrown or fired at you, you must attempt the catch after the attack is announced, but before it is resolved. Trying to wriggle out of a hold takes an action usu- Failure - No effect. They still have the item. ally - see below. To attempt to escape a hold in this way, make a Combat vs Combat Contest against your Moderate Success - Your opponent still has the item. However if both you and your opponent opponent. Note that you dont get the normal -2 RS have a Strength rank greater than the Material penalty to actions taken while held when you do this.

Strength of the object, it breaks in the struggle. The escape attempt has the following results de Major Success - You have snatched the item pending on the level of success: from your opponent and you now hold it. However Failure - No effect. if both you and your opponent have a Strength rank greater than the Material Strength of the Moderate Success - If you were only in a Partial object, it breaks in the struggle. Hold, you have escaped it. Massive Success - You have snatched the item Major Success - You have escaped the hold. from your opponent cleanly, with no chance of it breaking. Massive Success - You have casually slipped out of the hold. You have escaped it and this has not taken an action, so you are free to do atching something else this round. If you wish to stop an object from hitting you when thrown or fired at you, or you wish to stop a falling object from hitting the floor, you can try to catch it. To catch an object, you need to make an Agility vs Speed Contest, where Speed is the speed of the object youre trying to catch as listed below:.

Failure - You have failed to catch the item, but you have got yourself in the way. If the item was aimed at you, the worst result it can get when the attack is resolved is a moderate success. Being heroic is all about defending the innocent, and there may come a time when you need to do that literally by throwing yourself in the way and taking a bullet or sword, or punch, or laser blast for them. Because interposing yourself must happen when the attack is being made rather than waiting for your turn, you may take this action during someone elses turn; although you must then skip your next action, having used it in advance.

If you are trying to interpose yourself in front of someone being attacked, you must be in the same area as that person, and you must declare that you Moderate Success - You catch the object awk- are making the attempt to interpose yourself after wardly. If the object was falling, either you or the attack is announced but before it is resolved. the object must take the falling damage. If the To interpose yourself in front of someone else in object was thrown or fired at you, either you or order to take an attack intended for them, you need the object must take the damage it would have to make an Agility vs Average Contest, with the done had it hit you normally. In either case, you following results depending on the level of success: choose whether the damage is applied to the Failure - You miss your chance and the attack is object or yourself.

resolved against the original target as normal. Major Success - You catch the object smoothly Moderate Success - You have got yourself in and neither of you take damage. the way. The attack is resolved against you, and Massive Success - You catch the object smooththe worst result it can get a moderate success ly and neither of you take damage. Major Success - You have interposed yourself. The attack is resolved normally, but against you instead of against the original target. Massive Success - You have interposed yourself. This is not a cumulative bonus, and aiming for multiple actions is no better than aiming for a single action. Sometimes you dont want to simply hurt someone.

You want to do something more complex. Maybe you want to fire an arrow to hit the lever that will let you out of the death trap. Maybe you want to bounce your energy beam off the wall to indirectly hit someone who you can see behind a transparent force-field. Maybe you want to avoid your opponents shield when attacking them. Maybe you want to leave a set of bullet holes in the wall spelling your name. In all these cases, you can use a trick shot. A trick shot is resolved in exactly the same way as a normal. attack, except that it has the following results depending on the level of success: Failure - The attack misses Moderate Success - The attack misses. with full force. It is up to you whether you break the weapon in this manner or whether you reign in your strength and pull your blow.

Whichever you do, this limits you to doing only as much damage as the weapons Material Strength. Major Success - The attack hits, doing normal In the rare case where you are using an improvised damage to the target but not doing the special weapon such as an ice sculpture that is large but effect it would normally do on a major success. not particularly strong so its Material Strength is actually less than its Damage Minimum it will Massive Success - The attack hits, doing normal always break when you hit something with it and damage to the target, plus whatever special you are limited to doing the Material Strength of effect the attack would normally do on a mas- the object in damage as described above.

sive success. If your trick shot is targeting something held by a person then the difficulty is exactly the same as the difficulty of simply shooting that person. If your trick shot is targeting an unattended object then it is up to the GM to decide on the difficulty of the shot based on the size of your target. While most heroes and villains fight in an unarmed manner, some use weapons. Even those who do usually fight unarmed may occasionally improvise by picking something up and hitting their opponents with it or throwing it at them. If you throw a large improvised weapon, it will potentially hit everyone in the target area. If you swing it in melee, it will potentially hit everyone in your area except yourself. You cant be selective about targets with such a large object. When you are using a weapon, you normally do your Strength rank number as damage just as with an unarmed attack, but the damage type lethal or There are often situations in combat that make it easier or more difficult for people to make attacks.

blunt depends on the weapons nature. Some examples follow, but this is by no means an Weapons are inherently more dangerous than un- exhaustive list of all possible modifiers: armed attacks in the hands of non-super powered people. mum Damage with the weapon even if your Strength is lower. Readied Attack - If the attacker has an attack readied at the start of the fight for example a For most improvised weapons e. they are using to defend. This does not apply if the defender spent their action doing a charge However, weapons that have been actively designed attack. to hit things with may be more dangerous than other miscellaneous objects of their weight because of their shape, leverage, and sharp pointy Cover - If the defender has partial cover to hide behind such as a bits. RS to their agility when defending against ranged attacks.

If If your Strength rank is higher than the Material the defender has got full cover Strength of the weapon, you are likely to break the weapon when you try to hit something with it to hide behind such as when they. If a weapon is particularly large, such as when you swing a tree at people or throw a caravan at people, you may be able to target everyone in an area with the attack rather than just a single person. In this case, aiming the attack is more difficult and you take a -3 RS on whichever ability rank you are using for the attack. If the attacker is willing to shoot through the cover, the defender does not get this bonus to their agility but the cover counts as additional armour for the defender instead. If the rank value of your armour is greater than the amount of incoming damage, then you simply take no damage from the attack.

Some characters may not be fully covered in armour. However, it may also occasionally to whichever ability they are using to attack or apply to a superhero. defend with.. In these cases, the armour protects you as normal, but an opponent may make a trick shot in order to bypass your armour and hit you in an unprotected spot. Although some exotic attacks such as weakness rays may affect the person hit in a different manner, the most common effect of a successful attack is normal physical damage. Each attack will have a rating for the amount of damage that it does if it hits. Normally, the amount of damage done by the attack should be simply subtracted from the amount of Stamina that the defender has. If the defender still has Stamina left after this then they are still in the fight.

If they havent, then they have been knocked out, and may start to die from their injuries. Your characters Stamina can never go negative. If you take more damage than you have remaining Stamina then you will simply run out and have zero Stamina left. Armour Some characters will be protected from damage by some kind of armour. In the case of mundane characters such as police or thugs, this is likely to involve wearing physical armour such as a bulletproof vest or a stab vest. Super-powered heroes and villains have multi-purpose battlesuits or powered armour or may even have force field generators that put up a defensive barrier. Some unusual characters may just have naturally tough hields skin or flesh. Shields are a form of partial armour that stacks with normal armour. They have a rank value that In all these cases, the intent is the same. By having adds to the rank value of any armour you are wearor wearing a protective layer, the character will ing note that it is the values that stack, not the take less damage from incoming attacks.

Armour works in a very simple manner. If you have armour of any kind, then when you take damage you reduce the amount of damage you take by the rank value of the armour you have before subtracting the remaining damage from your Stamina. However, because shields must be held in the way of a blow to be effective, they are limited by your Strength. Therefore the rank value of a shield is equal to the base rank value listed for the shield or your Strength rank value whichever is lower. Also, shields may only be used to defend against actual attacks. They do not provide any protection from environmental damage such as walking through a fire, falling, or being slammed against a surface.

As shields only count as partial armour, they may be bypassed using a trick shot just like any other partial armour. If your opponent is wearing partial armour and is also using a shield for example a modern police officer might be equipped with both a stab vest and a riot shield then you must choose which of them to bypass when performing a trick shot. You cannot bypass them both at the same time. Most types of attack are capable of doing special effects as well as simple damage. Generally these special effects can be applied only on a major or massive success. These effects include knocking your opponent over or back, stunning them, causing lethal wounds, and so forth. Each type of attack described earlier in this chapter listed the special effects that it can do at the different levels of success, and the exact details of those special effects are described below:.

If you are hit by an attack which can slam you, and your armour rank value is not greater than the amount of damage that you have taken i. either some damage gets past your armour or your armour exactly cancels the damage , you may have been slammed. example you could have been knocked off the roof To check whether or not you have been slammed, of a building or over the edge of a cliff, in which make a Strength vs Damage contest using the case you will fall. damage rank before it was reduced by your armour. If your opponent knocks you back into a wall, then The slam has the following results depending on compare the amount of damage you took to the the level of success: Material Strength rank value of the wall.

If the damage is greater you break through the wall, oth Failure - You have been knocked backwards erwise you stop when you hit it. In either case, you into an adjacent area of the attackers choice. take additional damage equal to the original damage Additionally you fall over and must spend your or the walls Material Strength, whichever is lower. next action recovering and getting to your feet. This damage may be reduced by your armour as Moderate Success - You have been knocked to normal but not by a shield. the floor. You have fallen over and must take a -1 RS penalty to your next action as you must Although the attacker gets the choice of do it while getting to your feet. which adjacent area you are knocked back into, it is not possible to aim Major Success - You have not been slammed. your knock back any more precisely than this unless slam comes as the Massive Success - You have not been slammed. result of a major success on a trick In the case of a failure, it is possible that you will shot.

For example you cant be detake more damage due to the forced movement. For liberately knocked back into an ally. If you are strong enough to carry your opponent even with the -2 RS penalty to your Strength , you may still move while in a partial hold. This results in you dragging your attacker along with you. If you are hit by an attack which can stun you, and your armour rank value is not greater than the amount of damage that you have taken i. either some damage gets past your armour or your armour exactly cancels the damage , you may have ull old been stunned. If your opponent has achieved a full hold on you, To check whether or not you have been stunned, you may not perform any action other than an atmake a Health vs Damage contest using the dam- tempt to escape or break the hold. The stun has the following results depending on the level of success: Failure - You have been knocked unconscious by the blow.

Your Stamina is reduced to 0, but you do not start dying. Moderate Success - You have been stunned and you lose your next action. Major Success - You have not been stunned. Massive Success - You have not been stunned. If you are hit by an attack which can kill you, and your armour rank value is not greater than the amount of damage that you have taken i. either some damage gets past your armour or your armour exactly cancels the damage , you may have been dealt a lethal blow. Unconsciousness And Dying When taking damage, you will fall unconscious under one of three circumstances: Your Stamina is reduced to 0 You failed the Health vs Damage contest against a stunning attack. You got less than a major success in the Health vs Damage contest of a killing attack. In any of these three cases, your Stamina cannot be reduced below 0.

Even if the damage you took would be enough to take it below 0 it stops there. If you have been knocked unconscious you will remain that way for a few minutes. If it really matters you can roll two normal dice to see how many, but usually it will be sufficient to just say until the end of the fight for simplicity. To check whether or not you have been dealt a lethal blow, make a Health vs Damage contest using After this time, you will sleep it off for a few the damage rank before it was reduced by your hours. During this period you wont wake spontaneously unless you spend a Determination Point armour. to do so, but you can be woken by anything that The kill has the following results depending on the would normally awaken a sleeping person. Again, level of success: the exact duration probably wont matter, but you can roll two normal dice to see how many hours if Failure - You have been dealt a lethal blow.

Your it makes a difference. Stamina is immediately reduced to 0 and you are knocked unconscious by the blow and start dying. If you have been knocked unconscious by having your Stamina reduced to 0 by an edged weapon or Moderate Success - Your Stamina is immediately reduced to 0 and you are knocked uncon- by failing the Health vs Damage contest of a killing scious by the blow, but you do not start dying. attack, you are also dying. Major Success - You have not been killed. Massive Success - You have not been killed. You can stop this process at any time including before you have lost your first rank by spending If your opponent has achieved a par- a Determination Point. tial hold on you, you may not move away from them and any action you If you have no Determination Points, your friends perform other than an attempt to or sympathetic bystanders can stop the process escape or break the hold is taken at by spending an action to give you emergency first a -2 RS penalty.

aid no roll is needed for this. While dying, you temporarily lose a rank of Health per round on your action until you reach a Health Rank of Zero, at which point you are dead. Since Strength ranks arent exact measures there is much variation within each rank , the weights of objects have similar variation within each rank. As well as interacting with other characters in a Exact weights or masses for each rank are not combat situation, characters will also interact with given; instead examples of objects of comparable the world around them; whether by breaking things, weight and mass are given in the Weight Table in lifting things, or simply moving around for periods this chapter and on the back cover of this book.

longer than a combat round. To determine the weight of and therefore also Things in the world, whether inanimate objects, the Strength needed to lift an object that isnt vehicles, natural phenomena or other living beings on the table, simply compare it to the examples are all measured using the same scale of ranks that and assign it a rank equal to those that you judge the abilities of characters are measured by. This to be most similar in weight. makes most interaction simple to determine. Is the character strong enough to lift the car? Compare Generally, you should assume that a character can the characters Strength with the cars weight. Can slowly push or pull something one rank heavier than the characters motorbike outpace the jeep? Com- that which they can lift, and can throw or wield pare the motorbikes speed with the jeeps speed. as a weapon something one rank lighter than that which they can lift.

And so forth. Weight and Material Strength Most material objects have two properties that determine how tough the object is. Firstly they have a weight, which is based on their mass and determines the Strength needed to pick them up. Secondly they have a Material Strength which is based on a combination of the material they are made from, their size, and their shape. The Material Strength of an item works in exactly the same way as its weight, although this time it shows the amount of Strength or damage needed to break the item. If this value is less than the items own weight then picking up the item by exerting force on a portion of it will cause that portion to break away from the rest of the item rather than causing the whole item to be lifted.

Depending on the nature of the campaign as agreed by the GM and the players, some superpowers such as magical spells, tractor beams, or telekinetic powers may be able to avoid this limitation by acting on the whole item at once rather than lifting it by exerting force on a single portion of it. The Material Strength of a solid block of a particular substance is not necessarily indicative of the Material Strength of an item made from the substance, since the shape and thickness of the item may be more important than its exact composition.

This document was uploaded by user and they confirmed that they have the permission to share it. If you are author or own the copyright of this book, please report to us by using this DMCA report form. Report DMCA. Home current Explore. Home Masks - Unbound. pdf Masks - Unbound. pdf Uploaded by: Saad Maan 0 0 April PDF Bookmark Embed Share Print Download. pdf as PDF for free. Words: 52, Pages: Halcyon City, the Exemplars, and other setting or fictional elements unique to Masks are copyright Magpie Games, the Advanced Expert Group for Intervention and Security as used here is distinct from AEGIS as used in other works, including AEGIS the American Elite Government Intervention Service as used in the Freedom City setting of Mutants and Masterminds.

YOU ARE HERE. YOUR MIND IS LIMITED, BUT I CAN NARROW MY EXISTENCE TO THE SLIMMEST SLIVER SO WE MAY CONVERSE. BUT IT IS THE BEST WE CAN DO. HELLO MORTAL. IN TRUTH, THOSE WORLDS DO NOT DISSIPATE WITHIN THE FLOTSAM OF FANCY. THEY BECOME A PART OF SOMETHING GREATER THAN THEM. THEY BECOME A PART OF ME. AND IN SO DOING, THEY COME ALIVE, MADE REAL WITHIN MY ENDLESS DEPTHS. IT IS DIFFICULT TO CONCEIVE OF, BUT YOU MUST TRY. IT CRAVES THE SILENT, STILL VOID OF NONBEING. WITH EVERY PASSING MOMENT IT SCREAMS IN RAGE AS I SWELL WITH THE CREATIONS WITHIN ME…AND IT TEARS AT ME, GNAWS AT ME, RIPS WHOLE WORLDS FREE OF ME AND PLUNGES THEM INTO ITS OWN ABYSS. I AM IN NEED OF AID. YOU ARE A SENTIENT BEING. EVEN WITH YOUR LIMITED MIND, YOU CAN SUSTAIN THESE WORLDS. VISIT THEM. LIVE THEM. THESE UNIVERSES SHALL LIVE THROUGH YOU, MY PETS. MAKE ME PROUD. Halcyon City is a nexus point—a place where countless realities and timelines converge. Within its boundaries there are multitudinous stories, and when you add in other dimensions and other worlds…the possibilities are endless.

And you can experience those endless possibilities. All it takes is some bravery and a sense of adventure. HOW SHOULD I USE THIS BOOK? UNBOUND is here to help you expand your own game of MASKS. PLAYSETS The playsets in this book are designed to take your game of MASKS in brand new directions. They drift the game significantly, taking it outside the range of baseline MASKS and giving you new rules and techniques to play an awesome game in alternative settings. Some of these playsets are more focused on tone and flavor, while others bring substantial mechanical changes and new systems to your game, but all of them give you new tools that you could use in nearly any game of MASKS. A game of Iron Red Soldiers will be somewhat darker than a normal game of MASKS, and it offers the real opportunity for triumph right alongside the real threat of failure, with allies and loved ones falling in the conflict against the alien invaders.

Systems in this playset include a new mission structure for waging the guerrilla war, and a way to handle your allies offering aid while slowly depleting their own resources. A game of The Spiderweb will be street level, lower-powered and less overtly four-color than a normal game of MASKS. The playset offers a deeper connection to a particular neighborhood and culture to which your characters will be personally connected, while threatening that neighborhood with dangers from more grounded and realistic sources. Systems in this playset include a new harm move emphasizing the real risk of physical harm, and a way to handle whole gangs of minions working for a crime boss, such that defeating the minions can actually inflict conditions on the crime boss. A game of Phoenix Academy will be more focused on the kind of superhero stories bound by the structures and rigors of school, with characters reacting to and running up against the explicit rules of their learning environment.

The playset offers a story told in and around the tropes of high school, with dances, classes, tests, and more, all complicated by superpowers. Systems in this playset include a special move for taking tests over the course of the year, and an emphasis on using school events to structure the overarching cycle of the game. Secrets of A. and the Suits—and two new playbooks, the Brain and the Soldier! psychedelic reaches of space. The playset offers a road-trip format, with the PCs traveling from location to location on their quest to find the pieces of the Sonata, experiencing new things outside of the reach of the adults from their normal lives. Systems in this playset include a planet creation system ensuring you create interesting and Masks-appropriate worlds for the PCs to visit, and descriptions of the dangerous and cosmically powerful enemies they will face on their quest. PLAYBOOKS The playbooks are new kinds of characters you can bring into any game of MASKS, but especially suited to games using the content in this book.

They are a little more complicated than the baseline playbooks, but manageable. Each playbook comes with a section of advice for players and the GM. Other people—you—need to know these things. My name is Kasey Parker, but you probably know me as the Silver Wolf. But let me start at the beginning. It was once a thriving metropolis, bustling with people from all walks of life and all corners of the globe, their lives intersecting in countless permutations, both large and small. It was dotted with beautiful parks and fountains, traffic flowing past like a rushing stream as it moved along black ribbons of streets. In the early twentieth century, a new breed of people emerged, people with fantastic and terrible powers.

Starting with Flying Freedom, those with powers like time manipulation, flight, super strength, precognition, and teleportation to name a few became more common. Some of them used their powers selfishly, robbing banks, stealing art, generally going on rampaging sprees. But also, we had heroes, and they made the world brighter. Over the years three generations of superheroes rose. Now known as the Gold Generation, the Silver Generation, and the Bronze Generation, they had protected the city from those who abused their power. These heroes, along with A. FIRST CONTACT It was hard to be afraid when the aliens first appeared in Halcyon City. After all, we lived in the greatest city in the world.

Full of all kinds of weirdness. And nothing had destroyed us yet. We had our heroes to protect us. I remember the feeling in those days—an odd sense of invincibility. Simpler times, I guess. People saw them first in the outskirts of town, among the rolling farmlands, then closer. Weeks went by before someone caught one on camera, even in an age of ubiquitous cell phone cameras. It wore no clothing to speak of, but was adorned with some sort of circlet on its head and what appeared to be a bandolier holding a long, spear-like object to its back. But it was Halcyon City. This could be anything. A mythological beast, an alternate form of humanity, a time traveler. Nobody thought it was a real threat yet. We were sharing the picture with bigbird. After all, there was the Dread Queen and her latest ploy to claim Halcyon as Vyortovian territory to worry about. There was the Farlander rocketing around the city, madly, in a new hammer-shaped spacecraft, and some resurrected ancient weather god had spat a blizzard on Halcyon Harbor in the middle of summer.

We would worry about these bird creatures when something actually happened. People continued to spot the same type of creature, closer and closer to the center of the city, still perching and watching. On the rare instances when someone got close to one, it flew off and disappeared before any real contact happened. Even supers who tried using their abilities to make contact were foiled—seemed like the aliens were so shy they were willing to deploy cloaking devices or mindshields teleporters just to remain inaccessible. Eventually, A. and other government authorities began beaming messages on all frequencies, throughout the city and into the skies, thinking that there might be cloaked ships somewhere nearby.

They sent messages of welcome and peace in every human language, even flashing pictographs on the screens at the drive-ins and on the jumbotrons at the stadium, all to no avail. Then, as quickly as the birds arrived, they disappeared. No one reported any more sightings of the strange creatures. Everyone assumed that whatever they were, whatever they had wanted…they must have gotten it and gone home. We were wrong. They came in a single huge ship, rust red, matte, and shaped like a manta ray, large enough to darken the skies over Halcyon City like a gathering storm.

It could have been a giant kite floating there ominously, if the kite had been coated in blood and left to dry before launching it. Needless to say, we all paid attention now. No longer content to just sit and watch from afar, they sent ambassadors down to speak to the governing bodies. Some of the talks were televised and live-tweeted and dissected endlessly in the news and by think tanks.

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WebDOCUMENTS. MASKS Playbooks - The 10 Original starting playbooks (PDF format); MASKS Core Rulebook - The Rulebook (PDF format); MASKS Limited Edition WebMasks Rpg PDF Book Details. Product details Publisher: Magpie Games; Playbook edition (January 1, ) Language: English Paperback: pages ISBN X WebDec 2,  · Masks - Free download as PDF File .pdf), Text File .txt) or view presentation slides online. Fate meets FASERIP. Fate meets FASERIP. Open navigation WebMasks: A New Generation is a superhero tabletop roleplaying game full of action, youthful angst, and dazzling bravery. Take on the roles of members of the latest generation of WebIn this book, you get: Ten playbooks for young superheroes, so you can create your own characters. Rules for superheroic action, interpersonal drama, and changing identity. WebCheck masks rpg game from William Hoffman II here. Like masks rpg game? Just add masks rpg game of William Hoffman II to My Favorites. Embed masks rpg game to ... read more

Contest Example Captain Wonderful a PC hero has a Combat ability rank of World Class, and El Diablo an NPC villain has a Combat ability rank of Astounding. Both of them reshape the world around them almost at will, but The Spiderweb playset is about a street-level conflict against all-too-human foes. The Spider might not be redeemable, but his influence touches the lives of many people who already make Halcyon City a great place to live. But it was Halcyon City. Sister Salem saw corruption, selfishness, and hypocrisy and believed that the darkest elements of Halcyon and the world needed to be expunged. The Material Strength of a solid block of a particular substance is not necessarily indicative of the Material Strength of an item made from the substance, since the shape and thickness of the item may be more important than its exact composition. Rolling a 5, he looks on the After this initial power selection, his character Random Origin Table and sees that his hero is has now has: an origin of Transformed.

In each case, a typical not super powered person would have a rank of Average, and anything that is Fantastic or higher is considered to be superhuman, and counts as a power so it can be used for power stunts and counts against your starting Determination score - both of which are explained later in this book, masks rpg pdf download. DIRTY THE HANDS OF ALL INVOLVED No one in the Spiderweb is ever truly free of corruption The Voidbrood, ancient enemies of the Argonons, claimed that they had destroyed Argon Prime and were now hunting down the last vestiges of Argonon throughout the galaxy. Unlike many of her brethren, she is neither cowed by the Spiderweb and its ilk, nor has she been bought by them. Systems in this playset include a new harm move emphasizing the real risk of physical harm, and a way to handle whole gangs of minions working for a crime boss, such that defeating the minions can actually inflict conditions on the crime boss. Those captured by the Tangee have been traumatized, defeated, masks rpg pdf download left shadows of their former selves.