I wouldn’t confuse “having a plan” with “telling a story”. You’ve definitely spent time elaborating on details the players presented.
I don’t have anything planned long-term for Alex. However, they are a comedy machine in any scene involving other people, as I hope I’ve demonstrated, so I feel like that’s okay. Just keep giving Alex vague, stress-inducing missions.
I will make a specific suggestion that I hope lowers your stress. Masks is a game about relationships and we spent all this time doing a home-room chart, so use that. Stories about people will probably land better than stories about stuff.
For example, “hey Kiln there’s an ancient temple that was maybe built by your people, want to check it out?” can become “hey Kiln, this temple was built by your people. It doesn’t respond to you, but when Chris walks by, her demonic abilities seem to provoke a response from the temple. What do you do?”
Character charts and Oracles for (nearly?) everyone. I don’t necessarily want a game off of random encounter tables – but the framework they provide, and the elaboration within those things, has lots of potential.
“Joey, it’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, what are you doing?”
“I’m done with my math homework and nervous about the test on Monday. Hmm. Feeling a bit peckish. I’ll go down to the student co-op and get a shake. Chocolate, not banana, before anyone asks.”
“Okay, when you come in, you find (rolls D20) Evan holding court with a half-dozen other students, (rolls D6) regaling them with oddly disturbing tales of the Fae kingdom. What kind of things is he talking about, and how do you react to them.”
“He’s talking about the wars back home, brilliant heroes against the forces of shadow, the faceless goons of the Dark Mistress, bred by her to --”
And that’s when Joey realizes Evan sees him as an orc, a degenerate brute offshoot of the dominant race. Hilarity ensues.
And eventually, enough pieces fall together from those sorts of encounters to make a narrative through line that people consensually continue on their own.
I didn’t mistake your point. There’s just an Old School aversion I have to random encounter tables, which is reasonable if every encounter is generic. (“Oh, look, another beggar”) but silly if it’s used as a framework to build those people stories.
My assessment might be a bit off, but I imagine the aversion has more to do with uninspiring interpretation of results and boring/uninteresting play than the random tables.
GM: “ You meet a beggar on the road. He introduces himself as Alton before he begins pleading with you for anything you can spare, teary eyes as he mournfully rambles about his lost home, his dead wife Agatha, and starving children. What do you do?”
[short RP occurs, party probably gives the beggar some money. Move on.]
GM: “A couple hours pass and <rolls, squints at results and ponders for a moment> you meet a different beggar on the road. This one is redheaded and says his name is Alton. As soon as he introduces himself, he mournfully rambles about his lost home, his dead wife Agatha, and starving children before extending his hands in a smooth, supplicate motion and asks for whatever you can spare.”
So back when I originally imprinted on RPGs (call it the AD&D, early GURPS era), the GMs I knew (self included) carefully handcrafted every encounter, key dialog, color text, etc., that the players would hit against, and then ran the game accordingly – as well as maintaining in advance the narrative arc of the campaign, all the big secrets that would be revealed along the way, etc. Players brought their characters to the table, and went through that narrative, hopefully not derailing it, hopefully not feeling railroaded, and, if you had a good DM, getting some character stuff to play against as you went on (the
pre-planned encounter with the city magistrate gets tweaked to make it Grimbleblade’s uncle who was behind his father’s death).
In that context, random encounter tables were a sign the DM didn’t have their ducks in a row, and generally, yes, were boringly played. (The only exception was the DM using a random monster encounter if the players stood in one place in the dungeon for too long arguing about what to do next. Even that was kind of lame.)
Now, there is a whole ton of wrong in the above for any sort of extended campaign (vs., say, a module being run at a con table). I know that, and it’s not what I rationally expect from any GM (or player) in the modern era, nor is it probably fundamentally even what I want. But my brain still silently keeps drifting back to that as baseline “normal” and, thus, I tend to want to be guided more than I should, tend to be more reluctant to assert narrative control if I worry it will upset the GM or the other players, and, probably most importantly, don’t run games myself any more.
Which is a long digression, I know, to talk about random tables.
Actually, having each beggar give exactly the same details would be far more interesting.
Hoo boy, there’s a lot. I know I’m a little late to the party but college is unforgiving. I get called up a lot as I was the initial example, so I’ll try to give my thoughts, though it may end up a little rambly.
I had not initially realized that this was my tech. Which in retrospect it makes perfect sense, being about as subtle as the old cartoons where the secret door is a whole different color.
Yes the temple and/or any other magitech is interesting. Like I said above, I was just slow on the uptake. Also more focused on the Fryth because it seemed to me that would be where the action in the scene would come from. Also he hits all of my buttons.
And you would be correct. Which is something I need to work on.
Yeah, I agree with this. I feel like really the only reason we are a team is because we’re the players and know that we are a team. There is nothing really tying us together otherwise it feels.
Long Term
Kiln searching for a way to get back to their own time, etc.
Kiln adapting to the modern world.
Basically playing around with the Relic playbook, which admittedly we need to do up a single version to follow instead of looking at the three different ones floating around. Short Term
Stuff about the present. What is different, what is the same, what has happened in the past centuries that can confuse Kiln. (What do you mean we landed a man on the moon? Gender reveal parties? Atomic what nows?)
Stuff about the past. People and things that Kiln knew. Again, some of the general Relic stuff.
Interacting more with other characters, both NPCs and PCs. Kiln has cooking class with Chris, but what else? That’s the best way for them to interact with the present. This can also get into modern social norms, like people thinking Kiln is into Chris (tbd) because of how they act vs whatever Kiln thinks.
My short term/long term aren’t the best but I obviously need to think more about who Kiln is as a character rather than just a copy of some video game character. So that’s on me. I’ll try to do so and update this list.
Along those lines, we’ve been hitting the school / academy thing pretty heavily. That’s not by any means inappropriate, but it also means that, aside from the fill-in-the-blanks about “when we first met,” we’ve not done any on-screen OUR SUPER TEAM VS. BAD GUYS scene.
Which, honestly, the Super-Hero wing of the museum seems like it would be perfect for.
The Architects of Evil (because I won’t not push for them) stealing some not-so-decommissioned piece of villain tech.
Ilijah Intrepid (from the Deck of Villainy) looking for a piece of dimensional tech to get him free of Halcyon City.
La Espada (we’re just going to go with Deck of Villainy villains from here on out) with similar motives to the Architects of Evil, just a lot less campy and a lot more “chase scene”-y.
Doctor Spectre frees herself from a containment unit in the museum and goes on a rampage, like the Scoleri Bros from Ghostbusters 2.
Rampage. Was having a fight with another hero (Powertronic perhaps?!) but Rampage’s last hit sent them flying into the museum and knocked them unconscious, allowing Rampage to go on an unfettered… rampage.
Iconoclast wants to bring down the superhero wing of the museum to destroy a monument to fascist so-called superheroes (we do have a history of Iconoclast bringing the team together ).
The Blue Hydra thinks one of the items in the museum can help her with her condition, though that’s just another whispered lie from the Hydra.
Replying on my phone because wifi is wonky today, so short response.
When you talk about checking in and engagement, I think of PTA A plot, B plot mechanic. For me last week I felt like I had already gotten my turn at the A plot and wanted others to be able to get the spotlight. Also some evenings I just don’t have A plot energy. So maybe starting the game with, I’m thinking this field trip is an A plot for Kiln and Joe. What do you think?
Piping in on the not wanting to interrupt, I’m having trouble finding a good time to do my memory roll. Maybe doing it the end of the session and having it as a teaser for the next week.
Also, we need a hangout. Don’t want campus to feel like COVID quarantine.
Another villainous idea, albeit with a bit more prep, would be a villain group counterpart – the “Hellions” to our “Young Mutants,” if you will: a group of teen villains who will be long-term rivals for us. They could be from a corresponding evil “academy,” or some of the “bad kids” from our school, or maybe not-so-good kids from another super-school, or even just the equivalent of a metahuman street gang in Halcyon terms. And, of course, there’s an opportunity for synergies, evilcounterparts, misunderstood rivals, vicious rivalries, forbidden relationships, and all that jazz.
Not something to come up with on the fly, but it’s a classic trope cluster.
(And, just for fun, all of TV Tropes’ school tropes.)
Oh, interesting. I wonder what everyone’s evil opposite would be? Might be an interesting exercise to grab another player’s character and throw their tropes on their head.
Unfortunately, I would break my own rules laid out by picking two (but only because it makes things more interesting).
The Nega-Twins come from another timeline that, thanks to a battle between Doctor Infinity and the Chrono-Detective, no longer exist. Out of sync with this timeline, the Nega-Twins each have a disruptive touch that disorients and causes pain to anyone from this timeline and grows stronger the closer the two are to one another. While they tried working with scientists and doctors from this timeline to help them deal with their issues, the constant pain and isolation it causes them has driven them into a nihilistic rage. (Evil opposites of Mette and Kiln, coming from a different time and place but with inherent problems that make integration much more difficult.)
Those were the two most difficult to “imitate” without being obvious. So good call.
Going beyond that, the adversary team would undoubtedly have a bitter, lizardlike Transformed (the Behemoth); a prideful Beacon (the Ronin), and a snarky hacker (Kaos, played by Wil Wheaton).
(If I can be honest, I had to kick that can down the road a bit, because I’m an idiot and totally forgot Mike was booked. Kind of dumb to have designed a team-making thing when the whole team isn’t there. If you listen to the recording, you can actually hear me thinking “you damned idiot” while I’m realizing/remembering Mike’s working. It’s pretty classic.)
Which is just as well, since you guys came up with better ideas anyway.
So coincidentally, someone posted a thread on Reddit about some subject matter that aligns with what’s been discussed on this thread. Not a bad read with some good reasoning and some interesting anecdotes.
In theory, ditching the field trip AND school with a fake illness is both awesome and hilarious.
In practice, it’s kind of boring having nothing going on when everyone else is in school. Your mind starts to wander while you check news feeds, twitter, super-instas, and all the little threads of information that let you make a mental picture of Halcyon.
Today’s mental picture is a big flashing DANGER alert.
Someone’s going to attack the museum. Iconoclast? Architects of Evil? Ilijah Intrepid? Maybe all of 'em? Not good.
No one’s answering messages, texts are failing to deliver. Not good. Time to move.
Do you make it in the nick of time, or seconds too late? Roll +Freak.
10+: All the time in the world. Add 1 team to the pool. The team is not ill-prepared or off balance. Pick a non-team classmate who is definitely safe from the initial attack, thanks to you, and take influence over them. Tell us how it looks.
7-9: Skin of your teeth. Pick which three team mates avoid taking a powerful blow as you give them juuust enough warning (include yourself). Then pick: the team is not ill-prepared, or you save a classmate from immediate harm and take influence over them. Tell us how it looks.
6-: Time’s up. Rocks fall, everyone dies takes a powerful blow. The team is I’ll-prepared. Pick one team- or classmate you get to (relative) safety.
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