by Magpie Games
No question is more terrifying to ask a tabletop gaming group than “what should we play next?”.
While some tabletop gamers might enjoy yet another round of their twenty-sided-comfort-food RPG Dungeons and Dragons (the latest edition now available at your local library!) I know that as the one who usually ends up having to run the game as GM, it gets daunting after a while. While, from the perspective of a player, there is nothing quite as thrilling as slaying the monsters, collecting the loot and growing strong enough to do it again, I think it is refreshing to play games that focus on the ROLE-PLAYING part of RPGs. When I want to run a game that is more invested in telling a story instead of number-crunching, this is the game I pick up.
Masks: A New Generation comes with a number of assets to its credit. For a start, the Powered by the Apocalypse system that drives the game is a very intuitive and flexible system that rewards the “fail-forward” mentality of newer role-playing games. Rather than fearing the dreaded “critical fail”, you are encouraged to embrace failure and gain experience from it (both mechanically and in-character). Also, the basic premise of Masks is a very open-ended one and yet a personal one: you step into the role of a young superhero trying to balance both great power and great responsibility.
The game also does an excellent job of encouraging the growth of those powers and responsibilities while dealing with the tension involved. You have to deal with the threats of supervillains as well as the issues of authority and maturity. You have statistics like “Danger” or “Savior” or “Freak” or “Mundane” that track not just your powers, but moods and mindsets as well. And as they shift up or down during the course of play, it likewise reflects the changes and growth of your character.
The “playbooks” (the equivalent of classes for this game) feel distinct and take a different approach to play than you usually see from other RPGs. Rather than focusing on what your powers do, it tends to focus more on who your character is and how they fit into the world at large. For instance, the Doomed playbook is a character whose powers come at the cost of a ticking, existential clock. The Legacy is a character that lives in the shadow of a more famous and established character (think Supergirl to Superman). The Outsider is a character that comes from somewhere else and has to learn to adapt to Earth and its culture.
In short, Masks is a very story-focused RPG gamebook that places less mathematical strain on the GM and allows players and GM alike to work collectively in creating an engaging and exciting story. If this sounds like an interesting change of pace for your gaming group, I strongly recommend that you check it out!
reviewed by Kate Holt
