Masks Recap: Mirror Mirror

This game is awesome!

I have been running a game of Masks for the last couple of months, and I love the system. I’ll talk about the system itself at some point later, but I just had a very cool event occur in our game that I wanted to share.

The characters

Nexus (The Transformed). Fused with an alien silicon based life-form, and now looks like an android. Technomancy powers.

Firefly (The Outsider). Princess of a bee-like alien planet, partying on earth while avoiding her royal duties. Psychic powers.

Jishaku (The Reformed). Daughter of the Iron Emperor, Japan’s equivalent of Magneto. Turned away from her father and is trying to be a hero. Magnetic powers.

And our star of this session:

Friction (The Janus). Physics geek who wants to prove that she’s not ‘boring’. Control of friction.

Meet Friction

At the end of the previous session, Friction received a call from her younger brother, Jack. A villain named Teegan Queen spoke instead, stating that she had kidnapped Friction’s brother and wanted her to come to a location, alone.

Friction went to confront Teegan Queen, stealthily infiltrating a surprisingly empty mansion. Upon finding Teegan, she began to fight but locked eyes with a large mirror in the hallway. Her reflection was wearing a different costume. Friction suddenly felt ill, as the world seemed to wobble.

When her senses returned, she found herself face to face with her reflection outside the mirror, who seemed to hold a special hatred for Friction. The two of them began to fight, and Friction was able to remove the doppelganger’s mask, revealing herself but aged a few years.

As the fight progressed, the doppelganger revealed herself as Friction from the future. In her future, Jack died because she wasn’t strong enough to save him. Now that she’s older and stronger, she sees this as an opportunity to save Jack and live in a new timeline.

Then Friction’s player surprised me.

Friction acknowledged that her future-self was stronger, and better suited to save Jack. She surrendered to herself.

Future Friction, full of contempt for her past self, threw young Friction through the mirror and shattered it. Now, future Friction will live in the past and change the timeline.

This was an incredible moment, and has opened up so many interesting possibilities. For now, we are going to have Friction’s player control her future self, without letting her teammates know about the change.

Even better, one of our players, Firefly, wasn’t able to make the session. She has NO IDEA about what happened, and we’re going to keep it that way. We aren’t going to tell her about the scene, and see if she is able to notice anything different.

What is Masks? A way to throw as much drama and teen angst at a game as possible. It's the best.

This is sure to be an exciting game, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next!