My Hero Academia- Masks

Plus Extra!

My Hero Academia is an excellent anime, featuring a group of classmates going to the number 1 high school for aspiring super heroes. An ensemble of interesting characters makes it seem like a living, breathing world.

In this setting, the majority of people are born with “quirks”, or super powers. Some are minor mutations, and others are big, flashy and powerful. Because of this change, being a professional super hero is a valid career, with a salary and everything.

Young kids with quirks that want to be superheroes apply to U.A, the number one high school for super heroes. Aside from their normal classes, they also receive training on using and developing their quirks, and becoming stellar super heroes.

I’ve been playing a lot of the Masks Role Playing Game lately, and the show captures a lot of the important elements from the game. Big emotions, dramatic scenes, and developing powers are all important in Masks, and the show has them in spades.

I’ve listed some of the main characters from My Hero Academia, and assigned them a corresponding playbook in Masks. If you want to play a character from My Hero Academia, this might help you get the right feel!

Izuku Midoriya- Midoriya is the main character of the show, and fits within a few possible playbooks. The Legacy is the immediate fit, as Midoriya literally has All Might’s legacy. The Doomed could also work, if you consider All Might’s impending death and the overall villain of the story as the possible ‘Doom’. The Protégé models Midoriya’s leadership and analytical skills, and keeps All Might directly connected to the playbook.

Katsuki Bakugo. He’s The Bull, absolutely. Bakugo’s personality aligns perfectly with the Bull; you even get to pick a rival!

Ochako Uraraka- The Nova is the closest fit, especially since it has gravity control. Her quirk is more support focused, so you can pick moves and abilities that allow you to support others and manipulate the environment.

Tenya Iida- The Legacy. His family are superheroes, and he is following in their footsteps. Give him a super speed power and you're good to go.

Shoto Todoroki- The Nova. His powers are big, flashy, and easy to lose control. Elemental control is also one of the standard options with the Nova as well.

Yuga Aoyama- The Star. Rather, he wants to be The Star.

Tsuyu Asui- This one is tough. Asui is a strong, stable influence. She’s almost handled better as an NPC, as she seems unlikely to get into arguments or fights like other characters. She could be a modified Janus or The Joined.

Momo Yaoyorozu- Her family is wealthy, so the Protégé would be a good fit. Because all of the kids in the anime have powers, The Beacon will almost never be used. However, because she creates mundane objects, an argument for the Beacon can be made.

Mezo Shoji- The Transformed. His body is obviously weird, and his associated powers align with the Transformed.

Eijiro Kirishima- He’s a good candidate for the Bull. He tries to overcome obstacles with brute force.

Mina Ashido- The Outsider! I know she’s not really an alien, but she looks just like the default picture. She even references how alien she looks!

Toru Hagakure- Because her only quirk is invisibility, the closest I can think of is the Beacon.

Kyoka Jiro- Another hard one, possibly handled better as a NPC or support. Perhaps the Janus?

Minoru Mineta- I hate him. The Delinquent? I’m not going to spend more time on this creep.

Denki Kaminari- The Nova, because his powers are elemental in nature and have a very bad drawback.

Fumikage Tokoyami- I want to go with the Doomed, but I’m not sure what his ‘Doom’ would be. Overall, the Doomed is the gloomiest of the playbooks, and he seems like the gloomiest person! But, somehow in a cool way.

Mashirao Ojiro- The Beacon might be a good fit here. His quirk is a tail, but it’s not a power in and of itself, so the Beacon could still work.

Hanta Sero- Yikes, this one is hard. His tape is definitely a power, but could be seen as a type of equipment, so the Beacon might apply. Additionally, the Janus has some similar powers.

Koji Koda- We don’t know much about Koda, so it’s hard to pick a playbook for him.

Rikido Sato- The Bull would fit his style, especially with the declining brain function.

Masks Beacon Playbook- Character Drives

Masks is a great game, and one of the playbooks, the Beacon, has one of the best design features for a character that I have ever seen.

For those that don’t know, the Beacon is the normal person on the team. They don’t have superpowers. They might have gadgets and skills, but they’re just a normal person trying to do good in a team of super powered friends.

The Beacon has a feature called Drives. The Beacon has a list of tasks or goals to accomplish. Because Masks is a teenage superhero game, these include things like “get a new hero name”, “punch someone you probably shouldn’t”, and “pull off a ridiculous stunt”.

Each session, the Beacon chooses four drives to work on. If they accomplish it, they get to mark it off and get a reward. Once a drive has been marked off, it’s permanently done. If you mark off all four in a session, you pick four more.

The beauty of this feature is that drives give you things to strive for. They’re almost a kind of role playing prompt. Regardless of whatever mission or story you’re participating in, drives are the motivations for your character.

With drives, you are never caught at a time where you don’t know what to do. If there is nothing else happening in the game, you can push to complete one of your drives.

The limit of four drives at a time is a great decision. It gives focus to your drives and goals. Having a list of 20 drives that you could accomplish would be overwhelming and feel chaotic. Instead, the act of picking four means that you are aware of what you want to do, and can do it with a focused approach.

The last beauty of drives is specific to Masks. In the game, if you are able to complete all of the drives, you have a choice to make. You either pick a new playbook and use that going forward, retire from the superhero life, or become a paragon of the city.

This highlights what Drives are to a Beacon. They’re a measure of accomplishment. A Beacon is defined by having drives that they want to achieve. Once they’re all done, they have nothing else they need to do in the game. If they want to keep playing with their team, they have to pick a new playbook, because they’re no longer driven by their drives; they’re a different type of person. If they retire, it’s because they’ve accomplished everything they want to from the superhero lifestyle. If they want to keep going down the same path, then they become a paragon of the city, an NPC.

Drives are an amazing feature that should be included in as many games as possible. I love this mechanic, and will be looking for ways to implement it into other systems.

What is Masks? An awesome game.

Have you played a Masks game? If so, what do you think about the Beacon’s drives? Let me know!

Masks Recap: Improvised Time Travel

Masks is a wonderful game, capturing the essence and joy of running a drama filled, teenage superhero game. A staple of super hero stories is time travel, which is also one of the most complicated stories you can tackle.

In my Monday Masks game, we’ve had a time travel thread going for the last few weeks. Friction, the Janus kinetic controller, has been replaced by her future self, although none of her teammates know. This week, we finally follow the story of the present-day friction exploring the future.

When we switched future and present Friction, her player came up with a few facts about the future on her own.

1.      The death of her younger brother, Jack, was the perceived turning point in the timeline for when it became a bleak future.

2.      The Calvary, the international group of superheroes, split up into individual cells. Some are good, some are bad.

3.      Firefly, the Outsider alien princess, was usurped by a sibling and is in hiding on Earth.

4.      Jishaku, the Reformed electromagnetic controller, is in control of a Calvary cell, and it is unknown whether she is good or bad.

5.      Friction is the leader of a vigilante group, fighting against both the good and bad.

6.      Finally, the bleakest fact: Nexus, the Transformed nanite lifeform, has been cut into pieces to be incorporated into other people. Integrating Nexus body parts grants incredible power, so organizations hunt down body parts and steal them from each other.

Overall, the future Halcyon city has a very Sin City feel, but with a higher level of technology.

A little bit of this, a little bit of Batman Beyond.

The facts we have are very invocative, but leave a lot open. For our session, we decided to dive into this further, and did it completely improvised.

The players of Firefly, Jishaku, and Nexus were allowed complete freedom to decide facts and features of the future, and push the story as they liked. My job was to introduce Friction to the future, and set her on the path to meeting her teammates.

I introduced a few features to the future: Hoverbikes, futuristic police blimps, unregistered metahumans, and the Manhunters.

Probably not these Manhunters. Probably.

Friction met with her vigilante group, and went to meet Jason Bellamy, the best friend of Nexus.

Nexus’ player was controlling Jason, as Nexus was unable to be played, being in many pieces and all. Jason fleshed out some information on what happened to Nexus, and put them on the path to meeting Jishaku.

The player of Jishaku fleshed out the role of the Calvary cells. They have a warlord feeling to them; they’re officially a part of the government, but can do whatever they want. The group decides to try and find a way to send a message back in time, and change the future. They go to look for Firefly and reunite the group.

The player of Firefly decided that after being usurped by a sibling, she made herself completely undetectable. She cut her psychic powers off, hid all of her alien tech, and tried living as a completely normal, boring person.

A fate worse than death, being boring- (teenagers everywhere)

The group restored Firefly’s memories, and went about finding a way to either send a message back, or even better, send Friction back to her normal time. Eventually, they sent Friction back to her timeline, where she can save her friends from their current predicament.

Throughout the whole story, Friction acted as a beacon of hope in a dark, bleak future. The players of the other characters did an amazing job at portraying a dark future, and because they were the ones deciding facts about it, they added things that were personal that I would have missed. Friction found a group of people who had grown apart, and brought them back together again. She brought the future the one thing it needed most- hope.

Time travel stories are complicated, confusing, and full of paradoxes. For a tabletop game, you don’t need to worry about keeping an internal consistency the entire time. You’re creating the game as you go, so you can always add things later. Go crazy. Let your players come up with facts and features about the future. It’s their characters, so it’s a great opportunity to preview what their plans are for their character, or delve into the mindset of them.

Have you ever run a time traveling adventure or story? Let me know how it went!

Masks: Overwatch NPCs

REAPER

Real Name: Gabriel Reyes

Drive: Kill overwatch operatives

Moves:

• Turn into mist, avoiding all damage.
• Disappear and reappear somewhere else
• Fill an area with bullets

Conditions:

• Angry
• Insecure
• Hopeless

Powers: mist form, endless bullets, unkillable.

SOMBRA

Real Name: ??? (Olivia Colomar)

Drive: Unravel the global conspiracy

Moves:

• Disable a device
• Hack any system
• Maneuver into an advantageous position through invisibility or teleportation

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Angry
• hopeless

Powers: Invisibility, teleportation device, hacking

DOOMFIST

Real Name: Akande Ogundimu

Drive: Only through conflict do we evolve

Moves:

• Destroy with the doomfist
• Evaluate a target’s weaknesses
• Knock enemies far away

Conditions:

• Angry
• Afraid
• Hopeless
• Insecure

Powers: Doomfist gauntlet, cybernetic implants

WIDOWMAKER

Real Name:  Amélie Lacroix

Drive: At the moment of the kill, I am alive

Moves:

• Hit a target from a far distance
• An enemy triggers a Venom Mine
• Grapple to a better position

Conditions:

• Angry
• Guilty
• Hopeless

Powers: Near zero heartrate, enhanced abilities

TRACER

Real Name:  Lena Oxton

Drive: The world could always use more heroes

Moves:

• Blink a short distance
• Recall self through time
• Detonate a pulse bomb

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Hopeless

Powers: Personal time control, pulse pistols

GENJI

Real Name:  Genji Shimada

Drive: Even if I sacrifice my body, I will never sacrifice my honor

Moves:

• Dash through enemies
• Reflect attacks
• Strike multiple foes with the Dragonblade

Conditions:

• Angry
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: Cyborg ninja, shuriken, dragonblade

MCCREE

Real Name:  Jesse McCree

Drive: justice ain’t gonna dispense itself

Moves:

• Hit a precise shot with his Peacekeeper revolver
• Stun with a flashbang
• Take your time a line up a shot. If not stopped, you hit what you want.

Conditions:

• Angry
• Afraid
• insecure

Powers: Sharpshooter, Peacekeeper revolver

PHARAH

Real Name:  Fareeha Amari

Drive: I will protect the innocent

Moves:

• Knock back with a concussive blast
• Stay out of reach with jump jets
• Unleash a barrage of rockets

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: Raptora combat suit, flight, rockets

SOLDIER 76

Real Name:  Jack Morrison

Drive: We’re all soldiers now

Moves:

• Pinpoint targets with tactical visor
• Heal with biotic field
• Rally troops

Conditions:

• Angry
• Guilty
• hopeless

Powers: Enhanced abilities, heavy pulse rifle with rocket launcher

BASTION

Real Name:  SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54

Drive: I love Ganymede

Moves:

• Transform to recon mode, sentry mode, or tank mode
• Heal self from damage
• Break barriers and lay suppressing fire

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: Self repair, multiple configurations

HANZO

Real Name:  Hanzo Shimada

Drive: With every death comes honor. With honor, redemption

Moves:

• Hit a target at an impossible angle with scatter arrows
• Detect enemies with a sonar arrow
• Clear an area with Dragonstrike, that only damages creatures

Conditions:

• Angry
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: Storm bow, dragonstrike

JUNKRAT

Real Name: Jamison Fawkes

Drive: It’s a perfect day for some mayhem

Moves:

• Launch a target through the air with a concussion mine
• Trap an enemy in place with a steel trap
• Cause a large explosion with the RIP-tire

Conditions:

• Angry
• Afraid
• Hopeless

Powers: Frag launcher, mind for explosives

MEI

Real Name:  Mei-Ling Zhou

Drive: Our world is worth fighting for.

Moves:

• Freeze something with endothermic blaster
• Summon a wall of ice
• Have Snowball create blizzard-like conditions

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Hopeless

Powers: Endothermic blaster

TORBJÖRN

Real Name:  Torbjörn Lindholm

Drive: Build ‘em up, break ‘em down.

Moves:

• Repair a device or item
• Create an item with personal forge
• Shoot with entrenched turret

Conditions:

• Angry
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: personal forge, rivet gun,

D.VA

Real Name:  Hana Song

Drive: I play to win

Moves:

• Absorb projectiles with defense matrix
• Trigger massive self-destruct explosion
• Master a game

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Angry
• Insecure

Powers: MEKA suit, gaming skills

ROADHOG

Real Name:  Mako Rutledge

Drive: I’m a one-man apocalypse

Moves:

• Hook a target and drag them close
• Push enemies back with a flurry of scrap with Whole Hog
• Get a surge of healing and energy with Take a Breather

Conditions:

• Angry
• Afraid
• Hopeless

Powers: Scrap gun, enhanced strength and endurance, chain hook

WINSTON

Real Name:  Winston

Drive: Imagination is the essence of discovery

Moves:

• Protect from attacks by placing a barrier projector on the ground
• Cover a large distance with jump jets
• Invent a new device
• When angry, enter a Primal Rage

Conditions:

• Guilty
• Angry
• Insecure

Powers: Genetically engineered gorilla, tesla cannon.

ORISA

Real Name:  Orisa

Drive: Your safety is my primary concern

Moves:

• Forcibly move enemies with Halt!
• Place a protective barrier that absorbs damage
• Resist movement and damage with Fortify
• Place a supercharger that amplifies the attacks and damage of allies nearby.

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: fusion driver, barrier creation

REINHARDT

Real Name:  Reinhardt Wilhelm

Drive: Justice will be done

Moves:

• Block attacks with a barrier field
• Move quickly and crush enemies with Charge
• Strike the ground and knock enemies down with Earthshatter

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: Crusader armor, rocket hammer, barrier field

ZARYA

Real Name:  Aleksandra Zaryanova

Drive: Together we are strong

Moves:

• Block damage with particle barrier
• Grow stronger by absorbing damage
• Trap enemies in a graviton surge

Conditions:

• Angry
• Afraid
• Hopeless

Powers: Strongest non-superhero woman, particle cannon

Ana

Real Name:  Ana Amari

Drive: Never stop fighting for what you believe in

Moves:

• Put someone to sleep with a sleep dart
• Heal damage with biotic rifle
• Boost an ally with nanites

Conditions:

• Guilty
• Insecure
• Hopeless

Powers: Biotic rifle

Lucio

Real Name:  Lúcio Correia dos Santos

Drive: Come on, let’s bring it together!

Moves:

• Speed up the movement of nearby allies
• Amp up a crowd with music
• Drop the beat and put a sound barrier on allies

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Angry
• Guilty

Powers: Sonic amplifier, wall riding,

Mercy

Real Name:  Angela Ziegler

Drive: I’ll be watching over you.

Moves:

• Heal injuries or boost damage dealt
• Revive an unconscious or dying ally
• Discover a cure or administer long term aid.

Conditions:

• Guilty
• Afraid
• Insecure

Powers: Valkyrie suit, Caduceus Staff

Moira

Real Name:  Moira O’Deorain

Drive: science will reveal the truth

Moves:

• Heal allies and damage enemies with biotic orbs and coalescence.
• Reveal an unexpected side-effect of treatment
• Fade into the shadows and teleport a short distance

Conditions:

• Angry
• Afraid
• Hopeless

Powers: Genetic tampering, biotic grasp and orbs

Symmetra

Real Name:  Satya Vaswani

Drive: The true enemy of humanity is disorder

Moves:

• Teleport allies with a stationary teleporter
• Injure and slow enemies with places turrets
• Create a hard light object

Conditions:

• Guilty
• Insecure
• Hopeless

Powers: Hard light constructs

Zenyatta

Real Name:  Tekhartha Zenyatta

Drive: True self is without form

Moves:

• Spout wisdom and enlightenment
• Follow a creature with an orb that weakens or heals
• Enter a transcendent stance with pulsing, healing energy

Conditions:

• Afraid
• Guilty
• Insecure

Powers: Telekinetic control of orbs

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!