Character Creation and Discussion

I've been there. Think Michelle could either have gone with Leo, joined Alice and Lex, or stuck with Aria. Or done her own thing :P. We're all conversing back on the building with the hwole wheret eh bad guys are, and hopefully our badass bikers will be there soon :P.

Yeah. Momentum and excitement. I was going to try to keep my posting to something like a Monday Wednesday Friday schedule. For in character convos and stuff like that though, I think you can post when you get around to it or before I get my next one in.

Also, as a PbtA game, it really is pretty player driven as far as pacing and moves and such and the interrelated nature of the relationship and influence and bonds. More so than most other types of games.

All of that is to say im going to shoot for a MWF schedule. Other than that, just chime in when you can/feel.

I'm struggling a bit with Nightfly's powers. Particularly for combat.

Ze has Substance Mimicry and wears a full-body suit, and that feels like it limits a lot what ze can do with the power as the suit is between zir and any baddies. I guess ze can do things like mimic substance qualities such as mass, radioactivity, smell (??) that can act through the suit? Or take zir gloves off? Hm. I guess ze can damage things with zir fists by mimicking diamond...

Zir second power is Insect Control - and it feels like there are only so many wasp swarms out there to sick on the baddies, only so much ze can do with zir trusty band of cockroaches when it comes to combat.

I'd thought ze could have some useful utility for being sneaky and infiltrating and so on, but with a teleporter, a flyer, a phaser, that feels pretty redundant too.

Yeah, ze just feels very underpowered compared to what the rest of the team is bringing.

Given current set up, maybe it'll be a bit like playing a DnD Bard, being there for the support/utility stuff. And I think I can enjoy leaning into that. I've heard Masks described as a drama simulator rather than a combat simulator - so, as I've been kinda doing, maybe it's really about leaning into the drama with this character.

And then maybe I play zir as something like Black Widow - not really doing much with zir superpowers, but being all fancy and acrobatic and so on.

But, yeah, any thoughts on how to work with playing what feels like a very under-powered character?

I do think Masks is much more about the interpersonal than about the fights (though, as Aegis would know, I just generally find big fights rather boring compared to just people talking 😅), so being 'underpowered' shouldn't present too much of a problem, hopefully. In a different system, I've had a Kryptonian and a regular human among the PCs and that worked out fine because the game was much more about social stuff than combat (and even in action scenes, we made it work pretty well).
That said, I'm sure especially this early in the game, there wouldn't be a problem if you wanted to decide to change up some things, whether it be your powerset or something else, if you're not quite happy with it. You are supposed to have fun, after all. Perhaps you could also just say that zir substance mimicry also applies to zir clothes (specially crafted for zir) and that ze can summon swarms from farther away, if you just want what you have to feel a bit more useful.

Thanks for that. Helps a lot.

Reading you message, and thinking a bit, I think I'll follow one of your suggestions and give myself just a little bit more freedom by having mimicry apply also to zir clothes.

I'll have it that the "clothes" ze wears is actually zir doing substance mimicry with zir skin i.e ze mimics a costume around zirself. And ze can just add additional substance features to it as needed.

Thanks again!

So ze's actually just running around naked right now?

Don't tell Alice 😳😄

I think this will be one of zir BIG secrets heh. Or does this feel like a bit too much?

I think it's a fun little potential reveal for later

Could also lead to a dramatic reveal of Jerry if powers ever go awry... and NIghtfly always refusing to be teleported by Leo :P


Re insect control as a power there is a good but very long web story where the main character Weaver does creative things with insects and I cannot remember the name...

Edit: Worm!

I once very briefly played a character with insect control powers in a short-lived game. He was an enforcer for a mob boss, and it turns out, insects can be a great tool to intimidate someone.

Lots of comics assume "advanced costume technology" that allows the costume to not hinder powers, even if it makes sense that they would. Maybe Mr Phase got Nightly such a costume. Perhaps he knows Halcyon City's version of Edna Mode.

As for insects, they are probably more utility than combat. Maybe she carries some with her as well, in a special backpack or something. "Nightfly, why is your backpack buzzing?"

Yeah. I can see how you may having a hard time finding use. But that shouldn’t be a problem. I have no problem with zir absorbing and mimicking substances through the costume. Call it "permeating energy fields" or something, lol. Also, you can pull a Rogue from x-men evolution and just whip the glove off when you’re ready to do it. We could even say , aka Animorphs, that ze stores the pattern of the substances earlier, before combat and can use them in combat. Complications could be if you roll a 6 or something, then ze lose that substance until ze can absorb it again. Or something.

Insect Control, I’m happy to be flexible here too. You could communicate with the bugs for scouting like, Beast Master, or control swarms. But let’s not forget that the original Computer Bugs were literally bugs that got into computers and messed them up. I’ll tell you this for free, if a single mosquito flies into my nose or ear, my whole day is ruined. Now image a sugar bee with the singular thought of crawling into an ear and stinging something. Could be bad. I guess control could also be controlling thier "pheromones" and venoms and other Pseudosciences to be more potent. And if you want to say some critters are around, or that there’s an insect lab adjacent, or they just called the exterminator to get rid of some killer bees, etc, I’m happy to have it.

And obviously increased physical abilities is pretty good. Even being twice as powerful as the average person in a fight is devastating. And to me, increased physical abilities is a bit farther than like Captain America/Batman level. "Peak Human". Or I guess somewhere between Batman and Captain America. I think they probably left the peak human limit behind for him a while ago.

All of that is to say I’m more than happy to be flexible and a big fan of the character. And that’s true for all of you. Feel free to add some stuff to the scene and I want you to input some of your own stuff when/if you want.

Also, if you want, you can depict everything and the playbook. We’re pretty early in so I don’t mind that.

Oh I LOVE the ideas y'all are sharing here...!!!! Thank you so much!

Right. Yes. "Advanced Costume Technology" it is - I wasn't super-comfortable with Nightfly buzzing around essentially in the nude...! If OK with everyone, I'll retcon that ze stole one of these suits from a superhero in town that has a similar body-shape to zir (don't want zir getting it from someone 'officially' as atm no one knows of the link between zir mundane and heroic identities).

Oh and zir backpack TOTALLY holds a colony of bumblebees. Maybe not the scariest or most useful insect. But one of the cutest and THAT'S ALSO IMPORTANT heh. Gonna give zir a favourite worker bumblebee called Lex. And now ze knows Lex/Wild Claw, ze has taken to calling bee Lex "Big Lex", and Wild Claw "Little Lex", to be silly and friendly-tease Wild Claw a bit.

So, for the Mimic Substances I was thinking of running it like - if I've touched a thing at some point in my life, then I have access to mimicking physical or chemical properties of it.

I've touched iron, so can make parts or all of my body the density, hardness, of iron. I've touched some super-heat-resistant lab material and then crushed a lit halogen lamp in my fingers, so can take on the light-generating brightness of the tungsten filament. Stuff like that.

So I can imagine zir sometimes going off into physics labs to get zir fingers on unusual substances with unusual properties, to add to zir list of possibilities.

And could imagine zir in a fight mimicking funky halogen-lamp-bright dancing patterns across zir body to confuse and blind people ze is fighting. Stuff like that. Ah, nice, ze carries a badass sound-system also in the backpack and when ze is fighting like this, powers up loud awesome loudass beats and the patterns move in time with the music, as does ze, until suddenly they/ze don't and BAM didn't see that coming did you (this is stollen directly from Nilah Brio in Alex White's The Salvagers Series).

Sound OK? No problem if I'm shifting here to OP from underpowered, happy to throttle it back!

Sounds all fun to me!

Nope. That all sounds pretty good to me! Obviously we’ll work out any details but I like where your head is at.

I would like for you to tell me who the hero is and does/did etc… it can be one of the "established" heroes or you can make one up. And how you came across the suit. I’ll make sure they are included in the Roster with the previous generations heroes.

Nightfly stole zir suit from TardiGrade - a high-school biology teacher who also runs as a superhero. Her powers are about being basically un-killable - able to survive impact, radiation, suffocation, and more (I'm inspired here by these amazing beasties). She mostly uses her powers to help Halcyon City's search-and-rescue, and fire department - saving people trapped in awful situations.

TardiGrade has a very similar body size and shape to Nightfly - and is a very peaceful easy-going superhero, doesn't have any big enemies, and just lives openly in her inner-city apartment. Her mundane identity, Lana Jenkins, is not a secret.

Nightfly really felt ze needed a suit - doing everything in the nude but using zir powers to colour zirself pitch black to allow zir to infiltrate and so on, just had always felt like it was asking for trouble. So one day, while Lana was teaching her classes, Nightfly sneaked in and took one of Lana's spare suits from her closet. Lana didn't realise until a while later than one of her suits had been taken - is puzzled about what happened to it.

This is wonderful! I’ll include TardiGrade.

So the suit is durable and allows for some degree of permission between the wearer and the environment? And I guess has a backpack and some other pockets?

Ah, glad you like it :) I kinda liked the pun that TardiGrade is still a teacher, so she added the capital G in the middle of her superhero name. She probably gives any student a special "look" if they turn up late or tardy...

Yes, I was thinking the suit is very durable and flexible, allows Nightfly to 'touch' through the fabric, and can basically be used as an external additional "skin" for Nightfly - like, ze can control the suits opacity, colour, and so on. Although if ze isn't doing anything special with it, then the suit just defaults to a deep impenetrable black.

And, yes, backpack and pockets please heh.

Would that be OK?

Been stalling on Wild Claw description while trying to find a fitting picture :P. Other than 'big, horns, juggernaut'

Will try and come up with one :P.

Lol. Sounds good. No reason the form can’t change from time to time. You know… "pulling energy from the subjective unconscious of the villain" or something appropriately hokey, purple and of that era.