Masks: A New Generation of Heroes

Game Master Cwethan

Sigh, Skull & Shackles is on my bucket list of Adventure Paths to run or play.

I'd probably do it with 13th Age or some other system though. Pathfinder has too many things at even medium levels that can reduce ships to obsolescence...

Or the romantic pirate movie, Gone with the Rum!

But...why is all the rum gone?

I love everything going on in this thread right now. XD

Jeez I’m gone for one afternoon and the discourse’s devolved into pirate jokes...

Okay, my thoughts on things:

ALEXIS, I do want to do the Kaoru “reveal” for Shaun at some point during this outing. I don’t know if that would interfere with what you want to do, but if it would I’m willing to have it happen later. (Though then we have to figure out a way that he never hears Kaoru called by name all night...)

BRONWYN, love the title. Also, feel like Shaun would actually like the movie, but would be bummed that they didn’t go see “Triassic Preserve: Revengance” or something like that.

WINGBLADE, I was also waiting for a post by you, but as I was writing this you posted, so thank you.

Now, for two big questions towards everybody:

1. How does everybody feel about the (very occasional) time jump? Nothing drastic, and if we want to go day-by-day I’m totally fine with it, I’ve just realized that without some jumps a certain part of Shaun’s arc is gonna have to be plot-convenienced into taking a much shorter amount of time than it would normally take. And I try to avoid conveniences when I can. (Though if there was any genre for them, superheroes would be it.)

2. Once we are officially a team IC, does anybody mind if I take the primary GM seat for our first mission? I want to take the opportunity to establish a villain that’s gonna be pretty central to my boy’s story early on. Again though, if somebody else wants first go I’m totally fine waiting.

1) Depends largely on context and how big of a time jump/if there are things that Kaoru would have wanted to resolve during that time jump that would be a little odd to try to resolve "off screen".

2) I'm fine with it. My ideas currently are all either silly one-offs or would need to come later down the line anyway.

Well Mercy's grabbing the tail end of our WOTFCT (or whatever the abbreviation is), but I'm up to find out more about Baskerville's Bane or whatever's haunting him :-)

Time jumps are definitely fine, but I'd say before establishing that they already happened, make sure everyone's ready to hop forward.

The one thing I'll say is that we're partway through the spring semester, and I'd definitely vote against anything that shoots us all the way to summer.

(Though skipping entirely past summer except for a few flashbacks is a time honored trope that may be appropriate once we get there - we'll see)

Exactly. Small time skips are fine. Even to the point (thanks to comic book chronology) where if you really add it up and think about it, we're in school longer than we should be, but we all need to agree when we change seasons, like summer break. I mean, Prom is right around the corner... :-D

Isn't prom typically a junior/senior thing with underclassmen only attending if they were invited by an upperclassman? Says the person who never actually went to prom. This also means I should probably think more about how Kaoru's various issues might develop, so I can try to hit certain milestones before prom.

It is typically a junior/senior thing, so probably no one on the team would be counting down the days or anything, but there are ways around that...

I forget if I mentioned this in recruitment, but we exclusively fight dinosaurs in this campaign.

;-)

Just as long as we don't face Wingblade's greatest fear.

Welp, know what to do if I run the Saurians again.

Got to get those mfing dinosaurs off the mfing plane!

Is this some secret inner circle initiation thing? You have to make a ridiculous dinosaur-themed villain to enter the Hidden Room? Because if so I’ve got a villain I made when I was a kid that would qualify.

Also, real-talk here, I was a massive dino-nerd as a kid, so it is surprisingly very difficult to not call these guys by their species for me. Shaun doesn’t know them so I’m trying to not use them, and it is giving me a lot of agitation I was not expecting. I guess I’m just really used to calling dinosaurs by name. :/

Also also, A+ Calvin and Hobbes reference. As someone named after that comic (yes really) I approve.

I'm starting to think the Villains I have are... A little off-tone, given everyone else so far.

Not at all! Villains come in all shapes, sizes and purposes. Some are just more into crime as a living, and others have strict long term goals that require a villainous path.

We'll definitely get to more serious super fights. But sometimes you just get to punch thieves and thwart their efforts.

Kilt, remember to choose when you hit on 7-9 when you Defend: Either expose him to danger, or escalate the Situation.

Also, real-talk here, I was a massive dino-nerd as a kid, so it is surprisingly very difficult to not call these guys by their species for me. Shaun doesn’t know them so I’m trying to not use them, and it is giving me a lot of agitation I was not expecting. I guess I’m just really used to calling dinosaurs by name. :/

So

Am I also a dino-nerd for knowing this? I had kinda assumed that was all fairly common knowledge (though I also definitely went through a dino-phase in elementary school where I wanted to be a paleontologist). I mean, it's not like I can tell a brontosaurus from a brachiosaurus/any other long-neck.

The trick there is that brontosaurus doesn't exist

It does again!

To be a stickler, Velo should be covered in feathers.... Is he?

The tl;dr I'm getting from all of this is "We don't know if you're a dino-nerd, but if you are, we are as well."

Rex too. Feathers have been mentioned in the description, but not specifically applied iirc.

EDIT That might've been the shorter way of saying all this, yes :-p

Rex is less certain I think.... when he was a baby yes, adult, I'm not sure..?

Rex is less certain, but I think he'd look better with feathers so I'm rounding up ;-)

To be a stickler, Velo should be covered in feathers.... Is he?

She.

And yes, she's got feathers. She's driving the jeep, or at least she was.

Hmm... I'd like to swap my Savior and Mundane using the Mask. The decision being Bronwyn's choice to strain, though not quite shatter, her illusion of normalcy in order to bring Bran out where she can help in a more unrestrained manner.

That seem like enough to affirm her role as Bran?

Given how you've been playing Bron/Bran... I think empathize feels more right, but you do you.

It'll definitely be both of them over time (and yeah, probably Empathize first). For now, the real question (since it seems slightly marginal) is whether flinging yourself off a car to be able to mask up is affirming enough of her superhero role...

oh, yeah... especially since she does have all her powers in human form, and could ahve fought in it, but instead choose to suit up

I would have thought so? Especially since Bronwyn broke her arm and will now have to explain to her parents how she managed to do that while grounded. Alternatively, not sure how fast we were going, but it might be suspicious to some people that more didn't happen to her from that fall. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In other news, I've figured out a way to make Kaoru care(ish) about the random civilians. So I can bust that out if no one presents her with a compelling argument to hack into the other cars now and save Bronwyn later.

The argument being that dozens if not hundreds of people will die if the truck crashes and nobody does anything to stop it/prevent people from being harmed. And it will take far more time go find where Bronwyn landed than there will be to stop this truck.

You now have forty-five seconds, by the way. Clock's ticking!

Aww, you say that like you actually think Kaoru is a hero as opposed to someone who's been systematically manipulated for months by a charismatic psychopath attempting (rather successfully) to isolate her from all her support structures while simultaneously cultivating a lack of empathy. :-P But I will also point out that you stated "it's possible the whole truck will hurt dozens of people when it crashes!" which is pretty significantly different from "dozens/hundreds of people will certainly die"

Ah, I think Bran could probably bust out a good explanation, but definitely isn't listening in on what Kaoru's saying to Alexandra. Also that call's definitely going straight to voice mail too.

Oh, and Bronwyn/Bran is ~comic book Spider-Man strong. So while he could definitely pull this thing along, stopping it while it's already in motion would take time at best, or hopefully the brakes :-)

No worries. That's why I thought up my own argument for how to get her to help (I just had to actually figure out what that argument would be). The more important thing is to illustrate her priorities/line of thought on these sorts of things. And yeah, I figured the call's not going to connect. I will not be surprised if it ends up a recurring thing for Kaoru to call Bronwyn while she's busy being Bran and get worried about if she's ok or not.

Probably not worth going back for, but Bran would have definitely given Shaun a sober nod and a "Thank you," when he backed down.

Noted.

Thanks for team building while I'm off being deceptive :-p

Are you really arguing against private time with Wingblade? ;D

I thought it might be a good way of doing some exposition,... :)

Yes, yes it is.

So...is Shaun not going to tell us about Bronwyn's message?

...HE WILL ONCE MY DUMB ASS IS REMINDED OF IT. X(

Okay - so what are people's to-do's at the movie.

I've got cuteness and interaction as a constant priority, but I also want to make sure Bronwyn gets a chance to make the "Be a Hero" pitch to Kaoru.

Also sounds like Shaun's got something that needs addressing what with the weeping blood and all...

My agenda is to watch Bronwyn and Shayera be adorbs. :3 (no pressure guys ;-) )

Also, finish out this scene with Alexis.

And I kind of want to latch onto Bronwyn's earlier idea of getting pie after the movie.

Honestly I just wanted to drop (ha) that seed if things to come. Beyond that and how Cassie reacts, maybe a scene where he slips Kaoru some whiskey and tries to get him drunk out of spite, but I can do that later.

I was expecting a “big group forming speech” from either Bron or Shayera at this thing. (Or maybe a big name hero shows up and forces the team together?) If that doesn’t happen I’m fine with it, but it makes my idea for proper mission 1 a bit trickier. Not impossible, and if we don’t want to force the team I understand, but trickier none-the-less.

Might be hard to slip Kaoru whiskey if she's not drinking anything due to lack of a gender-neutral restroom. But I'm definitely thinking I need to get her drunk at some point in time, so if it doesn't happen now, later is a definite possibility. Though then I need to figure out why Kaoru doesn't stop drinking as soon as she realizes her drink now tastes terrible. Maybe slipping her vodka would work better?

Bron chatting with Kaoru can easily become a Big Damn Heroes speech, so I wouldn't be too worried :-)

I was expecting a “big group forming speech” from either Bron or Shayera at this thing. (Or maybe a big name hero shows up and forces the team together?) If that doesn’t happen I’m fine with it, but it makes my idea for proper mission 1 a bit trickier. Not impossible, and if we don’t want to force the team I understand, but trickier none-the-less.

I actually had something like that in mind if the opportunity presented itself. I won't force it if it looks like people are wandering away from the theater, but if everyone's still in one place when I get access to my laptop this evening...

It will be interesting to see what happens when you slip Alexis alcohol. She also doesn't drink carbonated drinks because they taste weird to her.

Why am I getting the impression a Shaun-instigated “getting to know you” scene will be him getting everyone super drunk? I’m so down for it. >:3

If we wanted to try to get Shayera drunk, we'd need some Flash-level alcohol though since she's already established her healing gives her a crazy high tolerance. Though hopefully if Bronwyn winds up being a handsy drunk, Shayera will respond more favorably than she did last time. ;-P

Which is to say, I'm so down for this as well (though obviously no pressure if people don't want their character drunk, I just totally want to get Kaoru to lose some of her inhibitions temporarily). Maybe then we can hit those other teen tropes like the afore-suggested spin the bottle. :-P