No #MasksANewGeneration #TTRPG this week. Several players are dealing with life getting a little too rough. I'm looking forward to starting the next trade and spotlighting another member of the team with a story focused more on them.

I've been trying to give each player their time in the sun by developing their story of how they're growing into their own super heroic identity. It's been a ton of fun and a real honor bring the storyteller for this group.

https://mastodon.social/@Zestryon/114858773896605511

Pour les amateurs de #MasksANewGeneration mais pas seulement, pour tous les amateurs de #jdr de #SuperHéros en général.

On Sunday, I gave my #Pathfinder players a choice. As they investigate the rune forge, those who find themselves embodying one of the seven deadly sins of Christian faith may have an easier or tougher time in certain areas of the rune forge.

The option I gave each player was to decide if they believed their character did indeed embody one of those sins or if they thought that they were basically good people.

Everyone but the evil character picked one of the sins.

The evil character, we discussed, had been working on being a better person since the beginning of the campaign and had been trying to redeem himself.

I was floored at their decisions. This felt like the kind of powerful RP I've been seeing in my #MasksANewGeneration game with the #PBTA engine. That game is more about character decisions and less about superheroes stopping crime.

It felt powerful and I'm so proud of and grateful for my players.

This weekend, I managed to finish up another campaign/trade of my #MasksANewGeneration game and finally progress further in my #Pathfinder campaign. It felt good to get back behind the screen and run some games. A combination of family events, players on vacation, and illnesses have thrown us off schedule for a bit.

This Friday, if everything goes as planned, I'll be finishing my fourth trade/campaign for my #MasksANewGeneration game. If they don't, well then everyone will just have to wait a little longer.

For me, this is a monumental feat. When I was younger, I never had the mental fortitude to stick with a campaign more than a handful of sessions, at best.

I feel like this is some of my best work as a GM. I've had intricate plots, I've surprised my players more than once (and gotten compliments for it, no less!), and I've witnessed my players RP some incredible character growth.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have such a great group of players who trust me enough to let me weave these stories. GMing is my creative outlet.

I just finished the latest issue/session of my #MasksANewGeneration #TTRPG for my players. This is the penultimate session of the trade/campaign. I love getting to use comic book terminology to describe the game.

The NPC sister of the alien catgirl player has been moving in the background, trying to take out the heroes and their parents. It's a whole thing where the player's character ran from her arranged marriage to another dimension. The team decided the best way to flush out the sister was to stage an award ceremony, trying to draw her out into an open conflict.

Instead, the players had to deal with a building that was struck by a meteorite flung by a mass driver and another, larger one flung at the parent's spaceship. They had to split the team and defeat both threats at the same time.

It was a blast to run. I've been listening to a lot of #NADDPOD and pulled some tricks I learned listening to Brian "Murph" Murphy run his games. I think it really elevated the encounters.

I love the emotional high after a well run session. My players are absolutely awesome.

I really wish I had more #TTRPG things to post here. At this point, I've got a primary and backup #MasksANewGeneration (#Masks) games, a primary #Pathfinder game, and we're working on getting a time to make characters for a backup #ADnD2e game at some point, but we've been reliably unreliable in meeting.

I've been spending a lot of time reading up on news and politics, because as an American, I'm in the thick of it all and I'm less likely to panic if I know what's going on. However, I don't want to turn my account into a highly politicized one.

I do miss RPG shop talk though. I keep my eyes on the hashtags. I just haven't had any burning questions I wanted to ask folks.

Looks like I'm running a backup game for our #Masks group. The players are okay with another #MasksANewGeneration game but with a lighter tone. I'm thinking about a mix of #QuantumLeap, #Sliders, and the #CrossTimeCaper run of #Excalibur, one of the series that really got me into collecting comics.

The overall idea will be a team of heroes who are forced to hop through different dimensions, probably heavily influenced by movies, TV shows, or books that I'm into. Everyone seems to want something lighter in tone and I can certainly do that for them!

After about a two month break (holidays, player moving, weather, and disease), we finally got back to my #MasksANewGeneration game.

The heroes had to deal with a pair of human supremacists (Whiteout and Slay Belle) and a union security guard (Jacked Frost), intergalactic arms merchant parents, and the line between being a super powered cop and vigilante.

I was afraid I was going to be rusty, and that I had lost the story plot, but it came back like riding a bike. Lots of screaming, honking car horns, and gravel in my knee. But fun was had by all.

I've gotten my "How to run Masks: a New Generation" pieces up on my site, made them much more legible. Lemme know if you have questions, I'll opine further!

https://transneptune.games/Masks/0.+Masks+Handbook

Do you have a favorite campaign that you played in or ran for players?

Favorite campaign I played in was the #Dragonlance #WarOfTheLance 3.5 #DnD campaign we played a few years back. We had some amazing characters fighting against a tide of evil.

For campaigns I've run, I can't decide between the two I'm currently working on.

The #Pathfinder #RiseOfTheRunelords campaign I'm running is a Christmas gift for my wife from a few years back. I've got #ADHD and I'm super proud of myself for making it half way through a 400+ campaign book. And I feel like everyone is having a good time.

The #MasksANewGeneration #PBTA game I'm running is all me. I've got a crew of absolutely awesome players and I feel fortunate that my sessions have risen to their levels. The stories have had some twists that the players didn't see coming and it's all mine. This isn't a published campaign but I've been running for... maybe a year or so now, with some breaks here and there. I'm on hiatus at the moment but I've been plotting the next trade/campaign.

#TTRPG players and GMs, what are you currently playing? What do you wish you were playing?

Currently running

- #Pathfinder 1e. Not a fan of the crunch, but it's for my wife
- Taking a short break from #MasksANewGeneration, a #PoweredByTheApocalypse #PBTA supers game but ready to dive back in to the GM seat at a moments notice
- #Trinity #Adventures game. Character creation was a headache compared to other #WOD #WorldOfDarkness games but the characters are fun
- Our #MonsterHearts2 game should be starting up again at some point

Wish I was playing
- #13thAge for the amount of say players get in world building
- #GURPS for the complete characters you get after creation, which CAN be a real chore
- #D6StarWars as it was one of the first games I played and I really like the system
- #CastlesAndCrusades #CNC for the old school style with modern sensibilities
- #VampireTheMasquerade or #VampireTheRequiem. I've got a #VTR campaign I want to run at some point, but I don't know if/when I'll get to it. A long term obsession I haven't had the chance to play in 15-20 some years at this point
- #StarTrek #LastUnicornGames. I like the way they handled life/career paths

Yesterday, we finally started our #Masks game after the #sessionZero last month. We've got a Nova, a Bull, an Outsider and my Protege. I highly suspect our team works well right until it doesn't - our highest Mundane stat is +0, with it being my Mentor's Denied label.

I really liked how the MC framed the situations as comic panels. Plus, there was the obligatory barrage of jokes and puns.

I'm really looking forward to the next game already!

#masksANewGeneration

SC Beryl lehnt ab, neuer Avatar des Engels der Freiheit zu werden.

Diskussion, was mit dem Engel zu tun sei. SC Fractal besteht auf Herausgabe an die Young Elites, aber Beryl gibt den Engel der Lighthouse Crew.

Zurück auf der Erde hat SC Roxannes Schwarm Artie eine Party. Die beiden kommen zusammen. SC Lisa küsst Beryl.

Fractal geht allein, trifft die Jung-Mithelden Bonsai, Prince & Massage. Er bietet an sie auf eine Party auf Vega mitzunehmen.

I just completed the latest #MasksANewGeneration trade/campaign. This one was a murder mystery. One of our heroes, talked a darker mirror image of the character into surrendering.

I have had this loosely plotted out for months. I worked to build trust, let the characters develop their relationships with each other and with the intern superhero group they were mentoring, set up the crimes and, the scariest part of all, let the players completely dictate the last few sessions with little to no planning on my part. I set the stage, it was up to them to see it through. I just gave them the pieces.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have such amazing players who trust me enough to run for them. I put a lot of work and heart into this and they encouraged me to not just do it but bring my A game.

I'm taking a little #GMSabbatical, but I'm already planning the next trade.

Nachdem die für gestern organisierte Runde #MasksANewGeneration ausgefallen ist, wurde es dann spontan eine Runde #EdgeOftheEmpire mit meinen liebsten #StarWars Nerds. Merke: Ein "leichter Job", um für die Rebellion Waffen an aufständische Bergleute zu schmuggeln, wird durch ein paar Piraten mit einer geklauten Raiderkorvette nicht leichter.

Und vielleicht ergibt sich daraus jetzt eine Kampagne, mal gucken.

Ran #MasksANewGeneration on Friday night and have #Pathfinder today. Looking forward to getting to the next part of the module!

This week's #MasksANewGeneration #Masks game is delayed on a count of player illness. Just hope they'll be good to go on Sunday for #Pathfinder.

Also making headway on my #VampireTheRequiem planning. I wish I was playing instead of running, but c'est la vie.