Lovecraftian Superheroes (Masks)

[Aleph Null]

I apologize for the delay, I've either been busy or too damn tired.



No worries, I'm GMing this time!



The Outsider playbook, I take it? Otherwise, looks good. The Dreamlands stuff is some of my favorite of Lovecraft's work, and I can hardly say no to a character that involves it.



Somewhere between the two, I think. The overall tone is meant to lean closer to a superhero setting, but with more of a focus on just how scary even good heroes are to mere mortals. It doesn't help that the superpowers of the heroes are every bit as alien and eldritch as the actual alien entities. However, unlike true Lovecraftian horror, the unknown is not necessarily dangerous if used properly, and need not evoke fear. Indeed, the fear of the unknown is something that can be overcome, with the right motivation.

Mind you, humanity has had time to get used to the Lovecraftian, and one of my beliefs is that humanity's sanity is much less fragile than portrayed in Lovecraft's work. So the initial reaction to the PCs powers is not going to be as catastrophically bad as in a CoC game. The PCs are going to have to prove to people that they in particular aren't a threat, but most people are at least open to that idea.

Of course, if it's what the players want... things could turn darker indeed.

Also, I confess I don't know what PbtA stands for.


Very similar, but it certainly lends itself more to the theme of this game, so I will allow it. Nice to have another playbook where "you are both powerful and terrifying" is baked into its fluff and mechanics.

Nice.

I'll get something put together...though I will probably fiddle a bit with the fluff to make it a bit more my own (appearance bits that is -- I had imagined the appearance of my star boy to be pretty much like Marvel's Singularity when naked, though he'd be covered in gear designed to prevent him from accidentally frying everyone around him with gamma radiation). As to how he ended up merging with a star, magical mishaps are great hand-wave explainers for that sort of thing.

And yeah, PbtA is the underlying engine that Masks shares with some other games, like Apocalypse World and Dungeon World. Hence "powered by the Apocalypse" since an engine is a power source for a machine. Though I guess I didn't need to explain that part because it's obvious.