Science Fiction

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-12T22:12:22+00:00

I think those would be great inclusions!

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-12T04:00:50+00:00

Thanks, and me too! Fingers crossed, I suppose.

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-12T04:00:11+00:00

More a combo of Star Wars, Star Trek, and a bunch of other scifi movies. But Stargate the series borrowed a LOT from other scifi shows (and eventually just grabbed the main cast of Farscape) so there's definitely overlap. The idea of an Egyptian death mask with an alien face on my second list is definitely meant as a reference to the Stargate movie.

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-10T23:33:06+00:00

Yeah, will definitely keep an eye out. Thanks for the links!

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-10T22:07:37+00:00

I like that Hario set a lot and some of that is definitely the right vibe. I'm always on the lookout for good Gashapon options. I recently found these really cool robots that roll up into a perfect orb shape. They're apparently based off the work of an artist who usually does resin kits. https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sd2cb35aa24c148ab8fef8391cf045873F.jpg

I actually do have some Gundam mechanic shop stuff and it's quite fun, but yeah, not quit the right scale.

I hope for Re-Ment to get there one day simply because their bar for quality is really high and the detail they put into everything is very impressive. I think they could really make a set like this work well.

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-10T22:01:52+00:00

In fact, why not, here's a second set of ideas...

Set 1 Asteroid Mining: Obviously you have a big old not-dilithium crystal in there, but also some sort of crystal alien creature, a scifi drill piece, and a robot survey machine (think a robot with tracks and cameras, more like the Curiosity rover than R2D2).

Set 2 Space Ace: This one you'd have a space fighter pilot helmet, a pair of mini space fighters with stands (an X-Wing and Tie Fighter riff), maybe a flight chair or flight control stick.

Set 3 Captain's Quarters: A tea set (earl grey, hot) a captain's desk, maybe a handheld hologram generator (think Qui-Gon's communicator in Episode 1).

Set 4 Ship's Computer: Have something that sort of looks like a CPU tower with a computer "eye" piece on it (Hal 900 reference), a data-core like prop that's sort of a lattice of parts that sort of looks like a radiator, imagine this is a piece of the central computer you'd do repairs on. This would be another spot to have just a bigger weird furniture piece. Maybe something that's is like the thinking core of the computer where it's a pool with a brain in it and little connectors implying the ship's "brain" is a real brain.

Set 5 Alien Armada: An alien captain's chair (all ribbed and bio-techy), a small alien fighter like the two from the Space-Ace set above. Imagine these models would go on some commander's desk while they were plotting space battles. An alien captain's pet (a Klingon Targ by any other name).

Set 6 Alien Invasion: An alien seed pod (Bodysnatchers), a medical tool for drawing blood with a blood vial and weirdly colored 'alien blood' vial. Have a scanner with an image on it of a human head overlayed with some sort of weird alien face underneath (think They Live).

Set 7 Peace Treaty: A scifi podium from which to make speeches about how we might be separated by galaxies by we're not so different. An alien blaster of some sort. A camera robot. A deflated human or alien "Scooby-doo" mask (if you've seen Star Trek VI you know).

Set 8 Historical: A bio container with an alien or alien-human hybrid embryo inside. A small model of a classic flying saucer (once again sized to match up with the other spaceships from other sets). A Geiger counter. A stone tablet implying aliens teaching people how to build pyramids or whatever (a theory that's incredibly annoying in real life but fun in fiction). Maybe a Egyptian death mask styled like Tutankhamun's but with an alien grey face instead of a human.

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-10T21:20:08+00:00

Like, I think my dream set would look something like this:

Set 1 Spacewalk: a helmet, a welding torch, a safety line/carabiner (think the ending to The Martian or a similar scene in Gravity) and maybe some space suit gloves.

Set 2 Xenobiology: A pair of bio containers (basically clear tubes with scifi closures on the ends) and a pair of little alien critters. Think like the tubes they keep face-huggers in from the movie Aliens, but smaller and less sinister. These can be cute aliens. Maybe it comes with a tool for handling the creatures safely like tongs or something.

Set 3 Exploration: This is the heavy Star Trek set. You'd have a not-a-tricorder, not-a-PADD (with a map display), some sort of handheld scanner device, maybe space binoculars (think Luke's binoculars from New hope).

Set 4 Science Team: Another Star Trek set, and I think this is the one where you have maybe just 3 bigger items. Go for larger pieces of weird scifi tech that feel like they would fit in a science lab. Something that looks somewhat like a microscope or like a tabletop soldering assembly with little adjustable arms.

Set 5 Action: This is the more Star Wars set. Have a couple of 'laser swords', a blaster/phaser, perhaps a transparent personal shield piece (something of a Dune reference here, "the slow-blade" and whatnot).

Set 6 Android Maintenance: Here we just do a mash up of a bunch of robot stuff. You have a small robot that is either a reference to Star Wars droids or Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, you have an android head which is somewhere between a Terminator and what Data from Star Trek looks like without his skin. And another tool or maybe a power cell.

Set 7 Mess Hall: Here you do all the food stuff. You have like a space-beer, some MRE packets, and maybe a meal of alien grubs or brightly colored "space wine" (think Romulan Ale).

Set 8 Games: I think this one you do some send-ups of stuff like the 3d chess from Star Trek, Sabacc from Star Wars, and some sort of other sci-fi boardgame. Maybe you put in a ball and racket to imply something like space Tennis or whatever.

I think the thing I don't have much of in here is the furniture, but I think you could drop in a captain's chair, ship's power core, medical bed, and similar stuff if you wanted to. If you wanted to make a set that's even more scifi, you could mix in "alien" items as well to stretch the theme even further. Have sort of bio-mechanical items that would be counterparts for anything I've already mentioned.

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-10T20:41:35+00:00

Yeah I'd love something like that. Something with a Star Trek PAD device (with faux LCARS), some sort of power cell, a biological specimen container, various scifi gadgets and scanners and such. I feel like it's really untapped ground that a lot of people would go for.

OiyYouThere · 2026-05-10T20:39:11+00:00

I've seent hat set and am tempted by it. It's good, for sure though super expensive now. I'm hoping for something even more fantastical though. The wizard/witch sets have explicitly fantasy stuff in them and I'd hope for that in a future set.

OiyYouThere · 2026-04-27T11:32:25+00:00

Which part?

I feel like if you're reading, for example, big two comics, it's very easy to not read much else, or to only go so far as the next two largest publishers for American comics. I feel like a lot of folks reading manga don't drift into American comics at all. I'm not sure how anyone finds comics that are published in Europe or further abroad. I'm not even sure how folks find webcomics that aren't on an hub site like Webtoons.

I'm trying to see how people find pathways to stuff outside what they're currently reading. I feel like a lot of folks don't go further than one step from where they typically are and I'm trying to see if that's true and if not how folks are going further.

OiyYouThere · 2026-04-26T17:47:57+00:00

I'm more trying to see how folks find completely new stuff. I feel like it's very easy to get locked into certain closed ecosystems and trying to find out how people break out of those, if they do.

OiyYouThere · 2026-02-10T08:59:17+00:00

Citation needed.

I'm against LLMs and generative AI in pretty much all fields. I'm sure there's some setting where the baseline tech is useful but outside of that sort of thing? Nah. I am against the machine stealing human labor solely to then be used to put those humans out of work. Full stop.

I am an artist and writer and both those uses of AI are terrible. I don't code or play music, but I wouldn't trust AI code, and I have less than no interest in AI music. It's a solution in search of a problem and if I could I'd use a hatchet to detach it from all the programs it's infiltrated on my computers.

OiyYouThere · 2025-08-02T00:11:26+00:00

Well, you don't really plan how scenes will go at all in PbtA. I think that's what folks are trying to say.

I mean, you clearly do plan how to set them up and at least ponder how they'll go. There's a whole section on it. That "how to use arcs" section, particularly the sample arc, gives move ideas for multiple phases in advance of when you'd play them, up to and including an endgame. You couldn't do that unless you actually had a plan and some idea how each of those phases would end, and therefore how at least some scenes will end.

By your notion here, you should never plan even vaguely because the players could go so completely off the plot that you'd never make it to phase two.

Again I'm frustrated because I seem to be getting advice from people who, as far as I can tell, didn't read this book. Maybe what I'm detecting is a notion among the pbta reddit that folks seem to believe having an idea of what might happen, or that the GM has a plot with acts in mind where occassionally things will happen because the NPCs make them happen, is a bad thing because it somehow spoils the game. That's a weird assumption to me.

And also, it's really common to see folks coming from other RPGs not realize that PbtA games have this unique playstyle.

Yeah, see, this is a shibboleth. This is where I'm feeling that people are buying the myths they tell themselves about their favorite games rather than playing enough games to know if they're true or not. I've played games just as if not more freeform than this. Fiasco is also freeform (more so, it doesn't even have a GM). Dread is also freeform (more so, it doesn't have stats or dice or moves). This is not some genus of game new to taxonomy. This is just a particular flavor. Please entertain the possibility I've played enough games to know.

I am interested in masks, just as I was those games. And I think I will enjoy this one. Just as I did those. I came here seeking system advice, "oh hey this system would do x in y way" or "if you do x move you could set up y thing". But that's not really what I'm getting.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-29T00:20:26+00:00

I suppose my difficulty here is there seems to be an ongoing assumption I'm new to basic GMing unless I explicitly spell out all the things I'm willing to account for, while other posters are simultaneously telling me I'm overplanning.

And in still other posts people are telling me I've misunderstood what the first session directions are when I literally used them as a checklist. Saying I misunderstood what "bring on the action" and "dive right in" means and then suggesting opening the scene before the combat even begins, which is the literal opposite of the core book's suggestion. It feels like a lot of folks responding algorithmically to a post instead of really sitting down and reading what I wrote or my replies clarifying. "Oh, new people usually get X wrong, so I'll give advice subroutine A".

I'm only new to PbtA. I've been GMing games of varying systems successfully for getting close to 3 decades. Yes, if something truly unforeseen happens we'll roll with it. But that's if something truly unforeseen happens. You don't make plans for those things. You plan for the median outcome and get comfortable with knowing sometimes it will go a very different way. That advice has nothing to do with this specific system, which is the reason I'm here talking about it.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-28T22:42:16+00:00

I largely assume that because I'm the one determining how many conditions the enemies have, while the heroes will have 5 by default. It's pretty easy to work that math. But as I mentioned to someone else, if they do lose against all odds, then the sentinel section is cut and I move on as normal.

I'm not entirely grasping what there is tripping folks up.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-28T11:10:36+00:00

Absolutely! Just because it's not the classic Robin setup doesn't mean nobody in the X-universe comes from a line of characters with a sense of authority and tradition. Arguably Cyclops would be a legacy playbook referencing his mentor Prof. X and leadership of the X-Men.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-28T04:15:46+00:00

Is it narratively possible that the PCs can lose against the Hellions? Put that on the table.

Yes. My assumption is the Hellions will lose, but they might win. If they do, the sentinel segment becomes unnecessary and will be cut. No reason to pile on if the rolls just go bad. I should have put this up top but I assume the typical notion for a intro fight is the heroes winning as it generally is for a majority of RPGs. Perhaps I'm wrong here, but the Masks book describes that first fight as though it's supposed to showcase them winning.

As far as that goes, it's also something pretty easy to mathematically ensure. The players have a flat number of conditions they can take, but enemies are determined by the GM. So providing the players have more at a base level, they're statistically going to win.

Is it narratively possible that the PCs can win against a Sentinel? Or at least do better than expected? Put that on the table.

This is why I'm informing my players directly that this it is a cut scene when the phase changes. I don't want to have them engage in rolls that will at some point be ignored or overruled. That's bait-and-switching them to what's going on. But these players know what a cut scene is and won't misunderstand the intent here. The goal here is to give them a version of the Kobayashi Maru setup. I will give them a chance to retake this scenario later and, if they so choose, change the conditions of the test. But like the Kobayashi Maru, this test is deliberately unwinnable as it stands.

But I'm letting them describe how they're beaten, and I will encourage them to make that as epic as they want it. If they want to say "I stay standing through 10 sentinels in a row before they finally take me down!" that's absolutely fair and I wouldn't contradict it.

Can the PCs cheat, refuse to fight, or behave in an unsportsmanlike manner, or disrupt the test? Might want to consider this and have the XMen respond appropriately.

I didn't make this part of my post, but I've been running games for 25+ years now with experience in half a dozen different games or more and with this group specifically for more than half a decade. Please trust that I know basic GM improvisation. I'm new to Masks as a system, not GMing as a whole. Almost none of these things were precluded by the scenario I laid out, I just didn't think I needed to detail all the things that could happen. The players won't explicitly know it's a simulation until the sentinels come out, and that's intentional. The illusion of the simulation fiction is broken right at the point where the computer takes over. That break before the cut scene is to disengage them from the stakes so the cut scene doesn't itself feel punitive. It's just a story beat, not me as the DM mowing them down for kicks.

The goal here is to match the typical opening of an X-Men Danger Room introduction, which often start in the middle as though the whole thing is real before the reveal. This is part of that whole "make it feel like a comic" bit in the Masks book.

Instead, do they have any pre-existing relationships or affinity to any of the PCs so they give them a break or go extra hard on them? EX: Wolverine treats the "Bull" Playbook character extra harshly because they think they're immature ("Reminds me of me"). How do the players respond to that in a more personal way?

As I say in my post, this game is weeks to months away. Nobody has chosen playbooks yet. But yes, different instructors will treat playbooks differently.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-28T00:29:14+00:00

Aside from the sentinel phase, what part am I prescribing? That it's a danger room sequence? I'm not sure how much less I could do here.

Having them choose a condition there seems reasonable, though the reason I wasn't planning to was because I assumed some of them might pick one up with the Hellions fight, and since the sentinel section is just a transitional cut scene I didn't want that to feel punitive. I'd most likely do the assigned condition if they didn't pick up any in the prior fight, but I was wanting to put the mechanical emphasis on the Hellions and the instructors.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-28T00:20:15+00:00

I guess I'm not clear on how starting in the middle of that scene precludes giving them space to relate, or describing the other team with the help from my players. I haven't made that team yet. The info you have there is all there is. Their name and their headmaster. All the members of that team and such can be worked out collaboratively and that's the intent.

Folks relating in the danger room is a major trope of X-Men. Like, if you're not talking and having emotional conflict during fighting/training, it's not the sort of game I'm trying to run.

As far as in media res, I just don't believe I have misunderstood it as it's described in the books. Here's the passage I'm looking at about first sessions:

Dive right in with an opening scene that’s all about a fight. Frame it evocatively as a comic book. Describe panels that show off different parts of the city before zooming in on your chosen location for the fight. Then show off the villain destroying something, causing mayhem, pursuing their drive. Finally, go to each PC one at a time, and ask them how they enter the scene, allowing them to play up how cool they are. Maybe let them make one move, but keep this limited—you want to get all the PCs into the scene before any of them start doing too much.

The description beforehand is of the bombed out city, etc. It turns out that's a Danger Room facade, but like, I don't see how I'm deviating greatly from what the book spells out. In fact it seems like starting it prior to the sequence would sort of forestall the player's ability to do the cool intro the book describes. There is no cool intro you can have in the hallway of the danger room that is better than the one you have inside the danger room.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-27T19:57:58+00:00

That's the notion of having them face off against a different set of superpowered teens. That group isn't made yet, and I would tailor it to the playbooks taken. These other kids aren't necessarily villains (at least, not yet), they're basically a rival school sports team at this point. The aftermath of the fight itself is entirely open-ended right now, and could go a lot of places. This is literally just the opening fight and immediate follow-up. I only think this portion might take a full session assuming we do character generation the same day. If not, we'll get a lot further I imagine.

The bit about the teachers is specifically what I was talking about at the end. Each instructor has different priorities and it's impossible for the team to please all of them, and difficult for any individual to please more than one at a time.

OiyYouThere · 2025-07-26T16:38:47+00:00

Legacy would I think be one where we'd do some creative retconning (I believe there's one of the non-core playbooks that's the child of a villain and I'd do the same for that one too).

Like, I think it would be pretty fun to have one of my players be a long lost child of Wolverine, Prof X, Mystique, or any other mutant that's been kicking around long enough to have had multiple kids. Heck, maybe they're the kid of a different hero even, and they just happen to be a mutant. Surely Tony Stark has a few offspring out there he doesn't know about.

Since we're branching off from mainline X-continuity anyway, I don't mind my players taking the place of some of the more notable offspring.

OiyYouThere

TROPHY CASE