@ghost spider. Cool then :)

While this is technically true, in practice I think a lot (most?) people tend to use their Relationships to help determine their Influence. For example, if Max "keep[s] trying to impress Counterforce with [his] antics," then I'm likely going to give Counterforce and Influence over him.

Moreover, Influence is primarily used as a way to affect one's teammates, so having Influence with someone on another team whom you don't interact with at a game mechanic level would be a waste.

I would like to discuss this in more detail once everything is finalized on Sunday.  But some brief thoughts.

Influence is a game stat that can be essentially given and taken away within a single post.  So the starting Influence for characters is not necessary an immutable thing.

And Relationships don't necessarily need game rules to happen.  For example, all Beacons have to fill in this relationship slot:

"____________________ is awesome, and you take every chance you get to hang out with them."

And this slot has to be filled out.  But there is nothing from stopping the Beacon from just declaring such a relationship with another character in their team or otherwise.

With Influence and Relationships not being cast in stone as they might appear at first blush, Team membership isn't quite a segregating as you might think.

So you will not be kept from your true peeps no matter what the rules say. :-)

Resonance has not been given a group membership - should be on team B.

Yeah, I couldn't add Resonance, I think because she's a DM character and I don't have access to do that. I think Meta will have to do it himself.

Done!  :)

OK, now I finally have some time to post in some detail.  These last few days have been particularly busy just at a time when I could have really used a few extra minutes.  But now I can get to work.

With the deadline for players to express definite preferences now passed, things can progress very quickly on the team assignment front.  I can, as announced, assume consent on behalf of those who haven't expressed a stated choice.  And that makes things almost comically easy and fast.

First, Max, with a great deal of help, has posted a provisional Team Roster I like quite well.  It has taken some effort and discussion.  It is well-thought of.  And I see no dissent.  Very well, this is the provisional Team Roster so far.  If you like your place within it, you are done.  I repeat this below:



Second, but if you want your character to be on a different team, just let me know where and I will get it done pretty much as fast as I can see your request.

And that's it!  This could all be finalized in a day.   I realize that it may seem to you that I am being flippant or frivolous in this post's simplicity OR that we are simply repeating what has gone before; an arbitrary initial team setup and then very complicated swaps to follow and negotiate again.

It is not so.  This time, there is a better initial team roster than I setup (Kudos!) and I expect there will be more non-objectional, less present player slots than actual transfer requests to I just have to process them without needing the less-present player's permission.   It pretty much will happen as fast as I read the request and then type the correction.

Is there more to it than this?  Yes, but all of that headache is on my end and it will still happen almost instantly.  I believe that everyone will end up where they want to be or at least we will achieve close to the best compromise sixteen disparate souls could possibly have (and the provisional mix above is probably pretty close to the end result to start with).  Once the dust is settled (which could be tomorrow), I will 'show my math' to anyone who wants to know.  But I think most folks will be happy to be placed as well as likely could be.

So, if you don't like where you are now, put down what team you would like your character to be (or what comrades you want to serve with, if that works better) below and I will wave my magic wand...
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:00, Tue 15 June 2021.

It's been more than two weeks since Gateway, Skorpio or Citizen-V have even logged in.     If they haven't been in contact with you and it wasn't forwarded, I'd say they're gone.  So many people ghost games these days.

I still note that Teams A2 & B2 have 4 girls and 1 guy on the roster, but Team C2 has 1 girl and 4 guys.   Was the gender-imbalance on purpose?

Gateway logged in yesterday, thankfully... :)

Folks had team preferences that didn't prioritize gender balance, so that is what we ended up with.  :o

Gateway was actually just in yesterday. Still hasn't posted since May, though, so that's concerning. Again, Leviathan and I each have character ideas that could fill in a spot for that team.

My guess is that Gateway is waiting until it is relevant for him to post.

Even so, we would still only have four active PCs.

It definitely wouldn't hurt to add a more experienced player that could help nudge us along.  I for one am a complete newbie to Masks.

With my GM superpowers, I observe that our humble Group B is the only group without any replies in the "Relationships and Influences" or "When Our Team First Came Together..." threads... :o

Gender balance would have been ideal but it is not necessary.  I had hoped to do some dorm room scenes.  There are some kinds of scenes that can only happen between roommates.  Every roommate has some annoying habit, I wonder what annoying traits super roommates might have.

Yes, some players have not posted in awhile.  As we start posting IC as teams, those players will have a limited time to respond.  If they don't, they will be moved to the 'inactive' (not made yet, there is not yet a need).  Again, this is not punitive and can be undone once our lost players start posting again.  Remember, I don't kick people out of the game.  They leave it.

If we have lost some players, ah well, some of it was inevitable.  There are a lot more players than I could give needed personal information to.  And no one can be all things to all people.

My botched handling of the initial team assignments may have cost us players.  And that I am sad about. :-(  I am zen with players just deciding this isn't their bag or honest disagreements.  But I hate losing folk due to a mistake or misunderstanding.  But the Mask rules themselves prove out this maxim, 'experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted'.

As I write this, I am not seeing any player request for swaps.  Jubilee has requested a swap in private messages and that will be processed tomorrow with little disruption, I believe.  Are there any other swap request.  Was Max's 'build' that accurate?  Were we that lucky or wise right out of the starting gate?

I'm happy with both Ricochet and Octopus's teams. May I have that Mania body so I can have a backup character in case Team B wants a fill-in?

Well, we did discuss our team beforehand. As for dorm room scenes, that would be great, but I'm not sure how the gender balance within teams would affect that. Dorm rooms aren't on a team basis, are they?

I'm slightly concerned that Leviathan hasn't logged in for the last few days. Hopefully all is well.

Also, so Jubilee is moving out of our team? That might change some things...

No, Watcher's a bit behind :)

Jubilee was asking to move into our group...it was an old PM after Watcher's first team announcement.

Dorms would make sense by team but I'm the only girl on team 3 right now.

Done!  :)

Thanks, Meta!

My suggestion regarding dorms would be to put characters together who might not have a chance to interact otherwise. Now whether you want each room to house two heroes or all the members of that gender is something to consider. I might not separate them by House (team) because then we're just interacting within the existing teams.

And of course there should also be opportunities to interact outside the dorms as well, so we can all have chances to get scenes with reach other.

Welcome aboard, Mania!  :)


BTW, everyone please feel free to give me any missing information above so that I can get rid of the question mark placeholders... :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:12, Sun 20 June 2021.

Thanks!

My name is Andi Benton. (Andrea, technically, but no.) 16 years old, punk rock for life.

My powers revolve around my copy of the Venom symbiote:

Some mild shapeshifting, which can include camouflage, weapons, new clothes, sticky black goo, and webbing.

Wall-crawling, even through my $100 boots.

Immunity to Spider-Man's spider senses, which I'm pretty sure is still a secret power he doesn't like people knowing about, so I probably don't know this bit.

Could just boil it down to "Symbiote", we all pretty much share most basic powers. Oh, also it can drain the vital fluids out of its hosts to strengthen itself, but I wouldn't exactly call that a power so much as a personal nightmare.

Updated!  :)

My apologies for being behind on Jubilee's placement.  I assume then she is correctly placed now.  If not, it is a very easy swap to fix.

I don't see any other swaps request.  Am I missing anything (wouldn't be the first time)?

If not, dare I suggest that swaps are done and teams are set at least for now.
If the teams are now set, then let me apologize one more time for my ham-fisted approach to the team setup and whatever I contributed to its delay.  It it not a mistake I will make again in this or any other Masks game that I run.  Lesson Learned!  :-)

And you guys did step up to the plate, making teams that I could not have thought of on my own.  So that is one glass of lemonade squeezed from these old lemons.

And remember that Team membership was always going to be fluid.  Some players are probably going to leave us eventually resulting in (I would guess) two bigger teams.  This will be more handled In-Character now that we have this capability and a team swap will be a role-playing moment more than simple mechanical setup.

Yes, the gender balance is not what I hoped it might be at this point.  It may have been impossible to actually balance genders and these newly-minted friendships.  I had hoped to have some roommate scenes.  Some kinds of scenes only happen between roommates.  It is one of several kinds of unique relationships all its own.  I was also hoping to see how super-powered roommates could really annoy each other.

But it could be that players don't want the the boarding school experience for all of their characters anyway.  So we will tend to focus on the common school hours of the students for most scenes.   Or I may just give all of the students separate rooms.  Let me know what you think on this if you wish.

For what it is worth, no one can really stop super-powered teens from 'fraternizing' in any way that they wish for long (the same is almost as true for regular teens) so the Stanley School has a pretty progressive view of such things.

Anyway, with the Teams now setup (or so very close to it), we can talk about the next steps.  Within each team, the standard playbook entries of Influence, Relationships, and When Our Team First Came Together needs to be sorted out.  As each team is now a small subset of the players, I believe I can trust y'all to at least find preliminary answers to those questions yourselves.

And, if I may, I might ask my fellow GM's to 'adopt' a team to help with these decisions.  I imagine that bones of contention will be few and relatively easily resolved.

There is one more decision for each team to make; what does the world call your superteam?  I mean, you can go with Team A or Team B, etc.  But you are all out of the phone booth and proud, let the world say your name as you chose it.   To help spur this discussion, I am thinking Team A is 'The Archies', Team B is 'The Jugheads' and Team C is 'The Big Ethels'. ;-)

What's that?  You all don't care for those names.  Well, then you let me know what your team names really are.  :-)  There's no great hurry on this.  Let the X-Men show other superheroes how it could be done (they usually do).

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki...ng_Squads_(Earth-616)

One optional team feature is choosing a leader.  If a team can agree on a leader, they get a slight advantage in game rules (an extra point in their Team Pool which can be used for all sorts of things).  If they can't agree on a leader, well, that is very Marvel and very VERY teenager.  There is no hurry on this either.  And (like is some jobs) there can be a difference between the declared leader and who people really follow.

As all of this is being nailed down.   The two open IC threads #2 and #3 can be played now or in a few days as you wish.  They have been created with the idea that they will begin freeform and without defined teams but likely end using the rules and with fully-defined teams.  IC thread #2 (with the TWO She-Hulks) is over in a few posts.  It introduces one of the odder members of Team D.  It is completely optional.

IC Thread #3, the one with the strange gift bag and then the world turning to dust is the main thread for the game at this point.  But it is also optional and you might give it a day or two before your participate just in case there are still loose ends that need to be sorted.  But I am hoping by the end of this week, we have fully defined teams, are beginning to use the rules and starting to just play this darned game.

In the meantime, for what I have left of tonight.  I will just try and catch up on things.  I hope to have extra time to post and contribute tomorrow.

Taking a new peek at the currently active players. Anyone who hasn't been on in at least two weeks will be in red. Anyone who quit will be struck out. Both will be moved to the bottom.



Hopefully we haven't lost Max, Levi, Gateway, and Arc. Assuming we have, though, that leaves us with two teams of 3 and one team of 4, with three Brains and two Beacons.

I'm still here, had just decided to stay out of the optional threads because I figured they would get a little big.

No worries.  It is pretty much just one thread now. ;-)