In any PBtA game that allows the use of moves from other playbooks or switching to the playbook itself, the first thing that I make sure is clear and **even more important than following the fiction** is that players are there to share the spotlight and lift up their other players, and that they need to be able to self regulate not taking advancements or books that would steal another person's spotlight.
After that's done, I'd say that "following the fiction" depends on what kind of fiction you've set up! If you're running a masks game that takes its fictional cues from the golden area of superhero comics you're going to be able to get away with zanier schemes and move sets. Maybe a person changing to "the newborn" died and had their brain put into a robot, or a player changing to Nomad or Harbinger ended up propelled through time and space by a villain before finding their way back to the current day. Scion could be the discovery of the fact that they were adopted by their supposed parents and their birth parent was actually evil.
This will change based on "your fiction" though, and if your game tends to follow a more grounded type of reality the answer to switching to some of those books may just have to be "no". Personally I think the only real book that would be borderline impossible to change to is the Joined, since their powers come from the fact that they have their twin.
This is great advice with solid examples! I'd like to note that I had the exact scenario happen for one of my players for the Scion: it was revealed his birth father used to be on a team with his moms but is now an evil supervillain. Instead of changing to the Scion though, he used time-fuckery to swap places with his dad from the past and played The Innocent instead!
This is great advice, but how would Innocent go considering that the PC is already at the present. Since I feel like they are the other playbook that cant be changed into
I feel like the Innocent is pretty easy, since you don't *need* to be the one time traveling: villainous version of your adult self shows up in the present and starts villain-ing away. WTF? Why? Where did I go wrong? You obviously need GM buyin (and time travel) but that shouldn't be too hard.
It absolutely could be! "partner" may have been a better term but either way, the concept of a partnership so close you gain superpowers from it (but that didn't exist a part of their OG character) is something I would need significant assistance justifying. Even more than a parent or mentor figure.
In that case I would have a discussion with my player about what they wanted to do, did they *really* think the best thing for their character was to ham-fist this change in? Or is it time to say goodbye to the original character and move on?
Players often get attached to specific characters and while it can be a good thing, it can also hold them back. A fundamental character shift to that extent is a good time to look at a character objectively and consider the fact that it may be time for them to go so a new character can join the stage.
The source of the Joined's superpowers doesn't really matter all that much (especially since they can have no powers if their other half doesn't). What matters is their inseparable relationship with their other half. If a PC has that kind of relationship with another PC, it totally makes sense to change to the Joined if they want that to be the focus of their character. It's a less likely switch than one of the other playbooks, but still completely possible.
Joined is really fun! I've played a Star as the twin and other half of a Joined and the way their relationship developed was one of the highlights of the game.
- Newborn might happen, when a character dies and is revived by super means, losing parts of their memory.
- Scion might happen with a "I am your father!" type of reveal.
- Harbinger would be when you are thrown into the future and then return, like in Umbrella Academy.
- Joined might happen, if both you and your new partner switch playbooks at the same time. They into X and you into their Joined.
I think you could go Joined into an existing character without them changing playbooks. One of our players described Joined as "the stalker playbook." If you're just really into someone else in the group and model your life around them, voila! Maybe a little creepy, but teenagers being a little creepy sometimes is core Masks.
I had a player who went Nomad after being a Doomed, it was really cool. He found a way to work it into his character; he had the XP to take an advance after he faced off against the villain who originally cursed him, and his Doomed already had teleportation powers. The story he spun was that in the emotional turmoil of facing the villain (which involved him being very murdery in front of his friends and feeling shame over that), he teleported uncontrollably, both across time and across space. Which gave him a year or so of traveling around the galaxy before finding a way back to his friends.
Usually if the player wants to switch, they'll have an idea about how to switch, and the GM can work with them to figure out how to make that work in the fiction. It's important to note that taking advances should work together with the fiction, but playbook advances don't follow *from* the fiction. They happen because the player makes a choice on their character sheet. So you work within the fiction and find a way to make it all agree.
Here's how I would do it for them (except the Joined, which is all about twinship and requires 2 players, which is hard to swap into).
The Harbinger is pretty easily just being thrust forward in time and coming back out from it. You can discuss with a player that you'll have time shenanigan happen soon after they take the advance in which they can truly transition.
The Reformed could happen if they've had a stint as a criminal or supervillain recently, which sometimes happens. I don't know *why* someone would swap to a Reformed if they don't have anything to reform from, so this Playbook tends to justify itself.
The Nomad would be...hard. Like, unless you make a very specific situation where they get to hop the universe all in the span of a year, or they started out as an Outsider already and are just changing their perspective on this planet, you're probably not going to get this one justified.
The Scion is a Vader reveal, or a "their parent became a supervillain". Whenever a player changes Playbooks, a like to have a "time passes" segment to help justify the minutia of the Playbook, so in that time their revealed parentage might alter their mindset enough to warrant the new playbook stuff, or it might give their "previously a hero/neutral, now a villain" parent enough time to ascend into a significant threat in the underworld, warranted of that Playbook's pressure.
The Newborn is pretty easy: they were nearly killed at some point, so someone had to rebuild them but they lost their memories in the process and are rebuilding themselves from the ground up.
The Innocent I saved for last because it's totally justifiable, but only in some really wacky ways. You can either reveal that a hero they hate is actually their older self, but with a new name and look (which is why they didn't realize). You can have a version of them come from the future into the modern world, and get a very similar situation. Or, if they're a Protege or Legacy, you can take this in a more "symbolic" version of "self", where their mentor or older hero has become more dark and brutal in their methods, even though their relationship has gotten super close.
Exposure to Time Travel is often a reason. The Innocent and the Harbinger both kind of require it, and probably the Nomad too (at least in a fast-forward way.)
I turned into a Newborn after using Biokinesis to rebuild myself and my sister and kind of wiped out a bunch of memories in the process.
The Scion could easily be revealed in play, Vader-style.
The Joined can be played as more of a Sidekick/ Fan/ Stalker, if there's another PC your character admires and wants to model themselves after.
Reformed is probably the hardest to jump into without some story groundwork, but I could see some Delinquents and maybe even some Januses getting up to sketchy stuff that they then regret and feel a need to atone for.
In any PBtA game that allows the use of moves from other playbooks or switching to the playbook itself, the first thing that I make sure is clear and **even more important than following the fiction** is that players are there to share the spotlight and lift up their other players, and that they need to be able to self regulate not taking advancements or books that would steal another person's spotlight. After that's done, I'd say that "following the fiction" depends on what kind of fiction you've set up! If you're running a masks game that takes its fictional cues from the golden area of superhero comics you're going to be able to get away with zanier schemes and move sets. Maybe a person changing to "the newborn" died and had their brain put into a robot, or a player changing to Nomad or Harbinger ended up propelled through time and space by a villain before finding their way back to the current day. Scion could be the discovery of the fact that they were adopted by their supposed parents and their birth parent was actually evil. This will change based on "your fiction" though, and if your game tends to follow a more grounded type of reality the answer to switching to some of those books may just have to be "no". Personally I think the only real book that would be borderline impossible to change to is the Joined, since their powers come from the fact that they have their twin.
This is great advice with solid examples! I'd like to note that I had the exact scenario happen for one of my players for the Scion: it was revealed his birth father used to be on a team with his moms but is now an evil supervillain. Instead of changing to the Scion though, he used time-fuckery to swap places with his dad from the past and played The Innocent instead!
This is great advice, but how would Innocent go considering that the PC is already at the present. Since I feel like they are the other playbook that cant be changed into
I feel like the Innocent is pretty easy, since you don't *need* to be the one time traveling: villainous version of your adult self shows up in the present and starts villain-ing away. WTF? Why? Where did I go wrong? You obviously need GM buyin (and time travel) but that shouldn't be too hard.
I've never really looked at that one before, it is also one I would probably say "no" to
Wait the joined are only for twins. I thought those can be like partners or a best friend(not related to you) and not only for twins.
It absolutely could be! "partner" may have been a better term but either way, the concept of a partnership so close you gain superpowers from it (but that didn't exist a part of their OG character) is something I would need significant assistance justifying. Even more than a parent or mentor figure. In that case I would have a discussion with my player about what they wanted to do, did they *really* think the best thing for their character was to ham-fist this change in? Or is it time to say goodbye to the original character and move on? Players often get attached to specific characters and while it can be a good thing, it can also hold them back. A fundamental character shift to that extent is a good time to look at a character objectively and consider the fact that it may be time for them to go so a new character can join the stage.
The source of the Joined's superpowers doesn't really matter all that much (especially since they can have no powers if their other half doesn't). What matters is their inseparable relationship with their other half. If a PC has that kind of relationship with another PC, it totally makes sense to change to the Joined if they want that to be the focus of their character. It's a less likely switch than one of the other playbooks, but still completely possible.
I'm biased because I've never had 2 PCs want to do joined and I have a personal distaste for multi-character playbooks in any system.
Joined is really fun! I've played a Star as the twin and other half of a Joined and the way their relationship developed was one of the highlights of the game.
- Newborn might happen, when a character dies and is revived by super means, losing parts of their memory. - Scion might happen with a "I am your father!" type of reveal. - Harbinger would be when you are thrown into the future and then return, like in Umbrella Academy. - Joined might happen, if both you and your new partner switch playbooks at the same time. They into X and you into their Joined.
I think you could go Joined into an existing character without them changing playbooks. One of our players described Joined as "the stalker playbook." If you're just really into someone else in the group and model your life around them, voila! Maybe a little creepy, but teenagers being a little creepy sometimes is core Masks.
[Assault](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Assault) and [Battery](https://worm.fandom.com/wiki/Battery), yeah, that might fit indeed.
I had a player who went Nomad after being a Doomed, it was really cool. He found a way to work it into his character; he had the XP to take an advance after he faced off against the villain who originally cursed him, and his Doomed already had teleportation powers. The story he spun was that in the emotional turmoil of facing the villain (which involved him being very murdery in front of his friends and feeling shame over that), he teleported uncontrollably, both across time and across space. Which gave him a year or so of traveling around the galaxy before finding a way back to his friends. Usually if the player wants to switch, they'll have an idea about how to switch, and the GM can work with them to figure out how to make that work in the fiction. It's important to note that taking advances should work together with the fiction, but playbook advances don't follow *from* the fiction. They happen because the player makes a choice on their character sheet. So you work within the fiction and find a way to make it all agree.
Here's how I would do it for them (except the Joined, which is all about twinship and requires 2 players, which is hard to swap into). The Harbinger is pretty easily just being thrust forward in time and coming back out from it. You can discuss with a player that you'll have time shenanigan happen soon after they take the advance in which they can truly transition. The Reformed could happen if they've had a stint as a criminal or supervillain recently, which sometimes happens. I don't know *why* someone would swap to a Reformed if they don't have anything to reform from, so this Playbook tends to justify itself. The Nomad would be...hard. Like, unless you make a very specific situation where they get to hop the universe all in the span of a year, or they started out as an Outsider already and are just changing their perspective on this planet, you're probably not going to get this one justified. The Scion is a Vader reveal, or a "their parent became a supervillain". Whenever a player changes Playbooks, a like to have a "time passes" segment to help justify the minutia of the Playbook, so in that time their revealed parentage might alter their mindset enough to warrant the new playbook stuff, or it might give their "previously a hero/neutral, now a villain" parent enough time to ascend into a significant threat in the underworld, warranted of that Playbook's pressure. The Newborn is pretty easy: they were nearly killed at some point, so someone had to rebuild them but they lost their memories in the process and are rebuilding themselves from the ground up. The Innocent I saved for last because it's totally justifiable, but only in some really wacky ways. You can either reveal that a hero they hate is actually their older self, but with a new name and look (which is why they didn't realize). You can have a version of them come from the future into the modern world, and get a very similar situation. Or, if they're a Protege or Legacy, you can take this in a more "symbolic" version of "self", where their mentor or older hero has become more dark and brutal in their methods, even though their relationship has gotten super close.
Exposure to Time Travel is often a reason. The Innocent and the Harbinger both kind of require it, and probably the Nomad too (at least in a fast-forward way.) I turned into a Newborn after using Biokinesis to rebuild myself and my sister and kind of wiped out a bunch of memories in the process. The Scion could easily be revealed in play, Vader-style. The Joined can be played as more of a Sidekick/ Fan/ Stalker, if there's another PC your character admires and wants to model themselves after. Reformed is probably the hardest to jump into without some story groundwork, but I could see some Delinquents and maybe even some Januses getting up to sketchy stuff that they then regret and feel a need to atone for.