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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7084807" data-attributes="member: 16586">It does involve giving up a measure of agency we normally have in most mainstream games and is definitely not right for everyone, and should adamantly be done with discipline and sensitivity. However, it helps us to go places where we would otherwise not go and experience compelling stories that are fundamentally about characters.In a game like Masks players retain complete autonomy over character actions. This is not like Vampire where we fail our Self Control roll and frenzy. What changes is the mechanical impact of those actions. When someone has Influence over you it is harder to work against them on a mechanical level. Let's take a look at the impact of one of the Conditions which represent a character's emotional state:When you are Angry take -2 to Comfort or Support Someone or Pierce The Mask. Being Angry means it is difficult to provide emotional aid or see beyond the obvious.Clear Angry by hurting someone or breaking something important. You can remove the Angry Condition by lashing out. You can still control your anger. It just impacts you until you either act out or someone Comforts Or Supports you. The game also provides other means to clear Conditions.It's all about providing a play space where other elements of the fiction can be just as important and worthy of representation as the physical stuff. We have all been conditioned to accept that we do not have agency over physical consequences even though that has a dramatic and binding impact over our play experience. I'm not sure how social and emotional consequences are meaningfully different. In meatspace I do not have control over when I am angry, the impact of other people's words, or my cultural indoctrination. I still control my behavior, but these things are impactful. The game is structured so that there is plenty of meaningful decisions to be made around the themes of growing up, coming together as a team, social pressure from adults and your peers, and dealing with the turbulence of adolescence. Plus kicking some super villain tail in between. It's meant to provide an experience like the Teen Titans, Young Justice, or New Mutants.  It is a particular philosophy of game design. It says that rules can serve to reinforce the experience of playing a character with integrity. They can bring our characters experiences to life and let us live them. Through the right resolution mechanics, the right reward systems, and principled play we can alleviate the conflicts that exist between playing our characters with integrity, playing the mechanics, and playing the fiction optimally. When we do things right they are the exact same thing.</blockquote>

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