NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8675723" data-attributes="member: 7028554">I think there are definitely cases where one or more players just don't get the genre, and where smart mechanics can help guide them more than any general notion of gelling with the group or intuiting what the GM is going for.For example, pre-MCU, I had a player here and there who wasn't into comics, and so didn't really get the tropes and nuances in tone. Even today, if someone's reference point for supers is MCU, they might expect a pretty fair amount of casual murder on the part of the superheroes, and not understand what "four-color" supers means. Champions helped a bit in that respect, since it was so hard to kill someone. It didn't do a whole let else to reinforce or communicate the genre, since it was more of a superpowered combat wargame than a cape comics emulator, but that's old games for you.Or maybe the issue isn't too many reference points, but too few, as with many players who might be playing Pasion de las Pasions for the first time. Someone upthread said that telenovellas are just soap operas with an ending, but that's pretty reductive and dismissive. Telenovellas typically have a tone and content that's very different from American soaps. Mechanics can introduce and reinforce those differences, preparing the players in advance and along the way, instead of them channeling General Hospital and being regularly corrected by the GM. Consider, too, that a campaign of Pasion might be just a few sessions. Do you really want players to finally get the genre in the third session, when it's all over?Personally, I think Masks is a great example of mechanics really reinforcing and introducing genre tropes. Even if you aren't steeped in comics generally, and unfamiliar with teen supers narratives, the fact that any adult you come across can mechanically influence or impact you really drives home what the game is about, and how its specific subgenre operates. The playbooks are also incredible mini-instruction manuals that all tie back into the genre and premise in really specific ways. I'd much prefer all of that to a GM telling me to watch Young Justice as prep.</blockquote>

Verification