Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Masks - GM Sheets
Masks - GM Sheets
• Inflict a condition • Put them in chains • Reject them at a time. The recommended order of
Agendas • Take Influence over someone • Give or take an audience • Show how they are feared or hated questions is: Bull * Nova * Outsider *
• Make Halcyon City feel like a comic Janus * Delinquent * Doomed * Legacy
• Bring them together • Give them conditional love • Attack them with unthinking hordes
book * Transformed * Protégé * Beacon
• Capture someone • Show them the line • Remind them of what they’ve lost
• Make the player characters’ lives • Ask questions of them the whole time.
• Put innocents in danger • Offer a helping hand • See their true self
superheroic Weave together their answers to paint a
• Show the costs of collateral damage
• Play to find out what changes The Doomed 1st Session Goals
• Reveal the future, subtly or directly picture of the incident.
• ___________________________ • Mark their doom track • Help your players create their
• Announce between-panel threats • Afterward, do relationships and
• Offer a chance to further their cause characters
Always say... • Make them pay a price for victory • Remind them of what they could lose • Prime Halcyon City with plenty of cool
Influence.
• What the principles demand • Turn their move back on them “When Our Team First
• Push them to the brink material and events to build on
• What the rules demand • Tell them the possible consequences Came Together…”
• Offer temporary relief with a cost • Show off who these characters are
• What honesty demands and ask Questions
• Go through most of the mechanics of
• What your prep demands • Tell them who they are or who they The Janus
the game (and definitely all the basic Bull: We defeated a dangerous enemy. Who
• ____________________________ should be • Bring their obligations to bear
moves) or what was it?
• Bring an NPC to rash decisions and • Endanger someone from either life
Principles • Make their lives cross over • Create an awesome first issue of your
• Describe like a comic book hard conclusions Nova: We destroyed our surroundings
comic
• Activate the downsides of their abilities • Put more obligations on them in the fight. Where was it? What did we
• Address yourself to the heroes, not the
and relationships • Take away their mask Do these… destroy?
players
• Bring on the action
• Make your move, but misdirect • Make a playbook move The Legacy Outsider: We didn’t trust each other at
• Make a villain move • Build on character creation
• Make threats real • Remind them of their traditions first, but that changed. How? Why?
• After every move: “What do you do?” • Ask questions constantly
• Give up to fight another day • Compare them to the past
• ___________________________ • Call out moves when they happen Janus: We saved the life of someone
• Treat human life as meaningful • Make them answer their family’s
• Offer moves when the players flinch important, either to the city, or to us. Who
• Make supers seem outlandish, creative, When you’re not busy… concerns
• Frame scenes with multiple characters was it? Why are they important?
and cool • Use splash panels • Raise expectations on them
• Shift their Labels Delinquent: We totally broke some major
• Give villains drives to feature their • Draw maps • Honor them
• Display the adaptations to the rules to win the fight. What rules did we
humanity • Fill in the backstory The Nova superhuman
• Make adults seem childish and short- • Use time jumps break? Whose rules were they?
• Remind them of past collateral damage • Give them a chance to talk
sighted • Share the spotlight • Reveal a terrible truth of their powers Doomed: We paid a high cost for victory.
• Support people, but only conditionally • Take breaks • Make their powers flare out of control Character Creation What was it?
• Ask provocative questions and build on • Hand out the playbooks. Have
the answers
Playbook Moves • Stoke their conditions
• Introduce threats only they can tackle each player take turns reading the Legacy: All things considered, we did well
and impressed an established hero. Who
• Be a fan of the PCs The Beacon description of each.
• Treat your NPCs like hammers: square • Draw attention to their inadequacies
The Outsider • Have each player pick a playbook. was it?
• Draw attention to their differences • Ask questions during the process. Transformed: We drew attention and
peg, round hole • Praise their best traits
• Make a request from home Keep the players talking about their ire from plenty during the fight. One
• Remind them of the generations that • Make them pay for their audacity
• Introduce a monitor from home characters and their decisions. important person in particular now hates
came before • Compare them to the others
• Accept and support them in their • After they have chosen names, looks, and fears us. Who is it?
• Think in the gutters between panels • Play to their drives
moments of weakness abilities, starting labels, answers to
• Sometimes, disclaim decision-making The Bull Protégé: We stuck together after all was
• Provoke their beliefs and practices in backstory questions, moves, and any
• ____________________________ • Endanger their love said and done. Why? How’d we keep in
tense situations special pieces of their playbooks, go
• Bolster their rival contact?
• Reveal dark secrets of their past
The Protégé around and ask them to introduce
• Convey their mistakes their characters, one at a time. Ask Beacon: We found signs that this incident
• Attack with someone just like them was just the start of something bigger.
• Bestow wisdom, wanted or unwanted questions all the while.
• Swarm with mundane forces What were the signs?
• Hold up a mirror to them • Once all characters are introduced, ask
• Give them exactly what they need at them to read out loud their “When our
a cost team first came together...” section,
• Endanger their mentor without answering the questions. Then
Villains
How to Make a Villain Conditions Condition Moves Super Names Sample Drives
• To bring justice to the guilty
Follow these steps to set up a villain, Choose one to five conditions for the These are GM moves for villains to make Anarch, The Antediluvian, The August, The
• To create and enforce order
whether making one from scratch or villain. You choose from the PC’s regular immediately after they’ve marked a Duke of Bone, Captain Shadow, Cygnus,
• To defend those like them
writing up an existing character as a conditions list: Afraid, Angry, Guilty, condition, and any time you’d make a GM Doctor Infinity, Dread Queen, Dream Tiger,
villain: Hopeless, and Insecure. The more move after that. Emerald Lance, Gehenna, Ghostheart, • To defeat a hated archenemy
• To demand attention and focus
conditions you give a villain, the greater Glacier, Gravestone, Handyman, Hashtag,
Choose a name and generation AFRAID • To destroy threats to peace
their capacity to stay in the fight, and the Hourglass, Kingfisher, Knuckleduster,
• Hide out of harm’s way • To free those in chains
Choose a drive more dangerous they’ll be. The Lawman, Mirror Beast, Mr.
• Flee from danger or difficulty • To obtain massive wealth
Choose one to five villain moves Everywhere, Myrmidon, Mystic Mistress,
• Lash out without thought at a threat • To overturn an unjust system
• 1 condition: Barely a threat Panthalassa the Sea-Sovereign, Quill,
Choose one to five conditions • Plead for mercy • To protect their home and loved ones
• 2 conditions: A bit of a fight Superbia, Photovore, Rime, Rockhammer,
• Throw up blocks and walls • To prove the failures of corrupt heroes
Villain Names • 3 conditions: A threatening villain Scarlet Songbird, Silent Storm, The
• 4 conditions: A dangerous villain ANGRY • To rally and inspire others to action
Choose a name that’s fun and exciting to Spider, Starlyte, Steel Mask, Vixxis the
• 5 conditions: A true arch-villain • Vent through unthinking violence • To seize control of threats and dangers
you, and that signals the generation of Timebreaker, Warpstar, Vortex, Zero Hour
• Break the environment • To take vengeance for past wrongs
the villain. You can always adjust a villain’s danger _____________________________
• Shut down conversation • To uncover the secrets of the world
and longevity by giving them more
Gold: Goofy, fun, light-hearted names
conditions or taking away conditions. • Lash out at any vulnerability Real Names _____________________________
Silver: Grandiose, cosmic, epic names • Escalate the situation dangerously Alexander, Amrit, Betty, Brandon, Sample Villain Moves
Villains in a Fight
Bronze: Down-to-earth, simple, catchy GUILTY Chadwick, Chun, Damon, Dipali, Dustin, • Summon robotic minions
Here are the core guidelines that villains • Seek forgiveness Faith, Hayley, Ida, Imran, Ismael, Josefina,
names • Open a gate to another dimension/the
follow in fights: • Sacrifice anything or everything for Joy, Juanita, Julius, Jun, King, Kyo, Leticia, future
Modern: Meme-worthy, “unique,” clever • When a villain gets hit hard, by trading redemption Lina, Luz, Marcos, Nadine, Orlando, • Create a weapon or bomb
names blows or in other situations, they mark • Turn to the unthinkable Patricia, Paul, Prasad, Ren, Rochelle, • Hide behind a lieutenant
When it’s appropriate, pick a real name for a condition as appropriate. • Implicate others in guilt Salman, Salvador, Sita, Sushila, Santiago, • Threaten innocents
the villain, too. • When a villain marks a condition, they • Reveal the nature of their drive Tyler, Vicky, Yi, Yuki • Explain their true purpose
make a move from the condition moves
Villain Drives list immediately, before the PCs act HOPELESS Amjad, Ash, Bass, Benitez, El-Amin, • Implicate or tarnish heroes
• Give up without a fight Fernandez, Chan, Corbitt, Dumas, • Steal away something valuable
Give your villain a drive, a purpose or goal again.
• Burn down the world around them Gallagher, Hartwell, Espinoza, Kane, Li, • Transform into a more dangerous form
that leads them to action, in the form of a • When you need to say what the villain
• Seek any light in the dark Locklear, McCloud, Mireles, Murray, Parr, • Reveal the nature of a trap
statement: does next, look to your GM moves, their
• Undermine others’ beliefs Pasternak, Rayburn, Reaves, Serrano, _____________________________
villain moves, and the condition moves.
“To __________________.” Make your • Veer toward drastic and terrible action Starling, Treadwell, Trujillo, Tyson, Wong,
• When a villain needs to mark a
drives point at the villain’s underlying Woodcomb, Zheng
condition but can’t, they are definitively INSECURE
humanity. Make the drives comprehensible
defeated. • Double down on broken plans or ideas _____________________________
and empathetic whenever possible.
• Villains can flee or give up long before • Follow the lead of someone else
Villain Moves all their conditions are filled—don’t • Doubt and question their own allies
Create three or so villain moves, things think they have to fight to the bitter and plans
the villain does, both in and out of fights. end. • Admit wrongful action
Make them descriptive and interesting, • Villains, and NPCs in general, always • Recede into the background
active and direct. try to clear conditions—they always
choose to open up after a PC’s
successful comfort or support move.
Villain Record Sheet
Name Name Name Name