How to play Masks: A New Generation

How to play

Playbooks: Each player picks one of the ten core playbooks: the Beacon, Bull, Delinquent, Doomed, Janus, Legacy, Nova, Outsider, Protégé or Transformed. A playbook is a kind of teen-hero story rather than a set of powers: it gives your starting Labels (then add +1 wherever you like), playbook moves, backstory questions, a Moment of Truth and its own twist, like the Doomed's doom track or the Janus's secret identity. You describe your powers yourself.

The Label system: You have five Labels, each rated from −2 to +3: Danger, Freak, Savior, Superior and Mundane. They measure how you see yourself right now, and they shift up and down as people tell you who you are. If a Label would go above +3 or below −2, you mark a condition instead.

Moves: When what you do triggers a move, roll 2d6 + the Label it names. On 10+ you get a full hit, on 7–9 a hit with a cost or a harder choice, and on 6 or less the GM makes a move, but you mark potential. The basic moves are directly engage a threat (Danger), unleash your powers (Freak), defend someone (Savior), assess the situation and provoke someone (Superior), comfort or support someone and pierce the mask (Mundane), and take a powerful blow (roll + conditions marked). Fill your potential track to take an advance.

Influence: Having Influence over someone means they care what you think. Every adult has Influence over you when first introduced. When someone with Influence over you tells you who you are, either accept it and let the GM shift your Labels, or reject their Influence and roll to hold on to yourself. With Influence over someone you take +1 to moves targeting them.

Conditions: Instead of hit points you have five conditions, each giving −2 to certain moves: Afraid (directly engage), Angry (comfort or support, pierce the mask), Guilty (provoke, assess), Hopeless (unleash your powers) and Insecure (defend, reject Influence). Clear one by acting it out, such as running from something difficult when Afraid, or when someone comforts or supports you. If you must mark a condition and all five are marked, you are taken out.

The Team pool: The team shares a pool of Team. The GM adds one at the start of each session, and entering battle against a dangerous foe together adds two, with more if you are united and fewer if you are not. Anyone can spend Team one for one to give a teammate +1, or spend one selfishly to shift their own Labels. When time passes, the pool resets to one.

Strategy

Masks is a game about identity, not power optimisation: the most rewarding play engages with who your character is becoming, not just what they can do. Lean into your playbook's pressure: Every playbook brings a different source of tension. The Legacy lives up to a heroic family, the Doomed races a doom track that grants new doomsigns each time it fills until their doom arrives, and the Janus juggles a secret identity. These pressures are not obstacles to escape; they are the game's dramatic engine. Treat Labels as your arc: When others shift your Labels, they change who your character believes they are. Accepting a shift can be the right story choice; rejecting Influence is how you assert your own identity. Tactically, acting selfishly (spending a Team to shift one Label up and another down) can be used after a roll to change the Label you're rolling with, at the cost of the team. Use Influence as leverage: You gain Influence through moves like defend someone and provoke someone, and at the end of each session you can grow closer to the team by giving Influence. Holding Influence gives +1 to moves targeting that person, and you can spend it to give them −2, inflict a condition or take an extra +1. Build the Team pool: Enter fights together and with a shared purpose, because a leader with Influence over everyone and a united team add Team, while mistrust and being ill-prepared cost it. Spend Team freely to help each other: one Team is +1 on a teammate's roll. Play your conditions: Conditions are emotional states, and you clear them by acting them out. Angry clears when you hurt someone or break something important; Guilty clears when you make a sacrifice to absolve your guilt. That creates drama instead of just penalties. Fail forward: Every miss marks potential, and a full potential track is an advance. A bad roll is also progress. Use team moves: Each playbook has team moves that trigger when you share a triumphant celebration or a vulnerability with someone. They are how relationships deepen, so look for those scenes.

Tips

- Your Labels are not fixed stats; they shift with what others say about you, so play that as drama, not a problem to solve. - Conditions are emotional states, not wounds; clear them by acting them out or when a teammate comforts or supports you. - A miss is not the end: the GM makes a move, and you mark potential toward your next advance. - Spend Team to help: each Team you spend gives a teammate +1 on their roll. - Enter big fights together and with a shared purpose to add Team to the pool. - Every adult starts with Influence over you; deciding when to reject what they say is the heart of the game. - Read your whole playbook, including your Moment of Truth, before the first session. - If a Label would pass +3 or drop below −2, you mark a condition instead, so extreme Labels come at a cost.

Players and time

One GM and a small team of players. Campaign play over many sessions develops the team's relationships and each character's identity; one-shots work but miss the Label-shifting of sustained play.

Powered by the Apocalypse

Masks uses the same rules-light engine as Apocalypse World, created by Vincent Baker, and games such as Monsterhearts, Dungeon World, Urban Shadows and Epyllion. They share the 2d6 + stat roll with 10+, 7–9 and miss results, and moves triggered by what your character does in the story. Learning Masks makes the rest of the family easier to pick up.

Second edition

Magpie Games announced a second edition of Masks at Gen Con 2025, with refreshed mechanics, new playbooks, a larger 8.5 × 11 inch format, new art and new lore. A quickstart is planned for 2026 and crowdfunding for autumn 2026, with the full line hoped for in early 2028. Until then the 2016 core book is the current edition, and its supplements add playbooks: the Halcyon City Herald Collection (the Reformed, Newborn, Innocent, Star and Joined), Secrets of A.E.G.I.S. (the Soldier and the Brain) and Unbound (the Harbinger, Nomad and Scion).

Common beginner mistake

Treating Masks like a combat-focused superhero game and ignoring the Labels and conditions. Masks is at its best when the emotional and identity stakes matter as much as the physical threat: a battle in which a Protégé's mentor openly doubts them is far richer than a fight alone.