Clarissa

Masks is a truely one of a kind system. Lots of TTRPGs set out to do superheroes, but Masks is the only one I've found that truely understands comic books. It's not about the specifics of powers, whether your frost ray can reach 25 feet or 30 feet, or how many grid squares your cosmic surge covers. Masks instead chooses to drill into the dramatics of being a superhero - it's about your relationships with your teammates, your parents, and those adult superheroes with their own preconceived notions of who you should be. It's about being a Powerful Teenager - you have the ability and the drive to help people, but you're still a kid struggling to live up to the world's expectations of you. What are you gonna do about it?

The main content of this Adventure Path is good. It's a very fun sandbox for your players, has a lot of freedom to insert your own content, and offers a good hexcrawl. If it were presented as that alone, it would be an easy five stars. Unfortunately Paizo decided to tack an untested and unfinished kingdom-running mechanic onto this perfectly excellent adventure, and for that it gets dragged down to three stars. Simply trying to engage with this mechanic is not worth it - it sucks up your time for a minigame that is totally disconnected from your characters, and is ridiculously mechanically broken. But worse than that, even if the kingdom mechanics worked perfectly, they'd still be BORING. And there's no greater sin a TTRPG can commit than wasting your time on boring trivialities. tl;dr: highly recommend IF you find a GM who totally removes or rewrites the kingdom mechanics into something interesting.

Pathfinder 2E; if you love pouring over character builds, expressing yourself through game mechanics in unique or interesting ways, adventuring in a gonzo-fantasy world, and engaging in deep tactical combat, Pathfinder 2E is the game for you. I've ran two adventure paths in Pathfinder so far, spanning 80+ sessions over the course of three years, and I've never ran out of new and unique things to do in this system. My players are constantly surprising me with the crazy new abilities they pull out of their pocket, and I'm surprising them by always upping the stakes of the enemies their facing. You might start at level 1 contending with local bandits, but by level 10 you're defeating ancient undead sorcerers, and at level 20 you're facing down divine threats to entire kingdoms. And crucially, the game is balanced all the way through. My players never feel pigeonholed, or that they aren't contributing. In Pathfinder, everyone shines. 5/5, highly recommend for players seeking high fantasy adventure and fun tactical combat.

Blades in the Dark is a great system! It cuts right to the chase of daring heists, intense action, and factional intrigue. Duskvol is a fascinating setting, and with each new table I run, I learn more about the setting as we explore different parts and themes. I highly recommend Blades in the Dark, especially for players who are motivated to seize what they want!

Rowan did an awesome job facilitating our game of Masks! Rowan struck the absolute right balance between setting the scene and stakes, and letting the players take the lead. I'm looking forward to our next session!