Trans Formed

A collection of anxieties prompted by Masks, an RPG from Magpie Games.

For almost a year, my partner has played in a regular game of Masks. Masks is a superhero RPG that runs on a system inspired by Apocalypse World, and instead of classes or skills, players choose from a set of options, abilities, and stats called a playbook that establishes a base for your character. I've wanted to join this game for a year, and have been unable to due to scheduling, but I still took the time to try and make a character for it.

Every playbook in Masks brings to the table a number of implications about the world at large. Choosing to include the Outsider in your game implies that there are places and people beyond Earth, because the core of that playbook is being an alien from another culture. Including the Reformed implies that there is room for redemption in the world you’re building, because its focus is on the strife caused by that arc.

What I wanted to play was a character whose body was made of plants. I wanted a photosynthesizing hero whose skin turned to bark in response to physical trauma like Senator Armstrong’s nanomachines from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. At first I considered the Bull, a playbook about being tough and strong while also having a big heart full of love. But I had a clear picture in my head about how this character behaved romantically which didn’t fit the Bull’s gimmick. Ultimately, it seemed I was looking for the Transformed. But as I read it I felt a bit…uncomfortable.

The implication the Transformed brings to the world is that people fundamentally mistrust and fear people who don’t conform to a given standard of appearance. As many people can attest, these prejudices are plenty observable in the real world. But upon further reflection I realized why it felt so uncomfortable to me specifically.

You don't pass.

The Transformed is visibly powerful. Your skin options under Looks include things like plated, alien, and untouchable. The flavor text talks specifically about remembering a time before when people didn’t notice you, didn’t react to you. It all sounded so much to me like one of my primary anxieties before starting HRT: the fear of never passing, of never being accepted. Of being called a freak or a monster or any number of significantly more specific and gendered insults. I’m not ashamed of being trans, but I’d be naive to think there isn’t a societal pressure for binary trans people to fit into their "new" roles like Lego pieces slipping flush with the wall.

There’s nothing wrong with offering this archetype. It’s an old one, with plenty of classic examples. When it isn’t just a metaphor for puberty, the “lesson” often taught with these characters is usually about disregarding what other people think and finding your own confidence, which is a great message! But I can’t divorce this playbook from my own fears and feelings. I can’t play this character without turning their story into a trans narrative. That’s the way I see the world.

I’m just not ready for this character. I’m not ready to take a character whose primary angst is about living in a society that only respects heroes who pass for human and bring them to a straight, cis, white GM who will completely miss that extra context. Even with a savvy GM, I don’t know that I’m ready to tell a story with those themes while I’m still living with those fears, unchallenged and unconfronted, lurking in the rafters of my mind.

Maybe someday I’ll tell that story. Maybe someday I’ll unpack those anxieties and drill deep into these themes and tell a real, uncomfortable story about perception and passing and confidence.

But I’m just not ready yet.