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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- Four Dungeons and Dragons tips from Star Trek: The Next Generation's seventh worst episode. TNG Masks doesn't currently enjoy the admiration of fans but it does provide great dungeon master tips.
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I love Masks. It was doing something different and had a great atmosphere.
The main idea was quite good. It lacked follow through and felt stiff. Also, having only Data taken over left everyone else out of the story.
@@dicegeeks At least Lower Decks establishes that a) there are more of these things and b) it can take over people other than Androids
Nice. I haven't got to watch Lower Decks yet. I guess I should.
@@dicegeeks You absolutely should, lots of storytelling notes there and a very dnd party sort of feel. Though the Masks thing didn't get a particular focus, it was in the background as a weird thing that happened.
@@ianburns1167 I'll try to check it out soon.
The concept of a culture or civilization overwriting current reality are something I've seen a few times in ttrpg. Off the top of my head the most blatant and extreme versions would be:
-In the Chronicles of Darkness (NWoD) it's one of those hard to fight "things" that aren't a concrete entity to kill. It's basically an excuse to have a very different type of ghost story or have the final scene of a story take place in an ancient egyptian pyramid under a modern american city, though there's no way there should be one there.
-The King in Yellow is basically this, but with a play rather than specifically a civilization, though some of that bleeds through any of the various Cthulhu rpgs (or even Pathfinder's Strange Aeons).
-Stygian civilization being resurrected as an insanely powerful necromantic spell in Conan.
Having said that, I found that episode novel. It just felt somewhat badly justified.
Thanks for pointing these out.
Sadly, DS9 was getting all the background extras. Budgets were being smooshed around a bit…
Perhaps a game where a living library is overwriting an area into their culture could include something akin to magical diseases or curses that try to change aspects of the population. Things like a disease that changes a person's language so that they speak the civilization's language while forgetting their own. Civilians start finding themselves unable to understand their neighbors as the languages get magically switched, people who's jobs require paperwork suddenly find things more difficult etc. Wizards might get hurt by this as the change makes it harder to read their spellbook, but they can bypass this by translating a few spells before they fully forget their old language or even get some new spells as other wizards in town desperately work to translate spells and documents as the disease spreads.
Similarly, the library might try to convert people from their old religious beliefs towards worshipping the gods of the library's culture. Actually, having some ancient god of knowledge forsee the fall of their civilization and create an artifact to revive their religion centuries later sounds like something an ancient god would do.
Totally agree.
Doctor Who fans here? I'm just going to say "Are you my mummy" and run away 😹
I need to rewatch this episode, because I don't remember it being a plot that directly endangers more than a few people at the time, rather that if it wasn't resolved soon it would become a threat to other people on the ship.
I dont know about anyone else, but I LOVE this ep because it stars my favorite character Data. Plus, in an avalanche of work for poor Brent, he had to do the best he could in the miniscule time he had to devise these characters, and I think he did an amazing job. Spiner is super talented and can do little wrong as far as I am concerned.
Woah what the hell this episode was awesome if just for letting Spiner go nuts with other characters
I think that was why people liked it years ago. But it seems people have changed their minds.
@@dicegeeks its funny now but the scene when Data turns around and says "Masaka (sp?) is waking!" creeped the hell out of me as a kid.
The first time you see it, it is pretty wild.
@@dicegeeks cant wait to see what you come up with for "Up the Long Ladder"
Hahahaha... neither can I.
Masks was a ‘bottle episode’ using existing sets and taking place entirely on the ship. This is usually the case when a show needs to stretch its budget for the season, and the two hour finale was probably sucking up a lot of the budget.
From what I've read the building of the temple set what quite an undertaking.
When I think of ST:TNG bad episodes, 'Masks' never comes to mind, because it is not bad.
I like Masks, don't care about the reviews. It's a cool idea and I was always enchanted by the concept.
The main concept is great. I don't understand the criticism about it being incomprehensible. To me, it just feels empty and not fully developed.
@@dicegeeks It's true, they could have made it far, FAR weirder and it would have been better for that. But since people thought even a basic mythic cycle recreation was too much to follow...
Hahaha, no kidding.
I love "Masks".
Fair enough
Seventh is not a fair position. It should have been up there at three at least. Pretentious crap.