Masks

Masks are an additional layer on top of traditional jobs that serves to give greater indivudal direction to players. In the context of SS1X as a whole, they function most similarly to antagonists, though their design is much closer to the roles found in social deduction games like TTT, Town of Salem, or Mafia.

Each mask is organized into a high-level category called a troupe, which defines their allegiance and general goals. Much like traditional antagonists, masks can grant equipment, abilities, or unique knowledge about the game world.

As a method of guiding the player towards certain gameplay, masks additionally come with objectives, which can be split into two categories:

• Troupe Objectives: High-level collaborative objectives which are shared between all members of a troupe. These are usually quite difficult to complete and are meant to function as a final means of ending the round.
• Mask Objectives: Personal conflict-oriented objectives which are unique to a given player. As opposed to the troupe objectives which serve to benefit the entire group, mask objectives usually involve doing suspicious or malevolent activities.

As a general summary, masks define a goal and give the player some tools to work towards it.

Social Intrigue

Masks are a core component of the social deduction and intrigue gameplay at the core of Ephemeral Space. While the average mechinations of a given job or troupe are easy to identify, masks give the game an additional layer of ambiguity.

As such, masks should limit elements which signal their presence or trivially reveal their identity without first requiring extensive engagement. While the effects of accomplishing their objectives are obviously going to leave signs of their presence, masks should not leave "tells" around the station. As a rule of thumb, you should not be able to identify someone's mask without at least coming into contact with them.

While a mask does not need to directly create conflict by engaging with other masks or jobs on the station, they should still contribute to the intrigue dynamic through their passive existence. A mask which seeks to carry contraband while not explicitly doing harm creates opportunity space for someone else to obscure their intentions.

Overlap

"...Masks should generally use the same kinds of sandbox tools to attempt to accomplish very different things"

Since masks are almost entirely distinguished by their objectives, it is inevitable that two masks may take similar actions to accomplish wildly different end goals. Both a traitor and a vigilante may attempt to assassinate people on the station, potentially with the exact same equipment. This is a strength, and something to maximize: the more shared elements masks have, the more difficult it becomes to deduce someone's alignment from basic parts, especially if the masks differ in troupes.

When possible, masks should reuse established elements and methods of interaction with the station:

• Do not create troupe or mask variants/reskins of existing items
• Do not create MacGuffins for a mask to chase. Any item that a given mask is interested in should also be something that a typical player would want to acquire.

Organization

Troupes

Troupes are unique in that all members of a given troupe receive shared objectives. This means that, at least on a macro-level, the members of a troupe should not generally be working against one another.

This structure can broadly encompass something as tightly-knit as a cult or something as generally decentralized as a typical station's crew. So long as the members' goals align (in the broad strokes), they can share a troupe.

Linked Masks

Certain masks can be optionally "linked" to each other in such a way that their operation is dependent on the other.

Masks that are linked together are always assigned at the same time, to allow them to always respond and depend on the presence of each other. Note that while this can be used for combative roles, this can also be include more collaborative things, like a group of mafioso and their leader.

Assignment

Masks are given out immediately when players spawn, whether on the transport shuttle or just through cryo. All players receive a mask, regardless of role (though certain roles may be prohibited from being members of certain factions).

The mask that you receive is fully random, dependent only on the troupes that have been selected to spawn onboard the station.

Mask Tokens

At the end of a round, if you've successfully complete your objectives, you receive a mask token that's associated with your account. Between rounds, a few round's worth of tokens can be redeemed to pre-select your mask before the round begins.

This provides an incentive for completing mask objectives (to earn tokens) as well as a way to occasionally mitigate randomness.