The Best Comic Book RPG Ever Made: Sentinel Comics RPG

[@richmcgee434]

Easily my favorite supers RPG engine out there at this point, although I can understand why it won't be perfect for everyone. It's definitely focused more on simulating the feel of a comic book story (and not just Silver Age, it can handle other eras just fine IME) than on modeling the physics of a superhero slugfest, falling into the lower end of the complexity scale when compared to more detail-oriented systems like champions, Mutants & Masterminds, or Absolute Power. Still has plenty of mechanical meat on its bones, with your choices during an action scene having a lot of weight and teamwork synergies between heroes being vital to success. Individual characters avoid being swamped by options through the clever way abilities unlock as the GYRO zones advance, and the broad definitions of each of the basic actions (particularly the catch-all Overcome) still leave plenty of openings for inventive play in response to events in a given scene. The core book is extremely complete and doesn't really require anything else to play for years, and can easily be divorced entirely from the default setting if desired, with the setting-specific character and environment writeups easily reskinned for other uses so that chunk of the book isn't dead weight if you do use the game for another supers IP or homebrew campaign. It does a good job of providing both players and GMs advice on playing/running the game, and is pretty well-edited overall with very few typos. The ability writeups might have benefited from a more consistent style manual, but that's a very small quibble. If I have any complaint at all with the game, it's that GTG has been very, very slow to release more content for the game, which has actively hurt the growth of the player base. That's supposedly due to change over the next year or so, but (good as the core book is) having some pre-made adventures on the market as inspiration and de facto guidelines to new GMs is something that's sorely lacking at the moment, and for folks who are playing the default setting the planned "genre books" (for lack of a better term) should provide more depth as well as general purpose tips for running specific types of stories. The existing Guise Book is aimed at doing comedic games (a very odd choice for the first release) and there are ones planned for more explicitly street-level campaigns and the supernatural end of things, with a "cosmic tales" kind of thing on the distant horizon.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Rich, great comment (almost longer than my video 😀), and I almost agree with everything you said. While I would love to see more stuff, the moderator kit has 6 really good adventures and they also had a couple PDF’s I picked up around launch. The adventure modules released thus far do a good job of giving a framework to run a variety of adventures. With the system being so different in terms of balance, from well anything else, it was nice to get an idea of how they do it. The Moderator Kit is a GREAT value add for the game. Good to see another fan of the game! I plan to run a solo session for the channel after I have time to run one for Marvel Multiverse first (so probably a couple months). Thanks for watching!

[@richmcgee434]

@@booksbricksandboards783 I'm curious to see how this plays out for you solo. I've run sessions for as few as two players and found I had to do some modifications to get the scene-building system to work, and the strain would be even greater with just one hero. You can work around it - the game gives you lots of tools depending on how you want to approach almost any unusual situation - but as written the guidelines for making a challenging action scene feel centered on having about 4-5 players at the table.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

I have a lot of experience soloing and gm’ing for groups, so I can generally weather the storms using the Mythic GM Emulator. I do plan on running 2 heroes, which is often how I run solo RPG’s that aren’t heavy on crunch. Nice thing with Sentinels is that I have ran it for groups multiple times (familiarity), it is simple strategically (choices are fairly straightforward), it is narrative focused (rather than simulationist), and it has built in scaling (threats and villains are generally per hero scaled). With solo it is always a lot about what expectations you come with, and how willing you are to just go where the game takes you. If I came in expecting it to play just like a group experience, I would leave disappointed. If I expect that I can use the resolution and creation mechanics to have a fun time using the Mythic kit to build a story, my bet is that it will be a good time. Your own miles may vary!

[@ConlangKrishna]

Just seeing a few pages, I must say, I love the artwork, and the way the rules are presented. It makes me want to jump into these rules.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

They get the “feel” of comic style throughout the rules, the layout, and overall presentation. My group loved it.

[@FrankDrebbin-de3te]

I love SCRPG! It's easily my favorite super heroes RPG. I played lots of different varieties and power levels of Sentinels to really appreciate the versatility of the system. Each of the GMs had their own style of play. Our first game was standard Sentinels in terms of power and campaign world. The next game we played a low-level game where we were more like the Defenders fighting against ninjas and gangsters rather than colossal monsters from outer space. During the playtest it became obvious that the power level is really set by the campaign. If you want godlike super heroes then a bazooka would use a d4, and anything lower than that is an Overcome at best. Conversely, in a low power campaign an unarmed thug might be a d4. Everything is set by whatever campaign you're playing.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

It handles mixed level groups better than any system I have played too… because of the abstract nature. You could actually have a Thor and a Daredevil in the same scene contributing.

[@geoffchurchill5492]

I know Champions gets maligned for its complexity and math requirements, but still my favourite system for superheroes

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Had that when I was a kid, learned the rules, but could never get anyone to play it because they thought it seemed rough. Hard to say if that was the system or the 11 year old trying to teach it!

[@geoffchurchill5492]

@@booksbricksandboards783 once you get the 5pts = 1d6 mechainic it becomes self evident but with the easy availability of excell forms its now much easier to make characters and the generation tables of the genre sure help

[@booksbricksandboards783]

If I remember right, the creation process is where my friends checked out… I believe I might have been too eager explaining I had spent a weekend creating a single character for a new game…….. bad sales pitch!

[@sinmaan7568]

2 things missing with the game: character advancement and character flaws rules...kinda big for a super rpg. Otherwise, it looks super cool.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

They do have some meta currency that simulates growth and allows heroes to lean upon prior experiences. I think largely why “traditional” advancement isn’t provided is because the power levels themselves are very abstracted. Advancement in a zero sum game is kind of just shifting around the dials, which you can accomplish with rebuilding the character to reflect the changes thematically.

[@NevTheDeranged]

I still prefer MHR, but Cam's fingerprints on this game definitely put it high in the stack of supers games on my shelf.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Yeah, I mean best is always subjective. For me, it hits all of the right buttons. Also, I’m a little biased because I had a great couple sessions where the group didn’t want to try anything and this worked so well, and the system made them get comfortable actually roleplaying their actions. Great stuff. Nothing wrong with MHR either though! I wish that the character creation rules were a little more in depth, and that the product line was longer lived, but the game is great!

[@NevTheDeranged]

@@booksbricksandboards783 Yeah I'm still pretty miffed that it got strangled just as I was getting into it. If only we'd gotten one more wave of product. That's the way it goes with licensed properties sometimes I guess.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Yeah I read somewhere that it came down to the price of renewing the license, and based upon the sales, it just didn’t make sense for a small publisher like MWP to wrap up all their resources. Agreed though, it was a good system, and a shame it didn’t take off.

[@NevTheDeranged]

@booksbricksandboards783 I wouldn't be surprised if it was a victim of the success of the MCU- that license probably shot up dramatically in price around that time.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Yeah, timing would be about right.

[@Onionkid99]

Agreed 100%!

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Thanks OK99!

[@muigokublack6487]

Sorry for a dupe comment but how does Marvel Multiverse stack up against this? Cause I am a fan of Marvel personally and that's pre-MCU.

[@booksbricksandboards783]

Lol I just typed a book sized response to you back on the other video messages 😀. Long story short, both have their place in my book. I believe Sentinels is a BETTER game, but it is a different game. Sentinels is more abstracted action and narrative mechanics. Marvel is a little more mechanically traditional and I feel like has gotten an unfair rap because they had the good faith to share the play test. I think it is a very good game at this point, and am excited to see more of it. I’m going to solo it with Mythic for the channel soon. Also, since you mentioned pre-MCU, me as well. Matter of fact I have played EVERY Marvel rpg, including the Saga one and the diceless Marvel Universe one. I was a bit nervous they would only have versions of characters I didn’t know or have investment in, but I was happily surprised to find almost all of my favorites in the version I know and love. The roster in the book is very solid!