How to Play Sentinel Comics the RPG
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- Finally, after not doing any of my normal content for months, I'm back with a How to Play video, and this time, it's my favorite super system...Sentinel Comics!
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0:00 - Intro
1:00 - The GYRO System
1:31 - The 3 DICE - Powers/Qualities/Status
3:21 - Status
4:29 - Effect
5:26 - Action Scenes
7:07 - Actions
10:39 - Abilities
12:40 - Twists
14:16 - Character Creation
16:51 - Villains and Minions
19:47 - Scene Types
21:17 - Outro 
Игры
A suggestion for players that want a little bit of progression.
Have a four session "Discovery" campaign.
Session 1 have the players roll or choose character backgrounds and have them start only with their first principal and their quality die, everything else at d4. Play that session with some kind of disaster or attack or what not that results in the characters getting their powers during the drama.
For session 2 have each player roll their power source and develop a little bit of their powers in between sessions and begin session two with the players now having to learn their powers on the fly as they figure out how to overcome the situation. By the end have them figure out their team roles and roll or choose archetypes between session 2 and 3.
Session three has them now banding together to face the bigger threat to the area, working together as a ragtag team of newly minted supers. have them roll or choose their personality between session 3 and 4 as they figure out how they feel about being supers.
session 4 is the boss battle, putting everything on the line and standing against the forces of evil, heroes ready to endure and be hardened by a crucible.
FWIW, those collections you gain have enormous effects on your character's power level over time. Yeah, they're one-use-per-session and having just a couple doesn't make you feel as much more potent than (say) a D&D character going from 1st to 3rd would. But you earn one every six sessions or so, and if you play for a year you're going to have 8 or 9 of them to use per session. At that point you will absolutely feel like you've "levelled up" a lot in terms of effective power, and you'll have had many opportunities to tweak your character by swapping around dice between powers and qualities, dropping old principles for something more suitable, or even doing aground up rewrite in response to story events. It's easy to keep the same character feeling fresh over time, and those collections really do have a meaningful impact on how effective you'll be both in and out of action scenes.
People who complain that there's no "experience system" to the game are just wrong. Your characters still get stronger over time, and can change as much or as little as you want (with some GM input, of course) without becoming more complex. What there isn't is a slow accretion of new abilities/feats/spells/features etc until the game becomes nigh-unplayable over time. You can still play a character with 20 collections and half a dozen rewrites under their belt just as easily as you did when they were brand new, but you feel awesome when you see how much smart use of those collections changes what you can handle.
And that's not even talking about the hero point mechanics that give you small bonuses and perks based on how you did the session before. The game's got both temporary and permanent experience rewards, and they run on different currencies unlike (say) burning karma in FASERIP games.
As a budding game designer trying to look for what hasn't been done and seeing if I can still be surprised by what has been, I really love this channel and I appreciate what you put into your craft.
Klaus, this got me from a nervous wreck to fully confident to run the game. A real godsend. Thanks for this, and take care of yourself!
this helped ALOT! I got the book today and a group of friends of mine wanna do a session, but I still have a ton of work ahead of me. This video alone saved me a few days of reading through everything (still going to brush up), thank you so much!
This is absolutely hands down my favorite system to moderate. There is so much back and forth between the players, the GM and the story!
I love introducing this system to people who have absolutely no role playing experience at all and after a couple of rounds around the table they are able to grasp it and have an absolute blast with it.
Goodness Klaus, please don't push yourself too hard! This video was great, so be proud of it and give yourself permission to make videos whenever and however is most enjoyable for you!
This looks like the perfect system for 1-offs, especially with creative people who are good at GMing but aren't able to prep. I'm not type-casting the system, but it's safe to say the devs at least accounted for it because they were thoughtful enough to include a random character builder.
As for longer campaigns, I'm surprised this system doesn't have something like Fate's character aspects. Seems like that would've been a good way to have heroes change over the course of a story without a standard "level-up".
Hehe I think it was more just a relief to get this video done. Spent the last few months taking it easy, though I was constantly frustrated with not getting this video done. So now I am rested and eager to get a ton of videos I'm excited about done :D
They do have those ways characters can change powers/abilities/etc between "Collections" so there is a bit of that. More just a lack of "gaining power," something most ttrpgs really lean on, and that a lot of people enjoy (rightfully so). I understand why they do it, and I could see some really satisfying shorter campaigns in Sentinels. I do wonder about long term, as I haven't gotten to experience that yet, but a nice 6 session min-campaign? Amazing.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide See, that's where I disagree. Collections add power and versatility just as well as leveling up a D&D character does. Play a character in SCRPG for a year of weekly-ish sessions and you'll have enough of them to really start to feel it. 8-9 collection uses per session is really meaningful - at the very least you could go a whole action scene (and how many of those does an average session have, one to three?) setting a die in your pool to whatever you want after rolling. That's grossly powerful, and it's only one function spending a collection lets you choose from. You also get a chance to rewrite your character at the same rate, so you have change if you want it.
The only thing the SCRPG doesn't offer is the ever-increasing complexity of level-based games, or even skill-based ones where you steadily add new ones. You still gain power, you still have meaningful change when you want it, but you don't drown in rising complexity and your game won't collapse when it outgrows the "sweet spot" D&D players talk about so much.
@@richmcgee434 See, now that's the kind of perspective I've been missing out on. Thank you for that! Hearing it put that way helps it make a lot of sense.
FWIW, every time you gain a collection (and really, any time the GM allows it based on story events) you have the option to tinker with your character. You can swap dice around between powers and qualities, pick different abilities form your power source and archetypes in place of existing ones, swap in new Principles (which the vid didn't talk about but are very important to RP and gaining hero points), or even do a ground-up rewrite if there's story justification for it. If anything you have more options for tweaking and change than Fate offers, and teh collections provide the raw power/versatility ramp-up.
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide NP. If it wasn't obvious from this and your earlier vid, I'm a big fan of this system and always happy to boost for it.
You're right about it being very suitable for one-off games. The designers have thought about how to integrate experienced characters with newer ones too. Apparently all the adventures they publish (if they ever get to that...so slow...) will have recommendations for how many collections you can use in them. Kind of like appropriate level limits in a D&D module, but here it's just a limit on collection use, not how many you have. Which is great, since it lets a PC with a ton of collections piled up play along new characters without skewing the balance the way taking an 18th level wizard to Keep On the Borderlands would.
Also emulates the way big name characters in comics often underperform like mad when they're hanging around with newly-created ones, especially when guest starring in team books. :)
Great video! Just wanted to point out one rules interaction you missed in your overview: Lieutenants. They can also be instantly taken out if the hero deals damage equal to twice their die size.
For example, if a d6 LT takes 12 damage. They get taken out. No roll, no degrading.
Oh dang, that's right! Good catch!
I love simply rolling damage for attacks. A bunch of OSR games do that and it's fantastic because you have the the high hit moments of rolling really well and at the same time you have the chance to miss by rolling too low and having your damage nullified by a static defense (for OSRs at least).
Hey, Sentinels is also my favorite super hero TTRPG! Heck, it's in the running for favorite overall. This was a really good explanation of it too, I'll definitely use this if I need to pitch the game to someone. Looking forward to the next games you cover, but don't push yourself if it's a problem!
Energized and concise explanation of the rules. Awesome video man!
I haven't played any superhero TTRPGs yet, but after how highly you've spoken on this one, I might give it a shot. I've got a few friends that played some of the older ones, maybe I can convince them to try it with me
Thank you so much for the thorough overview of the Sentinel Comics RPG, Mr. Klaus!
I have been looking for a cool superhero TTRPG and Sentinel Comics sounds incredible. I will definitely get it.
I have actually bitten the bullet and ordered a copy of the Sentinel Comics RPG based upon your enthusiasm shown here. The system appears to be related to the Marvel Heroic Roleplay system (now developed into the Cortex Prime) but appears to have less vagaries in which dice you need to roll for any given action (just a standardised 3 dice, and use a D4 if you can’t think of any applicable trait to use - simple). Indeed, I don’t think it would the that difficult to convert some of the MHR characters to the Sentinel system.
I agree that there seems to be a lot of Supers RPGs that are basically applications of generic systems rather than their own thing. Even the grand-daddy, Champions, was sold as part of the generic HERO system for a spell. Generic systems are OK, but not specialised and you often get a lot of rules clutter in applying them to something specific. The only other options I had been looking at were Icons - a nice-and-simple game, but still feeling a little too close to Fate in approach - and possibly holding out for the upcoming Marvel Multiverse RPG. However, as I say, your video swung it!
Great video, and what looks like a fascinating system. You've sold a copy!
I’d bought this a few months ago and this video was SO. VERY. HELPFUL! I’m off to make some heroes and villains :)
That's great to hear! I'm glad I could be of help!
It could be really interesting to see a video like that but for blades in the dark... I really need to understand that game better if I want to run it
Blades is a game I have a lot of love for, and is definitely one I want to explore. Definitely would be my first HtP video that has a like... 5 minute section for the players and 30 minute section focused on the GM lol.
You made it very interesting, thank you
Great video man, I'm gonna try to talk my group into moving out of M&M to this
So no matter how super you are you always gonna be MID.
I love these videos so much
I haven't actually tackled this, but to me the most difficult part would be in adventure design, because I want the gyro stages to have some story beats built in that create some meaningful, mechanical change to the scene. Kind of like a video game boss monster moving into its next stage. I'm decent at improvising story in a more traditional rpg, but I'm terrible at planning that kind of stuff. To be fair, while I love comics, I also find supers to be the genre for which I'm the worst at creating adventures.
I think you are right there with your thoughts. The easiest scene transition would be a base with the self destruct sequence counting down.
For a big bad end boss you could have their power or quality dice grow in a die size with each scene change as they grow in power.
Each environment has a die pool. You could have the names of those dice change as things happen to the scene.
My favorite game system.
this was a really good video
I purchased a copy and now I am trying to get my mind around the details. I went through a couple character creations tests and I am wondering is there is a way, in the system as is, to impose limitations on powers/abilities. For example, a character who can only fly when its sunny (as he needs the sun to fuel his powers...), or Shapeshifting limited to a specific form. Oh and is there a DISCORD to discuss such issues? Thanks for sharing the wisdom!
Hey man! Love your content, you make a great job. Say, is it possible to use your "How to play" series for translation and dubbing on another language, indicating your authorship and without any applications for authorship from our side? In the description we can specify any information you want. Thanks for any decision you make
Honestly, I would be absolutely ok with that! If you could throw some links to my channel, that would really be all I ask. Anything that helps more people access this information and lets them get into more games!
@@TheDungeonNewbsGuide thanks so much
Would you ever review City of mist? It is by far the most comic booky rpg I've seen
I do own City of Mist and keep meaning to peek into it, but I haven't really taken the time yet. But it is absolutely on my list.
This *feels* like a Cortex game with a *ton* of mods tacked on, plus a few "house-rules". It looks interesting! I think I prefer the Marvel Heroic version a bit more, but I think it just may be that I got more and more used to the "cortex way" of doing things.
It does definitely have a Cortex feel to it in a lot of ways, which I'm here for. A different approach in a number of regards, but either is a really solid way to enjoy some superheroics!
I only played the old starter kit, but I feel like it's sort of the inverse of adding more to base Cortex. It's more like Cortex simplified. Maybe like Fate Accelerated vs Fate Core (totally dif. system, I know, but in regards to level of complexity).
The people to made Marvel heroics and also made Cortex. Cam Bank is the creator of Cortex and credited in Sentinels Comic.
We played a few sessions of this game (going through one of the downloadable modules) and everyone really enjoyed the game. My group at the time was mainly D&D/Pathfinder players, so playing something so loosely structured was a big departure from their norms. I found the creation to be the best “random” creation method I have ever seen. I also commented to my group, “you could take this system as is, and pretty much play any Hollywood style production game… just limiting some of the power choices, or redefining them.” Good video!
I love that there's no advancement. It seems weird in supers RPGs as comic book characters almost never get profoundly better over time. Sure, during their origin story they some show growth, but most don't.
Gyro is pronounced “hero” so it is the “hero” system.
Sounds a lot like Fate
...how?
Ｐｒⓞм𝕠𝕤𝐌 😑
I'm glad there is no leveling up.
Absolutely zero interest in introducing such a random element in character generation. I'm going to make what I want, within the GM's rules.
Yep, that's why they have that second option I mention where you just pick what you want instead. They realize not everyone will want randomized creation.