The End of the War

Hello, Sentinels fans.

I write this update with a heavy heart. This year has been a big one for everyone, one way or another, no matter how you slice it. We’ve got a bunch of major products that are finally coming out this year, and we’re also spinning up various new projects, collaborations, and crossovers. It’s an exciting time, but also - especially with everything else going on in the world - a time of reflection and consideration.

Even before the novel coronavirus was a thing everyone was talking and thinking about, we were talking seriously and heavily about Prime War. Prime War is a product that we have a lot of our heart wrapped up in. I am speaking for myself personally when I say that I love most everything about it, from the people working on it, to the engines and intentions of the game mechanics, to the stories we set out to tell with it. Prime War started as a labor of love, following up with the hopes and dreams we put into Sentinel Tactics and trying to chase that dream from a different angle. But, after much consideration, we have decided to cancel Prime War. 

To be clear, this isn’t a reaction to recent events. This is a reaction to a lot of discussion and market research. Sentinel Tactics came out to a market that was largely indifferent to it, so in the wake of that release and all of the work we put into marketing it - including the livestreamed tournaments from over a year’s worth of major conventions - we knew we needed a different approach to make that style of game work. After various failed starts on our end, we were presented with a new option. The folks at Lore Forge Games came to us with a proposal of how to make that work, and they brought with them innovative design, a thrilling and brilliant die mechanic, and a ton of passion. We saw in them a lot of what we love about our own collaborative process, and we eagerly jumped into making Prime War into a reality. Between the fine folks at Lore Forge and the various teams here at GTG, we’ve all invested hundreds of hours on Prime War. But that doesn’t necessarily produce ultimate success.

We know that there are a lot of people excited about many parts of Prime War. We count ourselves among that number. But the truth of the situation is that the sort of game that Prime War is doesn’t have the market interest to go forward in the way we’ve been planning. We had a big meeting with the Lore Forge team late last year and then another follow-up meeting at the beginning of this year, and we all ultimately decided that either the game needed to be rebuilt from the ground up as a different game, or we needed to put this to bed and walk away. Neither outcome was attractive, but after much deliberation, this is where we’ve all landed. We had intended to make this announcement in March, but, well, some things have happened this year that set everything back. 

Besides sharing with you what’s happening with this project, and some specific details about what happens next that Paul will share soon here in this update, I wanted to apologize for the way this ended up. This project has been plagued with delays and false starts since before it even had the name “Prime War”. We could have done a better job in a lot of ways. I don’t know that it would have made a difference when we got to this point of this decision, but it would have made a difference in how all of you felt about how the process was going. That’s on us, and I am sorry for letting you down that way. Part of the consideration we’re doing right now as a company involves ways for us to improve our communication and connection with you fantastic folks, and the rest of the gaming industry in general. Thank you for sticking with us as we grow and change and make mistakes along the way.

Here is the CEO of Greater Than Games, Paul Bender, with some words about how we’re going to proceed forward with putting this project to rest:

Hi everyone, Paul here. 

I'm incredibly disappointed that we had to make this decision, and I want to let all of you know how much I appreciate all of your patience on this project, and how much it hurts to cancel it.

Because we are cancelling the game, we are absolutely going to give a full refund to any of you who paid for the Sentinel Tactics: Broken City preorder. We have the old records from that preorder, but since a lot has changed since then, if we owe you a refund, please email us at contact@greaterthangames.com with your current PayPal payment information and we'll get you taken care of right away. If you happen to have your old receipt, please attach that as well. If not, we'll still be able to look you up, so don’t worry.

Thank you.

-Paul

Thank you, Paul. And thank you as well to everyone here at Greater Than Games who has worked on Prime War and supported the development of this game over the last several years.

I’d especially like to thank everyone at Lore Forge for their passion, their inspiration, and their hard work. Over the last decade of this job, I’ve had a variety of projects come and go, and watching a thing you make not go the way you wanted is one of the hardest things to experience as a creator. I know that this outcome is incredibly difficult for everyone involved, and I want to make it clear that none of this should negatively reflect any of their work or ideas. Ryan, Codie, AJ, and Jimmy: you’re all awesome, and it’s been a true honor to get to work with you on this. I sincerely hope this isn’t the last time we collaborate on a project, and I wish you all the best of luck in all of your future endeavors.

And, ultimately, I want to thank all of you Sentinels fans for sticking with us over the years on all of our projects. We have so many, and while we understand intellectually that they can’t all be winners, that doesn’t make it easier to come face to face with. So, thank you for your support, and for sharing in our love of the world of Sentinel Comics. We here are also Sentinels fans - that’s how all of this got started, right? There wouldn’t be a Multiverse without all of you. So, thank you.

-Christopher Badell
Editor-in-Chief
Greater Than Games

Thanks for the final announcement on this.  I'm sad Prime War won't come to light but at least there's a final answer on what happening. 

I hope they are emailing those that did back because not everyone is checking the forums on this.

Hello Morph147!

We will be emailing those that have not reached out for a refund later today.

Geez. I've had a very srong hunch that this was the exact problem facing the project, but it sure doesn't make it any easier to read.

My first thought is that I'm really sad for the LFG crew. The demo I played was a few years ago. However, it was a rememberable experience, which at a gaming convention overflowing with experiences, is telling of how strong of a foundation they had.

I'm disapointed that this project will never come to light. But honestly, in the years since Tactics came out, my collection has added a ton of really quality titles that have already filled that void Tactics/Prime War wanted to fit into. And I found myself less excited about Prime War and more just frustrated when I remember every few months that I still had money in the project.

Christopher and Paul, this sucks for now, but thanks for at least ripping the bandaid. Stay healthy. Looking forward to seeing you all again after the rebuilding of society.

Disappointing but not surprising.

I wonder if there's enough fan interest to drive this becoming a community project?  The core mechanics are reasonably solid, it's just the content (characters and scenarios) that needs development, and fans are good at creating content.

Do you think there's a chance we could see some of the in progress product? (Like art or character cards?) From what I've heard a good amount was at least playtestable at conventions, even if it wasn't ready to be sold.

Art? No way. >G can and will keep any of that in house for potential use in other projects. It wouldn’t make sense to just waste good assets.

Could we see some of the mechanics/rules as is, like release the PT files? That also seems highly unlikely. If LFG at the end of the day own the system and mechanics, they could theoretically shop the game to other publishers, but the status of all that I can’t speak to in the slightest.

PayPal doesn't work for me since I emigrated, but I've emailed to try and resolve.

Evidently this was difficult for everyone, but I'm glad there's a resolution one way or the other.  Thank you for the clarity. 

I hope the storytelling of Vertex/Miststorm/Multiverse continues, even if this game won't come out.

Very sad to hear about this, but also glad to have some closure.  And also glad to know that you'll be able to add more focus to more profitable (and therefore eventually playable by us) venues.

This is literally the most devastating board game news I have ever had to endure. I got into Sentinel Tactics late (picked it up at a Christmas sale), and it quickly became my favorite miniatures game. I was heart-broken when we learned we had missed the chance to play in the tournaments (especially since, judging from the game play in the videos, we would have swept the floors XD).

Prime War has been a shining light in a future full of boring samey stuff, and I am so so upset to hear it has been cancelled. I don't remember the last time I physically felt my heart drop like it did reading this. I was willing to wait through all the delays, because GtG has proven that the wait is always worth it. I know this would have been, too, but you have to do what you feel is right for the company. It doesn't make sense to spend that much time and money to satisfy one or two customers.

I know this all sounds very dramatic, but Sentinel Comics has been really important to me for a long time. :-/

I can't imagine how hard this decision was to make, and I don't envy any of you having had to make it. :-( 

Thank you for the update! Disappointed, as others have said, but it's understandable and it sounds like it's the correct thing to do. Best wishes, folks, to all of you at GTG and LFG! 

Aww. This looked so awesome. I hope they use the world building and art for something else.

I dunno. Adam makes and shares a lot of Sentinels art just for fun, and even if he does that, he still owns the copyright (and GtG owns the IP), so they can still use it for other products. It’s not “wasted” by any stretch of the imagination.

That said, I don’t believe there’s much art to share, but if they wanted to polish up what they have just a tad and release it as a PbP–a lot of other companies have been doing similar things lately–it wouldn’t be impossible. Not effortless, and Adam would take the brunt of that, but not impossible.

Darn. Tactics never quite clicked for me, so I was interested to see how Prime War might change the game for the better.

Mostly, I'm just hoping this isn't the end of that branch of the Sentinels universe. I've really been enjoying the lore teases coming out of Prime War, so it would be a real shame if the story just stopped here with the project.

If you were on from the get-go, you're looking for a Broken City / For Profit receipt from early 2015.  Just to speed up the searching...

It's hard to balancing the desire to fight for what you love with the fact that there is never enough time to do everything. It's important to pare down what you do, so you can focus on some of it.

While I have some curiousity about what Prime War might have been able to be, I never found the Vertex universe or the Prime Aspects compelling to me personally, and am happy to get my Sentinels story and gameplay fixes elsewhere.

There's a bag a few feet from me with Sentinel Tactics, minis, playmats, dice trays, and papers from running tournaments and meetups. I'm not sure when, if ever, I'll pull that out and make use of them again, but I had some really, really great times w/ Sentinel Tactics and am grateful for those experiences.

I pull mine out every year for teen/tween “introduction to tactical miniature games” sessions at Who’s Yer Con.
(Okay, not this year, but… :-\ )

And agreed – Tactics has been key to some wonderful memories, and Prime War allowed me to get to know some great folks even better.

To Christopher, Adam, Paul and everyone at GTG,

First off, I'd like to thank Katie and Morph147 who asked to send out remiders to those who don't get to go on the Forums much...like me.  It saddens me that this project failed and is dead in the water.  I enjoyed playing SENTINEL TACTICS and I was interested to see what PRIME WAR had.  And I backed this way back with BROKEN CITY and FOR PROFIT.  However, I believe that things happen for a reason.  When one door closes, another one opens.

I just sent an email to Paul about my refund.  In the email, I had an idea if it's possible to do.  Instead of getting my refund, can GTG just "reinvest" it in the SENTINEL COMICS RPG.  Due to funds (at the time) I wasn't able to get some of the add ons.  Now that I had money coming back, I might as well keep it with GTG and get some other products...especially witht the RPG which I am excited about.  Now I haven't received an answer yet (I just sent the email a couple of minutes ago) but I am hoping they could acquiesce.  Like I said before when one door closes, another one opens.  I am not saying that you shouldn't take your money back.  It's your money do with it as you please.  But if you're like me, a fan of GTG and want to support then maybe this is an opportunity.  Besides in my opinion, I waited this long for the money, I might as well get another product out of it.  

So to end,  Christopher entitled this post as "The End of the War" and that may be for the Miststorm Universe, but for the RPG universe, things are still going strong and I hope will continue to grow (by having lots and lots of expansion books) which brings these words to my mind for the RPG universe..WE'VE ONLY BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!

'Nuff said. Pax.

So essentially this was a 5 year no interest loan. Would of been a nice gesture to do something for those that stuck it out. 5% discount code or something from the store. Puts a pretty bad taste in my mouth to do any other pre orders/support.

I can dig it but I just want my refund and me and GTG are through. They’re not to be trusted to deliver on what they promise.

Sad to hear, fenianb, but it’s certainly an understandable position. I (and I’d wager many others) don’t agree, but you should do what is right for you.

Personally I’m glad they have shown – with this decision – an ability to “read the room” of the industry. If they were to go forward with this and it sunk, they would be out all the funds they drop into manufacturing, and that would not be good for the company. For those of us who want to see the company continue making great stuff like the SCRPG, Definitive Edition of Sentinels of the Multiverse, Spirit Island expansions, and whatever they come out with that’s the next SotM/Spirit Island, we don’t want that!!!

Yeah. I’m sad that it’s not happening, but kinda relieved I can stop worrying about it and just wait for whatever new products they’re actually making.

all I could find was one preorder receipt for miniatures BC & FP painted for $89.95 and the two games for 39.95 and 19.95. Was there anything else I likely would have preordered at a “max” level?

I just recieved the email about this and came over. This is frankly devastating news to me. I went and played the Prime War demos at every opportunity and enjoyed every moment of it. I felt the stories, not only about the Prime Aspects, but this Multiversal contest involving characters we know and love, but also alternates and new characters, was going to be a blast lore-wise.

I don't want to get my money back, to be honest, I'd love to put it into this company a different way, but with changes going on in my personal life, the virus, and everything else, it is probably the best choice for me personally.

I look forward to seeing what arises out of these ashes, but this one hurt to be honest.

While I understand wanting a refund and moving on to other things, this is honestly one project they failed to deliver out of many successful ones.

I’m personally more sad than angry as a result. No company has all of their projects succeed, and it sucks that one that didn’t was one many of us were really looking forward to, but I’ve been happy with their other Sentinels products and spin-offs and I hope there will still be something more marketable done with the Prime War story content in the future. And as others have said, it’s better to cut losses than keep throwing good money after bad.

Just gonna point out that there was a backer update today about the new Spirit Island expansion finishing production. Supposed to be here in a month or so.

Thanks for the closure.  Hate to see a game I love end this way, but it is understandable.

That’s one project. How about all the other delayed projects including the original Spirit Island? Or changes to products from initial campaigns? Failed delivery priorities? All of which were at least somewhat mitigated by efforts to keep backers updated. For this project we were kept almost constantly in the dark, our questions ignored or given slight uninformative responses.

GTG may have meant the updates that were given at the time they were given, but they failed to tell us once benchmarks and goals started changing. Likewise despite assertions of commitment and saying more resources would be devoted this project has always seemed to be given lesser priority than anything else that was being worked on. As far as I’ve seen little has actually been done on this project except to fly assorted rules sets around and kite them at GenCon. Other campaigns at least got regularly information, even enthusiasm from GTG marketing and promotion. To me this has just been a series of empty promises because there’s been little shown for it for years.

While it’s easy to say “I was told many things, and now I’m getting nothing, this is unfair and I have lost faith in GtG” from GtG’s point of view, all of this work was probably very, very expensive, and they’re not getting anything out of it. GtG has now had to, for the entire Sentinel Tactics/Prime War line of products decide “This is costing us money to develop, to produce, and won’t sell enough to turn a profit. We need to call almost all of this work a loss and move on.” From there, they are 100% refunding all money that DID come in for this project. They have spent time, money, and passion on these projects that didn’t work out. I’m sure they’re more disappointed than you are in this, but the product simply wasn’t viable. Would it have been better if they sent out a broken/unfun game and didn’t give any refunds? It makes sense you’d be disappointed with PW not being released, and the change from ST to PW was probably also frustrating, but the ENTIRE PROCESS you had the chance to get your KS funds returned if you were unhappy. Other than release a product that GtG is obviously not comfortable with, what better could they have done here by you? What other options did they have that you would have found acceptable?

Bummer! So I guess GtG's market research showed that the tactical miniature genre was "full?"

What I wonder now is, as someone for whom RPGs never really clicked, what Sentinel Comics things are there to look forward to? I hope they keep pushing story content and gameplay improvements to Sentinels of Freedom, but the world of indie video games isn't exactly known for being stable...

Have you tried the SCRPG, Trajector? It's focus on creating the most interesting comic-style story is very different from other RPGs I've played. :-D (And I've played a _lot_. ;-) 

Not saying SCRPG going to be "the exception". :-) There are folks I usually play RPGs with who won't play it; it really depends on play style, interests, etc. (It can also depend on the GM, but that's a whole different story... ;-) 

I haven't...my general sticking point with RPGs is that I'm all about the "G" and not so much into the "RP." I want to figure out how to deploy the right abilities to achieve a goal. The times I've tried RPGs or tabletop games with RP elements and players who really lean into them, the between-action scenes tend to throw me off. *shrug* My usual game group also has 2-4 total people in it - well, pre-pandemic it did - and I imagine that's not the right number for SCRPG to work well.

So if somebody knows a link to a community-crafted set of full co-op rules and scenarios that use Sentinel Tactics boards and pieces, I'm ALL OVER that! ;) Co-op mode was the thing I was looking forward to the most about Prime War. Honestly, the co-op nature is one of the biggest hooks of SotM, and I imagine SCRPG, so I hope there are future co-op Sentinel Comics tabletop games in the pipeline.

I’m with you on that! We never really had a (publicly-available) co-op scenario for Sentinels Tactics, which is disappointing. Maybe this will promote folks who were fans to create something…

Here's the post from Lore Forge Games on this:

https://loreforgegames.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/prime-war-postmortem/

I’m sad to hear this isn’t happening - I really wanted to play around with the teams I’d heard about, and there was a lot about the system that sounded great. LFG mentioning the possibility of Print-and-Play gives me a bit of hope, and I’d love to try that if it’s possible.

Yeah, Lore Forge's description of a co-op engine is exactly the gap in the Tactics line that I would have liked to see filled. I'm really curious about Lore Forge's engine, after finding the co-op adaptations to games like Scythe or Root to be ultimately disappointing. Maybe the PnP will give me enough to break out my dusty Tactics components!

They allude to a little of what might be the background behind the business decision:

> Sentinels players didn’t seem to want Competitive play as much as we did, and Competitive players wouldn’t look to a “Co-op brand” for a deep tactical experience.

My guess is that it really came down to the second half of that statement. GtG probably figured that they have built their reputation on co-op games, especially in the Sentinel Comics property, and it would be hard to break into market share held by competitive tactical miniature games from shops with established reputations there.

Yeah, that line made it sound like they were really designing a game for a very narrow selection of people.

I will definitely look at trying the PnP with my group when it comes out, thanks for sharing that!

But hey, look, all of a sudden GTG has a completely unrelated board game coming to KS soon. 
https://www.freedomfivegame.com

The absence of any mention of this upcoming product in the original post is telling IMO. They could have said they were just going in a completely different direction and offered to include Tactics/Prime War backers, or explained why it was necessary to refund original backers due to constraints of the deal with Defenders Of The Realm developers. 

This update was solely about Prime War and their regret that they realize they couldn't make it happen.    I'd take more umbrage if they announced the new game with this same announcement.  The Freedom Five boardgame is mostly being done by an established publisher Arcane Wonders just using the IP of Sentinels with some input from GtG.   From what I've looked up the Freedom Five game is based off Defenders of the Realm which is not really the same genre of boardgame as Prime War.  Lastly, this Freedom Five boardgame will be some through KS so it's not like they would have an easy way to redirect out money to that.  

As I said GTG could have explained why it was necessary to refund original backers due to constraints of the development deal. It's not we wouldn't notice a new Sentinels miniatures game and draw a connection. Including an explanation of why prepaid funds had to be refunded and could not be transferred to the new project would have helped to clarify issues which they have now left open to speculation.

Funding was raised through their old web store and they would have needed to do a refund as I don't see any method they really have of transferring that money to something else without it becoming really shady.   As to speculation as I already said this needed to be solely about Prime War and not about any future products.  The announcement of Freedom Five by GtG would be a more appropriate place to talk about that.  

Yeah, I don’t think the two things are connected particularly closely. For whatever reason, Prime War never quite became what GtG wanted it to be, so they made the decision to end it despite the resources that had been put into developing it.

Meanwhile, they’re starting a project with an established game system, a very different (and solely co-op) kind of game.

if there’s any link, I think it’s most likely a pure resourcing issue, a matter of ‘where do we spend our time.’

In the current editors note around the 41 minute mark they talk about this https://theletterspage.libsyn.com/editors-note-43

To summarize a little mostly for fenianb's sake:

They deeply regret Prime War not working out, because it was a project they were excited about, was turning out well, and they sunk a lot of time, energy, and resources into. But in the end the market just plain didn't exist for it.

This was far from the only project they've had make a lot of progress to not work out in the end, this is just one they talked about during the process. And now they're reluctant to talk about projects until they're practically guaranteed precisely because they don't want to dash people's hopes again if things don't work out.

The Freedom Five game not only has literally zero connection at all, but it took two different companies coming up with related ideas independently to talk C&A into letting them make it because for the longest time C&A were reluctant about it.

The part of this that surprised me was that it started with a proposal from Launius in 2012. :-o

Also I'll add I think Broken City/Prime War had adjusted their thinking on KS and preorders as they've talked about in State of GtG panels.  Basically that they are going to lean more towards have only more finalized products go to a KS or be a preorders.   I hope what has happened doesn't dampen their spirits on making other games as I think GtG overall is a good board game company.  

Oh, they're clearly super-enthusiastic about making other games.  They just need to keep a lid on that enthusiasm longer in the future.

One important thing to realize here is that “finalized product” doesn’t just mean “at an advanced stage of board game rule development,” but also that they’ve established through market and production analyses that it’ll be a viable commercial product. This isn’t a thing that we passionate players may think about much, but it’s critical for GtG as a small company. Christopher tossed out the number that they might have had only “a few hundred” players interested in buying Prime War. You can multiply by expected price to see that’s not a lot of revenue.

Didn't they have a almost done project on kickstarter that told them it wouldn't be viable. Something about monster trucks?

Monster Truck Mayhem I believe 

There was also the Story Wars game that didn't fund.

And there was a worker placement game, Dubai: Rebuild the Ruins that they cancelled on KS when it became clear that it wouldn't fund.  So KS can certainly be a helpful guage of market interest.

I think for Prime War the issue was that the launched the pre-orders for the expansion too quickly.  Most of the problems/issues that exist with Tactics (from a market perspective) weren't noticed by GtG until after the pre-orders ended, so they found themselves stuck trying to find a way to make it work.  The commitment to backers probably kept the project alive a lot longer than it otherwise should have been.

I agree there.  I would guess next time we see a preorder for a new game or expansion  it's one they know they have a market and is pretty well into development if not nearly finished. 

This was the most frustrating because there was a SotM comic book as part of the KS. While the game failed to gain interest, the comic was heavily demanded and never got made.

We got the comic in a way when thye covered Cosmic Contest on the Letters Page and to me I feel thats probably for the best.    Since that comic would be 100+ pages which wouid all have all the art done by Adam.   If Adam had to do that it still might in progress. 

I guess this is closure at least.

I'm over here still playing Tactics with the Broken City playtest characters we had. . .

I may need to reprint those…

Speaking of which, has there been any more news on the Print-and-Play Prime War possibility? I know it’s only been a month, but I’m so close to trying to hack something together from the scraps I’ve heard - and I’m no game designer, so that’s probably a bad idea haha

I'm also itching to see what creative elements they got to have finished before things had to get scrapped, as what previews we've seen of that got me excited to see the rest.

Guys! The Prime War print and play is ready! Here's the PDFs: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pawrwijo0wneja4/AACFarg2ftA1Mh5CoTmeGw8Ea?dl=0

The names have been changed btw!

Have fun you guys and let's talk about it here!

Can I also learn how to make Baklava? =)

Sorry, it's a secret that's centuries old and I, as the sworn guardian of such secret, can not let it fall into the wrong hands, lest the universe itself be put in grave danger!

I paged through the docs, and although the quick start rules mention the co-op materials (e.g. Threat decks), I didn't find those decks in the files. Did I miss them?

I wonder if they got as far as designing the Prime War - uh, excuse me, Meanwhile!!! - character "upgrade" panels and cards for the existing Tactics miniatures.

I'd suggest asking them on the blog they wrote with the link https://loreforgegames.wordpress.com/2020/07/04/meanwhile-in-your-printer/

I asked there on the 14th but it still says "Your comment is awaiting moderation."

They’ve added some of the co-op stuff! I’m excited because that was probably the main thing I wanted from Prime War.

I’m actually really intrigued now that I’ve been able to look over the rules. In particular, it looks like you can only move if you pick an attack that includes a move, which makes for a really interesting set of tactical decisions. And also makes me imagine how Tachyon would work - I’m thinking that all of her cards except Lightspeed Barrage and Lightning Reflexes would have some move component, making her almost as difficult to hit as Writhe.

Ah, looks like some of the cards in your "Meanwhile" slots still activate abilities - they're not just cooling down. So you have to make sure you have enough movement between your currently selected card and your "Meanwhile" cards to do what you want... Though I don't see too many recurring movement abilities.

Interesting, so you kind of build an ever-changing set of capabilities for your character, if I understand that right! And you might prefer to have certain cards out on your "Meanwhile" track *instead* of selected or in your hand ready to play, because of whatever buffs/abilities they give you while out in one of those slots. Seems like making a move-attack-move-attack-move-attack build for Tachyon is well within the reason of possibility.

And the threats are doing the same thing - so that's kind of a way to have automated opponents act as if they're slowly changing their priorities, while maintaining some consistency over a few turns.

Co-op threats for Sorrow and Master Warden are now available in the dropbox. Inspired by a minor villain with a penchant for following strong, charismatic leaders, and a mogul that might have turned to managing an interdimensional restricted-living facility in another-other timeline.

We will eventually put out all of the content we had designed, including characters that may have gotten very little broad playtesting (Tactics conversions, an occasional BC/FP character, so. many. scenarios.), although we're going to try a slow drip, as people will likely have questions and this is unfortunately a lower priority project for us at the moment.

If you'd like more specific questions answered, please join our playtesting group/discord! We'll monitor here occasionally (as we're still fans of sentinels), and our website works too, but as MigrantP noted, sometimes notifications about comments slip through the cracks!

I'm glad to see that the Meanwhile system is intriguing to you! It is one of the things we're most proud of, as we think it combines a low enough floor for new players that want to focus on their round-by-round actions with a high skill ceiling for advanced players who want to really tweak a skill rotation and see how they can push a character.

We mentioned two-week bits in our last post, and will likely only be a week behind with pushing out the first of our co-op scenarios as well as three additional playable characters this weekend. Thanks for your patience, and we look forward to seeing what you think!

I suppose this explains why the Tactics forum was locked after I posted in it. This is the first I’m hearing about Tactics (aka Prime War, although I had never heard about that rebranding before joining this forum) having officially ended; I just thought it was kind of floundering out there somewhere. Too bad, but not that surprising.

Maybe someone in the community can use the RPG’s rules, but ignore its version of the timeline, and put together a fan product that fleshes out the Tactics/Prime War version of the future for RPG use. There’s something to be said for the darker “heroes hunted” scenario, and certainly I want the chance to fight Hippocalypse someday.

Wait, I’m a little confused. Adam and Christopher said in podcast 75 that they had played a bunch of Prime War. That was in 2018! If it was already a playable game that long ago, how was it unable to be put on the market within the next two years.

Designing the game completely and then shelving it seems like the worst of two worlds, I don’t quite understand. (EDIT: Okay I understand a little, having read the whole thread and the Loreforge blog post. Still seems odd they wouldn’t just publish a finished game, even if it wasn’t ideal, so they could at least recoup some funding from all their efforts.
If they did a print-on-demand thing they could avoid any risk of overstock.)

Locking as this has been hashed out many times in many places – and there is no benefit in it churning up again.