I'm Curious now, of those who've had concerns...

Ive read a couple threads through here, and now that the Sentinels Live session 1 is done and in the books, I'm very curious.

Ive seen a couple people voicing concerns - Either over various mechanics, or the style of the game, or a few other things - For those of you who've had concerns about the game, do you still have them after watching the Livestreams? 

Now that a full adventure, not pre written, with unique individual characters has been gone through, and you've seen how the system works in real time, are things still concerns?

Ive seen concerns about Initiative, Twists, Railroady Meta driven, Progression, GM issues - what are you (in general you) thoughts now?

I'm an old school RPGer. Ive play'd hundreds upon hundreds of hours of DnD, WoD, FATE, GURPS, RIfts, and more I can't even remember cause it was a oneshot at a con. This system is unique in a lot of ways - and similar in a lot of others. But probably, because I'm older and haven't had the time to really dive into mechanically intensive rpgs in the last half a decade or so, I'm very excited for this simple, easy to explain, easy to teach system. Watching Christopher massage the system as they go to do what seems most interesting and exciting is very interesting to me.  I look forward to the day I get to run this.

I still need to catch up on letters page podcasts, but when that is done, I'll give this a watch and say what I think afterwards

I still have concerns about the Scene Tracker because there have been cases where there have major foes able to accelerate it in addition to its normal progression.  With that it seems things escalate too quickly at times without the players able to do much about it. Overall, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen and I’m looking forward to Paul leading his own session. 

Thusfar, the only real concerns that I have surround the Scene Tracker and its relationship with Initiative.  It just feels like too much of a meta-game to me, with the game actively punishing players for wanting to go before the villains.  In fact, doing so outright penalizes players for taking a "surprise round" against villains.

To me, that's an easy fix:

1) The environment/scene tracker always goes last in initiative order.  

2) The environment does not get to 'choose' who goes next; the last player (or GM) to take a turn chooses who starts the next round (following the Environment/Scene Tracker).

3) The GM may not pass initiative to themselves, even if they have multiple actors within the scene, unless all players have already gone.

4) Any player who chooses to pass initiative to the GM may, on their next turn, reroll a single die of their choice.

Yes, this doesn't "eliminate" the possibility of the players all going before the villain, but it does disincentivize doing so, as a player can reap a tangible, in-game benefit by passing play to the GM.  Further, it makes GM tracking easier, by keeping the scene tracker's place in initiative static. 

@platinumWarlock 

Those sound like some really good house rules to me! A reroll is usually a prety powerful ability - in this MinMidMax system its even more powerful (as it can potentially change which die you are even using) so I might say make it a flat +1 or something, but that would be. Power and overpower is not a big issue in this system as my take on it that it is -supposed- to make you feel powerful 

@powerhound - I agree that it could be a big issue  - if your GM isn't on the ball. And that is a potential issue, because not every GM is going to be able to handle that sort of thing. It -is- something though that a good GM can just mitagate, either by not using said abilities, or making sure that the players have Overcomes available to them that help them out while the scene advances.

My opinions haven't really changed, although they've become more refined in some ways.

• Most of my concerns were about the adventure modules in the starter kit, not the core rules.  Obviously, nothing has changed my mind about those.
• Challenges that are set up as one or more Overcome checks that need to be made really need to be spelled out, or else players won't bite on them.  Ones that are required need to be hand-fed to the players (e.g. written on index cards right off the bat).  Optional ones can be hinted at or "gated" behind other events or attempts, but the GM needs to assume that they won't go anywhere, and balance challenges appropriately.
• Challenges are still pretty railroad-y.  The GM decides what needs to be done, the players figure out some way to justify their Powers and Qualities (and ideally a Principle) to accomplish it.  Sometimes that can result in some cool storytelling, but other times it was really strained.
• If you want to design an effective character, the single most important thing is to choose two Principles that let you use your Max die in the widest possible range of circumstances.  Ones that require specific circumstances (Cosmic), that are hard to justify (Time Traveler, at least when you're from the past), or that don't let you use your Max die (Speed) make it so that you'll rack up a lot more failures and twists, and miss opportunities for Hero Points.  Choosing your other abilities wisely helps (especially mass attacks and persistent boosts/hinders), but the Principles are critical.
• Christopher made a big point out of playing by the rules (except for the mecha battle and the cheer boosts), but he did exploit the vagueness of the rules extensively.  The twists he came up with were frequently much more or much less powerful than the recommended ones in the book.  A GM that's just a little off in their judgment could make adventures much harder or much easier than intended.
• Regarding initiative: the players got fatigued.  Early on, they tried to choose their turn order very carefully to avoid negative consequences.  Later, they started making their choices almost at random.  They completely gave up on using abilities that lasted until their next turn, and never bothered setting up combos with boosts and hinders.  Christopher stopped exploiting every mistake they made, too, probably because he didn't want to punish them for it anymore (like he did in the first couple of games).  So I don't feel like the system ended up working well.
• The system is really straightforward, but it's still fiddly for inexperienced players.  Maggie and Rae forgot about their inherent abilities and reactions nearly every time they would have been relevant.  Rae took basically the whole game to understand the difference between abilities and powers/qualities.  They all invoked their hero points and collected trades only rarely.  Having taught D&D to new players, especially 4th edition, I feel like there's a gap here--D&D is overall a much more complicated game, but it's less error-prone to get started with.
• The Scene Tracker is indeed iffy sometimes.  The villain being able to accelerate it is particularly problematic--when that happens, the players run a real risk of losing due to it.  A villain that really "wants to win" will be better off accelerating the scene tracker than trying to damage the heroes.  Of course, the system is designed such that the GM really can't go all-out trying to "beat" the players, otherwise they'll just have a bunch of minions gang up on one hero.
• The game isn't about "progression."  It just isn't, get over it.  On the plus side, that means it's well-suited for shorter series and one-shots.  I think people who want to play campaigns of 20+ sessions will start feeling bored with their characters, but then, the superhero genre really isn't about that.  I think Critical Hits could design a spinoff system in a fantasy/sci-fi setting that used the core Sentinels system and build a new game with leveled progression, but that would be something else entirely.

Thoughts and notes after watching the character creation session and Issue #1.  I will follow up with more as I go.

Character creation uses random die rolls.  I am kind of curious what the purpose of this is.  It seemed a little bit tacked on, maybe to satisfy people who just want random dice rolls because reasons.  Maybe useful for generating ideas if you really just don't know.  Maybe someone on the design team has some deeper insights here though.  I know games I like have seemingly weird stuff in character creation that actually works nicely in practice (Name lists in dungeon world, for example).  

Character creation might be a little bit lenghty.  It might be something that can be done individually outside of an actual play session though, at least in part, which can mitigate this.  This is not a concern, just an observation.

A lot of what you get when listening to a charismatic storyteller like Christopher is going to have nothing to do with the game itself, and everything to do with the person running the game.  So it requires some careful attention to separate out the two parts of this, and without the rules in front of me to reference, I still can't fully differentiate between what is the GM and what is the rules.  So everything has to be taken with a grain of salt.

At 26 minutes in to the first issue, Christopher asks Craig to make an overcome roll to investigate an energy signature he detects.  Its not entirely clear what the point of having him role here is.  Is there a specific rule that says when a roll is triggered, or is it just GM discretion?  Is the GM just using this as a generic "investigate roll", with all the problems that come with that?  What would have happened if he had failed the investigation roll?  My guess is that things would have worked out almost identically, because saying "You find nothing, I guess we stop playing" doesn't work for good story telling.  As it stands, his "success" did not seem very valuable.  All he got was "Thats sure some energy signature there.  Lots of magic".  Which isn't useful for him beyond saying "Go talk to your teammate" which is a given regardless of the investigation result.  Even if he hadn't been given the detail that it was magical, one of the other 3 player would have been given that detail, since they had even more ability to understand magic than he did.  

Another overcome role is made at the 54 minute mark.  This one the GM rules that one of the players principles can't be used, but when the player fails, the "major twist" is just that the previously overruled principle kicks in and gives the information anyways.  Again, what are the actual rules on overcomes and investigations?  Do the rules explicitly tell GMs not to do these time wasting behaviors, and the GM here just didn't care, or do they not give any meaningful guidance at all?  Do the rules actually encourage this self defeating behavior?  This one isn't quite as bad as the first one I mentioned.  Its actually possible for the adventure to continue here without successful knowledge checks.

This next one is less of a complaint about the game, and more a complaint about the way designers and fans have inaccurately described the game.  There are multiple points where mechanical decisions are made before the fiction is consulted, sometimes without even bothering to check the fiction.  Two examples:  Starblight gets chomped by a dragon and the GM informs the player that his next turn can only be an overcome action.  Later, Violet Heart uses a rage ribbons attack against some minions.  The attack misses, meaning the minions are not destroyed but they are reduced a die size.  No one ever says what this means in the fiction though.  This is probably fine.  It might be tedious, in this particular system, to always go back to the fiction.  But the fact that this is even possible shows that the game is fundamentally incompatible with PbtA design principles.  So its frustrating that so many people, including the actual designers of the game, have claimed Apocalypse World is a source for the design, when it absolutely is not, at least in the presented materials we have.

To answer lynfox question. This system speaks to me on a very base level. I get it and love it. There was no new surprise, just happy to see things working. I was really please on Christopher making the encounter using the rules they made.

To answer a few complaints:

-I ran this game over the Course of the last year (and a half) and the Scene tracker is not bad, it adds tension and gets people focused. only once I have gone over it (only minions where left) and summed up that fight quickly. As a player, I constantly advance the tracker early on to get to that sweet yellow zone. If you are worried about the scene tracker going to fast, don't have the villains or environments use abilities to advance the tracker.  Christopher even said to make it longer. But please try it out before making any changes to it.

-At Gen Con Dave ran me though Character generation, it was fairly painless. I take as the dice rolls as a way to help guide your character, you might find some interesting path to take your hero(I had an idea in mind and it all worked out). Getting to retcon and adjust a few things really smooths out the process. NightMist secret Apprentice, Olrac(still workshopping name) is now ready for prime time!

-When a minion die gets reduced it means it was damaged but not taken out of the battle. Christopher does a good job at describing this other time he shows this game off not sure if he said it here or not.

- When I first start a game to teach people, I start players by rolling an overcome to noticed the inciting incident. This is done to help teach player how to roll dice, and about twist. Very rarely does someone not take a twist (even a major one). And if they do fail I just find another way to add them to the story. 

-In Startblight's overcome to get out of the dragon scene. He states that damage will not get him out, nor defend, boost/hinder. He has to come up with a description on how to get out, and roll dice to make it happen. I believe Adam talk about what he will do.

 

This never struck me as odd. I mean, in D&D, if you're actually playing by the rules, you're supposed to roll up your stats entirely randomly. So if you wanted to play a Paladin but your stats are all wrong after the roll, too bad, I guess. Which is why, in all the games I've ever played, the rule was usually "You guys all get X stat points, keep your numbers between 18 and 3, please."

Christopher gave them all the choice of adapting a preconceived hero idea to the system, but they all chose to roll instead. I'm glad they did, because it really shows how much choice the random roll gives you (without overloading folks who are decision paralysis-prone), even more than "Roll 4d6 and drop the low die".

I believe that in the character creation session it's stated that you can just pick whatever you want instead of rolling for it. Besides, it's not like anyone is going to stop you picking. As an example, default 5th edition D&D is rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest for each ability score but I know people who use a standard array, or the point buy system.

I assumed it would be that Dynamo finds something else that distracts him, or misinterprets the data. Enough to send them in the right direction, but not enough to fully prepare them. I've also been assuming that rolls are triggered when there is a chance for failure as in every other game. As for a generic roll, yeah, Overcome is pretty much the everything roll, with obvious exceptions for the other moves.

I think, although I might be misremembering, that the major twist was a compulsion to act in a certain way on the next turn. All the principle would have let Starblight do is use his max die, not being able to use it doesn't prevent him from using any powers or qualities. He can still use the Blightmatrix to learn stuff related to laser dragons (sorry, lazer, I guess) which is how he still succeeds but it is at a cost.

As for the PbtA points, in the fiction you always manage to hit an opponent. Being reduced in size is a wound, rather than a knockout. Christopher is better at narrating this in later episodes. and the whole "Must use an Overcome" thing is, I think, because the pressing matter was that Starblight was being eaten and probably shouldn't stick around in the mouth.
 I can totally see the PbtA influence. The system is built around soft hits driving the narrative. Sure, there're other influences (I think FATE is one of them) and obviously the villains get a turn unlike in PbtA, but everything is designed around moving the fiction forwards. Christopher makes a big point in the other issues about asking the players HOW they do things, not WHAT they are doing, to reinforce the fiction. Even the superhero powers (the GYRO things, not the dice) alter the basic moves like some PbtA playbook moves.

I hope this has made sense and/or helped in any way.

I listened to session 2 and 3 in the background, so I caught a lot less system stuff for those two.

2 had a fantastic moment where Craig made use of the collection feature to bump his dice by doing a flashback to a previous "comic" his character was in.  This mechanic is great (reminiscent of Carnage Amongst the Stars) and I love it.

Issue 2 overall was more fun to listen to.  This is what I would point people to if I wanted to sell them on the idea of the RPG.

Powered by the Apocalypse does not have a "you always hit" design philosphy.  Villains pretty much always get turns in PbtA, at least the ones I've seen.  Fiction moves forward in a million systems that aren't powered by the apocalypse, and its so easy to do this that most people improvise techniques for it even if its not spelled out in a system.  Its perfectly acceptable to describe what you do without going too much into the "how" in the fiction in AW and derivatives.  If you embellish every description of hitting something with your sword in Dungeon World with a complex justification for how you are angling the sword and what not, you are misunderstanding the system.  The important part of PbtA style moves is the fiction -> prompt -> fiction chain that they all create, which the moves in Sentinels do not use.  The PbtA moves that modify other moves are still modifying moves that follow this structure.

Given that everything you said about AW is wrong, I think you either haven't played it and are just going off what you've heard others say about it, or you played it but just ignored the rules and did what you wanted.

I apologise for being unclear, and I also apologise if this is off-thread.

I never intended to imply that PbtA has a "You always hit" design philosophy. My intention was to convey that soft hits in PbtA drive the narrative in a similar manner to how minor twists do in this system, at least in my experience. I've rarely needed to use hard or soft moves (including the actions of hostile NPCs because they don't get their own discrete turn) in the former without players triggering them because my players were always triggering their moves where appropriate without me prompting (if that makes sense).

Sure, Masks might not be pure AW and the short-lived MH game I played in was very short-lived, but I got enough of a feel for the systems at play.

It's important to note the difference between inspired by, and copied from. I might be wrong and unclear in my explanation, I know that, but from what PbtA games I've played, this feels like it's definitely influenced by the Apocalypse engine. But that's just my opinion, and you're well within your rights to disagree.

@MindWanderer

I feel like that most of your concerns about the system are concerns that are about any new system - If a GM is not experienced in the system, there is lots of room for error. I am not sure that I can muster up much worry/concern over a lot of them - 

All of these concerns, while completely valid, are about how experienced a GM/Player/group is. The more experienced the group with freeform RPG style (FATE comes to mind, and there are a couple of other systems I can't recall the name of off the top of my head but are far less constrained rules wise, than say DnD) the less these concerns become a issue, in my view. I feel like that is an inherent thing about -any- 'less than mechanically rigid' system, and if you really want to get the most out of Roleplaying its a concern about -every- system. 

You can have skill checks in DnD,WoD,FATE, which the players need to figure out there is something to do, just like these Overcome Checks. - Certainly in a game of DnD you could not haver any skill checks and just have combat, but then its not a RPG its a tactical battle game. If players walk into a bar and need to find the hidden entrance into the sewers, thats a skill check. Its also an Overcome check in this sytem. If players are in a battle and their spells aren't working to hit the wizard, but the scene description said he had a big crystal on a pedastal behind him - thats a skill check to figure out how to get past his shield. Or an Overcome in this system.

Your concerns that the players may not know to do this or bite on it are valid - but they are valid for every game. If players are not going to think to act outside of 'Me Kronk, Me Hit' then any system is going to have to GM'd differently. 

I can completely agree and yet disagree with these. If you are looking to make the most effective character that can handle the situation given in the quickest and most effective way possible, yes. You are completely right. WIthout maximizing the use of your and your groups Principles youare missing out on a lot of bonuses and more effective rolls than a standard Risky Action or Overcome check.

This I disagree with out of principle (heh) as the type of RPGer I am. I am -not- looking to be most effective in an RPG. I'm looking to tell a story, and a lot of a good story will be NOT being effective. This is clearly the type of RPGers that Christopher and Adam are - you can see it in the gleam with the Twists in Christophers eyes and why Adam almost -always- takes a twist if there is an option. Because its far more fun

In this sense, I feel a lot of the abilities are super powerful (Completely destroy X minions? wow. That can clear a scene - or some of the Boost Hinder combos? Yeah jeeze those are cool) and that relates to the 'We're SUPER HEROES' - but the Twist system is completely a storytelling mechanic to make the game interesting.

Also, I get the feeling from the way the sheets are designed that Principles are supposed to be the most important thing to your character. They are your 'Class' or your 'Clan and Bloodline' - they are what defines your character.

These are back to my first point - Experienced groups/players are going to always be better at RPGs in any system than inexperienced. This system i feel is far more friendly to inexperienced because of the lack of rules, but thats a personal opinion. I can see where you're coming from here.

I am curious though on how you feel he exploited the vaugness of the rules? In a bad way? (Was it confusing to the players? DId it make the game less fun?) or in a good way (to make some things roll smother, to make some things change direction if needed?)

I'm interested in these points - I agree, that after a while they stopped worrying/carring about some things. I see it as some slightly different reasons. They realized that in most situations, worrying about the Badguys all going twice in a row isn't actually that big a deal - Sure they get to actions, but as a result the Heroes will get two turns in a row too. It balances out and really isn't that big a deal, so they only thought about it in extereme situations (The final boss fight)

As for exploiting ever mistake - thats not something I believe any GM should do.  They should exploit mistakes that make the game interesting, but if players are just being human and not their acutal SuperHuman characters, then they shouldn't be punished for that. I am not a Super Detective with a logical brain and an understanding of  connections like Sherlock Holmes/Batman/Wraith but my character might be and I shouldn't be punished because I am not smart enough to actually be that. We aren't playing ourselves, were playing Characters we want to experience, and good GM's don't exploit that difference, they help craft a story that shows that thing we want to be in the limelight.

This is another Agree/Disagree point for me - I agree, it seems like Rae had some difficulty, and never really used her abilities on her sheet - I think that isn't so much a problem with the system, as the situation. A brand new, never before played an RPG before with 2 very experienced RPGers (and one somewhat, I think Maggie has played RPGs before) is now doing so on camera before a crowd. Thats some pressure! Its hard enough for me to Roleplay out what an NPC or my Character does in front of my closest friends, trying to remember to be my character, which if you arent a naturally extroverted type can be very hard to do, and to learn a brand new system, and do that all under the watchful eyes/ears of hundreds of people?  While there are two other people in the room who have done this sort of thing for decades and are all over the system as well? Wow. I would forget a lot of stuff too.

So I don't know how good of a meter stick this is for teaching the system. 

Completely valid concerns. Completely. And you also made your own responses that I would make - thats just this system. Its not for everything, and thats fine. It does what its good at and thats what its going to do. 

Also, as a Villain is controlled by the GM, its my opinion the GM is there to facilitate the story, not to 'Win'. Win for the GM is making the players feel something, making them feel like having tears for the loss of an NPC, or rage at an villain, or fear at a situation, or horror at a concept. Not  "Beat them all into the ground" - so a villain won't necessarily do whats 'best' for his/her concept, they will do whats best to make a compelling story.

All of your concerns I can see the validity of, MindWanderer. They make sense. They also, in my opinion, stem from a completely different view of RPGs th an mine - you strike me as someone who far more enjoys the combat of DnD than the roleplaying - though you probably enjoy the RP as well, but when the swords come out and the magic starts getting flung about you might be someone who starts to have more fun there.

Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. I myself am the more fluid type of player who would be just as keen to never get in a fight. Note, I am also an unashamed minmaxing Twink. I can, and have, made characters in every system I play in that can one shot baddies and completely destroy, mechanically, anything they come across - there is merit to this, which I think is why I see a lot of merit in a lot of your concerns. (This Twinkyness comes because some of my original rp group was very twinky, and in order to feel like i wasn't useless, i had to learn to be the same) My natural inclination, and when I have the most fun in table top situations with friends, is not to be that Twink, however. Its to have lots of weaknesses, and take twists and flaws and play them up to the max. Get into situations where the GM can really put the screws on us RP wise, if not mechanically, and put us in situations where we face these twists.

As a GM, i am -very- much a social/rp/twist GM. I love to run plots where combat is almost non existant. Where the issues are all cerebral in nature. In that feeling, this sytem is amazing. It will make what combat there is go pretty fast, and still create lots of amazing roleplaying situations - I point to Rae's moves against the big bad in the final episode - those were amazing oppertunities to tell a story! Even if she didn't use anything on her sheet other than Lunar Orb, she told a hell of an awesome story with it!

So, in conclusion, I hear your concerns (not that I can do anything about them, but I am listening!) And i feel like I understand them, even if on a basic fundamnetal level my view goes a completely opposite direction. Thank you for voicing them!

Thanks for putting in your comments/concerns/thoughts Jay Green! I haven't seen you around here before (not surprising, because I am pretty sparse on the forums these days) but welcome and thanks for participating!

I agree here - i am not a fan of random character generation ever. I have a concept I want to play when I start gaming, and always want to make it. However, that being said, I think that they said in the character creation video that the system is optional and just for helping you get ideas if you don't have any. (of course, its an RPG. every system is optional)

Well, I think others already addressed these - but they do feel like GM issues rather than system issues to me, but as you said without the Rules in front of you its hard to seperate the two!

Thank you for adding your thoughts to this discussion!

I think reactions to this system come down along this line. Are you willing to get into the spirit of the system and tell a story, or do you just care about winning, taking as few losses as possible? If the latter, this may not be the RPG for you. (Which, y'know, is hard to hear if you really like Sentinels and wanted to be able to enjoy it.)

Speaking as someone who tends to eschew heavy roleplaying in RPGs for the cry of "Battle! XP! Loooot!", I feel like this system is a challenge that I want to rise up to. Yeah, let's go write a story, with all its ups and downs and twists and turns. I think it's because – and this is entirely due to the first run of Sentinel Comics Live – there's a sense that character actions matter, and matter in ways that only player actions matter in other systems.

Like, of course my bard is going to cast Detect Magic and grab the ancient urn, heedless of the repercussions, because I want the cool, shiny, magic thing and who cares if there's a curse or a bad guy we'll need to fight because of it. I want more things to fight, it's more XP! Actions like that are things I've done constantly in games like D&D, where backstory is just a thing you write down for some bonus XP at the start of the game, refer to once or twice to let people know what your character is like, then completely ignore for the rest of the game.

After watching the session I'm beginning to be worried about twists, In my mind a minor twist especially should not be worse than not succeeding at the roll, some of the twists Christopher chose came across like that

Twists are left up the GM though. So if you think a twist is too much, you can tone it down.

EDIT: *too much when you create it

Some of my views of this system:

The Scene Tracker: I like the concept as it allows more rapid access to certain abilities without requiring you to take damage and builds tension. I feel the trick to the tracker is more in how it is approached. I feel people view it as a lose scenario while I treat it more as a linker between scenes that dictates the start of how the next scene starts. There is potential with it, but it will require a lot of balancing of length of tracker and repurcussions of failure as well as when to use it. The one problem I do see with it is that it actively fights boosting and defending as many characters feel that they are on a clock and are playing all out from the beginning in fear that slower strategies will not pay off. I have found the best options is to not introduce the tracker until after the scene has been going for a few rounds and the villains/environment take specific actions to initiate the need for the tracker and impending doom.

Initiative: This is a huge concern for me as it actively fights certain play styles, buffs, and overcomes. As noted, there is no benefit to not try and have heroes all go and then villains, the problem is that this can give villains a big advantage in how things play out. For example, if somone uses a boot or buff like galvanize, pick him to start the next round and end his boost early. I find it needlessly random. My favorite solution to this was done in Feng Shui with the shot tracker. Players were put on the track based on a base speed roll and the level of their actions determined how large of a move they made down the track. Act in a lot of small actions or set up one large slow action. It also gives visibility to the order of character turns to set up better combos and strategies.

Advancement/Progression: I feel something needs to be done here. I love storytelling, but I feel there still needs to be a carrot to entice players to pursue buildign their character. This happens in comics too as charcters build new tech, learn a new way to use their powers, and discover crazy artefacts. My current thoughts are to introduce permanent buffs in the way of items that can be destroyed as major twists: such as Absolute Zero installing new focus points on his suit to give him a persisten +1 to cold rolls but that can be damaged or even destroyed as a major twist or sacrifice. This at least makes players feel that their character has the opportunity to evolve or advance in meaningful ways but cannot become overpowered over time.

My thoughts.

I think reactions to MindWanderers criticisms are a bit misplaced.  These don't strike me as him wanting to have a crunchy combat fest.  They strike me as wanting clear, unambigouus rules.  If you don't think its possible to do this and also have an abstract, story focused game, you are wrong.  You just are, thats all there is to it.  Go play the Smallville RPG, which is also designed by Cam Banks, to see an example of exactly that.

I think it is possible to have a different impression than MindWanderer without misplacing his motives.  If he says he wants chunchy combat focused gameplay, I'd say its fair to tell him he's looking in the wrong place.  But I think he is criticizing the game for having tactics focused elements and using those elements poorly, not for lacking those elements entirely.

I am in COMPLETE agreement with this. Remember, I said I am a compelte, unabashed, accomplished, Twink. I can break a system faster than you can count to 5 most days once ive gotten a chance to dig into it, and do it with starting XP on a few of them. I know what fun the crunchy, xp driven, loot based kill fest can be. In my heart of hearts however, I am a Story driven player. And thats what has me so excited for this system, especially after watching Christopher run it - it can be -very- story driven.

Oh I certainly don't think its not possible! You can certainly have clear concise rules in a story driven game. I don't find the rules non clear or concise however, but I am also of the experience where more 'open' rules that allow the GM to do their thing and rely on the GM to make the best game possble are great rules and really the best thing for an RPG - writers aren't going to know players styles. GMs are. Giving a good, open framework for GMs to have a base common ground with their players to work in, and then making it open enough for GMs to mess with as needed to tailor the experience is the -best- kind of RPG in my opnion. 

Concerns about how fluid the Twists are just arent a concern to me. I -want- them to be fluid and open, so when I run a game I have more control over what happens rather than just consulting a chart and saying mmm ok. You take a -1 hinder or mmokay this villain gets a +1 boost. 

And yep, I totally said the other part of your post - He wants a more crunch game I totally get that. I don't think that the tactics elements in this game are very tactically myself, but thats a matter of opinion. I certainly don't have any real -criticsim- of his conerns, only that I don't necessarily see the system/game from the same angle. Not dismissing them, just trying to see if my explaining my view can give any insight to him or others reading.

This is excellent Idea XtremeGuardian. And I believe its somethign that Christopher did several times - the scene tracker only came out when he -wanted- to put a sense of rush/time management/hurryness on them. They had many scenes without it at all (Such as the grimloid battle when they first arrived at the castle) - no reason to hurry them along there, let them take their time and do their thing.

Totally see where you are coming from in this, and if it were a competitve game it would totally be a HUGE issue. As it is, I think it would be up to the GM NOT to pass it to legacy. Let the Boost stay a bit, its OK. You're not here to beat the players, you're here to tell a great story. You have that choice.

That being said, not every group sees their GM/DM/Storyteller to Players relationship as cooperative. They see it as antagonistic, and then what you describe is totally going to happen. That however is going to be a problem no matter what, because this system is clearly designed with the cooperative relationship in mind, as thats how Adam and Christopher see RPGs. - As such, there are going to be a ton of issues where if you have an antagonistic relationship between GM and Players, this system is going to break down fast.

I think its still posisble to evolve without direct progression like XP or such. However, I will freely admit that such things are much harder to show and feel. I admit to being a bit warry - because I have often found myself bored with video games that give to much or characters that start off with too much XP (because we wanted to play a high power game) as opposed to those same situations where I earned all those things from scratch. 

I don't know how this would fly with a regular group until I got it at the table. My feeling would be this would be a pause game, played for a sesson or 3 between another major campaign chapters, picked back up whenever you need a break from your hardcore DnD campaign or something.

Too all - Thank you thank you for participating. This is great discussion! I hope to keep it up.

So here's my opinion on RPG's in general: The rules matter.

If you want a game that's basically freeform storytelling, you can use FATE, you can use Amber, you can use No Thank You, Evil.  Or you could use D&D, or GURPS, or anything else you want.  It doesn't make any difference.  You don't need rules that stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever.  You don't even really need a game system at all.  You're just talking and telling stories, and the GM handles things however they feel like.

What would make you choose one game system over another is how they handle mechanically.  And then you get into what rules are balanced, consistent, and smooth.  When one character is more effective than another (when it comes to mechanical/dice-based challenges), that's a strike against the system.  When a player can approach similar problems in similar ways and make similar rolls, yet get drastically different results, that's a strike.  When the rules are hard to remember, hard to execute, or require frequent lookups on a table or flipping through a book, that's a strike.

A good GM can work around even the worst rules to create a fun game.  Sometimes that involves making house rules, sometimes it's filling in ambiguities, sometimes it's avoiding parts of the system that are the most janky.  Christopher did that himself; Sir Arton had an ability that was unfun, so he stopped using it.  That's an example of having a positive experience in spite of the system rather than because of it.  Same thing with initiative: early on, Christopher was expecting a crunchier gameplay style, so when the players screwed up the initiative order, he punished them by advancing the scene tracker 4 spots at at once.  The more sessions that passed, the more he realized that they were never going to be careful tacticians, and the less he punished them for bad decisions.

The reason I bring up Overcome checks as a concern is because of how they're integrated into combat scenes.  In most other games I've played, noncombat abilities can be used or not used in a much more freeform way.  Need to find a piece of information?  You could roll dice to get the word on the street or hit up a library, but you could also role-play talking to people, or pay someone off, or use magic.  When you're in a timed scene and you see a checkbox with "rescue the civilians" next to it, you look at your Principles, Powers, and Qualities, and think up a way to justify applying them to a single roll.  It's not a bad approach, but to me it makes every challenge feel the same.  You also have the "when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" thing going on.

So on leveling up I have found that giving someone a static +1 is a bit much. Makes some things interesting. And uping a dice value up one is not too bad but can't do it too often otherwise you end up an all 12 character.

The best way to "level up" I found was to give ingame truth about the characters.
-A player got a lackey that was use to help and film the Character if it was put into harms way the person could die. 

-A player changed the name of their unique Quality form Model ->actor -> Minor celebrity (and Swag but we never made it that far.)

- All the heroes gave up their Collection to get a base. They worked all session picking up pieces to make a base.

-My transforming Character used it to pick up a new form.

-Gave someone a d6 in a new skill they want to learn.

But in my group 30 (6x5) session takes a year so I don't have to worry too much. And by then maybe Dave will have more solid Ideas on how to work the game.

Something that has just occurred to me, but in place of individual levelling, how about party based levelling?

At the end of a trade, say, the party define a d6 quality that represents them as a team which can be used in place of one if their qualities. At the end of the next trade, they can upgrade this to a d8, and then d10, but no higher.

You could cap the number of team qualities easily and they could have team powers (following the qualities idea) to represent trademark, but shared, equipment.

I like this!

Having run two groups through the starter kit, I look forward to the corebook.

In re the tracker issue powerhound 2000 mentions - players CAN slow down the tracker. It's a standard option. One overcome stops it from progressing next environment turn. This makes it actually much easier with larger groups to slow the tracker.

I think limiting each side to 3 activiations in a row is a good thing; 2 is not really better,

Limiting the environment to end of turn isn't great - but limiting it to either end or when the players want it works rather well.

The adventures have some issues.

• The dungeon crawl is unsatisfying; a map would be much easier to run.
  • Same with the reactor.
  • and the house
  Not a map as in move counters on, just one to give a reference.

• Missing stats for potentially hostile major NPCs is a failing, as well. Most especially:
  • Tempest
  • Haka
• Several key elements are described adequately only in scenes after the one they first appear in
  • Sekebots
  • spiderbots

It's almost too literal an adaptation of the boardgame. The Environment is a real strong element in most, but not all, scenes, and can be a problem if the players mistake it for the goal.

While the possibility exists for the group to keep the scene tracker from progressing, there’s a problem:

On a general level, that’s not fun. And trading off “scene tracker duty”, even if well described, becomes a chore instead of a game. Instead of doing proactive, heroic feats or challenging villains, you’re effectively putting one hero on “crowd control”, which takes them out of the action. And any experienced GM will tell you, nothing frustrates players more than taking away their autonomy.

Well, the optimal strategy would be to wait until the scene turns red, then start blocking it like mad.  Then you're only losing a couple of actions per scene.  That's not overly burdensome.  And if the scene does turn red, you really do want to stop it from progressing if at all possible.  In theory, no one should ever lose from the scene tracker, unless they get so hindered they can't even roll a 1 on their Overcome (or the scene tracker advances by some other means, which would be pretty cruel of the GM).

Sadly, yeah, I agree, it’s not fun. But it is tense when they’re having to run to the wire.

As an aside, I had bits made for a color scene tracker by litko. I should have gotten a darker green, but putting the tracker, in color, on the table was a great tool. (They used their wood hallway singles pattern on plastic as a custom order. I am also going to use it with FFG Star Wars and a few other games.) Having the tracker was a huge play benefit - everyone could easily see the current status. (I plan on ordering a darker green, and another color or two, eventually. Not right now, tho’.)

I’ll note that one of my groups isn’t overly fond of supers, but are big fans of the mechanics, and of pulp SF - sword and planet kind of stuff - Barsoom, the Buck Rogers serials, Flash Gordon, Trigan Empire. So, when the corebook releases, I plan to hack it for Sword & Planet.

Well, if I were a player, 'blocking' the environment wouldn't be 'eh. I want to stop the environment from advancing' it be

The building is falling down around us! Crap! I want to use my strength + my archetechtual knowledge to find the support beams and support the building! 

The player may not even realize that is what they are attempting to do, and the GM interprets their actions as attempting to stop the tracker.

or as a GM, if a player said 'Can we not slow that down in anyway?"  I'd explain 'Well the building is falling down. What are you going to do about that?" and ask them to come up with something using their powers.

That to me would not feel like being stuck on 'scene blocker' duty. You'd be  takin an active role in protecting the others from the environment and holding back whats happening.

I guess that all comes down to a style of play. You have some groups who are story inclined. They'll think of their actions and decide what powers/abilities/challenges best fit that desired story action afterward. Then youi have the mechanically inclined groups. They will look for the mechanics of how to do something, what they need to do first, and maybe only grudgingly look for a story reason afterwards. Most groups are of course a mix of these extremes, but the second type or a group that leans that way is going to have a lot less fun in this system overall I think.

actually, the SCLive is a good example of this:

You have Rae - Rae thinks of the story first. Which is why most of her actions used the same power/qualities every time. Its because she isn't thinking of mechanics, she's thinking of what would be cool or look awesome and then uses the system in the easiset way to do that.

you have Adam. Adam definitley leans story first, but pushes a bit more into mechanics. He will look for whats cool, but has a deeper undersetanding of how the mechanics work so will pick what works well for the situation - after he's decided what the coolest option will be (Ie: flying into a laser dragons mouth)

You have Maggie: Maggie is pretty half and half. She doesn't have quite the knowledge of the mechanics that Adam does, but she goes more for picking her ability an then describing it as cool than the other way around.

And finally, Craig is a bit more mechanic oriented - he wanted to use his defense powers, and so he engineered situations to make them more effective. As the game wore on that cerrtainly fell back a bit, but he still looked far more at his abilities first and what they did, then crafted the story around that to fit his needs. He was the one who most often talked about initiative order and getting his defense buffs up.

I think of anyone, Adam gets the most out of this system - He gets to use the most in ways of cool powers, but also takes advantage quite often of the freeform style and openness of the way the game can be run.

Craig however, is next in getting the most out of it - and thats simply because he has a higher understanding of the mechanics than maggie or rae. However, what he wanted to do (take everyones damage for them) soon became somethign that fell by the wayside because the mechanics didn't completely help his goal.

Maggie is at a stable middle place, she got to be cool, but also unfortuantely some of actions didn't work the way she wanted them too.

However, while Rae's actions may have been limited mechanically to only a few abilities, she certainly /personally/ got a ton out of this sytstem, and was able to make even a very limited knowledge of how the system does something work for making her character cool and awesome without too much outside input. 

And that is my point of this rambling post. Those who take the story direction as their goal in how to play this system are getting a lot out of it, even if they aren't very RPG literate. And thats awesome - it is very very friendly to peoiple who've never played a RPG before. And inexperienced players can still pull what little they know about the system to feel completely awesome and badass. (Rae)

Players who are experienced, but like to drive story more than they worry about the mechanics are going to find a great amount of fun in this system too (Adam)

Players who are middle ground in experience and in crafting story are going to be just fine (Maggie)

And Players who would like to do more with mechanics than story are going to find that sometimes the mechanics break down. They aren't as deep or robust as some other systems. The GM may need to craft a situations where what this kind of player wants to do is more possible. (Craig however switched to a more story concious mode after some ofhis mechanical desires started coming apart - so he still was able to enjoy the play, just he switched gears to be more like Adam)

I feel like every post in this thread has been leading to this conclusion : If you are a story driven type of GM/Player, or new to RPGs in general but are willing to tell a story, this system is amazing. Its great. Its going to give you so many options and you can really go to town with being the most awesome superhero you can be.

If you are a more mechanically expeirenced and inclined player, who likes/wants things to always have the clear cut answers a good mechanical system can provide (and not rely on the GM adhoc 'ing a situation together to make it work) this system is going to fall flat unless you can concentrate more on the story than the mechanics.

Fair assesment?

What you’re suggesting makes sense and, regardless of mechanical elements, good GM technique can cover a number of flaws.

But the issue here is one of context.  If the scene tracker is meant to represent the building collapsing, the scenario that you’re describing makes sense.  But, if the scene tracker is meant to represent the villains achieving some goal or escaping, with the building as some form of twist or environmental challenge (which is what we’ve seen more of through the various live-plays and the extant scenarios), then supporting the building becomes more tangential.

The nature of this system seems to be such that it behooves both players and GM to be mechanically transparent.  Things like investigation or technical manipulation (such as disarming a bomb) are continually pulled out as Overcome actions, for instance.  However, on many occasions, it’s not been quite clear what it ‘means’ when the scene tracker runs out.  In a chase scene, for instance, the scene tracker might logically represent the villain getting away.  However, if a minor twist causes a nearby building to collapse, holding up that collapsing building shouldn’t stall the scene tracker in any meaningful way; rather, stopping to ‘help’ would likely advance it (as the villain gets further away from the heroes while they’re…being heroes).

It’s just a touch wonky, and is nowhere near as concerning to me as the initiative meta-game, but it’s still an issue that some GMs (especially new ones, brought to the game by the Sentinels IP, rather than through other rpgs) will likely struggle with.

As for some reponses to your problems,

I agree about the dungeon crawl and the reactor, for the house its less of an issue as its only two locations you need to worry about, inside and outside.

For the NPCs you mentioned, Tempest is almost impossible to turn hostile, he’s either defending himself from Haka, unconscious or going to heal up then potentially joining the fight in Megaopolis.

Haka on the other hand is stated by the rules to be practically unbeatable, the only thing attacking her does is make it harder to calm her down.

As for the lack of descriptions, the adventures are written with the assumption that the GM will have read through the adventure before running it.]

It makes them harder to find. Especially when the description details for the cyberskels are in a different module.

What do you mean by cyberskels, I assumed you meant skeletrons, but there's only 2 issues with them in and both issues have a brief description above the minion info panel including the fact that the ones in final villains base are obviously prototypes.

Hell, every minion and lieutenant has a description blurb above them in their first appearance, even the spiderbots and an image of them at the bottom of the next page which is still on the same scene.

I've finished as much of the stream as I am going to get to, so might as well respond to the initial misgivings I had.  The stream at least gave me confidence that the game is not doing what the starter kit advertised, which is railroady metaplot.  It was nice to see an original adventure with original characters.  

Other than that, the rules seem pretty mediocre, and the game as a whole does not know what it wants to be.  It has a lot of cool ideas smashed together, but not in a coherent or thought out way.  The playstyle seems to heavily rely on GM sensibilities as to what should happen next, with the rules just used as creative ways to justify that happening.  This is identical to free form play, but with a lot more painful fumbling about added in because apparently thats what you are supposed to do in RPGS (this is sarcasm, I have played many RPGs where the designer had figured out that this is not true).  

I disagree pretty strongly with the idea that story focused gamers will like this game and mechanic focused gamers will be dissatisfied.  First of all, while even have all the mechanical crunchy bits in the game if you already know that they won't be fun to use?  All you are doing is providing false hope for those mechanics focused gamers, and creating annoying distractions for the players who don't care about the mechanics.  Secondly, story vs mechanics, as it is being used in the current discussion is a false dichotomy.  If I am focused on the story, I want the mechanics to back me up, even if I am not paying attention to them.  What actually happens in these kinds of systems is that story focused gamers have to let the GMs interpret their input before they get to see if their story focus matters in the way they want it to matter.  If its the GMs job to step in and ignore the mechanics when they get in the way of the story, thats just another way of saying that the GM drives the story and the players do not.  So story focused gamers get betrayed by the system.

As per the Starter Kit, players CAN do something about it… unless the scene specifically prevents it, an Overcome roll can be used to prevent the Scene Tracker from advancing during it’s next turn… that would just require one player to dedicate his action to attempting to stabilize the situation, so a coordinated team has a good chance of keeping a scene from escalating too much due to villain activity.

During the first issue on the live playtest, I expected someone to suggest Rae to do just that when the Lazer Dragon started burrowing into the ground, using her powers to delay it’s progress and give them more time to deal with it.

Could be because it's a spam account that's going to come back and update with links, as we've seen in some recent situations. :-(