Here's a recap of the latest session of my Sentinels RPG campaign "The Alternates"! As per usual, there's a narrative recap (written as if it was in-metaverse) and then I go over the actual running of the game, and any lessons I learned as the GM.
If you're lost, you can catch up with the previous Game Recaps: Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, Game 4, Game 5, Game 6, Game 7, Game 8, Game 9, Game 10
Brief Description of the Game: In the meta-verse (where Sentinel comics is a published comic book multimedia empire), there is a premium cable computer-animated (in a style similar to “Into the Spider-Verse”) television series (which itself is based on a comic series called "The Alternates"). This RPG campaign represents that show, with each game session (ideally) representing one hour-long Episode of the show. The recap below is written in-metaverse as if it was an article on a popular website that posts recaps of episodes.
Player Characters:
- Cytoblast: Dr. Douglas Hemlocke can control plants, including transforming himself into a plant form, all thanks to his mystical knowledge and his ancient magical staff.
- Dr. Comet: Possessed by a demon that travelled to earth inside a comet, Dr. Diana Aster can magically control fire and ice, though her powers often go often out of control when her emotions flare up.
- Jersey Devil: A barely human cryptid of mysterious origins, "Mr. Leeds" is both man and monster, able to teleport by way of a parallel dimension.
- Kid Radical: A highly skilled autodidact with a strict code of behavior, Kid Radical has a superhuman ability for following trends and learning new skills, although it often seems like he can't quite connect with modern society.
- Quasar Kid: A superhero teen from the far future, Quasar Kid has a cosmic metabolism, super strength, and the power of flight, but he hasn't yet adjusted to being in "the past."
Recurring allied NPCs:
- Starshadow: A retired intergalactic adventurer, Starshadow wields mighty cosmic powers, but he is now reluctant to use them.
- Bouncer: An invulnerable action movie star, Bouncer is also super-strong and capable of mighty leaps (hence the name "Bouncer"), but he hasn't been the same since the Oblivaeon Crisis.
A Very Quick Story Synopsis: In an alternate timeline where Baron Blade was killed decades earlier (causing countless changes to the world of Sentinel Comics), the heroes of the Multiverse are almost all killed in the "Oblivaeon Crisis." The few remaining heroes, especially the Alternates, are left to deal with the villains and interstellar threats that still endanger the Earth!
And now, an imaginary recap of an imaginary episode of an imaginary television show about an imaginary superhero team!
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The Alternates Episode #11 Recap:
“Space Is Limited”
By Eddie Jaczerkowski
With only one episode remaining in the first season, Episode #11 of The Alternates sets the team up for some fantastic stories in their future! Plus, the introduction of one my favorite villains… but we’ll get to that soon enough! Let’s dive right in - spoilers below!
Episode Recap
Once again, the show picks up right where the last episode left off. The whole team is standing outside a car repair garage in San Diego, watching copter drones buzz off into the distance. Parts of the attack robots from the last episode are strewn around them.
“What the Hell was that?” says Quasar Kid.
Manny Puerta shouts, “I’m telling you, Baron Blade is after me!”
Suddenly, Jersey Devil sidles up next to Manny, wearing a long overcoat and hat which seemed to have appeared from nowhere. “Baron Blade, the steam pirate?” He point to his own face while asking, “Eyepatch? Big red beard?”
“Wrong Baron Blade,” Kid Radical says to Jersey Devil. He bends down and inspects the robot parts. “These look like the same technology as we found in the warehouse,” he says.
The team chats for a bit about what to do next, when suddenly Kid Radical’s wrist communicator beeps (like a cellphone from the early 2000s), and once again, the mysterious disguised voice speaks through it. “Kid Radical and associates,” it says. “I have another lead if you are interested. 5500 Wayland Way, San Francisco. Leave quickly. And don’t miss your appointment with Mr. Blackmoore.” The voice then cuts out to a quick burst of static.
With confused looks, the team stares at one another. Kid Radical is about to speak when Dr. Comet’s cell phone rings. “Dr. Diana Aster?” a feminine voice asks. Dr. Comet confirms, and the woman on the other end introduces herself as Diane from Silverstream Technological Solutions, Inc. “Our Vice President of Research, Dr. Blackmoore, would like to meet with you as soon as possible to discuss some research opportunities in robotics.” They talk and confirm a meeting for 5pm the next day.
The team is pretty baffled by these developments, but they decide to make haste to the address that the mysterious voice gave them. They hop into their rental car and start across town. (Quasar Kid offers to fly them again, but they dismiss the idea - it doesn’t seem like any of them were too pleased with the ride last time.)
Along the way, they get stuck in traffic briefly. Jersey Devil poofs out, reappearing a minute later with a handful of hipster milkshakes from Rumba Juice. “Wow, I didn’t even know you had money,” Kid Radical says to Jersey Devil. “Money?” the monstrous hero replies.
The team arrives at the address, which turns out to be a cookie-cutter mansion in an affluent (but very boring) neighborhood. Kid Radical checks out the building with his heavily modified View-Mister scanner, and sees no sign of people inside (although there are strange heat signatures). The team approaches the front door, and Quasar Kid rings the doorbell.
“Hello?” a voice answers from the speaker under the doorbell. The team looks at each other with blank stares - they obviously didn’t have a full plan for what to do if someone actually answered. “Is somebody gonna say something?” Jersey Devil whispers.
“Pizza delivery!” Dr. Comet finally says.
“Okay, please come on into the foyer,” the voice replies.
The team enters warily and finds that the inside of the house is not what they expected (or maybe exactly the kind of thing they expected - a trap). The house is completely devoid of furniture or decoration. Instead, they see several robots (harmless-looking utility models, with no obvious weapons) assembling some combat robots like those the team found in the warehouse a few episodes ago. The utility robots look up at the heroes (and seem worried).
Then there’s a buzzing as copter drones float down from the upper floor and approach the team menacingly. There’s a heavy sound of footsteps, and the silhouette of a very large man comes around a corner into view.
It's the villain known as the Hippo, but wearing a very large electronic helmet!
“Ah, the heroes!” the Hippo says. “I expected you to arrive about now! You may not recognize me, or you may know me as my previous identity, The Hippo. But now you can call me Hippocampus! I think you’ll find my name quite fitting. Have at you!”
<<Note: Here's an image of Hippocampus!>>
Immediately, the now super-intelligent Hippocampus attacks the team alongside the copter drones. A device in the center of the room hums to life and projects energy shields around Hippocampus and all the drones.
It becomes quickly apparent that Hippocampus is easily as strong and resilient as his previous incarnation, as Quasar Kid bounces blow after blow off his huge body. “Don’t you know hippos are extinct?” Quasar Kid says, offering a dark look into the future from where he comes.
Dr. Comet, Jersey Devil, and Kid Radical focus on the drones and the shield generator. Cytoblast hits Hippocampus with a mighty blow, but the giant villain shrugs it off and shoves Cytoblast aside.
Jersey Devil poofs onto the shield generator and assaults it with his full monstrous power. However, he seems to overexert himself, and for a moment his powers fail him. In this moment, we see his human form - a hoary old man, gaunt and wrinkled, in tattered colonial clothing. But in the blink of an eye, he’s once again the shadowy monster.
Quasar Kid turns from Hippocampus for a moment to deal a blow to the shield generator. But Hippocampus takes that opportunity and approaches Quasar Kid from behind. Draw a cylinder from his elaborate headgear, Hippocampus presses a button on the device and a needle appears. He jabs it into Quasar Kid and draws a sample of his green blood!
“This will do nicely!” Hippocampus says. He reaches up to his helmet and flips a switch. “Farewell!” he says. He disappears in a flash.
The heroes stare, mouths agape. That couldn’t have been a positive development.
Jersey Devil picks up one of the utility robots and smashes the shield generator. The team looks over as he smashes the remaining robots. He looks back at them and shrugs.
The scene cuts to the team gathered in the room of a motel outside San Francisco. Jersey Devil appears with armfuls of vending machine candy, and hands every member of the team a Hostee Fruit Pie.
Kid Radical researches Silverstream Technological Solutions and finds out the company makes a lot of specialty electronic equipment, including a variety of industrial robots. They also produce the solar dynamo, a solar powered generator which apparently now accounts for 60% of the power used in the industrialized world. He mentions they also have a program to produce free power for developing nations.
Jersey Devil asks, “Is this what superhero teams do? Run around from town to town chasing down mysterious bad guys?”
Most of the team shrugs or otherwise doesn’t answer. “Sometimes, I think,” says Kid Radical uncertainly.
“In my experience, yes,” Quasar Kid replies.
In the next scene, the heroes have arrived outside the San Francisco office of Silverstream Technological Solutions. Dr. Comet is wearing business attire, and so are Kid Radical and Cytoblast. Feeling out of place, Quasar Kid uses his compu-brace to scan Kid Radical’s clothes and his costume changes to match.
As the team walks up the stairs to the office, the camera zooms in on the sign for Silverstream Technological Solutions, Inc. Below the company’s name on the sign, it says, “A Subsidiary of Blackleaf Laboratories.”
The team walks in and sees several young employees leaving. The receptionist leads them down a hallway to a conference room. She tells them to head on in, and when they’re ready to start the teleconference with Dr. Blackmoore, hit the button on the speaker phone.
While the team gathers around and gets comfortable, Dr. Comet presses the button.
The overhead lights in the room get bright, and the heroes are suddenly transported to another place! They’ve been teleported to a clean metallic room. As they look around, the view pans to show a huge window, and it’s clear the team is now on a space station. Outside the window is the planet Jupiter.
The view pans all the way around, and opposite the window stands a very surprised Starshadow. However, the cosmic hero is not in costume - in fact, he’s wearing a robe, boxer shorts, and slippers. He has a big beard, and he’s eating ice cream straight from a pint container.
“Uh… hello. Is it 5pm already? Oh, damn it… Pacific time!” Starshadow shoves the spoon into the pint of ice cream and shuffles off toward a doorway. “Sorry, give me one second!”
Moments later, he returns. “I’m sorry. I had a really dramatic entrance planned for you once you transmatted here. I was going to be standing over there in front of the window, y’know… looking cool.” Starshadow welcomes them to his Jupiter observation base, where he’s been watching space and Earth for any threats. He hasn’t seen any.
The team looks at Starshadow, puzzled, and he explains. “Sorry, right. I teleported you here - well, transmaterialized you - and you’re wondering why. I’ve been staying off Earth for a variety of reasons, and I had been planning to talk to you, but recent events have accelerated my timeline on things.”
“Are you alright?” Cytoblast asks him. “I mean, the last time we saw you…”
“Oh, right. The funeral. Sorry about all that. I’ve had some time to think since then, and… well, that timeline, where all the heroes survived? Millions of people died. Millions in San Alonzo, in Megalopolis, in Mordengrad, in Rook City… and none of that happened here. Do you think Earth’s heroes would have given their lives to save millions?”
There’s a moment of silence.
“Gladly so, I think,” Starshadow continues. “So… I’m a little bit more comfortable now with… how things turned out.”
Kid Radical leans over to Quasar Kid and quietly says, “So maybe hippos won’t go extinct in this timeline.”
As they continue to chat, Kid Radical asks Starshadow if he’s been calling the team through Kid Radical’s communicator. But Starshadow explains he hasn’t talked to anyone, and isn’t the voice who’s contacted them twice. In fact, Starshadow has been getting strange messages as well - text messages on his communication systems. The messages told him that DJ Doctor Dancefloor was intensively trying to locate Starshadow, and that that same villain had fought the team.
In fact, Starshadow says that no one should know where he is - he hasn’t told anyone, and the team are the first people to see him in person in a year.
Starshadow goes on to explain that he owns Blackleaf Labs, and Blackleaf owns Silverstream, and thanks to the Solar Dynamo technology, he can leverage a lot of international political influence. As the world increasingly turns to nationalized superhero teams - the U.S., China, Russia, Fance, German, and the U.K. all have their own - Starshadow wants to create a superhero team to work worldwide, to solve international and global problems.
(It’s worth noting that during this scene, we see that Jersey Devil has raided Starshadow’s freezer, and is eating pints of ice cream with his hands.)
“All these national teams are full of untrained, untested, and underpowered individuals. So when those teams can’t handle a problem, then our team would be the alternates.”
His eyes light up and he adds, “In fact, that’s a good name for the team! The Alternates!”
The other heroes all look at one another and make faces. “No,” they agree. “The Alternates” is not a good team name.
“Well, are you interested in being on this team? As luck would have it, I have full discretion in who gets hired.”
The heroes all indicate their interest, and Kid Radical says, “Can we get a vehicle of some sort? Transportation’s really been an issue.”
“Sure,” Starshadow replies. “I’ve got an extra hoverjet I can give you.”
Suddenly, klaxons go off, red lights flash, and a big map of the world pops up on a big screen on the wall behind Starshadow. There is a big red circle around Megalopolis.
“Well, that’s not good,” Starshadow says.
The credits roll, and David Byrne’s song “Everybody’s Coming to My House” plays over the credits.
Final Thoughts
Is there a better villain that Hippocampus? Probably! But he’s also very awesome. We only get a little taste of him in this episode, but I’m sure there’s a lot more to come. What’s that thing on his head? How did he get super-intelligence? We have so many questions!
This episode also sets up a cliffhanger to the final episode of the season, which is bound to be a doozy. Rumors have it that we’ll get to see the core Guardians of Freedom team in that episode, but I don’t know if that’s been confirmed.
Some nerdy notes!
- Blackleaf Laboratories is Starshadow’s company, as introduced in Episode #1. So if you remembered that tidbit, then his reappearance was less of a surprise!
- The clothing and beard for Starshadow in this episode is an homage to his costume in the early 1980s series, “Starshadow: Alien Empire,” which tried to capitalize on the popular science fiction movies of the time. It was more of a space opera story, and Starshadow rarely used his cosmic powers. Instead, he inexplicably used laser guns. This series lasted less than two years, but it was still a fun book. His “costume” from that series was later re-used in the limited series, “Starshadow: Shadow Diplomacy,” which is also more of a space opera story.
- Obviously, I’m a big Starshadow fan, so I will also note that they use his real name in this episode, “Beverly Blackmoore” (although he often goes by “Bev”). He has a first name that is now considered feminine, but was once considered masculine, which was referenced in Episode #1, when he was using the alias “Vivian Attebury.”
- Enough about Starshadow (for now) - am I crazy, or is Kid Radical the responsible one in this episode? Dr. Comet is too explosive, Jersey Devil and Quasar Kid are not at all adjusted to the world they’re in. It does seem like Cytoblast is still the adult in the room, but Kid Radical is really starting to grow on me.
That’s all for this week, but please check in with me next week when I recap the season finale, Episode #12, titled “A Really Big Mess.”
Eddie Jaczerkowski is a staff writer who loves comic books and writes about television.
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And now, back to the real world...
Running the Game
Bwa ha ha ha ha! You all thought you were done hearing about my favorite NPC (and yours), Starshadow! Nope! Never! #StarshadowLives
Also, Hippocampus is great. I'm not immensely proud of everything I create, but as far as "a twist on a minor character you all know and love," I think I've pretty much peaked with Hippocampus. But there's more of these "Alternate versions" of characters you know on the way, so you be the judge. Oh! And I had time to sketch Hippocampus before the game, so I was able to reveal this drawing to my players at the exact moment I revealed Hippocampus to them!
It's priceless to be able to use my modicum of comic book art skills to give the players some visual depictions of the NPCs. If you don't have any drawing skills, I'd still recommend you go Googling for an image of a comic book character who's "close enough" and use that. With a little bit of photo manipulation skills, you can also edit existing superheros to make them close to what you need!
For the Hippocampus scene, my players are unaware (but they'll read this, so they're finding out now) that I had figured out about 3 or 4 ways that scene could end, and I just let things play out to see what happened. When Quasar Kid's player switched his focus from Hippocampus, it just became obvious to me what would happen next, and thus Hippocampus stole his blood. What will happen next? Well, let's just say I have figured out about 3 or 4 ways that could go...
And now, something useful! You might read these summaries and think, "Huh. I wonder if the dialogue went that smoothly at the table?" The short answer is yes and no!
The long answer is that we have a new tradition at our table (or our virtual table, now that we've gone to social distance gaming) - I call it "Writer's Room." When we go into scenes with dialogue and social scenes, I call "Writer's Room" and I ask the players to figure out how the scene unfolds. So the players make suggestions, and ask other players if their characters can say this thing so that their character can reply with a specific line, etc. It works pretty well, although I do have to be careful not to let the loudest person at the table (which is usually me) decide everything for everybody. So far, that's not been a problem (except with me).
And the end of the session, we talk about "Signature Moments" for each character so I can make sure the PC shines in the Recap in exactly the way the player wants them to. We also tend to go back and "workshop" lines and scenes, rewriting them to make them better.
To make these games into more compelling narratives, the "Writer's Room" moments and the workshopping at the end really gives us a better story. And the end product, in the form of the recaps, is a great record of what happened in the story (even though it ends up being maybe 1% to 5% different from what happened at the table).
I hope that helps!
Oh! One more thing. I really wanted to draw "Alien Empire" Starshadow, which is kind of somewhere between a Starfleet officer and a Star Wars smuggler (because Sentinel Comics was trying to capitalize on the popular science fiction of approximately 1981, so maybe... "Star Travels: The Motion Picture" and "Stellar Wars: The Empire Counterattacks". Something like that. ANYWAY... I wanted to draw him, so I did:
Why does he have a laser pistol? He can shoot cosmic beams out of his hands! (Or his eyes, or his feet, if he was so inclined.) I mean, the story is that the writers needed him to be a lot more "space adventurer" and a lot less "cosmic-powered superhero" for the stories to work, so they mostly pretended like he didn't have cosmic powers. Except when they wanted him to use some cosmic powers. Comic book writers, am I right?
As always, thanks for reading!