Guess Who's Back? (It's Paul - AMA)

Hello everyone here on the GTG forum! It has been many years since I posted on a regular basis, but I’m back. It has come to my attention that this forum and community could benefit from some more interaction with GTG leadership, and I finally have the time once again to devote to such a pursuit! I have two comments of note:

1. Please be kind to each other and strive to put the best construction on everything. Internet communication is challenging, and not everyone has the neurotypical skills necessary to accurately infer tone from written communication.

2. As part of coming back to the forum, I thought I’d do a quick AMA (Ask Me Anything) style post! I’ll periodically check the forum throughout the day and answer most of the questions anyone posts!

It is good to see you all again!

Hi Paul,

How’s everyone feeling over there? Hoping everyone is recovering from the recent COVID outbreak.

Hi Paul! How are you liking having a beard? I’m not sure I would have recognized you in the street!

Hi Paul!
Have you played any of the new Spirits from Horizons of Spirit Island or Nature Incarnate? Which is your favourite?

Now that you’ve had two Backerkit campaigns, do you think you’ll go back to Kickstarter in the future or stick with using solely Backerkit? What has improved the most on Backerkit from the two campaigns you’ve done?

I’m still learning how this forum software works! Fascinating!

@Dandolo
Most of us are back to 100%, and no one is testing positive any longer! We still have a few people working on recovering, but I’m hoping that everyone gets all the way back soon.

@MigrantP
I enjoy it quite a lot! My kids convinced me to give it a go about a year ago and I’m now planning to keep it for a while.

@fjur
Unfortunately I haven’t played any of the new spirits enough to generate a strong opinion. My feelings about them are still very colored by some of the playtesting versions.

@Powerhound_2000
We intend to stick with BackerKit for the forseeable future for crowdfunding. It has been great! The biggest improvements are 1) the ability to do more targeting marketing and announcements for campaigns, and 2) the more seamless integration with the pledge manager.

In the same vein as fjur’s question, do you have any notable favorite heroes, villains, or environments in Definitive Edition that you enjoy playing?

Hi Paul!

Glad to hear folks are doing better and feeling good!

I have a random question off the top of my head:

How has shipping improved/gotten worse compared to the cavalcade of issues over the last two years? Do you think the system has gotten more resilent to failure, or have things stayed about the same?

Hi Paul! Awesome seeing you here!

Can we look forward to you showing up on the Letters Page anytime soon?

When did you change the logo for the forums in the top left hand corner? And in general is that the new logo for GtG?

Hello! Any news on a German version of Horizons/Sentinels DE/SCRPG? Thanks!

Hello, Paul! I hope everything is going well by you.

I am not going to ask a question because the only one that came to mind is “How do you be so short?” and I am not certain you would get the reference well enough to not take it as some sort of insult! I don’t even know that you are short!

Are you guys still intending to attend uk games expo and will you be needing citizens this year?

Hi Paul!

Do you (GTG) have any plans to attend any cons in Canada in the foreseeable future?

Hi, Paul, welcome sort-of-back!

How’s your first year with Flat River been? Any unexpected benefits or challenges? How much of the logistics has been offloaded to them as opposed to you handling it from your warehouse yourselves like you used to?

Howdy Paul! Welcome back to the forums.

What’s your favorite thing that has happened so far this year?

Time for the serious questions, Paul. When are we getting a new In Office SC:RPG campaign stream?

@psychedelicchurro
Not really! Like Christopher, I don’t really have favorites. However, I really love how the new Definitive Edition heroes turned out!!

@TheWyrmSuperior
It has actually gotten notably better! Prices for trans-Pacific routes have gone down significantly, and the timelines are much more predictable. Prices for parcel shipping continue to go up, but at a slower rate than they did about a year ago - things certainly appear to be stabilizing!

@skywhale

There are no specific plans to that effect, but you never know! Now that Christopher and I are doing our own monthly podcast, that soaks up a lot of my available podcasting time.

@Powerhound_2000

This morning! And yes, it is! It has actually been our logo for several years (I believe shortly prior to the pandemic), but I figured the time had come to make the forum have correct branding

@Faralis

Nothing on SMDE, but yes on SCRPG!! Ulysses Spiel began working on a German version over the winter, and we’re very excited for it to come out! We don’t have any specific timelines, however.

@TakeWalker

I do not understand the reference, but hi!!

@bluedarky
Unfortunately a corporate-level decision was made to not have us attend UKGE this year. We are very disappointed - hopefully we’ll be back someday because we love that show and think it is quite valuable.

@dprcooke
Not currently unfortunately.

@MindWanderer

There have been a ton of changes, but definitely the biggest is logistics - a ton of stuff has moved out of our warehouse to Michigan (though not crowdfunding fulfillment - that’s still in STL).

@Ronway

I was able to host and cook for 32 people for Passover! It was awesome.

@Godai

We don’t have any specific plans, but we would like to do it. The challenge is the amount of time it takes to get something like that together and to produce it - it is a lot!

Whereabouts in Michigan?

Hi Paul!

SCRPG is a brilliant game, we’re enjoying it tons, and it’s been a few years now since the core rulebook came out. When will we be getting some meaty expansions that provide detail on things like: the state of the world post-OblivAeon, how magic works in the setting, what are some known alien races, what sort of technology is available in SCRPG Earth etc.?

Pretty please?

Thanks for your reply! I checked Ulysses’ website after reading what you wrote and they are, in fact, doing a crowdfunding campaign for the translation at this very moment. Maybe it would be a good idea to advertise it on your end as well, I don’t know, like inform people about it on one of your podcasts in a couple of sentences? Like, I follow everything Sentinels on GTG’s media outlets, but not all the German RPG companies so I wouldn’t have noticed had I not read your post here.

I have a couple of follow-up questions:

How closely are you working with the company on translation/localization? I am asking because if I understood it correctly, the German version of the Definitive Edition failed mostly due to different ideas about those very things (even though that was a different company, of course).

Related to this, do you know if the Starter Kit is going to be based on the new and revised version you are working on at the moment? I guess it would make sense, but I also heard that a translation of the “older” version had already been in the making so I wonder what it’s going to be.

Sorry for taking up so much space to discuss something that is only relevant for a small part of the Sentinels community, but the SCRPG is one of the best systems I have ever played, and I am confident that a German localization will help boost its popularity over here by quite a lot.

Also still hoping for DE in German as well. Maybe some day.

@skywhale

Flat River Group has a number of warehouses in the Grand Rapids area, and that’s where stuff gets staged now for Target and hobby distribution.

@Irrevenant

I’m really glad you like the game! You will definitely be getting some new supplements! Back when we did the RPG Kickstarter, we pre-sold some accessory books that we’ve been slowly working on through pandemic and acquisition related delays. They’re now slowly moving from the back burner to the front burner, and I’ve actually gotten a chance to contribute quite a bit to that process! I’ve been learning inDesign so that I can take the graphic design elements created by Jenn and Rae and help get the layout completed faster.

@Faralis

Your follow-up questions are mostly for Christopher! I’ll pass them on, but definitely feel free to post those as a comment on the RPG Kickstarter too! I know he always checks those.

Gotta be careful there! Beer City ought to be the perfect location for the Cult of Gloom.

Unfortunately I missed the campaign, so it’s not possible for me to post there, but thank you anyway!

I posted it to the comments there

I assume that the upcoming Urban Settings Book will provide some details on that, and if not, the future G.L.O.B.A.L book likely will.

There’s a chance that the Dark Watch book will cover that, as we know it will contain Pinion and Zhu Long. The Diamond Book of Monsters / xxtz’Hulissh Adventure is another possibility. I also vaguely recall C&A mentioning on the podcast about just a “Magic Book,” but I’ve no clue how likely or when that would be. There’s also a possibility for a Virtuosos of the Void book, although that’s just pure speculation.

It’s confirmed that we’ll be getting a Void Guard (and Captain Cosmic and Lifeline) book eventually, which will likely address this.

Frankly, I don’t think any product has been announced or hinted at that will address this. Maybe the Paradigms book, but that seem unlikely.

However, there are a couple of general answer to all these questions: the Sentinel Comics Universe is Like Reality Unless Noted, and writers (i.e. GMs and players) are pretty much free to do whatever they’d like.

I do realise that those answers are fairly unsatisfying, though, so maybe I’ll think about collecting some of the information that’s been given in various products and the podcast into some dossiers. Maybe. We’ll see.

Hi, Paul! I don’t really have a question, I just wanted to say it’s good to see you.

@Trajector
Good to see you too!

Hello again!
Not sure this is the right place to ask, but are you planning on releasing more Spirit Spotlight videos?
The series is both informative for people still new-ish to the game and just a lot of fun to watch and listen to: Animations, as usual, are top-notch and Chris Burton does an amazing job as a narrator. However, a number of spirits are still missing from it.
Seems like they’ve been well received in general, too, so I hope there will be more!

Glad you like them!

I’ve written and recorded a bunch more, but the animation and editing takes time (and we have but one Trevor, as amazing as he may be). I fully expect we’ll see more of them in time!

You should really talk to Biomancer about that. I’m sure he can help you out.

Introducing Trevur and Trebor.

Trevor Casterlyin’

Trevor Cast-erline?

Would GtG consider sponsoring Critical role playing the SCRPG?
Most of the main cast and some popular guests were the dream voice casting for Sentinels Characters on the Letters Page.

this would also be the perfect opportunity for them to invite Collen Clinkinbeard who was also a voice cast choice, has superhero cred from My Hero Academia, and is part of the “how did Laura and Travis meet” story.

@Sea-Envy
We would absolutely love to do so, and have considered it! It just depends on if it makes sense with the marketing budget.

Hi again! I have another question, this time regarding shipping.

Are you planning on shipping Sentinels products from the Flat River Group warehouse in Belgium? If yes, how is it going to work? I know people in Europe (including myself) would love to be able to order directly from the GTG store - however, right now shipping fees (plus taxes I guess) are unpleasantly high for EU customers. Obviously this is not the company’s fault, but I can imagine being able to distribute wares from inside the EU will make shipping them easier and cheaper for everyone?

Thanks and have a great day everyone!

Got to say. I’ve been noticing Flat River Group a lot more since the GTG acquisition. Probably most things were already under the umbrella, but it’s a bit funny. RPGs from Renegade or Modiphius? FRG. King of Tokyo’s US distributor? FRG.

Y’all got borged into good company.