How Do You Like Your Super Hero TTRPG Games/Campaigns?

[Wofano Wotanto]

I'm really interested in Sentinel Comics RPG. Reading it, the GYRO concept really seems great. How does the game feel different then others you've mentioned?

It's almost a cliche to say this, but the game feels more like like you're creating an actual comic book story than playing a superhero RPG to me. It's really only a middling-narrative-focused system (compared to something like Masks) but there's something about the way action, montage and social scenes play out at the table that makes it easy to imagine a bullpen of writers putting together an issue - at least to me. The mechanics of assembling varied dice pools and justifying them for your action pair up well with the rules for twists and environments to support the illusion, if that makes sense.

Probably not for everyone, but with the right table it's a really fun exercise in creativity even when you're just brawling with a villain. Not the same feel I personally get from either crunchier systems like Champions or M&M, or with more freeform stuff like Tiny d6 Supers or Masks. YMMV, of course.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think that's all that weird. No single supers game of the dozens I've played has ever been 100% satisfactory, and I'm pretty sure none ever will be.

The thing is, when I was younger I had systems that were my go-tos, and that any problems I had with them felt minor for quite long periods. Champions and Mutants and Masterminds were in that bucket in different periods. Now I've found an (effective) dealbreaker in the latter and the former is probably just busier than I want to deal with. But nothing else entirely suits me without bothering me a little beyond my ability to ignore. Yet I find virtues in several of them.

Its not even that I don't have pretty strong trends; I'm not a fan of purely narrative approaches, and actually like some crunch. Its just that all my preferences (Champions, BASH UE, P&PUE, Supers RED and Mighty Protectors) all have one or more things that also kind of make me--itch.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Its just that all my preferences (Champions, BASH UE, P&PUE, Supers RED and Mighty Protectors) all have one or more things that also kind of make me--itch.

Understandable, like I said there's always something for me. Haven't really got any better suggestions - Ascendant is supposedly crunchy but I took a hard pass on it, and Absolute Power is just dreadfully unbalanced and I wish I'd taken a hard pass there as well. Stupid store credit temptations...

Hmm, did you try Godlike or Wild Talents? I'd rate them middling-crunchy myself, although YMMV.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Understandable, like I said there's always something for me. Haven't really got any better suggestions - Ascendant is supposedly crunchy but I took a hard pass on it, and Absolute Power is just dreadfully unbalanced and I wish I'd taken a hard pass there as well. Stupid store credit temptations...

Yeah, I wouldn't touch either for reasons external to the systems, but I wasn't impressed by Silver Age Sentinels so it seems unlikely Absolute Power is going to be that much improvement anyway.

Hmm, did you try Godlike or Wild Talents? I'd rate them middling-crunchy myself, although YMMV.

I own both editions of Wild Talents, but its a system that really, really wants to be quasi-realistic (and thus awfully damn deadly) and the only fix for it swings it all the way the other way; its also not exactly the soul of balance either (which to be fair, it makes pretty clear up-front, but something that is honest about failing my needs is still failing my needs). My one experience suggests the system can be really weird to get people used to, too.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Yeah, I wouldn't touch either for reasons external to the systems, but I wasn't impressed by Silver Age Sentinels so it seems unlikely Absolute Power is going to be that much improvement anyway.

Yeah, to say there are some outside issues with those two is an understatement. I caved on AP mostly because the FLGS went and ordered a copy for me based on a casual remark about about being curious to see what had changed in the setting, and I had enough credit to cover it when it showed up. Good thing for them, they still haven't sold the one other copy they ordered and probably never will. If you need any help resisting temptation, they had twenty years to think about SAS and I think AP actually got worse about balance.

Some super-awkward fiction bits as they updated their timeline to 2020 too. Their Superman expy begging not-Doctor Strange to magically cure unnamed-Trump's COVID case because he's too important to the nation and getting told no, and another one where one villain intimidates another one into cancelling his plans to introduce mutagens into the COVID vaccines because the resulting anti-vax sentiments will damage the world he wants to rule over too much. Those are going to age like house guests at Ben Franklin's place.

The big mutant bear villain bodyguard is now a free agent and has declared himself Ursus Caesar though, so there's that. Not worth $120 to learn that, though.

I had a decent time with Godlike for about a year, but we had a table full of WW2 history buffs who were all happy to buy into expendable supers. I think one guy managed to go through two dozen Talents over the course of ~thirty sessions (one of whom, to be fair, killed Hitler a good year earlier than expected). Takes a certain mindset to get into for sure. Wild Talents never got used, so naught to say on that subject.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, to say there are some outside issues with those two is an understatement. I caved on AP mostly because the FLGS went and ordered a copy for me based on a casual remark about about being curious to see what had changed in the setting, and I had enough credit to cover it when it showed up. Good thing for them, they still haven't sold the one other copy they ordered and probably never will. If you need any help resisting temptation, they had twenty years to think about SAS and I think AP actually got worse about balance.

Good gods.

Some super-awkward fiction bits as they updated their timeline to 2020 too. Their Superman expy begging not-Doctor Strange to magically cure unnamed-Trump's COVID case because he's too important to the nation and getting told no, and another one where one villain intimidates another one into cancelling his plans to introduce mutagens into the COVID vaccines because the resulting anti-vax sentiments will damage the world he wants to rule over too much. Those are going to age like house guests at Ben Franklin's place.

Though that's a problem with using any real-world events as part of a basis more recent than a half century ago.

The big mutant bear villain bodyguard is now a free agent and has declared himself Ursus Caesar though, so there's that. Not worth $120 to learn that, though.

I had a decent time with Godlike for about a year, but we had a table full of WW2 history buffs who were all happy to buy into expendable supers. I think one guy managed to go through two dozen Talents over the course of ~thirty sessions (one of whom, to be fair, killed Hitler a good year earlier than expected). Takes a certain mindset to get into for sure. Wild Talents never got used, so naught to say on that subject.

If you played Godlike, you played Wild Talents; the latter is just set modern period, a bit higher powered, and the--I've forgotten what its called, the "interference" thing doesn't work any more unless someone takes it as a specific flaw.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, I wouldn't touch either for reasons external to the systems, but I wasn't impressed by Silver Age Sentinels so it seems unlikely Absolute Power is going to be that much improvement anyway.

Silver Age Sentinels has some of the best genre definition and advice outside of Champions, IMO. It's too bad both versions of the game -- Tri-Stat and d20 -- were so poor a fit.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Silver Age Sentinels has some of the best genre definition and advice outside of Champions, IMO. It's too bad both versions of the game -- Tri-Stat and d20 -- were so poor a fit.

Agreed. That is one thing Absolute Power didn't actually make worse, although from my memories of SAS most of the comic history and genre advice sections seemed familiar enough to be cut-and-paste from the original. I suppose having gotten it right the first time there wasn't need to change much other than adding a section to cover the 20 years that have gone by between the two games.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Silver Age Sentinels has some of the best genre definition and advice outside of Champions, IMO. It's too bad both versions of the game -- Tri-Stat and d20 -- were so poor a fit.

Its distinctly the top designer's fault too; I was involved in the playtest and they outright ignored a lot of feedback because he didn't want to hear it.