One week closer to Busybody and those not on Patreon missed Adam guiding Christopher on drawing a robot
Upcoming Schedule:
Tuesday, February 7th: Episode #238: Writers’ Room: Hostile takeover of Montgomery Industries
Tuesday, February 14th: Episode #239: A romance the fans hated
Tuesday, February 21st: Editor’s Note #64
Tuesday, February 28th: Episode #240: Writers’ Room: The K.N.Y.F.E./Sky-Scraper arc in Cosmic Tales that’s happening simultaneously with the Scholar/Count Barzakh story
Expected Recording Schedule:
Friday, February 3rd: Episode #238: Writers’ Room: Hostile takeover of Montgomery Industries
Friday, February 10th: Episode #239: A romance the fans hated
Friday, February 17th: Editor’s Note #64
Friday, February 25th: Episode #240: Writers’ Room: The K.N.Y.F.E./Sky-Scraper arc in Cosmic Tales that’s happening simultaneously with the Scholar/Count Barzakh story
The bit about solving the problem of a not-sleeping baby by using the Matriarch’s mask… Besides the Molotov Cocktail line from The Good Place, I’m reminded of the wisdom of Lois McMaster Bujold’s character Lord Miles Vorkosigan, who believed the best way to solve a problem is to make it someone else’s problem.
The way they described GLOBAL, it sounds to me like a comic I’ve just been reading: BPRD, which is basically just Hellboy without Hellboy (in particular, the Hell On Earth series). It’s mainly arc-based but has some one-shots and mini-arcs as well; focuses mainly on a few “superhero” characters but builds up the supporting cast of regular humans a lot, and has some stories that focus solely on the ordinary troops; and has a couple of main bases, but with plots that end up crossing the world.
It’s also just a really good horror comic! I hadn’t been sure if I’d like reading GLOBAL, but given that comparison, I’d absolutely want to give it a try.
I’m not on the Discord so couldn’t see the robot. I hope Adam’s lessons on that and the Christmas tree are leading up to Christopher art on a Definitive Guise card!
The other extremely important note from this episode: they are, THEORETICALLY, totally okay with monetisation of fanart/fanfic/fan comics, as long as you chat with their lawyers first (vis a vis money etc).
Obviously I need to git gud at drawing Expat so I can turn my favourite one of my fics into a full-blown comic, because the world deserves splash pages of her fighting dudes on motorbikes from a moving truck!
Would be lovely if someone with artistic talent could draw the video game models for The Cauldron promos (AZ, Bunker, Expat, Fixer, Omni). I like the variant powers, but the generic hero silhouette takes something away.
I recently started to actively look for artists to help me with my homebrewed decks. I’m definitely not the person to do it! So yeah, good to hear that reinforced.
I might be the only one, but when they were talking about D&D YouTubers and who might do Sentinels content, my mind went to “Crap Guide to Sentinel Comics!”
(Yes, I know JoCat is planning to retire the JoCrap character after he finishes FF14, but it’s still a funny thought.)
As soon as Christopher started talking about it, I knew he meant “Wolverine goes grocery shopping” by Faith Erin Hicks. Such a great mini-comic.
Disclaimer, the website is acting oddly for me, I’m not sure if it’s my end or hers, but the entire 11 page comic is there, it just took me multiple tries to get pages to load.
On the topic of excellent fan comics, there’s a project called Transformers: Mosaic I participated in yonks ago with the overall concept of “artists and writers team up to create stories told entirely within a single comic page” and I’ve long regretted we just don’t have enough fanartists in this fandom to pull off such a project here.
Yeah, it was nice to hear, but I wasn’t surprised. It’s in line with previous statements on the subject.
One thing that would be very cool, especially combining this and their conversation last week vis a vis the D&Debacle, would be if Greater Than Games put out some kind of licensing system for third party Sentinel Comics RPG products with standardized royalties and such. Some kind of “Disparation Press” license would be a great thing for buoying the success of the RPG.
Error in the SCRPG Q&A. Easier to quote from the show notes, which are accurate to the 'cast:
The robot/cyborg RPG ability “living arsenal” says “Attack using [power] with a bonus equal to the number of bonuses you currently have”; how does this interact with the bonuses acquired via Hero Points? Hero Point bonuses are not “active” - they’re just floating there unconnected to anything in the scene until you use them. To think about it in SotM terms, they’re cards in your hand rather than cards in play. The analogous situation to living arsenal would then be some effect that keyed off of the number of Ongoings or Items/Equipment that you had in play. What you could do is “activate” all of your Hero Point bonuses by linking them to elements in the scene prior to your use of living arsenal.
Bolded part contradicts the rules on p.31. All Hero Point bonuses are exclusive but non-persistent, and (as reinforced by the 'cast answer) unlike a bonus produced by a Boost action they don’t exist until you create them for use in a specific action. There’s no way to “link” HP bonuses to a scene elements the way you can assign regular bonuses to characters, their lack of persistence means they vanish as soon as the action they were created for is resolved, and exclusivity means only one can be employed for any given roll, even with tricks like the Red Social ability Inspiring Totem.
RAW you can at most get an extra +1 (plus the value of the single HP bonus itself, which you’ll have until the action resolves) with Living Arsenal. You want a larger bonus from the ability then accumulate the bonuses from multiple Boost actions and camp on them rather than using them up as fast as they come in. You still “have” them for purposes of the ability’s free extra bonus even when they’re just hanging around, although if any are persistent & exclusive you might as well use one each time so you get its value without reducing you accumulated numbers.
Your GM may respond to bonus hoarding by scrubbing them off with Hinders or even Overcomes, but if they don’t and you manage to amass a real bonus pile your can easily use all the non-excusive ones at once for a pretty good ersatz “Poor Man’s Charged Up Blast” without needing to reach Red to do it. I saw a fellow player land a 26 point hit not too long back, and that was after only three rounds of getting bonuses from the team Tech Upgrade guy and some friendly NPC minions. Not too shabby for a Mid die Green Attack.
When you use a bonus, you can take a minor twist to have it stick around for an extra action.
I’m pretty sure that’s what the FAQ means - you can use Hero Points to create and use a bonus, then take a minor twist to leave it attached to the element you created with it. It’s still exclusive, but it’s around to be used with the ability.
Interesting interpretation. The rule you’re citing is under the Boost/Hinder section, which I thought meant you had to take the twist to gain a second use of the mod when the action was taken. If the twist actually comes at the moment of use (which it would have to be for HP bonuses, which aren’t connected to Boost actions at all) the second-use option is just generally more versatile.
There are several implications here. If you Hinder, you’d opt to get a second use when the victim is forced to apply that penalty, causing you to generate a twist at that point rather than on your own turn or reaction. Taking one large HP bonus rather than several smaller ones is now even more attractive, since you “pay” a twist to get two uses regardless of mod value. There’s also a small but relevant shift in the relative value of some alternate HP rewards - you can’t get two uses out of a Favor From A Contact with a twist, for ex, so it’s a bit weaker than bonuses in that regard.
Sigh. Been playing that wrong all along apparently. Wish they’d get a FAQ up.
Huh, interesting! It’s possible that I’m the one who ruled incorrectly there; I like my interpretation because, as you say, it’s more versatile, but it’s possibly not intended. It would be a nice thing to get an FAQ clarification for.
I think you’re right going by the podcast, which doesn’t make any sense otherwise. Hadn’t thought about the second-use clause when I wrote my original post, but if you twist for it on-use rather than during a Boost then what they said about attaching HP bonuses makes more sense.
So yeah, good to hear that reinforced. 
