The release of the Sentinels Comics RPG Starter-kit drawing nearer and nearer(9 days and counting from the creation of this post!), I've spotted one or two threads where forumites are mentioning how they want to use the system to create specialty settings or possibly alter a bit of the history/lore of the Multiverse so certain characters(Looking at you, Nightmist fans) will still exist.
And you know what? That's perfectly fine. The RPG was created for us fans to tell stories, and if a DM/GM/Storyteller/Narrator wants to bend the rules of the world to tell their tale, then more power too them.
This brought a question to my mind though: Once we get hold of the books and lore and possible pre-made campaigns and all that jazz, who plans to follow the lore of Sentinels and go through any introduction adventures/pre-made campains/what-have-you, and who plans to say 'nuts to that' and go all out reality warpy with the lore and alter it to make something totally new for their first time?
I myself love the lore that Adam and Christopher have made up, and I plan to play with it intact for my first few rounds of playing/leading the game. That's not to say that I won't play around with it(a problem arises that only Nightmist can handle, so our group of PCs must discover a way to locate and collect enough 'parts' of NM to bring her back from the many/all alternate realities that exist), but my first time through will be following the story...
Nine Days?! I thought it was coming out in October?
I'm not sure if I'm excited or not about it coming earlier thanI expected...
As for your actual question... I'm jumping off the rails and running beside them. I'm the only one around my area I'm aware of who is deep enough in the lore to appreciate something like the Argent Adept caring for the Akash'Flora tree. My fellow gamers would simply say "Cool, magic music guy taking care of a big tree. What's the mission?"
So, my plan is to find a space on the map of America and play an angle. I'm setting the location in a brand-new city built by a Philantropist who is also recruiting new heroes under the team "CrownsGuard". The pitch is simple, we've survived the end of the world, we have nothing but a bright future before us. The works of the past lie in rubble, and this gleaming city is the new way forward, the new light upon the hill. Wouldn't you rather be part of a new team, protecting the citizens of the future instead of joining a team of heroes who will be involved in grudge matches and trying to hold onto a past that is no longer relevant.
Or something like that.
I may use the core story, it may be something that my players hear about in the news, but I don't think we;ll play it out, because a lot of the cool stuff within that story is going to require me pausing the game to go over the "Back issues" and explain who this person is and why their actions are signifigant to this story. Like for a completely random suggestion, why a Frenchman saving a shapeshifting shaman and a timeslinging cowboy from a group of villains is incredibly signifigant and cool.
They don't know or care, and I can't fight that battle and run a game. I'll settle for reading the cool stories and seeing if I can play in an online game that does care.
I'd probably use the starter kit to learn/teach the game, but beyond that I'd absolutely be running quite a loose game - like Chaosmancer, I'd be the one most aware of the lore, so my pitch would probably be something like 'the world is a superheroes one that just had a major crisis crossover event that messed everything up, and this has given new heroes (like you might be!) a chance to shine.' Beyond that, I'd be using whatever lore I needed to make things work, and getting on with stuff. The lore built in-game by the player characters will probably be more significant anyway - they'll be more interested in stuff relating to their own recurring villains than knowing that Dawn is Expat's mother, or whatever.
TLDR: I'll be using lore as a source of ideas, not a rulebook.
I wouldn't rely on anything unless Paul says they are at the printers.
I plan on running what ever story my group leans towards, they do not know the lore and I intend to keep it loose and vague till I figure out what kind of game my group would enjoy. There is no need to explain everything, the story should make them front and center.
I intend on reading all of the books they come out with but don't see myself running it or playing it. One of my gaming groups doesn't like new systems.
I admit I don't see using GTG's lore that players may not know yet as any more cryptic than using the GM's original lore that the players don't know yet. (Not to invalidate GMs still wanting to do their own thing, but player unfamiliarity doesn't seem like it's actually much of a factor either way.)
My plan is fairly middle ground. I plan on running the premade comic series like the Starter Kit story up at the Malted Meeple. but if i run my own campaign it'll most likely be kinda alongside the main story. Kinda like a Southwest Sentinels type regional thing. Yeah there's a Sentinels headquarters out there but you're here dealing with your own villains and your own story & they don't have to deal with the external lore much unless they want to dig into it. Which hopefully they will, cause there is a lot of awesome lore there even if the system isn't as Crunchy as most of the RP'rs i know are used to.
I'd probably start with official stuff, and then go off the rails at the first junction and explore all the branch lines. Never been good at staying on track.
You know, while I talk about abandoning the tracks, I plan on making use of some organizations.
Revenant and Highbrow are way too good, and shadowy figure scheming, to not use them, and Revenant's villain tech enterprise... Actually, Villain Tech LLC (I think, I doubt he would incorporate) is just too good of a chance to give people like Bank Robbers super tech and powers.
The problem is if, for example, Highbrow is blasted into space and her organization ruined by the return of Chokepoint, that makes using her as a long-term villain more annoying.
I can do it, just more annoying.
So, some resources are enough steps removed from a character (or are a character I don't mind twisting to my purposes) that they are going to get used in my games.
Going around a time ship fixing timelines, or ending them. Dealing with abnormalities, maybe getting mcguffinite. Going to radically different places sound like fun. I once had a dimension-hopping game and it was a blast.
I'll just follow the lore because I like sentinels way to much and I will probably follow the pre made adventures and then go off on other missions in the same world.
Depends on the players i get for the game. Either we stick with the Sentinels of Freedom story stuff that comes out or I'll borrow from my Truth or Consequences Story campaign from Scion, seeing as most of the players from that group have moved away i can recylcle a lot of things people really liked
No real choice until later really. Unless you wanna run unique FF adventures you have to follow the starter kit story. Then you can run unique adventures when the main book comes out.