SotM card RPG

General GTG General Discussion
1

Hello all, I'm considering running a campaign version of the SotM card game and wondered if anyone has tried such.  My buddies and I are very forgiving gamers who enjoy a good amount of story before stomping on bad guys.  SotM has plenty of characters and story for me to build from, but tweaking the game mechanics to get both progression and balance is tricky.  I want as many of the core rules of the SotM card game to stay in tact, but I also want the players to feel like they're growing more powerful as the narrative expands.  Here are some of my ideas, but I'd love feedback.

 

Level one- players only draw two cards at the start of the game instead of the standard four, they face minions from a customized "minion" deck, the environment is preselected as to not kill anyone too quickly (i.e. Megeopolis), and maybe a nerfed villian could be their end-of-episode boss i.e. an early omnitron prototype with 40 HP

 

Level two- same as above except now players draw three cards at the start of the game and all villians are a bit less nerfed; maybe villians will run (I'll get you next time, Gadget!) when certain HP thresholds are met i.e. 1/4 health left

 

Level three- the game is played normally (4 cards), the customized "minion" deck is on-hand for adventures leading up to the boss battle with whoever is villian of the episode, and villians are no longer nerfed.

 

Level four- same as level three except now players can search their deck and immediately play one ongoing, equipment, or relic card from their deck at the start of combat i.e. Fanatic can begin with a relic in hand.  The idea would be that as these superheroes become accustomed to their gear, they know what they want to wield when danger strikes.  At this level I might require the advance rules for defeating the villian.

 

This is as far as I've gotten on progression.  At level five, I'd like to add multiple villians to the model (using Vengeance sequencing rules), but I haven't worked out the balance yet.  I'd like to get to a point where the group is taking on three or four baddies at once.  In order to do this, however, they'll need a lot more than this.  Letting them search their deck and play multiple ongoings/equipment/relic cards at the start of the game could help, but not even Thor could wield more than one hammer.  Any ideas?

2

I had some thoughts on this as well. Never any practice however.

My concept stayed away from manipulating the villains thru player level progession as I wouldn't know where to begin on balance. I focused on telling a narriative, with a touch of progession.

first, quasi preset a story with villains and environment. My draft usually started with spite in megalopolis as a way for the heroes to come together.

As they win the story advances, though I plan for loses as well. If the heroes lose, the next battle would be in the block (captured by the man), mobile defense platform (captured by the villains), or time cataclysm (space time ripped because the heroes were not ment to lose the battle, or some such).

A player selects a hero (or 3 whatevs). And chooses which hero fights the next scenario, the players know the environment they are heading to but not the villain (is how I currently have it written up, no reason other than personal choice. Maybe they know the villain or environment, but never both.)

how progession works, is if a hero wins a fight without being incapped, they gain a level. At this level gain that hero can choose 1 active ability that happens before a battle. Concepts revolve around: A, that hero may place one card from his deck in his trash. B, that hero may draw an additional card in his starting hand and shuffle a card from his starting hand into his deck. I've also have concepts that manipulate a heroes starting life, or adds a promo card of a hero that a player has to the list of heroes on the players roster, but have this act as a single hero when it comes to level gain.

note that as that hero levels up, he may gain multiples of these. Example: Legacy is level 3. He choose 2 A's and 1 B. So before a battle he selects 2 cards from his deck and places them into his trash, and draws 5 cards, reshuffles 1 into his deck. He does all of this before every battle.

now if a hero is incapped, even if the battle is won by the remaining heroes, he cannot particpate in the next battle due to recovery.

ive put thoughts towards a "level down" mechanic, but I dunno what to do with it just yet.

3

I don't think the "level one" rules are a great idea.  If you want a campaign feel, just take a static group of heroes through a series of games of increasing difficulty (be sure to adjust the difficulty levels from their printed versions - nobody seriously regards original Gloomweaver as a 3), with regular matches followed by advanced ones later.  Perhaps leave decks unshuffled between matches, and bottom previously-discarded cards while keeping the players' hands on top, for a greater sense that the battles are continuous.  When a hero is incapped, drop them from future games in the series (either replacing them with a new hero, or just letting H be lower for the next several games, until a game is lost, at which point an entirely new group of heroes takes over for the defeated ones).  Perhaps create a map of the various environments and use tokens to represent the heroes and villains moving around the map trying to catch each other; the side which moves onto the other gets some sort of advantage in the resulting matchup, maybe getting to start with one card in play or do a little deck-stacking or something.

4

I ran a 10-game campaign for my group. Well, with my group, but I made sure they made all the Big Decisions since I knew what would happen.

The basics of it were that I put a story arc together and each scenario had custom rules and/or conditions. Some scenarios had conditional modifiers, based on which heroes were in play. For example, one of them took place in Rook City and the heroes would have gotten a home field advantage if Wraith was present.

Oh, death was permanent for this, too. I did have certain ways of avoiding permanent death in the game, but they were later in the game and not guaranteed to be unlocked.

I also wrote up intro dialog and different versions of scenario wrap-up dialog (depending on how the team did) in advance. Basically, they were on a path but the particulars were flexible.

Also, I simulated character advancement by creating skill trees for each character. They each got to pick one of two starting abilities, and those each branched out two more times; basically, by the end of the campaign they'd each choose a path that ended up in a combination of three abilities. That was 14 abilities (each one a passive ability or a usable power) for each character, and I won't lie: it was a lot of work. I think I got them fairly balanced, but I may be biased.

Naturally, I made the scenarios more challenging to compensate.

So, yes, something like this is certainly doable. Good luck with it, I hope your players enjoy it!

5

I came up with an RPG like scenario as well. I tried to structure it like an old video game where you started out with a certain number of characters and gained more as you progressed either from the story or successfully performing certain objectives. Players are given experience points which they can use to do things like draw an extra card during the game. I also tried to make the scenarios harder to compensate for that.

6

Very interesting.  I like these.  Hmmm...

7

Great ideas!

Once the players understand their favorite deck, I'd love for them to do some decking.  That would be a huge advantage for the players, but then again, if they're fighting multiple baddies in one battle, they'll probably need it.

I also like having allowing the players to play multiple decks as they grow.  Adding a quasi-perma-death component could make this very interesting.  After their first hero dies, they choose a second one until the Shattered Timeline kicks in which allows the hero to save the first by traveling back in time.  Then once both heroes are alive again (and the player understands both decks), they could play both heroes at one time during battle.

Balance will always be an issue because the game isn't designed for this sort of thing, but one huge advantage I have is: none of these players have played Sentinels, and they're very forgiving when it comes to rules.  We really are just in it for fun, so we don't get a lot of complaints if rules need to be fudged on the fly.  On several occasions when we're getting lucky with the dice, the GM of the night has been known to add HP to the final boss just to extend the fight because it's more fun, and none of us mind.

Thanks for the thoughts.  If any others come to mind, let me know.

8

Is there any chance you could post these online? They sound awesome…

9

So here's a basic concept I came up with for a Sentinels RPG about two years ago. I've played through all my scenarios except the final one with Voss, but not extensively. If you want to take any of these ideas and modify them, you're free to do so.

Ideas for a Sentinels RPG.docx (16.7 KB)

10

Sure–keep in mind that a) I don't claim they're perfect, and b) not all of the current heroes are represented, since this was done a while back (one of the expansions came out while we were playing the campaign, so I had to shoehorn the new ones in).

Also, mid-campaign I realized that awarding cards to individual heroes after they had played x number of games was unrealistic, especially with permanent death within the campaign. It would have made it VERY hard on a new hero coming in later on. So as of scenarios 1, 4 and 7 the heroes would get to pick their next card.

Of course, I didn't let the players read ahead on the cards to see what lay down certain paths. Because I'm a cruel bastard.

Formatting may be hinky since I created these in Open Office but have since gotten Microsoft Office.

Anyway, enjoy!

<file attached here>

Sentinels Skill Tree.pdf (154 KB)

11

Personally I have run a one-shot session in the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying system.

In it the heroes get plotpoints which I gave as cards, in addition I gave them the decks for inspiration.

The inspiration because attacks and moves are described by the players and very cinematic, where a move is similar to a panel from a comic.