Super Ultra Mega Twists

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
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So, this is an idea that I’ve been playing around with for the last couple of days. It’s genesis was essentially the question, “What if there were twists that were of a greater magnitude than even Major Twists?”

Basically, what I have in mind is a twist that would severely handicap a hero for quite some time — i.e. a whole Collection — in exchange for a very powerful but temporary effect.

Narratively, it represents a Hero pushing the limits and performing an extreme feat of power, but burning themself out in the process.

Here are a couple of examples of said long-term handicaps. They would last around six issues. The GM and player could, of course, adjust that number up or down a smidge to fit the story.

Handicaps

Burnt Out: You completely lose access to one of your Powers or Qualities.

Weakened: Reduce several of your Powers and/or Qualities by one die size.

Demoralized: Reduce all of your Status Dice by one die size.

Wounded: On each of your turns in combat, take irreducible damage equal to your Min die.

Here are some examples of beneficial effects that a hero could use in exchange for taking one of the above handicaps. They all take the form of Abilities that the Hero temporarily gains. They would last until the end of the current scene.

Benefits

Paragon Action (A): Take [Basic Action or Recover] and use your Max+Mid+Min dice.

Mass Effect (A): Take [Basic Action or Recover], targeting any number of targets in the scene. Use your Max die.

Permanent Modification (A): [Boost or Hinder] using your Max die. That mod is exclusive and permanent; it remains in play for the remainder of the scene and cannot be removed in any way.

Deus ex Machina (I): Gain a :d10: lieutenant. Select two of the Abilities on page #88 of the Core Rulebook. The lieutenant gains those Abilities. It acts at the start of your turn.

Create Swarm (A): Create a number of :d8: minions equal to your Max die.

Stabilize (A): Do not advance the scene tracker this round. Take :d6: irreducible damage.

Empowered (I): Increase all of your [Power or Quality] dice by one size.

Newfound Ability (I): Gain a new :d12: Power or Quality.

Annihilate (A): Destroy one minion or lieutenant of any die size.

Reality Control (A): On the environment’s next turn, you may choose what twist it activates and who it targets with that twist.

Double-Time (R): On your turn, you may take one additional action of any sort.

Crowd Control (A): Gain control of a number of minions in the scene equal to your Mid die.

Neutralize (A): One Villain loses access to one of their Powers or Qualities of your choice until the end of the scene. You may only use this Ability once per target.

Epitome of Perfection (R): Your may reroll any number of dice in your dice pool.

Extreme Effort (A): Boost yourself. When you use that bonus, maximize all dice used in that action.

Potent Specialty (I): Whenever you take an Action involving [Basic Action], gain a +3 bonus to that Action.

Battle Rage (I): You act as being in the Red zone for purpose of Status dice and Abilities.

Reactive Action (R): Whenever you or a nearby ally is Attacked or Hindered, you may take an Action, provided that it targets the Attacker or Hinderer.

Instantaneous Transformation (I): You may switch between available form or modes for free at any time.

Shared Minds (R): At the start of your turn, you and one nearby allied Hero may transfer any number of Powers, Qualities, and/or Abilities between yourselves.

Absorbed Essence (I): Whenever you destroy a minion or lieutenant, take its die. When you take an action, you may add any number of taken dice to the result.

Of course, I have absolutely no clue how balanced any of these options are. It is incredibly likely that several of them are game-breaking one way or another.

I just did all this as a thought-experiment — I don’t actually intend to use it in any games anytime soon.

Nonetheless, what are y’all thoughts on this? How absurdly unbalanced actually is it?

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Man, this is a super interesting topic. It’s a shame that my general lack of interest in the RPG is further compounded by my total inexperience, making my uninformed opinion even more useless in this situation than usual. But…yeah, good luck with your project that I’m completely incapable of assisting you with or even properly appreciating!

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Yeah, ditto to the lack of RPG mechanics knowledge but it does sound super cool. Would this be the narrative equivalent of say, Haunted Fanatic, Fey-Touched Setback, or Regression Darted Nightmist? Probably not Dark Watch Mr. Fixer cause he was kinda dead and that went on for a while, up to nearly the end of the Multiverse, and took a Scion/former Singular Entity to fix.

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I really really like the concept of this! I actually recall an RPG podcast that used Masks, which put one of their characters through a similar sort of story. In that case, they actually made a custom playbook (which is to say, character class) and used that to define the character’s new abilities and story beats.

In this case…while I like the idea, and a lot of those major powers seem very cool, I don’t know if this would necessarily have enough of an advantage over simply re-building the character to work in the new way, and then at the end of the arc, re-working them a second time to revert (some of?) the changes.
I guess the question is, what sort of game feeling do you want to convey, that isn’t covered by the current rules?

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Super intriguing concept.

I do feel like this is the kind of thing you’d want to not let more than one player have at a time. (And I don’t think I’d let ‘wounded’ last more than an issue, myself.) But it would add a lot of tension to an arc if the team knew they had to protect one of their members because they wouldn’t be able to fend for themselves quite as well as they normally could.

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Well that’s certainly a different attitude than you get with like a D&D group, where if one player isn’t contributing up to full snuff, the party tends to get annoyed with them for not pulling their weight, while they’re fighting against superior opponents for survival or to win the spoils of war.

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I’m not sure how I feel about this idea. Mechanically there’s definitely a lot of variation between how impactful different choices are, some of the bennies are pretty much win buttons for an action scene and some of the hindrances are going to be much worse than others. But the concept of a long-term drawback after making a major effort or experiencing a crushing defeat is very genre-appropriate, happens in books pretty often. I do wonder if it isn’t better reflected by a full retcon or altering an ability to give it more negatives rather than a situational drawback, though.

Conflicted internally. Almost feels like you could just offer the player an opportunity to automatically “win” a scene by taking a long-term drawback of some kind, or maybe do the flipside and tempt them with big lasting benefit in exchange for the villain accomplishing their current goals.

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Why that one in particular? It’s probably one of the least meaningful hindrances unless you have commonly-used abilities that key off the Min die. I mean yeah, if a fight goes long or you just roll incredibly well it could hurt you pretty bad and wind up in a KO, but for scenes that resolve in five-six rounds I’d expect it to deal maybe 10-15 damage on average. That might result in you going out when added to regular damage, but the game doesn’t punish a KO like most RPGs do.

Damage is even less if your dice pools frequently include a d6 - and if you really wanted to game the hindrance you could deliberately use a quality (or maybe even a power if your GM is generous) you don’t have for your action, forcing a d4 into your pool. If your abilities aren’t looking at the Min that doesn’t really hurt the end results all that much most of the time.

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probably depends on how your players react to going Out :B

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Hmmm. I take it yours have some issue with getting KOd at all? That’s just an alien mindset for me, whether I’m playing or running PCs go out pretty regularly. It can be a bit of a strain on healing for the next action scene (top of Red is pretty precarious unless you have some serious healing available, ie Major Regen) so you often need help from another PC to double-heal, but other than that the real impact is minimal IME. This game is really forgiving about healing and death is entirely up to the player.

TPKOs are more impactful but rarer, and usually just lead to a scene where the players wake up in a deathtrap and/or facing a villainous monolog that leads the story forward. It’s not like this is D&D where everyone’s headed back to character generation after a real loss - unless everyone decides they want to.

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Not speaking from experience, mind, just sayin’. :B

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Yes, I’d say that it is. Although she might have also swapped one of her existing Powers for Intangibility.

No, I don’t think so, as the Fey Boon was a more long-term benefit. In the RPG, I’d probably just replace some of Setback’s Abilities to emphasize control over his powers rather than the random luck he usually has.

No, because she didn’t get any real benefit out of that experience. That would be, in my opinion, more like the Setback one instead; NightMist would probably go back and build her character anew. She might change her Power Source from Cursed to Training, for instance.

Correct. This one is also similar to NightMist’s and Setback’s.

The point of these rules is not to make a character work “in a new way,” but rather to simply adjust a Hero’s power level temporarily — up a lot for a single scene, then down a little for a whole Collection. It’s not about making a Hero different.

Definitely. I’d want to make it look risky enough that no player group would even consider that.

I know. I’m fully aware that most of the options are definitely not balanced against each-other. The point of this was not so much to make a balanced system, but to just get this concept out there.

My thoughts exactly. I was in fact inspired to do this project by reading such an instance in a comic.

That would work just fine for a scenario in which a Hero is temporarily weakened, but it lacks the part where the Hero gets a major boost during an Action Scene.

I do have another idea that is somewhat related to this one that non-RPGers may be interested in.

Essentially, the idea is importing Twists and Risky Actions from the RPG into the SotM card game.

In other words, on each Hero’s turn, that Hero may take a Twist. A Twist is some negative effect, but in exchange the Hero gets some positive benefit. Twist effects could include . . .

  • Dealing yourself damage
  • Discarding or Destroying your own card(s)
  • Playing Villain or Environment card(s)
  • Reducing the next damage you deal or increasing the next damage dealt to you

While the benefits received in exchange from taking a Twist might include . . .

  • Playing or Drawing extra card(s)
  • Using additional Powers
  • Regaining hp
  • Increasing the next damage you deal

Again, like the RPG idea above, this proposal is likely very unbalanced.

Both the rules expressed in my original post and in this one are, again, highly experimental. I have zero intention to actually use any of them in any games I play, owing to their obvious unbalance. I simply posted them because I wanted to get them out of my head and shared with everyone. And now they are.

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