The power of twists

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
1

I've finished reading the introductory rulebook, and I'm not clear on how potent twists are supposed to be.  The "gameplay example" on page 2 has a minor twist dealing Min damage to the user, but the list of examples suggests Max die instead, which is a huge difference!  And the environment example on page 17 adds a number of minions equal to a Mid roll, which can be a pretty big problem.

I was also confused about the order of actions for the environment turn.  Do you roll the dice first and then choose a twist, like the general rules section, or choose a twist and then roll, like the example suggests?

Also, looking at the Overcome results table, you need an 8 to completely succeed, which seems like it would happen only very rarely--even if you managed to get d12s for all three dice, that's a less than 50/50 chance.  Do twists basically always happen when someone takes an Overcome, unless they have a Boost?  For some of these minor twist examples, that seems severe.

2

Minor Twist can be anything that affects the moment, the most it can do is affect the scene or shortly after (Cleaning up/paying for property damage, having a power weaken, Giving a hinderance etc) The more you play, the more examples you will see. I do agree that a list of hinder and boost would help with the first few games.

Major cost are a big deal, they affect the character, the world in a big way or add huge danger to the plot. (The villain get something they were looking for, destroying a major landmark, having popular image turn on the heroes.etc)

Adding many minions can be a problem but a player might have an area of affect ability or can take a risky action to attack more than 1. The player will have to be creative to solve these issues.

There is quite a bit of overcoming with a minor cost in the game true, but one can use the 2 green principles abilities to get max die on overcomes. In one of Bunkers modes(Tactical), he gets to roll max+min so it not that grim. If something is very important every hero can boost the players who will make the roll to greatly improve chances.

AS for the environment, I do it in the order that I remember each time. . . so maybe we will get a real answer.

3

Several heroes have ways of using Max dice on overcomes by using principles. The times I've run this, minor twists do come up frequently, and that's how bankers get frozen. Don't be afraid of minor twists, and encourage players to think about how their action they were attempting went a little awry. Bunker taking a risky action to shoot multiple enemies with the riot cannon? Jam it open so it keeps firing, possibly hitting a building, civilian or ally! Legacy attempting to herd civilians away from a construction site? Maybe he's overeager and forgets he was just holding up an I-beam that then bonks him for irreducible min damage! Tachyon trying to do some calculations for a new invention? How much of the refugee's food stores did she absentmidedly eat while pondering design specs?

My personal favorite was Unity's bot trying to overcome to heal dying civilians and putting them in a coma. Out of danger? Sure! A new and interesting problem? Most definitely...

I will say the catch for Major Twists is that they might likely affect the rest of the story arc, through multiple issues, regardless of if they are "fixed"; they are big deals that the heroes chose to make happen(because 1-3 allows failure instead of the succes with major twist), and that's not a small thing. Minor twists might be able to be fixed and solved within the next round or two, possibly preventing any horrific PR or literal fallout from coming back to haunt heroes in the future.

4

> I've finished reading the introductory rulebook, and I'm not clear on how potent twists are supposed to be.  The "gameplay example" on page 2 has a minor twist dealing Min damage to the user, but the list of examples suggests Max die instead, which is a huge difference!

Yeah, one of those snuck through from a prior version, which will be fixed in the core book. The max die is right. (Keep in mind a few things: 1. you'll most likely get a minor twist from rolling poorly, so it's not as likely to be a big amount of damage, and 2. it's the most boring of the twist options, so it shouldn't be a go to anyway.) 

> And the environment example on page 17 adds a number of minions equal to a Mid roll, which can be a pretty big problem.

That one is not a generic example twist, it's one specific to that environment. Environments are much more likely to spew out minions.

> I was also confused about the order of actions for the environment turn.  Do you roll the dice first and then choose a twist, like the general rules section, or choose a twist and then roll, like the example suggests?

Choose a twist and then roll. Environments operate on their own kinds of rules and are almost characters in their own right.

> Also, looking at the Overcome results table, you need an 8 to completely succeed, which seems like it would happen only very rarely--even if you managed to get d12s for all three dice, that's a less than 50/50 chance.  Do twists basically always happen when someone takes an Overcome, unless they have a Boost?  For some of these minor twist examples, that seems severe.

Generally, it's built so that heroes want to play to their principles, which will give them a Max die Overcome ability. So if you do that, plus an area where your hero is specialized (i.e. have a high die) you're much more likely to fall between minor twist and complete success, with the best results happening when you use teamwork to make boosts and such. 

5

Thanks for the clarifications, Dave!  That helps a lot, although minor twists still seem really strong.  For instance, taking Max die damage in exchange for dealing Min die damage as part of an Overcome, or granting a Min boost to an ally in exchange for taking a Max+Min hinder yourself, or striking an additional enemy in exchange for adding a Mid die minion all seem like they'd be really poor choices nearly every time.  (That last is a bad example, since it's basically using the twist to undo the success, but all twists should be roughly equivalent in potency.)

Each hero only has two principles, though.  This system seems to make it so that you almost never want to Overcome unless you can pigeonhole the action into one of those principles.  For instance, if Unity needs to do something that isn't a technological problem (and it's worth noting that the principle description says that the problem has to be technological, not the solution) and has nothing to do with the morale of her allies, she's probably better off not even trying.  And her Powers are so focused (Electricity, Inventions, Metal, and Robotics have a lot of overlap) that she's likely to be rolling very small dice, especially when things are really desperate (although she can probably manage at least a d8 for Insight if not a d10 for Creativity in that case).

6

Most often you're answering the minor twist questions with your principles, and not selecting from that list. It's just a list of default examples if nothing else comes to mind, so I wouldn't take it as a strict 1:1 with risky actions (which seems to be most of your examples.) The GM can calibrate based on what's happening. At the same time, testing shown that if it was, say, Min die damage every time, you'd be happy to take 1 damage nearly always to do extra on each of your actions. Max die pushes it more towards being a decision (and again, taking damage is not the most common one.)

Each hero only has two principles, though.  This system seems to make it so that you almost never want to Overcome unless you can pigeonhole the action into one of those principles.  For instance, if Unity needs to do something that isn't a technological problem (and it's worth noting that the principle description says that the problem has to be technological, not the solution ) and has nothing to do with the morale of her allies, she's probably better off not even trying.  And her Powers are so focused (Electricity, Inventions, Metal, and Robotics have a lot of overlap) that she's likely to be rolling very small dice, especially when things are really desperate (although she can probably manage at least a d8 for Insight if not a d10 for Creativity in that case).

Sometimes scenes don't give you the option of "not bothering", but by and large, you want Unity to handle the tech work, Wraith to handle the detective work, Legacy to save the people, and so on, whereas there's more likely to be some kind of consequence if you're out of your element, but it still trends towards being a minor twist.

Also, you want to reward player creativity. While the principle says Unity is dealing with a technological problem, if Unity comes up with a technological solution to a non-technological problem, the GM is absolutely encouraged to allow it, unless it's really silly ("I make an automatic talking robot to deal with the mayor for me.")

7

I used risky actions as an example because that was the easiest way to demonstrate a cost/benefit disparity.

Speaking of that Legacy vs. the T-Rex example, wouldn't the Principle of the Hero apply pretty clearly in that situation?  In which case he'd have had an 8 and succeeded outright?

8

@MindWanderer: I think the rationale in that scenario was that Legacy was leading the situation, having the police officers do stuff for him while he distracted the T-Rex so they could do their job.

9

But… That's exactly what Unity would do! ( :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )