When Christopher Badell of Greater Than Games met us at Gen Con 2014 to discuss turning the hit superhero card game Sentinels of the Multiverse into a tabletop roleplaying game, we all agreed it was a perfect candidate for adaptation. Through its classic comic book themes, the game presents a rich, engaging world of heroes and villains.

The game’s comic book aesthetics present in the instruction booklets, cards, and especially the sometimes on-the-nose catchphrases found on most cards contribute to its pervasive sense of immersion. The heroes and villains, while unique to the Sentinel Comics universe created by Christopher Badell and Adam Rebottaro, are drawn from familiar archetypes. The numerous choices of environments you can pick from when setting up a game also create vivid backdrops for the narrative that unfolds during play.

Needless to say, we were excited to tackle this project and make it into a tabletop RPG that delivered an immersive experience and gave players a choice: play cherished heroes or create all-new characters that feel like they were taken from the pages of Sentinel Comics.

Of course, it helped a lot that we were all big fans of the card game.

~ A Sea of Superpowered RPGs ~

The first task was to choose the type of play we wanted the game to deliver. There are several excellent superhero roleplaying games out there, from classics like Champions to the highly popular, d20-based Mutants & Masterminds. As designers who worked on games like Smallville and Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, we decided to focus on description-based question/answer mechanics that capture the “frame-by-frame” sense of action seen in comic books. We wanted simple, fast-paced resolutions rules based on satisfying, easy-to-learn dice rolls.

Games like Fate, Cortex Plus (including Smallville, Leverage, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, and Firefly), 13^th Age, and Apocalypse World acted as our inspirations to create a first playable prototype. Before tackling character generation and action resolution rules, we deconstructed the card game into various iconic elements. We believed these were so unique to the popularity of the setting that we had to adapt them.

The most obvious aspect was how enjoyable it was to create a near endless number of scenarios by picking 3-5 heroes, one environment, and one (or more) villains. This modularity needed to be part of the game and shaped our design choices. The players take the roles of heroes, the GM takes the role of one (or more) villains, and the environment can throw twists into anyone’s plans.

That settled, we wanted each hero to have access to abilities that fit both their archetypes and their decks from the original game. Early on we agreed to stay away from a card-based concept, to make sure each game in the Sentinel Comics lineup stayed distinct while still presenting the same iconic characters. Each hero has flavorful signature moves that could be adapted. We wanted players to be able to recreate those distinctive moves from the card game, but not just be able to repeatedly use the same exact move each time, since that doesn’t feel like a comic book OR the card game, and certainly doesn’t lead to good gameplay. That led us to divide a hero’s status into four zones, representing increasing levels of danger and injury: Green, Yellow, Red, and Out, or GYRO. (Without even realizing it, we had made a horrible pun in the GYRO System.)

~ Not a Sandwich RPG ~

The GYRO scale fixed a lot of early issues we had. We mapped each hero’s abilities to specific colors on their character sheets. Thus, as things become dire, heroes get access to their more powerful abilities. Just as Legacy wouldn’t use his most powerful moves against some mundane bank robbers, so, too, would the heroes of the Sentinel Comics RPG gain more access to their abilities as the scene becomes more serious.

A variation of the GYRO track was also applied to villains, reminiscent of the villains’ “flip” card mechanic in the original game. A similar approach was taken to the environment, giving all the different elements in the RPG a unified track.

Even before we settled on the GYRO system, we decided to go with a simple dice pool approach for action resolution, picking dice from three categories to make a “pool” and roll them to find what happens. It was essential to keep the number of dice to a minimum and limit math tricks to ensure the game’s fast pace and ease of use. In the Sentinel Comics RPG, action rolls are always three dice — never more, never less — and the result of the action comes from a combination of those dice rolled. The choice of each die corresponds to what the hero tries to achieve based on their powers, their qualities (a combination of trained skills and knowledge from their background), and how well the hero responds to a stressful situation.

By default, the outcome of players rolling three dice is derived from the value of the die that rolled the middle value. So, if the results were 4, 7, 9, the outcome is 7. Beyond that, the heroes’ color-coded abilities allow players to alter their dice pools, providing re-rolls, picking the higher result instead of the middle one, or combining some number of the dice to do multiple actions as part of the same roll.

In parallel to these choices, we needed to come up with a task resolution system that met what you’d expect super heroes to do in an action-focused game. We wanted to give players a genuine comic book feeling while remaining true to our desire for ease of use and speed of execution. We took inspiration from games with a similar feeling, especially Evil Hat Productions’ Fate, to settle on a limited number of basic action types: Attack (deal damage), Overcome (solve a challenge), Boost (aid an Ally), Hinder (penalize an Enemy), and Defend (protect someone).

~ Warriors of the Mystic Realms ~

We tested a very early version at the Metatopia playtesting convention in the fall of 2015 under the fake name of “Warriors of the Mystic Realms” and got confirmation that the concepts were solid. When we reskinned the prototype back to fit Sentinel Comics, playtesters agreed the game had a strong thematic link to the card game.

We spent the next year growing these basic rules into a complete roleplaying package. One of the design challenges we wanted to solve was mixing opportunities for inter-character drama, consequences for failures, exploiting heroic flaws, and other such player-centric narratives. We didn’t want to make separate resolution rules for them, nor detract from the simple five basic actions system.

In order to provide players with guidelines about what drives superheroes, we gave each of them “principles”. Some heroes are driven by principles of justice, secrecy, speed, etc. These principles provide simple, roleplaying cues and questions that players can call upon to guide their choices if they so choose.

We are fans of “failing forward” in RPGs: the idea that every dice roll, even those that aren't successful, moves the story forward. We wanted the game to assume heroes would mostly come out on top, while asking the question “but at what cost?” To ensure this we introduced twists to the game: minor and major mishaps that allow a hero to salvage a bad situation and, at the same time, send the story in unexpected directions. Each heroic principle comes with suggested twists to choose from when the situation calls for it. They introduce drama and complications to the story, like alienating a teammate, putting a civilian in danger, or having a science-based gadget fail (explosively!) at the wrong moment.

Further playtesting — with our own groups and with others at conventions — proved the game delivered the play experience we were originally aiming at. It was fast, dynamic, and challenging. More importantly, it was a lot of fun to both run and play. The feedback we got from demos at game conventions was consistently positive. We were happily surprised to see all kinds of players, from those with no roleplaying experience to experienced pros, embrace the game in mere minutes and take on the role of their favorite Sentinel Comics hero.

~ Collecting the Trade Paperback ~

This last year has been spent fine tuning the game’s engine and creating the last missing pieces. This included making the final versions of the Freedom Five (and their former intern, Unity) that will be starring in the upcoming Starter Kit, as well as creating the six individual adventures (which we call “Issues” for comic book reasons), working hand-in-hand with writer Christopher Badell to tell a complete story of what happened after the events of the Sentinels of the Multiverse Card Game and its ‘OblivAeon’ event, and sets up for the future of Sentinel Comics.

While creating these pieces of the Starter Kit, we also worked on elements that are destined for the full core rulebook of the Sentinel Comics Roleplaying Game to make sure that the Starter Kit lines up with the final game. This included designing guidelines for how an issue is constructed, as well as making sure that the system for creating your own character can also be used to make any of the Freedom Five as we’ve presented them. That way, in the final game, you’ll be able to make your own hero or play any of the game’s iconic existing heroes, and have them fight, side-by-side, without either of them feeling out of place.

~ The Future of Sentinel Comics ~

Throughout the entire process, we’ve worked closely with Christopher, Adam, Paul, and the rest of the GTG staff to make sure the Sentinel Comics Roleplaying Game is the next step in Sentinel Comics games. If you’re a fan of the existing Sentinel Comics storyline, you get to see what happens next to your favorite heroes (and villains, and those who have fought on both sides). Or if you just want to tell your own stories with heroes that would be right at home in the Sentinel Comics universe, GMs can do that as well.

The Starter Kit is designed to be your first introductory experience for players of all kinds: those who have played Sentinels of the Multiverse, those who haven’t, those who have played plenty of RPGs, those who have never played one before but always wanted to check it out, and any combination. The Starter Kit teaches the players how to play heroes by taking on the role of one of six iconic heroes from the pages of Sentinel Comics, as well as teaching a GM (be they new or experienced) how to run the game. The Starter Kit provides six pre-written issues that teach the game while playing and advancing the story.

By the time you finish the Starter Kit, everyone is ready to play the Sentinel Comics Roleplaying Game when it’s released. Your players may choose to start up a whole new super team consisting of heroes they create, or play as an existing Sentinel Comics character, such as the heroes they played with the Starter Kit. Your group can even continue right where they left off from the Starter Kit issues, following up on any dangling plot threads.

The Sentinel Comics Roleplaying Game takes all the characters and settings you love from the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game and other Sentinel Comics products and puts you right in the middle of it. Play your favorite heroes against sinister robots, mad scientist royalty, and strange forces from beyond time and space. No matter your status, use your powers and qualities to defend freedom throughout the Sentinel Comics, and save the day again.