Trying to grok character creation and wrapping my head around the rules has delayed me running this intriguing game for friends. Looking forward to your character creation video.
Notes after watching all of DM Tales videos: Include ribbons, lots of ribbons, ALL the ribbons. ~queue saying: You get a ribbon YOU get a ribbon, YOU ALL GET RIBBONS!!!~ Seems like a fun system, interesting ways to go about it, and makes sense for the theme of super heroes!
I'm a fan of the card game (Actually, strongly recommend getting the video game version to overcome the issue of tracking modifiers, though it's a little small on a phone screen. Tablet or computer works great.) and was really looking forward to the rpg. I got the pre-release starter adventure ages ago and ran it for my friends. I loved it, but my friends who find FATE or PbtA mechanically samey and boring weren't big fans. Also (this is an issue for lots of supers games), progression seemed strange, and then it took a long time for the actual game to come out after that preview was released. It kind of fell to the wayside, but I'd like to try it again.
@@DMTalesTTRPG I'm not a card game person either, neither collectible MtG-style or Dominion/Ascension-style deck builders, but SotM had a couple factors that leaned toward my tastes. There are expansions, but it's not collectible: if you buy something, you have all the cards needed to play the particular characters in that set. It's cooperative like a ttrpg, but the villains and battlegrounds each have decks of cards whose behaviors are baked in, so no GM. The decks are each very flavorful and the play styles are very different and thematic. And the art was all pretty high quality, the cards do a lot to imply the stories of the comic issues depicted. Then, the expansions started to advance the meta story. The whole thing is just a great package. The only annoyance to me was the cardboard tokens used to track modifiers and HP, and the video game took those aspects off the table, so to speak. The video game handles expansions with "season passes," which sounds like an annoying subscription model but is actually just a bundle deal. The video game is ultimately a lot more cost effective, but less friendly for playing with friends unless you're all playing online. Oof, sorry for rambling. But I really like the game!
I also enjoyed reading this one. I look forward to playing it in the future. Such a unique system. The one thing that has held me back is I can run Claim the Sky with 1/2 the amount of work.
I ran a lunch session of Cypher System with Super Heroes last week and…it’s kind of true. Not so much prep as managing encounters. Running villains I make up on the spot in Cypher System is EASY, I can flavor them as I go and just take notes. In SCRPG I’d need their 2 page sheet, which is…a lot. But minions and lieutenants work even better than a “minor” villain in Cypher System I…think. But I shall find out! Thanks for watching and for the comment, I really appreciate it!
Good solid review, well done. One thing about initiative - the GM only decides who goes first at the start of the scene, not each round. Whoever goes last in a round (which could be the scene tracker/environment, ie the GM) gets to choose who goes first next round, but can't choose themselves. This makes taking that last turn really important, and it's one of the main reasons to hand initiative back and forth between PCs and the GM until you see an opening where taking a bunch of hero or villain turns back to back will be decisive - or more importantly, narratively interesting. One bit of advice the rules don't offer - as a GM, don't do things like taking a single minion's turn and then passing back to a hero just to manipulate the initiative exchange. You'll often have way more individual turns than the PCs do and really shouldn't take advantage of that. Instead, try to activate at least one "scene element" worth of stuff (eg a number of minions equal to the number of PCs, about half that many lieutenants, a single villain) before passing back. You can do more than that if you avoid focusing fire too much on a single hero, but doing less makes it nigh-impossible for the heroes to ever get that sweet end-of-round initiative spot where they can dictate the early part of next round - which is often a big heroic push to clean out all the minions, drop a weakened villain, etc.
@@DMTalesTTRPG Almost four years of pretty steady running and playing with multiple groups. Mostly one-shots and short arcs at first while we experimented with the systems and then a couple of longer campaigns. Kind of fell apart a little while back when we all realized the encounter design system was failing under the stress of the longer-running games where players were accumulating so many Collections it was hard to challenge them without some guidelines for "high level" play. Never did find a satisfactory homebrew fix. Most folks probably won't ever notice the problem, but if you're playing weekly a single year can easily earn 8 Collections at the recommended rate, and we were seeing the first signs of trouble around 12 or so. Game's still top-notch for supers roleplay with a strong narrative leaning, but stick to shorter campaigns or rotate/retire characters regularly would be my advice. Or just slow down Collection gain, but that risks it feeling static.
@@DMTalesTTRPG We tried it (and a bunch of other homebrew things) but it's not really helpful, just a patch to let them write adventures that have de facto "level limits" like a D&D modules. Using collection caps in a regular campaign quickly feels like (to draw another D&D parallel) telling your players they have to use the (say) 3rd level versions of their 10th level characters. What's the point in having all those collections if you can only use a few of them? We didn't mind it so much for doing things like a flashback arc to earlier points in a character's history, and it could be useful to represent the PCs being partially de-powered without having to change anything else on your character sheet, but it's not a fix for proper encounter power scaling. GTG's support for this game has honestly not been great. Still no FAQ after all these years, what few rules questions they've answered are scattered around a handful of podcast episodes and sometimes contradictory to boot, and some stuff that's been known to need fixing since playtest has never been addressed, eg the Wild Card's Break the 4th ability that effectively lets you keep re-using the same collection once per turn ad infinitum.
Thanks for the overview Wes! Hope you get to run it very soon, and be VERY curious to hear how you think it ran in the wild. Looking forward to your FASERIP review as well. Supers are maybe the toughest genre to emulate in RPG form.
How do you deal with social interactions? And what about drawbacks such as Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite? Or Spiderman's relation to May? Definitely looks interesting...got it for a while, never got to actually play it. Oh and what VTT setting would you recommend?
Social interactions can be much the same as action, though the book just recommends role playing it out and doing what makes sense. If memory serves there are ways to trigger weaknesses, I’ll go back and look. But it could be as simple as taking a major twist. If the narrative warrants it perhaps an adversary has something that can weaken a specific character for the issue. It has a defunct foundry system for it, but really this is all theater of the mind. So any type of shared board where you can add index cards for people to see would work fine. And just roll real dice.
Few of the endless possibilities this game allows (which is one of the many reasons I love it) I believe you can just add in a persistent and exclusive penalty so long as the negative effect item/aura/macguffic is nearby or affecting the player character. You can also make your character in a way that they are required to activate/do something to gain their hero identity (Hulk, power rangers, bask in sunlight, etc) and that process also allows a way for a hero player to lose access to their powers without access to / accomplish the action to activate said things. I find this game super adaptable and simple enough to accomplish after reading and understanding the rules. Wishing you well!
@@DMTalesTTRPG Yeah, most of the things that Champions or M&M would have as weaknesses, complications, DNPCs, pursuing nemeses, etc. are abstracted here into possible twists, major or minor. They come into play mostly through Overcomes and desperate Hit The Deck reactions, so you want to include challenges in your actions scenes and environments that will make those Overcomes happen. Free-standing challenges (ones not created by the environment) count as scene elements for your encounter "budget" too, so they reduce the amount of direct combat pressure on the heroes - and the number of villains the GM has to deal with. Challenges are the GM's friend, and twists make for good narrative surprises.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
Trying to grok character creation and wrapping my head around the rules has delayed me running this intriguing game for friends. Looking forward to your character creation video.
Cool. I will get to it soon!
Notes after watching all of DM Tales videos: Include ribbons, lots of ribbons, ALL the ribbons. ~queue saying: You get a ribbon YOU get a ribbon, YOU ALL GET RIBBONS!!!~
Seems like a fun system, interesting ways to go about it, and makes sense for the theme of super heroes!
And flat paper, dang it! Gives it to me, precious!
I'm a fan of the card game (Actually, strongly recommend getting the video game version to overcome the issue of tracking modifiers, though it's a little small on a phone screen. Tablet or computer works great.) and was really looking forward to the rpg. I got the pre-release starter adventure ages ago and ran it for my friends. I loved it, but my friends who find FATE or PbtA mechanically samey and boring weren't big fans. Also (this is an issue for lots of supers games), progression seemed strange, and then it took a long time for the actual game to come out after that preview was released. It kind of fell to the wayside, but I'd like to try it again.
If folks like min/max style games with heavy tactics, this isn’t for them. I didn’t even know there was a video game!
I loved the card game. I was enjoying the computer version but I kept getting smacked by The Chairman.
@chrisdonovan8795 cool. I have never been in to card games but this one folks seem to really like!
@@DMTalesTTRPG I'm not a card game person either, neither collectible MtG-style or Dominion/Ascension-style deck builders, but SotM had a couple factors that leaned toward my tastes. There are expansions, but it's not collectible: if you buy something, you have all the cards needed to play the particular characters in that set. It's cooperative like a ttrpg, but the villains and battlegrounds each have decks of cards whose behaviors are baked in, so no GM. The decks are each very flavorful and the play styles are very different and thematic. And the art was all pretty high quality, the cards do a lot to imply the stories of the comic issues depicted. Then, the expansions started to advance the meta story. The whole thing is just a great package.
The only annoyance to me was the cardboard tokens used to track modifiers and HP, and the video game took those aspects off the table, so to speak. The video game handles expansions with "season passes," which sounds like an annoying subscription model but is actually just a bundle deal. The video game is ultimately a lot more cost effective, but less friendly for playing with friends unless you're all playing online.
Oof, sorry for rambling. But I really like the game!
That’s awesome! Perhaps I shall check out the video game! It would be fun to have at Ecclesicon in March, too..
I also enjoyed reading this one. I look forward to playing it in the future. Such a unique system. The one thing that has held me back is I can run Claim the Sky with 1/2 the amount of work.
I ran a lunch session of Cypher System with Super Heroes last week and…it’s kind of true. Not so much prep as managing encounters. Running villains I make up on the spot in Cypher System is EASY, I can flavor them as I go and just take notes. In SCRPG I’d need their 2 page sheet, which is…a lot.
But minions and lieutenants work even better than a “minor” villain in Cypher System I…think. But I shall find out! Thanks for watching and for the comment, I really appreciate it!
This sounds like fun.
It’s got me excited.
I have really been wanting to look into this game, to add to my supers rpg collection. Thank You for sharing this Wes. 😊
it was 10 bucks on Amazon today so….
@DMTalesTTRPG Ordered 😊
It’s a tough deal to pass up. I got it to give it as a present!
@@DMTalesTTRPG I picked up a spare myself. My physical copy is getting pretty worn after years of steady use.
@ so hard to pass up!
Good solid review, well done.
One thing about initiative - the GM only decides who goes first at the start of the scene, not each round. Whoever goes last in a round (which could be the scene tracker/environment, ie the GM) gets to choose who goes first next round, but can't choose themselves. This makes taking that last turn really important, and it's one of the main reasons to hand initiative back and forth between PCs and the GM until you see an opening where taking a bunch of hero or villain turns back to back will be decisive - or more importantly, narratively interesting.
One bit of advice the rules don't offer - as a GM, don't do things like taking a single minion's turn and then passing back to a hero just to manipulate the initiative exchange. You'll often have way more individual turns than the PCs do and really shouldn't take advantage of that. Instead, try to activate at least one "scene element" worth of stuff (eg a number of minions equal to the number of PCs, about half that many lieutenants, a single villain) before passing back. You can do more than that if you avoid focusing fire too much on a single hero, but doing less makes it nigh-impossible for the heroes to ever get that sweet end-of-round initiative spot where they can dictate the early part of next round - which is often a big heroic push to clean out all the minions, drop a weakened villain, etc.
Very good points! You’ve run this a bunch?
@@DMTalesTTRPG Almost four years of pretty steady running and playing with multiple groups. Mostly one-shots and short arcs at first while we experimented with the systems and then a couple of longer campaigns. Kind of fell apart a little while back when we all realized the encounter design system was failing under the stress of the longer-running games where players were accumulating so many Collections it was hard to challenge them without some guidelines for "high level" play. Never did find a satisfactory homebrew fix.
Most folks probably won't ever notice the problem, but if you're playing weekly a single year can easily earn 8 Collections at the recommended rate, and we were seeing the first signs of trouble around 12 or so. Game's still top-notch for supers roleplay with a strong narrative leaning, but stick to shorter campaigns or rotate/retire characters regularly would be my advice. Or just slow down Collection gain, but that risks it feeling static.
Yah, they do point out the collection problem in the book. Were players not in to limiting collections in each issue?
@@DMTalesTTRPG We tried it (and a bunch of other homebrew things) but it's not really helpful, just a patch to let them write adventures that have de facto "level limits" like a D&D modules. Using collection caps in a regular campaign quickly feels like (to draw another D&D parallel) telling your players they have to use the (say) 3rd level versions of their 10th level characters. What's the point in having all those collections if you can only use a few of them?
We didn't mind it so much for doing things like a flashback arc to earlier points in a character's history, and it could be useful to represent the PCs being partially de-powered without having to change anything else on your character sheet, but it's not a fix for proper encounter power scaling.
GTG's support for this game has honestly not been great. Still no FAQ after all these years, what few rules questions they've answered are scattered around a handful of podcast episodes and sometimes contradictory to boot, and some stuff that's been known to need fixing since playtest has never been addressed, eg the Wild Card's Break the 4th ability that effectively lets you keep re-using the same collection once per turn ad infinitum.
@richmcgee434 thanks for the feedback. I am a tad worried given the Amazon fire sales.
Thanks for the overview Wes! Hope you get to run it very soon, and be VERY curious to hear how you think it ran in the wild. Looking forward to your FASERIP review as well. Supers are maybe the toughest genre to emulate in RPG form.
Yah, this one has intrigued me. I may try to run it at Ecclesicon.
@@DMTalesTTRPG Give it a try earlier if you can.
Oh yah, I’m not gonna run a con game for a system I’ve never tried!!
@@DMTalesTTRPG Hope whenever you run it, a good time is had by all.
@sharpmountaingames9303 me too!
Looks interesting. Heroic is my go to superhero rpg.
I do not know that one!
How do you deal with social interactions? And what about drawbacks such as Superman's vulnerability to kryptonite? Or Spiderman's relation to May? Definitely looks interesting...got it for a while, never got to actually play it. Oh and what VTT setting would you recommend?
Social interactions can be much the same as action, though the book just recommends role playing it out and doing what makes sense. If memory serves there are ways to trigger weaknesses, I’ll go back and look. But it could be as simple as taking a major twist. If the narrative warrants it perhaps an adversary has something that can weaken a specific character for the issue.
It has a defunct foundry system for it, but really this is all theater of the mind. So any type of shared board where you can add index cards for people to see would work fine. And just roll real dice.
Few of the endless possibilities this game allows (which is one of the many reasons I love it) I believe you can just add in a persistent and exclusive penalty so long as the negative effect item/aura/macguffic is nearby or affecting the player character.
You can also make your character in a way that they are required to activate/do something to gain their hero identity (Hulk, power rangers, bask in sunlight, etc) and that process also allows a way for a hero player to lose access to their powers without access to / accomplish the action to activate said things.
I find this game super adaptable and simple enough to accomplish after reading and understanding the rules. Wishing you well!
@ yah, I didn’t even have time to go over secondary sheets!
@@DMTalesTTRPG Yeah, most of the things that Champions or M&M would have as weaknesses, complications, DNPCs, pursuing nemeses, etc. are abstracted here into possible twists, major or minor. They come into play mostly through Overcomes and desperate Hit The Deck reactions, so you want to include challenges in your actions scenes and environments that will make those Overcomes happen. Free-standing challenges (ones not created by the environment) count as scene elements for your encounter "budget" too, so they reduce the amount of direct combat pressure on the heroes - and the number of villains the GM has to deal with. Challenges are the GM's friend, and twists make for good narrative surprises.