Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Upon Further Reflection

So I was toying with the idea of a revised and updated version of Sentinels of Echo City. I could update the rules to align with some of the minor tweaks that I've made with Tales of the Splintered Realm. I could upgrade the layout and give the entire art an overhaul. I could really tighten up the presentation and the layout, cleaning up text and refining some of the rough edges out of it.

Then I read the first half of the book again. I'll finish reading it tomorrow.

But I love it. It's just a bit quirky. And free-wheeling. And just shy of polished. It's clean, and well-presented, and bursting at the seams with good ideas. I haven't actually sat down and READ the thing in two years, but I had to admit it. Despite the little grammatical things I now know how to clean up, and the breezy layout, it's a gem of a game.

It's not a perfect, tightly-edited product. It's a great, high-energy, burst of superhero love. It captures what I wanted it to capture, exactly the way I wanted to capture it. In some ways, it is lightning in a bottle. I could tighten it up and refine it, but that might just kill the thing I love most about it.

One of the things that separates the better creative people from others is their knowledge of when to stop work on something. Could it be cleaner? Sharper? More professional? Yes, yes, and yes.

But would it be BETTER? I don't think so. 

I accept that Sentinels of Echo City and Tales of the Splintered Realm, although sharing the same basic engine, are actually different games. The differences in the two books are surprisingly stark to my eyes. I love them both. Tales is going to college and will have health insurance. Sentinels is going to tour the country in his van for a bit. But they're both fantastic kids.
 
And I am going to do what I can to support them both on their journeys forward.

7 comments:

  1. Nothing really to add except that I’m pretty proud to have my name in SoEC for editing help. Thanks again for doing that!

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    1. I want to thank Dr Emu a very powerful spell caster who help me to bring my husband back to me, few month ago i have a serious problem with my husband, to the extend that he left the house, and he started dating another woman and he stayed with the woman, i tried all i can to bring him back, but all my effort was useless until the day my friend came to my house and i told her every thing that had happened between me and my husband, then she told me of a powerful spell caster who help her when she was in the same problem I then contact Dr Emu and told him every thing and he told me not to worry my self again that my husband will come back to me after he has cast a spell on him, i thought it was a joke, after he had finish casting the spell, he told me that he had just finish casting the spell, to my greatest surprise within 48 hours, my husband really came back begging me to forgive him, if you need his help you can contact him with via email: Emutemple@gmail.com or add him up on his whatsapp +2347012841542 is willing to help any body that need his help.

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  2. Howdy Michael!

    This announcement put a smile on my face! As a person who recently expressed my support for a revised version of Sentinels of Echo City, I'm just as happy to see this wonderful game remain in its current form. My initial query had less to do with a desire to see a revised version than with me wondering if I should brace for an upcoming change as I was on the verge of exploring the game more deeply than I'd been able to these last couple of years.

    I spent the last two days designing a SoEC character sheet for myself in InDesign (since I can't print anything at the current moment) and am now about to complete my third randomly generated character. It's been SO much fun!

    I think I'm going to spend a week or two generating a good number of these characters and then start sharing them online (both on RPG.net and Facebook). I need something to do during my quarantine, and I like the idea of doing my part to give the game more exposure.

    Anyway, thanks for posting on this.

    All the best,

    Aldo

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    1. I am glad you are having fun. I did see the character creation rules as something of a 'game within a game' unto themselves as I was writing it - making characters is fun for supers gaming, whereas it is sometimes just something you have to do to get playing in other settings.

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  3. Game within a game were the exact words running through my mind these past two days! As I said, I've made three characters. Character 1 started as an Outsider, but then rolled a natural 20 on the Surge table and died! He then became a Prodigy. Character 2 made it through okay. Character 3 started as an Altered Human, but then ALSO rolled a natural 20 on the Surge table and died! That attempt then turned into an Outsider Villain. I've decided to allow the dead characters to inform the universe that's developing as a consequence of the rolls. I figure that somebody captured on an Outsider character and experimented on them to the point that they died. They then took genetic material from that Outsider and used it in attempts to enhance an Altered Human type, who also died. I'm thinking my Outsider Villain (who is yet to be named) is responsible for the villainy I just described.

    The two NPC heroes I created are named Nightwatch and Cyberella. Both are high school teachers trying to protect their students from bad goings-on in their neighborhood. (This happened because I randomly rolled Profession: Education both. Actually, I rolled Profession: Education for all THREE characters, but I used the Trading Traits rule to remove it from the villain's sheet, as it didn't fit the concept that was evolving in my head.

    Anyway, the point is the character generation process is helping to write the campaign setting in interesting and unexpected ways.

    All the best,

    Aldo

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    1. That's my favorite thing about it - you end up with characters you would not have made otherwise, but if you are open-minded, you can probably find a way to make sense of what you roll.

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