Friday didn’t happen (for me - I slept through it due to lack of sleep over the last two days), and Sunday Mechatron canceled for real-life reasons. But that left Henshin, the sci-fi Fate game, and Sentinels Comics.

On Monday’s Henshin, we finally got to throw down with the main bad guy! We stole the Phoenix Zord from him by literally plucking Phoenix feathers while keeping him distracted, using our Ranger theme to the utmost in doing so.

Henshin is one of those games where advancement doesn’t feel like it matters too much. The one thing you get is slightly more starting tokens over time, which just lets you get into bigger fights faster (where you spend tokens). As a game that fills a specific niche, it attracts players who are interested in that niche, and we have a whole group of such people, so everyone’s on the same page. It’s just very satisfying to play as a system, and this particular group makes it even better.

I finally got things together to run Tuesday. The situation: 25,000 years in the future, two exploration teams have found each other. Now they have to think about what to do with their future knowledge. Go back and try to influence history - and risk losing access to the time travel dingus that gave them that knowledge - or let history play itself out. This scenario is inspired by the parable of the old man who lost his horse, where a series of interwoven good and bad incidents illustrate how it’s hard to say whether a given future is “better” or “worse”.

On Thursday, we did a session zero to build characters for more Sentinels Comics games. I’m finally playing Gogo - a high school food-delivery driver who drank a Super-Soldier serum left behind by a villain, and can now transform into a human-galago hybrid with incredible senses, dexterity, and leaping. I had some alternatives, but I’ve seen how most of them play already. We’re out next Thursday, but will play Thursday after that.

It’s interesting to contrast SCRPG and the game I’m designing, Spiral Heroes. SCRPG comes with a built-in clock for the scenario: once enough rounds pass, the villain wins (whatever that means). Likewise, a Spiral Heroes crisis can end when enough Drives are resolved.

SCRPG asks the GM to do the creative work of writing stakes and villains and so on, whereas players collectively create the scenario in Spiral Heroes. I’m curious how the Thursday group would enjoy trying it.