Interest Check: Sentai & Sensibility (SWADE)

What if Jane Austen had written the Power Rangers?

What if Bridgerton had kaiju and mecha in it?


This game seeks to answer those burning questions and more.

Welcome to the World of Sentai & Sensibility, a game of romance, societal expectations, and giant robots, set in the British Regency That Never Was. It's the mashup you didn’t know you wanted! A fateful fusion of Tokusatsu goodness with Austeneque Regency romance that'll leave people wondering: Was this necessary?

Your sentai of Rangers are gentry struggling to balance etiquette, duties of social class, elaborate courtship rituals, and the conflicting desires of your own hearts with your responsibilities as transforming superheroes who pilot colossal machinae (clockwork mechanical vehicles), battling to protect England from monstrous threats. Combating alien terrors is hard, but not as hard as navigating polite society. These impertinent invaders never seem to take your social engagements into account before attacking!

The Regency Era is broadly defined as the time period between 1811 and 1820 when George, Prince of Wales, ruled as Regent due to his father's illness. Don't expect much more historical accuracy than that, however. This game will focus more on the tropes of Sentai shows and Jane Austen novels than anything as silly as "historical realism." Kill monsters, raise your station in society, Henshin into a suited hero, and maybe even find love. Defeating extraterrestrial conquerors is important, but so is arriving on time to Lord Ashworth's ball!

So if you've been craving a dollop of Pride & Prejudice with your Japanese Sentai roleplaying experience (and frankly, who hasn't?), or you've been wistfully yearning for a dash of Kamen Rider while viewing that episode of Bridgerton, then maybe this is the game for you!

This game will be an interesting exercise in that I'm going to attempt to write my posts in the Jane Austen literary style, and I encourage players to do the same with their characters. This is going to be a strange game, for sure, and I'm fully prepared to watch it crash and burn in glorious fashion.


System: Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Number of Players: Between four and five.

Posting Frequency: Thrice per week.

Game Duration: This is intended to be a short, experimental game. No longer than a few months in real time.

Mature Content: A little violence, but that's it.

Player Experience: Experience with Savage Worlds is useful, but not necessary. Those new to the system are welcomed. I care more about enthusiasm for the subject matter than rules familiarity.

Marginalized Groups: All are welcome to this game.

Resources: A copy of the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is required. I will provide any other needed resources.



The System

The original Sentai & Sensibility, created by 9th Level Games, uses their proprietary Polymorph ruleset. After trying this system several times, I came to the conclusion that I really don't like it. It's a bit too rules lite with certain things that I felt needed more rules, and weirdly complex with certain things that could've been more rules lite. Some of the character options don't really accomplish what they set out to do. For those reasons and others, I decided to switch to a different system. I used the setting to inspire my own version of the game, but instead powered by the newest edition of Savage Worlds.

I chose Savage Worlds for a few key reasons: I know the system very well. It's simple to convert material to Savage Worlds. It's fairly easy for new players to learn. It works well in the play-by-post medium.

I feel like I'm the wrong person for this game. I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of Power Rangers. I haven't read any Jane Austen, and I have only a passing familiarity with SWADE / Savage Worlds. And yet...

Sentai and Sensibility immediately caught my attention when I was looking at the Roll Big or Go Home Humble Bundle. I really liked G-Force / Battle of the Planets / Space Ninja Team Gatchaman as a kid. I have seen the Pride and Prejudice movie with Kiera Knightly twice and the BBC mini-series once. And my family owns the "Marrying Mr. Darcy" card game, which I have played several times.

Also, this just sounds ridiculously fun. So, yes. I'm interested.

the mashup we didn't know we needed. Mighty Morphin Bridgerton Rangers

Pilotting a 1800s clockwork mega robot between high tea and dinner? Yeah, count me in.

I don't know Savage Worlds rules and I have too many rule sets in my brain right now to try and speed read a new one, so I will not put my hat in the ring.

But I had to chime in and say what an absolutely awesome idea this is! I love it. I hope that you will make the adventure public so I can read it. I will subscribe.

I don't know Savage Worlds, but happy to get a copy and learn like other systems I've tried here so far. Jane Austen/Regency + Power Rangers, I absolutely would love to play! Posting frequency and attempting to write Jane Austen style sounds delightful!

I think it’s a good system that’s worth purchasing if you don’t own it. Even though this game is not going to run for very long, Savage Worlds games pop up fairly often on Gamers Plane. That means if you end up liking the system, you’ll have many other opportunities to use it.

Yep, I bought the game based entirely on the ridiculous concept. I just wish I liked the original system. I really tried to like it, but it just wasn’t working for me.

Seconding the opinion that SW is a great system that is well worth picking up! I've been playing for several years and absolutely love the system. It's very easy to pick up.

In a nutshell, under most circumstances, you need to roll a 4 or higher to succeed at whatever you are attempting. Each of your skills and attributes is a type of die (d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12). With every roll, you get a "wild die", a d6 and you take the higher result of the wild die or your regular die. If you to the maximum number possible on either die, that's an "Ace" and you roll again and add the rolls together. You do this as often as you roll the highest result, so it is possible to get a roll of 30 or more off a single d4!

This gives the game an edge of risk, because bad guys also can "Ace" against the players. Add to that the concept of "Bennies", special tokens that can be used to reroll dice (including damage rolls) and you have a helluva an exciting game!

I have only played in one Savage Worlds game, it was here on GP, it was us all playing Kaiju and us fighting Kaiju.

It didn't last long but it just felt great. Wouldn't mind testing it out here again.

Dang it, count me in. I just bought the PDF (It's only $9.99) and will read the sucker in the next couple of days. I just can't help myself with this concept. I haven't be able to stop thinking about it all day long. Truly awesome! You can't ever have too many roleplaying game rulebooks, right?

That sounds rad. Ironically, this time you’ll be piloting a mech to fight the kaiju.

Thanks! Welcome aboard, lol. Since we have several people new to the system, I’ll make sure to do an overview of the rules before we begin the game. I’ll also try to post a system cheat sheet.

Great! Looks like there’s enough interest. In that case, I’ll start putting a game together. Give me a few days and then I’ll send out invites.

Just wanted to state that I love this idea for a game! Very creative! Good luck with it.