Visible TK

[Klytus]

I know that basic telekinesis is visible, but in what WAY is it visible? I mean, does a colored beam of force emanate from the character to the target? Or is it simply obvious that the guy standing over there moving his hands is the one moving all the objects about?

[JmOz]

That depends on what the player and GM decide:

I have one character (California Dream) who has a purple type energy that strikes out

Another who's eyes glow

[Crimson Arrow]

Steve has confirmed that, as long as the source of the TK is visible, the precise special effect doesn't matter. Either example would be fine.

[McCoy]

My default is a visual distortion, like heat waves, between the character and the object being manipulated.

[Tweedle]

Originally posted by McCoy
My default is a visual distortion, like heat waves, between the character and the object being manipulated.

There's a nice example of a similar effect in the science-fiction noir film Dark City (1998).

[pinecone]

It's special effects, so your call...a flock of pigeons that fly out from under your cloak and lift stuff? Cool.......I usually "default" to amber rings of force that form and propagate like waves in a pond...seems to me one of the DNAgents used that.......

[Dust Raven]

Oh yes! Rings of amber, purple or blue that ripple out of the characters forehead. That's how they did it in the comics and the early cartoons.

I use the heatwave thing a lot, but because mechanics are a funny thing, the last teek I had didn't have any special effects. It was just "obvious" where the power was coming from.

[zornwil]

The question starting this thread is well-answered...so...time to hijack this thread...

no, not really, but given the topic I would just add that for nearly all mental powers, I make "visible" to mean that it's visible only to mentalists, and the affected party usually only if they have some ability at figuring such things out, but I don't make it visible otherwise. TK is a bit different necessarily, and in this event I only require that someone observing would see the person directing the TK, but there's no sort of requirement for my games for the TK to manifest in such a way that there's a visible link between the person and the object per se.

I just think mental powers work best as "semi-visible" by default. Full invisibility for me usually means you don't realize it's happening.

But this is by no means the HERO rules. I just mention it as I've found it works well. I always feel mentalists get a bit of a short end of the stick otherwise, as they're usually not much in the physical world and making them too obvious makes them even bigger marks then they already are. Heck as it is the villains in my campaign have a tendency to knock out lemming's mentalist in the game early on, if her effects were more obvious it'd be even harder on her.