Amorkca

Found my old list of disquieting fortunes!
 
You are suspected of improprieties. Your enemies have better aim than to strike at you directly. An old error of omission will be brought to your attention. Your important project has an undetected but fundamental flaw. Your superiors see you as a threat to them.

Many times I've linked to Keith Curtis's magnificent Savage Earth campaign setting website -- a magical post-apocalyptic Earth evocative of the old "Thundarr the Barbarian" cartoon, but more serious and sophisticated, and far more complex. One of the defining elements of post-apoc is that it takes recognizable features of our familiar world and alters them through whatever agency ended our civilization, giving us the shock of seeing something well-known in a distorted guise. Keith used many of the techniques that are classics of the genre, such as ruined real-world cities and mutated animals. But IMO his most brilliant touch, that turned the whole effect up a notch, was having the catastrophic event turn the axis of the planet nearly 90% from what it was. Essentially the whole world map we know is turned on its "side." His campaign is based in a former North America bordering what was the Arctic Ocean, which is now the equatorial Middle Sea. What was arctic and sub-arctic is now temperate to tropical. The land masses are recognizable, but aren't where they're "supposed" to be, and their climate is completely different.
 

Take a normal entangle and put the +1 advantage Takes no damage from attack and add in a custom +1/4 modifier Works against CON not STR.  Cost wise it work out to be the same cost as a mental entangle, but fits what you want better.  It still uses the characters OCV vs DCV, and the only way to get out is to use your CON to break out.  At 2d6 DEF 2 it will not be all that hard for a super hero to break out,  but it will take an agent a lot longer to get out. 
 
If this is something that is delivered by a bite or other attack link it to that attack.
 
1d6 DEF 1 is not going to hold anyone for long.  A normal person on the street will be out in a turn or less.

So had the Medical Examiner character (precog) get a vision right before her and the captain would be shot leaving the station after describing how bad things had gotten
 
This led to an investigation on who did the shooting, ending in a fight by two agents of "The evil Corp" though as usual they know who but can't prove it...
 
China town lit on fire as a forecast of next session.  (China town mob is the only group not under evil corp...also guardian of one of the magic anchors keeping the big bad from being released...3 down, 2 to go)
 

Marlene dove into the pool, angling towards Dani. Dani floated below the surface. When Marlene got to her and rolled Dani over, a single large bubble broke from the girl's mouth and raced for the surface.
 
Pulling her up, Marlene swam for the shallow end. “Give me a hand,” she called to Beth. Beth met her in the water, chest-deep. Marlene got her legs under her and the two of them pulled Dani to the steps. With Dani on her side, Marlene opened the girl's mouth. Beth compressed Dani's stomach and water came out of her mouth.
 
Dani coughed. “What? No mouth to mouth?” She coughed again, bringing up more water.
 
“That was quite a scare, Dani,” Marlene said gently, smiling.
 
“Oh. I can't believe I got blindsided by a rookie.” Using the handrail, Dani pulled herself to her feet, further aided by Marlene and Beth. “Where did she go?”
 
“Cemetery. Are you okay?”
 
Dani nodded. “I will be. I guess I should have listened.”
 
“Maybe,” Beth said.
 
“If she's anything like me, she's probably terrified right now,” Dani said, punctuated with a hacking cough.
 
“Jason followed her.”
 
“I'm going after her.” Dani started off towards the woods, stumbling a step or two.
 
“You need help?” Marlene asked. Dani just shook her head. Her steps became more steady, but she never broke into a run.

If I had allowed Desolid, cannot pass through solid material as a power with the SFX of invulnerability, then the character by definition would be a good human shield.  He is invulnerable.
 
It would be inconsistent to allow it in there, as described and not allow it to be used in that way.
 
Doc

Again, an imposition of SFX that is not entirely necessary.  As GM, once the "can phase through solid objects" is taken off the table, I would be content for attacks to deflect off the character, almost lensing.
 
I do think you are focussing on the NAME of the mechanic rather than the EFFECT.  It is unlikely that you do this with most other mechanics and indeed I have seen most if not all of you come up with extremely creative ways of using the toolbox.  It is why I have stuck around so long.
 
My biggest struggle has been getting my players to play their powers rather than the mess of numbers on the character sheet.
 
I do not want them to think " Oh, he is desolid, I will use my affect desolid attack next time".
 
I want them to think "Nothing seems to affect him, I wonder if my intense plasma ray would do it".
 
I actually hate affect desolid, in my games no affect desolid will be allowed to blanket hit every SFX of desolid.  I make my players consider why their power affects a desolid character and what kind of SFX of desolid it might not work against.
 
Doc

I've got an elf mage for you. I'll probably keep the game relatively low level for now so that new players can get the hang of the system. 

This has got C.L.O.W.N. Written all over it.  It would make more sense for people to keep going back if say one out of five times a  random amount of cash came out.  As low as two dollars, as high as a thousand.
   This way it becomes more of a social experiment.  “What are people willing to put up with for money?”

Distance and Movement in the Beta ... current work
 
 

If villains start hurting your players, you may want to consider burning each and every character sheet - NPCs especially - posthaste. For everyone's sake, I hope you didn't give this malefactor ED versus fire.

Heart hammering in her chest, Theresa ran. She didn't know how far the grounds extended. The woods had always been her safe place. She ran for them. They called to her. A place to hide.
 
She ran through a wrought-iron gate that stood open. Had she managed to get off the mansion's grounds? She stopped to look around, gulping in lungfuls of air. She bent over, hands on her knees.
 
She'd ruined everything. Now they knew she was a freak. Theresa saw a bench and sank down on it. Several grave markers stood nearby. In her headlong rush and the tears in her eyes she counted herself lucky not having run into one of them. She drew her legs up, hung her head resting it on her upraised knees, and cried.
 
Theresa didn't know how long she sat there like that. Her heart wasn't hammering quite as bad, but her ragged breathing had been replaced by sobs. She felt safe with Jason. This had been a new start for her, she could feel that, but she had ruined it by losing control.
 
The bench shifted as weight settled on the other end of it. She wanted to peek, but instead buried her head a little deeper. Paper was turned and she heard what sounded like the skritch of a pencil. It went on for long moments and she wondered if it would ever stop.
 
Curiosity finally got the better of her. She peeked out to find Jason sitting beside her. He had a sketchbook in hand and a pencil was working on a page. She tried to see what he was drawing, but her angle was bad. She didn't want to push. Not now.
 
“Are you okay?”
 
“I suppose you're going to send me away now,” she said quietly.
 
Jason glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled. “Why would I do that?”
 
“For what happened back there.”
 
“You knocked over a couple of chairs. You didn't hurt anyone.”
 
“But Dani...”
 
“You!”
 
Theresa looked up and saw Dani marching down the path. “I'm sorry!”
 
Dani stopped in front of the bench. Her hair was still dripping from the pool. She knelt down in front of Theresa. “No, you're not. I'm the one that's sorry. I am impulsive, pushy, and sometimes I don't know when to quit. I should have listened to you.”
 
“Why didn't you say anything about what you can do, Trese?” Jason asked.
 
“That's the second time. Both times it happened when I was upset. I was afraid,” she said, hanging her head again. “I didn't want you thinking I was a freak.”
 
“Trese?” Dani asked. “I like that a lot better than Theresa.”
 
“She likes her friends to call her Trese,” Jason explained. “Trese, I beat up a biker gang for you. I'm afraid you're stuck with me for a while.”
 
Trese looked at him. “You're not going to send me away?”
 
“For what?” Dani asked. “Being different? Look at me.” Trese turned her attention to Dani. Dani held her hand palm up to Trese. Flame erupted from the open palm and raced up Dani's arm. By the time Dani was fully engulfed she smiled at Trese. “And you're afraid that you're a freak? I'm an open-pit barbecue on demand.”
 
“Hellfire,” Trese said quietly.
 
“That, too,” Dani said.

There is a good reason for the expanded roster for the Mod. One: it gives your players a nice choice of ex-villains to inhabit. Two: it gives you an instant rogues gallery for the villains not chosen. 
 
If you need an excuse, the ones not chosen were doing another job to take advantage of the hostage distraction.
 
You could also choose a few members to be off limits, like Badluck, a former cat burglar who fell in love with The Cricket and semi-reformed before joining the Mob, fully intending to be the inside person feeding info to The Cricket. Prehaps the first thing the players have to do is to save Badluck from being killed by the others for being a mole?

Sounds like a plan
 
That would be 3 PM for me, should be doable.
 
 

The Hero System Book of Templates is now available POD in black-and-white softcover on RPGNow.
 

While they are actually are setting in motion the wheels of destruction to their enslavers. Get the Dwarves and Elves to engage in a war that will weaken both empires to the point that they can rise up and free themselves.
   That might be a nice long term plot thread for the players to discover.

I have TTS, never played MERP, will that be a problem?
 
Also I'm on Mountain time.

During option 1, instead of going for strictly elves v dwarves let's have a minor (slave?) race that neither side worries about. This race might act as intermediary between both sides, sneak messages that should not be seen, among other things.

The idea here is to expand on the idea that elves and dwarves dislike each other. In fact we will go so far as to do like in Palladium and have them go to war. The reasons are unimportant as they have been at war for millenia. But in the process they have alienated, antagonised and in many cases decimated most of the races that also exist on the continent. To the extant that five races have banded together to support each other while trying to keep out of the way of the main combatants.

So for years uncounted this alliance has set up safe cities, sent parties out to get food and supplies and in some cases, where necesary, kill elements of either army to protect their secrets.

Now at this point I can see three possibilities:
1) The alliance grows in power as the two main opponents have basically worn themselves out fighting each other

2) On a Week of Fire and Shadow all the dwarves and elves die. Apparently a major ritual designed to harm the other went supercharged and killed them all. Now we have a brand new world with new power vacuums to step into it, Not to mention all those dwarven and elvish cities to explore/loot

3) As above but with the added problem that the elves and dwarves do not know they are dead. They are undead, and it will take a long time to finally subdue their restless spirits and make the world safer.

This is just an Idea I came up with and any comments are welcome as long as they are constructive.

A question very close to this came up on my Twitter feed, so I thought I would post the response and see if we can get this going here.
 
 

I love all of this.  Things that give the touch of verisimilitude.  
 
I've got a "bit", not really a full setting or even the basis for one, where most cities charge entry fees to non-residents.  Wizards are asked if they know any spells from a short list (purify water, night vision, light, control fire, cure disease, a few others), and their entry fees are reduced if they do know them, and even further if they're willing to take one or more volunteer shifts doing things like fire watch, night patrol, things of that nature.  The wizards' guilds in the cities will teach these spells to anyone who wants to learn them, just because the city has an interest in having people who can do things like stop disease outbreaks, prevent the city from burning down, and the like.  

Everyone laughed at Kate's joke. Except Jason. His omission was not lost on Kate. Jason lay another log on the fire, adjusting it with a poker. The older log snapped and spit sparks into the air as the newer settled in. Jason set the poker aside.
 
“What have I done, Jason?” Kate said, a little loudly to be heard over the others. Jason dropped his head. “You hardly look at me. Let alone speak to me. You're really making me wonder why I bothered to come. What have I done?” Jason closed his eyes. His fingers curled into a fist.
 
“It isn't you, Kate,” Kris said quietly. Jason exhaled and forced his hand open.
 
“Then what is it?” Kate demanded. Kris looked pointedly at Aaron laying with his head on his mother's shoulder. “Aaron? What could Aaron have possibly done?”
 
“Jase, does this have anything to do with you showing up in Aaron's room in the middle of the night?” Warren asked.
 
“No, it doesn't have anything to do with it,” Jason answered quietly, easily heard since everyone had gone silent. He stood up. “It has everything to do with that night.” He stared into the fire. He brought his arm up and with a crimson flash, was staring at a sketchbook in his hands. The fingers of his empty hand traced something on the cover.
 
“You did say you'd tell the story eventually,” Kris said. “Now seems like a good time.”
 
Jason stepped around the fire pit and faced Kate. With both hands on the sketchbook, he presented it cover-first to her. Jason had marked the cover as he had with all the others Kate had seen; the name of the primary subject. In this case, Aaron. Jason had affixed the chain to the top of the cover. The double of her wedding band had been implanted into the cover.
 
Kate reached for the book, sparing Warren a glance when he took their son from her. With both hands the book settled heavily into her lap. For some reason it seemed to her that it weighed more than it actually did. Her fingers traced the chain down to the band, never touching the metal of it.

Enermatrix was a character I had drawn by Storn.
I had changed Enermatrix's origin story when I started playing her in pen and paper superhero games

Natasha Cunoştinţescu-Kirlova
Born from parents that emigrated from Russia, both scientists that found themselves without work when capitalism took over in USSR.
They moved to Windsor, where they gained employment and taught at the University of Windsor. They were cut down by a supervillain attacking during a field trip in the city.  Natasha Kirlova became a ward of the state.
At age 18, she attended the University of Windsor with a full scholarship, but before her graduation, she was abducted. Subjected to a mutagenic compound, she found herself generating electrical energy and placed into a crystalline cylinder to be used as a human battery by the evil villain.
Having been freed, she seeks to use her newfound gift to help others while she tries to go on with her life.
 
That's the very basics.

Some important things to note in relation to the above. 
 
1. The number of triangular faces on any OBJ model for TTS should be less than 30,000. For ideal performance the lower the better whilst remaining acceptable.
 
2. The above process will not produce a coloured model. If you wish to "paint" the model you can use this tutorial to learn how: - 
 
 
3: Then you will need to export the texture you have created and apply it to the model you have in Tabletop simulator. 
 
For those who seek further help I should explain I use a different painting tool called 3dcoat which is not free (around $100 for the basic version and $300 for the full product).