That’s an interesting idea!
I had been planning on using a circle punch to cut circles out of adhesive-backed dry erase sheets, which I was then going to stick to poker chips, and use those for +/- mods. But my Sentinels games all happen online, so the poker chips became unnecessary.
In the back of my mind, though, making those chips is still sitting around as a one-days arts-and-crafts project.
There’s lots of ways to make something to track mods in play, just a matter of doing something that fits your needs and budget. The groups I’m in usually use el cheapo poker chips with even cheaper stickers on them, but the guy in the video that spurred the post specifically wanted mods to be dice, so there’s his dice.
Apparently there are also +# and -# six-siders on the market aimed at Magic players (replacing things like +3/+3 Giant Growth tokens, I assume), which would work just as well as a couple of color-coded sets of regular d6.
And really, there’s nothing all that clunky about just scribbling on index cards the way the rulebooks suggests. Reusable markers like poker chips or dice are probably a bit more green, though. Who remembers to pick up and save all their used cards and scrap paper after a session? 
Yeah, while I like the idea of the dice, we’ve found it’s more thematic and interesting (for us, anyway 
) to have the description of the mod alongside of the value of the mod. I honestly fear using dice would drive folks into the numbers and let them avoid the story/theme aspects built into the game. 
Well, neither for me; I’ve just been swamped by Real Life stuff. I hope to start a Villain Archive thread on here sometime soon-ish, but don’t hold your breath.
I got an account on the Realm of Discord server a couple of months back, but when I got on there, I was like, “Okay, what am I supposed to do?” There were just a bunch of random-seeming conversations and jumbled posts, not real topics. So I deleted the account about two days later.
Forumites forever!
As for tracking Mods, I’ve just used some generic index cards, or scrap paper (for when I don’t have them available/forget to bring them). Although some of my players prefer to write Mods down on their character sheets. Personally, I think the ideal method would be dry-erase cards, like those in GTG’s GM Kit (which I’ve been meaning to buy, but haven’t gotten around to yet),* as they’re renewable, which is better for both the environment and your wallet.
*I’d probably be more motivated to buy it if I actually had an ongoing group. : (
It’s certainly a potential problem. And not keeping track of what a mod is makes it more universally applicable than it probably ought to be. If someone sticks a “Impervium Manacles -3” penalty on a hero and their next action is something using (say) Suggestion + Persuasion, that penalty probably shouldn’t apply or get used up - unless “Impervium” has been established as some kind of psi-scrambling material, anyway. Those Manacles sound more like they ought to apply to physical actions, not mental ones.
But some people want to speed things up as much as they can, others just don’t engage with the narrative aspect of things as much, and a few are just incredible at remembering what mods are what and don’t need it written out. One of the GMs I play with now and then is like that, he can hold dozens of types and values of mods in memory at once. Doesn’t actually help much since the rest of us have to write things down for our own benefit, but it’s an impressive party trick. And I thought I had a good memory…
On top of it, Discord has a big problem with being unable to deal with harassment and verbal abuse effectively.
Other platforms have various actually useful control options, but with Discord blocking only hides other people’s responses. It doesn’t prevent them from seeing and responding to yours, so you’re at the mercy of the moderators/other people being willing to step in versus saying things like “you two need to take it to PM” when the issue is you do not want to have the other person talking to you at all because they’re being abusive.
(No I haven’t had experience with this issue, why do you ask? </sarcasm>)
For mods, this really is the best option, in my opinion. I bought a bunch of dry-erase cards and pens (in addition to the SC-RPG GM Kit) that have worked wonderfully!
I hadn’t thought about that. I guess you can always Kick/Ban someone from a Discord server, but having the only effective option being the banhammer is probably not great.
It sucks that you had to deal with that.
I would be using dry-erase cards, but since my players live far away, we’re playing online. So I currently write the mods into the Excel file that is my “game tracker” and that streams to my players.
I’ve seen someone on Discord use a TTS mod for the SCRPG that comes with digital editable GM Kit cards which you can arrange as needed on the simulated table surface. It seemed like an interesting approach; if we weren’t using roll20 already, I might actually look into that for my own group.
Forcing myself to get back to posting, here’s a new villain as well as associated lieutenants, minions and environment, all hot from the gaming table last weekend.
Luna-C, Brainwashed Cyborg Werewolf Pack Leader
This was all inspired by an accidental and somewhat unexpected TPKO the session before, which left my heroes battered into submission in the hands of some very surprised villains. As the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, have the PCs get sold to to a mad scientist who imprisons them on his moon base. Or something like that.
They’ll be getting back to dealing with the folks who beat them eventually…who are now armed with extra toys that the captive heroes were exchanged for, so they better be clever. Or at least hope I don’t spike so many die rolls. Yeesh, what a night.
Firstly, great pun-name. Presumably Lee’s two ill-fated companions were designated Luna-A and Luna-B by Dr. M.M.?
Her voice is wholly mechanical and lacking in inflection, and sounds like a text-to-speech program.
This begs the question of what her speech bubbles would look like in a comic.
Yep, exactly. Doc’s esoteric experimental subject naming patterns are also responsible for Seventh Envy - who’s still on the “recover for further testing” list, although he’s pretty low priority since Mentallax is easily distracted by new mad science shinies.
I’m thinking black rectangles with white outlines and text, myself. Use Westminster font if the letterer can handle it.
New villain on the blog today, a stereotypical swamp monster that conceals a very different type of threat:
Post includes a new (and fairly generic, with minor modifications) environment, minion, and lieutenant, as well as some suggestions for twists appropriate to slowly succumbing to a mind-controlling viral plague.
And yes, I was watching some Scooby Doo, Where Are you? while working on this one. That could totally be an original series episode title.
It’s interesting that you gave the Glomp the Conviction Quality. It doesn’t strike me as someone (something?) who particularly “believe[s] in a cause or a faith so strongly [to be driven to] to great heights.”
Nice job on the Glombies; I definitely like the Curable trait. However, I have a question concerning the Innocent Victims trait: what if I used, say, Telepathy + Medicine to Attack the Glombie in an attempt to free it from the Overmind’s control? Would I still suffer the -4 penalty, or would you simply call that that’s not a valid Attack?
Also, why don’t the Gators have the Curable trait? What if I’m playing as the Naturalist and I want to save these poor innocent animals from the Overmind’s thrall? Are they simply too far gone?
Also also, what kinds of Powers and Qualities exactly would one use to Overcome the This Place is Creepy twist? The only things I can think of are Presence and Leadership.
Conceptually, its “belief” is that the Overmind will spread to infect all living things. Pretty much its own variation on the “I shall conquer the world!” Conviction many megalomaniac villains have, only in this cases it’s trillions of psychic viruses acting as a collective intelligence and pushing their hosts far beyond their normal capablilities.
The Curable trait only works with Overcomes (and Telepathy + Medicine would be a fine pool for that, albeit not the only one of course), so the -4 penalty won’t apply - that only affects Attacks. The design intent is to make it much harder to KO these minions than their die size would indicate (because the virus just won’t let them drop) while letting Overcomes take them out without them getting a save at all at the usual risk of triggering twists. Makes them harder for your multi-target attackers to casually deal with them, so be careful using too many at once. I’d certainly allow a Risky Overcome to target multiple zombies with the Mid die just to emphasize the advantage to not using brute force attacks on plague victims. That will further increase the number of twists flying around, which can get out of hand fast so there’s a lot to be said for stacking some bonuses before making that kind of attempt.
I was envisioning them as too far gone (their viral load is pretty heavy, hence them being so much more powerful than the zombies) but you could certainly ask your GM about curing them. Probably wouldn’t let a single Overcome totally remove one, though - they are meant to be tougher than minions.
Best bet might be to have each successful Overcome automatically reduce their die size by the same amount as the mod size you’d produce if you were doing a Boost/Hinder, ie 1-3 reduces it by one step (assuming you pay the twist to succeed- it is still an Overcome), 4-7 drops it by two for a minor twist, 8-11 drops it by three, and 12+ will just heal the thing outright in one go and generate a “positive twist” as usual. If the die reduction would take it below a d4 it’s cured as well.
Definitely wouldn’t give the gators that Innocent Victims Attack penalty even if you’re deeply concerned about their well-being. They’re seriously dangerous even to supers, and having the option to thump them a bit to reduce their die sizes would make them easier to “vaccinate” as well.
I hate to be too prescriptive about dice pools because being imaginative with them is half the fun.
Really anything that conceptually works for “Let’s not freak out just because we’re in a creepy zombie-haunted swamp” should do the job. A few examples:
Precognition + Persuasion = “Relax, I looked ahead and we’ve got this if we just stay cool.”
Awareness + Alertness = “There’s a psychic presence playing on our fears, steel yourselves.”
Plants + Banter = “This place is too gloomy for me, let’s brighten things up.” [trees fan the cloying mists aside to let in some sunlight, flowers sprout and bloom all around]
Infernal + Imposing = “YOU EXPECT A WIELDER OF HELLFIRE TO BE UNNERVED BY SUCH MUNDANE PHENOMENA? FEH!”
Telepathy + Insight = Calm yourself, we are stronger than whatever dangers this place conceals and many innocents are counting on us
Deduction + Science = “Creepy? Don’t be superstitious. I spent a year of postgraduate work studying wetland ecosystems like this one. I assure you this is all perfectly natural - aside from the psychically infectious plague zombies, of course. But the serum I’ve worked up should fix them easily enough.”
Your Principles are likely to factor in here too. Overcomes are much easier when using your Max die and who doesn’t love HP?
Right, I gathered that much. My question was whether an action that is mechanically an Attack, but thematically an attempt to cure the victim would work, and whether it would take the penalty.
Thanks for those examples. Yeah, in hindsight, I was being much too uncreative in my thinking. I can only hope that I’d be able to think quicker if I were actually playing. ; )
I’d treat any attempt at an immediate cure as an Overcome even if it looks like it should do damage, eg using Nuclear to fry the viruses with some specific frequency or intensity of radiation. An Attack would be an attempt to KO the “zombie” without killing it, which is harder to do than normally because the virus makes them resistant to pain and shock and intimidation without making them much more resistant to accidentally-lethal damage. If your hero is the type who doesn’t care about the safety of innocent victims you could just go all-out, at which point I’d drop the penalty to -2 for the viral pain-blocking - but you may well be killing the minions you’re taking out instead of just rendering them unable to fight.
If I may chime in here, I find it helps to define player actions by their desired outcome, not their way of getting there.
That way, we gain both more mechanic clarity and narrative flexibility!
Remember to encourage players, if moderately, to narrate the action of the whole scene, not only their characters’ doing.
Example:
I once played a squirrely little boy, built on Close Q Combatant - who clearly wouldn’t look convincing when throwing straight punches at the big baddies. Instead, he’d deal considerable damage by, say, sidestepping a charging opponent to have him run face-first into a lamppost. Works as an Attack alright, and makes them mad as hell!
Sure. Those are pretty much the rulebook definitions of what each action does, and how you build pools to pull them off is largely a creative choice. You shouldn’t feel bound to stick to the same P+Q combinations to achieve similar results all the time either. Lots of ways to Attack and deal damage or solve problems with Overcomes.