Muggle Power Ideas.

[Coinage]

Hey. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about how to give muggles (i.e. mundanes, ordinary humans, etc.) a chance against high-powered wizards or supernatural creatures. This is an urban fantasy setting, obviously.

I was inspired by debates involving Hunter: The Vigil and Mage: The Awakening. It has been noted that any hunter, or any other character for that matter, that went up against a real Mage would be completely outmatched.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas to give Muggles a much better chance at victory.

Some ideas I've come across include "The Spirit of the Mob" from Thaumatology: Urban Magics. I was also thinking about the using "Neutralize" or "Static" (Powers pp. 98-99) or even some derivation of "Mundanity" (GURPS IOU, p. 19)


Another option is to just make everyone have superpowers. No muggles. Once you become "clued-in", as it were, you get superpowers. However, I would be missing out on the notion of a war between muggles and magicals.

Any ideas would be welcome.

[Ulzgoroth]

So first off: do you mean muggles individually, or as a category?

Making individual muggles a match for the supernatural is actually easy: you make a mockery of the 'muggle' characterization. You make a Batman, who has a wide variety of superpowers except that they are defined by not actually being superpowers.


For muggles as a category rather than as an extreme exception, the answers to the two cases are frequently different.

Wizards tend to be subject to mortal vulnerability - they have a wide variety of superpowers, but not an always-on ability that precludes somebody just shoving a knife in their vitals from behind. Making sure to never let anybody get in position to do that is exceedingly inconvenient at best. Wizards may have professional reasons to avoid extreme paranoia and isolation even beyond the basics of human psychology.

Supernatural creatures on the other hand usually view a little stabbing as a joke. They're typically checked by 'sure, maybe you could take on New York City in a bare-knuckle brawl and get bored halfway through, but if you make them take notice they will go WWIII on you and you can't survive that.'

Occasionally supernaturals of either kind can also have an Achilles heel that means that they're as easy as anyone (or easier) to kill/disable by some particular gimmick that theoretically any random chump can do. If you're not careful, such a weakness is likely to be ridiculously limiting in the hands of competent, knowledgeable opponents.

[Coinage]

Right, so from what I gather there are some options:

1) Like you said, make "muggles" into full-blown Charles Atlas Superpowers. Basically, they would all be like Batman.

2) Give supernaturals really glaring weaknesses to balance out their powers.

3) Make mundanes reproduce much more frequently than the magical people. Not just sex, but also reproducing via being turned into an undead, being initiation into mystic arts, being cursed for lycanthropy, etc.

I must admit, the Charles Atlas Superpowers route would be interesting, if a tad ridiculous.

[AlexanderHowl]

Give mundanes guns. Alternatively, give them Magic Resistance. Magic Resistance 10 will pretty much shut down any direct magical attacks against them.

Not all supernatural creatures see a stabbing as a joke (only undead, homogeneous, and diffuse entities see stabbing as a joke). Demons, fair folk, etc. do not generally like being stabbed, and they will like being shot even less, especially if you explot their weaknesses. A shotgun with iron shot will tear fair folk in half while silver shot will do the same for werewolves and, in some traditions, demons.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Coinage

Right, so from what I gather there are some options:

1) Like you said, make "muggles" into full-blown Charles Atlas Superpowers. Basically, they would all be like Batman.

2) Give supernaturals really glaring weaknesses to balance out their powers.

3) Make mundanes reproduce much more frequently than the magical people. Not just sex, but also reproducing via being turned into an undead, being initiation into mystic arts, being cursed for lycanthropy, etc.

I must admit, the Charles Atlas Superpowers route would be interesting, if a tad ridiculous.

They don't have to be all Batman. Just a few so magic users can't be certain that that crowd over there doesn't have one or two.

They don't have to be glaring weaknesses. Fairy stories have some odd ones, like wearing clothes inside out or hanging a metal pair of scissors over doorways grant protections.
A little bit of knowledge like that could keep a fight from being one sided, especially is such folk protection only works for mundanes.

[Ulzgoroth]

The thing about the 'glaring' weaknesses is ideally you probably want them to be something that helps the 'common man' out in a conflict with the supernatural but doesn't mean that the Magic Security Agency can run rampant over the occult so easily that the vampires or whatever decide that they'd be better off coming out of the shadows than fighting in the courts of law and of public opinion. Which may be tricky to thread.

Unless latter is what you're going for. I bet there's a campaign in that.

Originally Posted by Coinage

3) Make mundanes reproduce much more frequently than the magical people. Not just sex, but also reproducing via being turned into an undead, being initiation into mystic arts, being cursed for lycanthropy, etc.

If the non-magical people don't outnumber the magical people to a fairly enormous degree, calling them 'muggles' and referencing World of Darkness splats is probably bringing in some very wrong connotations.

[Astromancer]

Let's remember that the traditional Wizard is just a mortal with a special skill set. Sure, both standard GURPS:Magic and Mage:the Ascension make the ability to do magic a rare gift. But in traditional stories, magic itself is the ultimate Charles Atlas Superpower.

Given the Mage's power level, quick wits and lateral thinking are the best anti-mage powers. Think of the end of the film Night of the Demon. The Wizard is beaten by quick wits and slight of hand. This was a powerful wizard and a sly one. But the simple trick of slipping paper into his pocket killed him.

[Anders]

Tanks, planes and nuclear bombs are all far more powerful than an aveda kedavra spell.

[RyanW]

I don't know World of Darkness at all, but if the world is much like Harry Potter, it could be as simple as lacking "Delusion: Magic is the best solution to every problem."

[DaosusLeghki]

Originally Posted by Anders

Tanks, planes and nuclear bombs are all far more powerful than an aveda kedavra spell.

A well-placed 9mm is only marginally less powerful than Avada Kedavra. Guns are still the great equalizer in direct combat.