Radiation Mutants In Steampunk

[scc]

So I'm looking at having nuclear power be the successor to coal in a setting I'm working on. One thing I'm thinking is that nuclear power wasn't arrived at by theory and so the first generation or so of radiation workers got screwed over even worse then the radium girls, in part because people didn't know what they where working with.

Now I figure that most people will simply be disfigured, granting them a package of Disadvantages. The things is that these Disadvantages add up in a really problematic way, low Status because they're unlikely to get well paying jobs, Social Stigma, either Second Class Citizen or Monster, and reduced Attractiveness. The thing is all of these Disadvantages grant a reaction penalty and allowing them all on the single build strikes me as rather problematic.

A lucky few however have developed Powers, and an even luckier subset have Powers and no visible deformities. The question for me however is what Abilities are suitable for an investigation based game?

[Boomerang]

From experience Penetrating Vision is a good one. Precognition is handy from a GM perspective because it lets you drop clues if the players are struggling. Detect can also be handy. Any kind of mind reading ability is too effective in my opinion.

[johndallman]

Psychometry, with enough.usage limitations that they can't just use it on everything, but have to think a bit about how to make best use of it.

[Humabout]

Id look into the rules for mutants from Afrer the End. That has a long list of mutations, not all of them bad or visible, and mechanics for how moticeable mutations are.

[CeeDub]

Acute and/or Discriminatory Senses comes to mind. And/or Hyperspectral Vision.

I'm reminded of an episode of Buck Rogers where they had a disfigured mutant who could turn Insubstantial.

[Flyndaran]

Insubstantial would make for an interesting "murder in a locked room" mystery.
But powers could lead to players never considering mundane answers.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

(SNIP)

But powers could lead to players never considering mundane answers.

QFT.

In my abortive G: Castle Falkenstein campaign, the party investigated a murder mystery loosely based on a short story by Avram Davidson about a possible alternative explanation for the murders committed by Lizzie Borden.

In the campaign, the murders of the young woman's father, step-mother and abusive step-brother were committed by the Chinese launderer, who had overheard the servants discussing how the step-mother planned to screw the daughter out of her Inheritance. The launderer had just lost his young wife after a terrible illness and was self-destructive.

He was also a skilled killer because of his background, and didn't understand British law, very well. It was tough to figure out how he got into the house, but after that it became a matter of mundane legwork to track him down.

Unfortunately, the party got stuck on the idea of a magical killer, for awhile, instead of looking for mundane explanations, first.