Limited Applications of Godlike Power

[Wavefunction]

Before I get started, I don't think any of my players read this forum, but if you are doing so, don't read this!

Omnipotence, the power to do anything, to treat the universe as your plaything with no limits or boundaries. It's a bit too much really, isn't it? You couldn't play a game with characters of that power level. Having said that, I fully intend to run a game where the PCs have access to that power level, but not all of it.

So I'm looking for ideas for powers that would require the ability to manipulate the universe at a fundamental level to work, even if they don't actually have an especially dramatic application. I know most superpowers flaunt the rules of physics, but they tend to at least try and stay grounded in our understanding of reality, whilst I'm looking for abilities that gleefully ignore it.

Some quick examples off the top of my head.

Unstoppable: Regardless of what gets in your way, your velocity remains constant, completely ignoring the principle of the conservation of momentum. This may grant partial indestructibility when moving at constant velocity, since outside forces cannot modify the speed of your constituent particles, preventing the deformation of your body.

Move: The ability to directly control the position of an object or individual. Not move it using external force, but intrinsically alter where in space it exists, moving infinitely heavy objects provided they're small enough to fit within the area you can effect, or moving an object without it passing through the space in between.

Dimensional Manipulation: You can change the dimensions of anything, making it smaller to fit through small spaces, taller to support a collapsing roof, or sharp enough to cut through virtually any material.

Any of the above could obviously be scaled up or down, but yeah, that's the kind of feel I'm looking for. Powers that are vast in power, but narrow in scope.

Thanks for any ideas.

P.S. Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this in, I'm going to running this in GURPS (well, sort of, I'll have to do some fiddling to make the absolute powers work), but I'm not looking for help building the powers, and they'd apply equally to any system.

[jason taylor]

You could have them be like Valar: subject to the veto of a bigger god on the one hand, and restrained by fear of colllateral damage on the other.

[David Johnston2]

The ability to make absolutely binding contracts. The parties involved will be utterly incapable of doing anything to violate their terms.

The ability to restore anything to its physical condition of 112 seconds previous.

The ability to Zero a person.

The ability to see how long a living thing has to live down to the second.

The ability to turn metals into room-temperature superconductors.

[Wavefunction]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

You could have them be like Valar: subject to the veto of a bigger god on the one hand, and restrained by fear of colllateral damage on the other.

They're going to be normal people given godlike power, and I don't really want them to be aware of it's source until late in the game. I do however fully intend to enforce real-world consequences, collateral damage will be a big deal.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The ability to make absolutely binding contracts. The parties involved will be utterly incapable of doing anything to violate their terms.

I like that idea. A more powerful version might even grant the parties involved the ability to perform deals they wouldn't normally be capable of, provided it was required by the contract.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The ability to restore anything to its physical condition of 112 seconds previous.

Now I'm wondering why 112 seconds, but yes, I like the idea.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The ability to Zero a person.

Nice, I'll have a think about that one. I want them to be able to find ways of expanding the uses for their powers, and this one might represent a restricted form of control over information.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The ability to see how long a living thing has to live down to the second.

I like the way you think sir, but I'd have said they know with infinite accuracy, just because why not?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The ability to turn metals into room-temperature superconductors.

That... that'd be interesting. Possibly better generalised to control over conductivity, they can make metals non-conductive, or insulators conductive.



As a more specific enquiry, in addition to the original one, does anyone have any good ideas for powers a musician might have that fit the idea of limited godlike power? The ability to manipulate sound seems rather... well, non-godlike, since it's just a specific kind of periodic disturbance passing through a medium.

[Andreas]

Save: By activating this ability on an area of fixed size, the content of that area is replaced by whatever was replaced during the last use of this ability.

Temperature: You can change the temperature within your area of effect to whatever you want within a certain range of values.

Hypercomputation: the abiltiy to solve the halting problem for a certain set of machines.

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

since outside forces cannot modify the speed of your constituent particles, preventing the deformation of your body.

Well, the individual particles of objects are generally moving in different directions (vibrations and moment due to the temperature etc.) so that would actually cause the particles in your body to separate unless use of this ability also makes it so that the velocity of your particles are the same. In which case time would kind of be frozen for you (you would not be able to perceive your surroundings or even think).

[whswhs]

Here is the list of eight siddhis from classic Hindu thought:

Aṇimā: reducing one's body even to the size of an atom
Mahima: expanding one's body to an infinitely large size
Garima: becoming infinitely heavy
Laghima: becoming almost weightless
Prāpti: having unrestricted access to all place
Prākāmya: realizing whatever one desires
Iṣṭva: possessing absolute lordship
Vaśtva: the power to subjugate all

There are a number of other lists in Hinduism and Buddhism. The original D&D supplement on psionics gave evidence of being influenced by them.

"Siddhi", by the way, means roughly "miraculous power." When I asked my Sanskrit teacher how one would say "Superman" in Sanskrit he came up with "Narasiddha."

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

As a more specific enquiry, in addition to the original one, does anyone have any good ideas for powers a musician might have that fit the idea of limited godlike power? The ability to manipulate sound seems rather... well, non-godlike, since it's just a specific kind of periodic disturbance passing through a medium.

The ability to perform any song* solo in a way that's both pleasing and immedately recognizable to any listeners regardless of what instruments you have. Without any note sheets, even if you haven't heard it.

The ability to identify any song* by hearing any 2 seconds of it being performed. This identification could include original composer, who is playing that version, any notable changes compared to other versions of the same song, etc.

The ability to make anyone think of a specific song*, even if they've never heard it before.

The ability to turn any kind of sound into a physical attack.

*When I'm saying "song" I really mean any kind of music.

[vicky_molokh]

Ability to hide a message in a song, such that only a given pre-specified target or category of targets will understand/hear/etc. that message.

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Exalted-style Perfect Defences, where you can get a guaranteed defence against one attack, even if implausible (e.g. parrying a nuclear missile), but this ability can only be used a limited number of times in a given time period (e.g. due to high mana costs or Limited Use).

Ability to rewind time.

Ability to make two locations 'stack' in space without harming either, but freely interacting with everything else.

Ability to ignore logic (e.g. a deity who is so powerful that it can creat a rock that nobody, including it, can lift, yet can lift said rock, and yet the rock remains too heavy for it).

Ability to look outside the game setting and outward.

Ability to make a certain fundamental concept inapplicable or changed in a limited area, e.g. create an area where death is impossible, or where c is set to a relatively low value, create an area where symbols do not carry meaning (people forget languages, programmable computers don't work, paintings of real-world events are seen as gibberish etc.), create an area where narrative causality rules.

Change the constitution of a person's soul, e.g. if a person's soul is made of the Hun and the Po, remake it into Ib, Sheut, Ren, Ba, Ka and Akh. If the setting's humans normally don't have souls, a godlike power would be to create an area where they do (and where metaphysics work such that they do matter).

Pass temporary cosmic laws, e.g.: make it such that for the next 48 minutes, people in this universe do get what they deserve, good or bad; make it such that any endeavour started in the next hour has its chances of success inversely proportional to how much the means contradict the ends; making such that deliberate lies in a given period turn out to be truths through a future conspiracy of random events. (Of course such an ability should have some sort of Limited Use.)

Create small 'pocket universes' with different physical and cosmic laws (this is only impressive if said laws still allow this-universe characters to survive there).

Predict or modify acausal events (e.g. quantum RNGs, assuming they are normally Truly Random).

[Wavefunction]

This is great, I'm loving the ideas so far. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Andreas

Well, the individual particles of objects are generally moving in different directions (vibrations and moment due to the temperature etc.) so that would actually cause the particles in your body to separate unless use of this ability also makes it so that the velocity of your particles are the same. In which case time would kind of be frozen for you (you would not be able to perceive your surroundings or even think).

The way I considered it is that the character's overall velocity cannot be modified by any external forces. Individual particles are still free to move (although with an additional component of velocity in the direction of travel), but it would be impossible for an outside force to change their movement. This might make things like breathing difficult, but that's the sort of minor detail that can be swept under the carpet...

EDIT: You have given me an interesting idea for a destructive application of this ability however.


Oh and here's another of my ideas, this ones a very broad concept, and a PC would only start out with access to a small number of applications.

Communication: You can communicate with anyone, regardless of language, available senses, or distance. You do not learn a means of communicating with them, rather you can use any mean of communication and they will understand you. You can understand any communication, and can communicate any concept. You can even remove or modify the ability to communicate of others. As your power grows you may be able to understand things that aren't normally considered language, you may read the nature of a stone, or speak in machinery, essentially allowing you to understand and recreate virtually anything.

The above could work for a musician, but I've got a different character in mind for that one. Here's a different idea I had for the musician:

Musical Mind: You can have the ability to perceive the universe in the form of music. This isn't a reinterpretation of your senses, but the universe itself rendered into music, with rhythm, pitch, dynamics, and timbre. With practice this allows you to the ability to see the true nature of what is happening, as well as a degree of ability to see the future, sensing danger when the music builds, or safety when it dies down. By moving to the rhythm you may find the easiest path through life, or the hardest route for others. Finally, advanced users may be able to harmonise with the music, in order to subtly alter the universe around them in a number of ways.

[vicky_molokh]

Breach the link between the part and the whole:
Affect a group of entities in such a way that the changes to parts still don't have the expected effect on the whole. E.g.:
Make it so that no matter how much you speed up individual molecules in an entity, it still behaves as if rather cold on a macro-scale. Make it so that no matter how many people in a given social group (e.g. state, club) strive towards Goal A, the social group as a whole keeps moving towards Goal B, and anyone openly admiring Goal A is publicly shunned, even if they're an overwhelming majority.