Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

[PTTG]

On April 1st of 1947, a strange cosmic change allowed each human to become more powerful by slaying another. The attainment could be anything, and is just as often the loss of a competitive disadvantage (healing temporary or permanent injury, a change to personality, a weak person becoming stronger) as it is gaining an advantage, often a bizarre one. (Yes, yes, in game terms 1/20th of the victim's CP total is transferred to the killer, minimum 5, no maximum.)

Society collapsed in weeks. It seems that only personal, face-to-face killing, above all where the victim knew, in dying, who was responsible, result in the effect. Furthermore, only the one who took the killing stroke receives the benefit, and that individual seems to be able to channel the ability gain, either consciously or unconsciously....

The present date of 1970 looks strange -- some of the most hubritical killers gained abilities that have outlived them, and some cities even live on, but always under the thumb of some super-powerful entity with a feudal series of less powerful lackeys. The weak fear being used as cattle, and are sometimes even "trained up" with skills and exercises to make them valuable sacrifices.

The first serious investigation of the place got seriously involved in the politics, and one member of the team (no department is willing to claim him) apparently "went native," and offered fealty to a lord in exchange for a few sacrifices. Aside from the obvious crossing of the moral horizon, the remainder of the team (locked in the sacrifice pens themselves by the double-crosser) suspected that it was only a matter of time before the rouge member attained a world-jumping power and/or sold the Secret for more local power.

The trapped team members pulled off a daring escape and attempted to capture their former comrade. In the process, several things were discovered: One, that outtimers killing locals and locals killing outtimers results in no effect; and two, that outtimers killing outtimers from the same world-line DO experience the transfer effect!

The rogue died, along with two other members of the loyal team, but the remaining two loyal agents returned to Homeline with the Secret intact.

(I put the time at 1947 so that mutual nuclear annihilation isn't a likely threat. A power-mad politician might think he could get a few million CP at once otherwise. With a little bit of hand-waving, it can be transferred to any other time period. Regardless of when, a second team to the area, or playing out the first team, could be fascinating considering how high-CP most PCs are.)

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by PTTG

On April 1st of 1947, a strange cosmic change allowed each human to become more powerful by slaying another. <snip>

I like this. A lot. I may steal it.

[Flyndaran]

Unless the very first murder gives vast powers, serial killers get killed by mobs pretty damn quickly. So the one that gives the death blow gets something? So what? There's no reason to think they'd become wanton serial killers themselves, is there?
Probably best to make the urge to murder more common, and addictive to keep it "plausible".

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Unless the very first murder gives vast powers, serial killers get killed by mobs pretty damn quickly. .

If they know who the serial killers are. So you'd end up with some killers getting mobbed in the early days while sneakier ones would wait until they were nigh impervious to conventional weaponry before coming out of the closet.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The idea certainly could use some fiddling. A half life of years may work better than months, but decades is a little too long for me. With a 20 year half-life a dedicated society focused on child-bearing may be able to hold on. Or maybe that's what you want.

I picked a regular human centric time because I felt it'd be scarier if the time was easily predictable. Does it have implications? yes it does. Tweak times to come up with more implications.

Twenty years might be a little high, but I don't know how much child-bearing there would be. There would be some, but not organized, as most would society would just fall apart.


Or maybe there are some people who are trying to keep human society going by having lots of kids, while others who have just given up. It could create an interesting conflict.

Would having more kids extend the lives of everyone, since that would be new kids could die instead of adults? It would be a hellishly cruel thing to do, but perhaps some people might set it up anyway. The children would be born and kept alive, but not cared for in any emotional sense (especially since, why get attached to children when they/you will die for no reason?).

This could be some cruel hierarchy, where a clique of men rule over lots of women being used to have babies, and then there are the children who are ignored.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I don't understand why entire deaf communities think like that. But I'll eat my hat if any groups of blind strongly oppose (re)gaining some way to see.

It wouldn't be groups of deaf and/or blind who would (re)gain their senses, just the Infinity/Centrum blind/deaf outtimers sent to the timeline as agents. So such a person would go from a world like ours (or further back) where being deaf and/or blind is a major disability, to one where it is normal - but with the promise of fixing your disability and life in a new world (but where you would always still be an outtimer).

Originally Posted by PTTG

On April 1st of 1947, a strange cosmic change allowed each human to become more powerful by slaying another. The attainment could be anything, and is just as often the loss of a competitive disadvantage (healing temporary or permanent injury, a change to personality, a weak person becoming stronger) as it is gaining an advantage, often a bizarre one. (Yes, yes, in game terms 1/20th of the victim's CP total is transferred to the killer, minimum 5, no maximum.)

Do the people gaining points get to choose what their points go to? GM's decision? Something in between?

Would characters be able to use their new points on super-powers, magic, and other types of things that previously were unavailable? Or would it just be reaching the maximum of human limits?

With super-powers, this could create the 'combat monsters' players sometimes come up with, points maxed for combat, and nothing else. But they would be actual monsters, as well.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Unless the very first murder gives vast powers, serial killers get killed by mobs pretty damn quickly. So the one that gives the death blow gets something? So what? There's no reason to think they'd become wanton serial killers themselves, is there?
Probably best to make the urge to murder more common, and addictive to keep it "plausible".

I tend to agree. I don't see modern western society suddenly breaking down. It's not like there are hordes of people ready to leap out and steal my car for instance despite its obvious use and value. I expect some criminality but not significantly more than normal.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

I tend to agree. I don't see modern western society suddenly breaking down. It's not like there are hordes of people ready to leap out and steal my car for instance despite its obvious use and value. I expect some criminality but not significantly more than normal.

Given that you can often gain more than that minimum 5 points worth of wealth by killing rich people and looting them of the stuff they are carrying, especially if you are poor or dead broke yourself, and yet this doesn't happen all the time....

Most real people have more moral sense than player characters tend to, and don't particularly want to be murder hobos who kill things for the xp.

[PTTG]

David Johnston2 has the right idea, I think. Most people are decent, ethical folks, but those people are exactly the least likely to survive in a world where murderers are growing more powerful every day.

The world is no-mana, so any superpowers must be cosmic in nature; the enhancements are both instant and exactly what you'd want the abilities to be at that moment, if that's possible. It is also possible to "save up" CP for later use, but these points can only be spent at the instant one murders someone.

Most people are [100] or less, so the majority of upgrades will be worth [5], but a large number of reasonable characters are [200], even occasionally [300]. And a [100] psychopath with 20 kills to his name is now [200] points...

As for how society collapsed so quickly, I think it has more to do with a number of unstable individuals rapidly gathering power, and not with mob violence.

On reflection, I might change the rules for how points are awarded. It might be that, on landing the killing blow, the killer receives [5+(total points attained by the victim)]. In this way, power attainment is accumulative.

[ericthered]

The real problem in the power through death world isn't serial killers, its soldiers and career thugs. Unless you demand close quarters killing for metaphysical reasons. The west may fare well, but what happens when this is figured out by some third-world dictator or drug lord? Now you really have a super-villian.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by PTTG

As for how society collapsed so quickly, I think it has more to do with a number of unstable individuals rapidly gathering power, and not with mob violence.

The thing is personally powerful individuals are just not that much of a threat to a stable society. I've said it before in the context of Horror, that there's a *reason* horror fiction is about unprepared small groups who can't reach or convince the authorities, and it's because organization, tactics and technology are such huge force multipliers. If the heroes had any chance of survival at all, once the authorities send in an organized force prepared for trouble, the monsters die.