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wellspring · 04-20-2016, 02:42 PM

OK, this feels like hard mode since I can't include anything that feels like mind control. So, starting from where every good social trope should come, 80's television and TV tropes...

From the A-team we have Face Man's power to scrounge up anything, anywhere. This would require a social check and a brief encounter with an NPC; the player would have to come up with some plausible excuse for this. I'd start with the revised Serendipity rules in Power Ups 5: Impulse Buys.

"Knows a guy who knows a guy" is a classic trope for fixers and social characters. My earliest encounter with this is a looney toons where two mice are having trouble with a cat, and one suggests calling in Speedy Gonzales. "He's friends with my sister." "Speedy Gonzales is friends with everyone's sister." In early seasons of Castle, scripts played up his laundry list of connections to a huge variety of unlikely characters.

PK's "all according to plan" power from... um... a supplement. Essentially you get a free element of preparation added retroactively so long as it doesn't contradict what's already happened. The player decides the retcon, which reflects his mastermind character's brilliant Xanatos Gambit.

A variation on Wavefunction's idea is someone who's so cinematically popular that despite not being a celebrity, he's at least casually acquainted with everyone.

A different variation that crosses over with serendipity might be for the cinematic super-spymaster who has an agent everywhere. So with a roll, it turns out that one of the guards escorting you to the detention level is in your agent network. Lord Varys's spies and The Shadow's network of people he's saved both come to mind.

How about the Quagmire Effect? On Family Guy, you have the character of Quagmire, the lovable sex offender who commits all kinds of terrible crimes but somehow everyone just kind of laughs it off. This can be generalized to all kinds of fridge logic villainy where you have a sympathetic character who is lovable, well-liked by his friends, and engaged in some kind of criminal, shameful, and/or immoral behavior. It's not a secret, it's somethat people can and should react to, but which they dismiss. "That's Quagmire!" I was tempted not to list this one, since it requires careful policing by the GM and can be easily abused, but I think it appears in fiction, RPGs, and even real life enough that it's worth including. Ditto for police characters who routinely cross way over the line, but somehow keep their jobs after a token chewing-out by their boss about having to explain their crazy antics to the commish.

Actually, a lot of these advantages can be modeled with different rules from Impulse Buys, now that I think of it. Not having it in front of me, I think some of these may already be in there.

It's actually interesting how you can build out tropes from fiction as an Advantage. Either a Power from some other source, or as "fate", ie a formal part of the GM-player social contract.

04-20-2016, 02:42 PM	#8
wellspring Join Date: Apr 2011	Re: Social Superpowers OK, this feels like hard mode since I can't include anything that feels like mind control. So, starting from where every good social trope should come, 80's television and TV tropes... From the A-team we have Face Man's power to scrounge up anything, anywhere. This would require a social check and a brief encounter with an NPC; the player would have to come up with some plausible excuse for this. I'd start with the revised Serendipity rules in Power Ups 5: Impulse Buys. "Knows a guy who knows a guy" is a classic trope for fixers and social characters. My earliest encounter with this is a looney toons where two mice are having trouble with a cat, and one suggests calling in Speedy Gonzales. "He's friends with my sister." "Speedy Gonzales is friends with everyone's sister." In early seasons of Castle, scripts played up his laundry list of connections to a huge variety of unlikely characters. PK's "all according to plan" power from... um... a supplement. Essentially you get a free element of preparation added retroactively so long as it doesn't contradict what's already happened. The player decides the retcon, which reflects his mastermind character's brilliant Xanatos Gambit. A variation on Wavefunction's idea is someone who's so cinematically popular that despite not being a celebrity, he's at least casually acquainted with everyone. A different variation that crosses over with serendipity might be for the cinematic super-spymaster who has an agent everywhere. So with a roll, it turns out that one of the guards escorting you to the detention level is in your agent network. Lord Varys's spies and The Shadow's network of people he's saved both come to mind. How about the Quagmire Effect? On Family Guy, you have the character of Quagmire, the lovable sex offender who commits all kinds of terrible crimes but somehow everyone just kind of laughs it off. This can be generalized to all kinds of fridge logic villainy where you have a sympathetic character who is lovable, well-liked by his friends, and engaged in some kind of criminal, shameful, and/or immoral behavior. It's not a secret, it's somethat people can and should react to, but which they dismiss. "That's Quagmire!" I was tempted not to list this one, since it requires careful policing by the GM and can be easily abused, but I think it appears in fiction, RPGs, and even real life enough that it's worth including. Ditto for police characters who routinely cross way over the line, but somehow keep their jobs after a token chewing-out by their boss about having to explain their crazy antics to the commish. Actually, a lot of these advantages can be modeled with different rules from Impulse Buys, now that I think of it. Not having it in front of me, I think some of these may already be in there. It's actually interesting how you can build out tropes from fiction as an Advantage. Either a Power from some other source, or as "fate", ie a formal part of the GM-player social contract.