Teenage Supers. X-Men

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

Collars that suppress mutant powers sound like pretty odd tech to have around if the government is only beginning to get a handle on the mutant problem. It might be better to have suppressors appear later in the series. Alternately, you could let the mutants come up with a way to defeat the suppressors.

Also, what are "sentinels" in this context?

Good points - although he could always have it that the government has been aware of (and experimenting on/using as secret weapons) mutants for some time before they really broke through into public awareness much, and therefore actually has had the time to develop some countermeasures.

For nullifier collars, I'd suggest saying that it's not a case of an actual Neutralize gadget, but rather that pretty much all mutant powers require a modicum of concentration (even if they don't involve actual Concentrate manuevers). Therefore, the collars work by electrically, sonically, or perhaps with injectable meds disrupting a mutant's ability to concentrate, making power activation take -5 to -10 on an IQ or DX roll, and penalizing all kinds of other actions too. If they've identified a particular EEG pattern that corresponds to trying to use a power, they could even be set to tase you every time.

For Sentinels, I don't know that the classic giant robots make a whole lot of sense for the tone of the campaign. Maybe go the reverse of the comics route and have them start out as human-controlled mecha designed by a mutant gadgeteer under duress to enable some government agents to match some mutants in combat - so more Mandroid than Sentinels, really. Of course, there's nothing saying that a coerced mutant couldn't come up with pretty good AI, either...

Other thoughts - if they've identified the genetics behind mutant powers enough to have blood tests and scanners, then they may not be restricted to using coopted or coerced mutants in order to have superpowers on the side of government, because identifying the gene(s) may open up the possibility of... mutant gene therapy! A series of treatments could result in an agent or soldier getting either the specific powers of the mutant from whom samples were taken and cultured, or random powers, depending on how mutant genetics actually work in the campaign. This could be either temporary or permanent, depending on how well the therapy takes, whether there are rejection issues, whether it drives the recipients bugnuts homicidal crazy or not, etc....

Or if the use of mutant powers depends largely on neurological changes and exotic neurotransmitters, they could instead be extracting cerebrospinal fluid from captive mutants to provide booster treatments to the agents and soldiers.