Suddenly, Supers!

[FireTigeris]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

+1 Empathy?

sanity checks? What game is this for?

Custom build - I used the forum link 'new post' and didn't realize this was specific, think D10 system + compleatly custom Powers single page handed out when the 'event' happened.

as a power as I had explained I have power levels 1-5 so anyone with a total of 'three points' get automatic point in empathy, if they have 4 total points 2 levels in empathy (which isn't as cool as it sounds) and 5 (the maximum no matter how else it's spent- not looking for gods here) 3 levels of empathy-

Empathy would take training to 'turn off' and is not a 'reach out and touch' someone power it's passive (always) and non targeted (without training)- with more then one person in the area of effect (usually a room) it's not super useful because targeting an individual takes the 200 hours...yadda yadda training then blocking out another person or other people more hours...more work... but realizing every time your friend trips your foot hurts... seconds.

maddness checks/Sanity checks/will checks/frenzy check/bezerk check...ect... whatever like oWoD Frenzy Checks for WWtA... same idea both the roll- bad things happen- otherwise everything is cool-

Empathy would cause be other voices in your head and random body pain/pleasure, all the time- forever if you can't find a trainer- who can train you everyone got their powers at the same time you did! Oh no.

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Doomsday cults and mass revivals would sweep the globe. Major religions will suffer schisms as they try to define the whys according to their world views and inevitably disagree.

IMC there waste several cults. A cult headed by a super with healing powers was one of the big news stories tracked in game.

[FireTigeris]

Example: [ this is just a snip of the whole sheet- Earth, Life, Metal, Tech were other powers]

Character new template at reveal of super powers at onset. (everyone was human build for a TL8 human story)

GM - "Please take out a d10 and treat it as a d5 - please roll and record your result."

"you have this many 'points' of superpower; if you rolled a 3,4,5 see me for special rules"

Pyro (fire)

- Genesis (making)
- Kinesis (moving)
- imperium (control)
- Conculco (supression)
- invulnerabilis (invunlrablity)
- dictum (speaking- as in talking to an already lit fire to find out information, larger the fire the more less alien the 'intelligence' -- also lighting a small fire and having it keep watch if you leave
(microwave sized or larger, candles are really (dumb/alien) in this 'sense' of room watching or being aware))

glaciem (Ice)

- Genesis (making)
- Kinesis (moving)
- imperium (control)
- Conculco (supression)
- invulnerabilis (invunlrablity)
- dictum (speaking- as in talking to an already frozen thing ( to find out information, larger the ice block the more less alien the 'intelligence' -- also leaving an ice sculpture having it keep watch if you leave -microwave sized or larger, ice-cubes are really dumb in this 'sense')

aeris (air- pick a 'type' of air- conciser O^2, O^3, or N^2, CO^2...)
- Genesis (making)
- Kinesis (moving)
- imperium (control)
- Conculco (supression)
- invulnerabilis (invunlrablity)
- dictum (speaking- as in talking to an already windy/ specifically air filled thing ( to find out information, larger the 'air container' (balloon, beach ball- hot air balloon... air tank) the more [air of your type, the] less alien the 'intelligence' -- also leaving an "inflatable whatever" having it keep watch if you leave -microwave sized or larger, a single balloon is really dumb in this 'sense'- ALSO whole rooms are NOT 'containers of air unless they are pressurized like a spaceship or an airplane or underwater base))

EMPATHY - passive, always on: (also *special*-Requires GM approval)
- Sense Emotion (area) (an 'impression' like when males wince for a nutshot to someone else)
- Sense Pain (area)
- hear surface emotion (area) (as a 'voice' repeating the name of the emotion with the same intensity those people feel)
("anger, anger, anger," "HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY", "FEAR, Fear,fear, calm, Calm, CALM")
- feel surface emotion (area)
- Terror compass (someone is in Terror that way...) (closest single target)
- Pain compass (someone is in Pain that way...) (closest single target)
- Happiness Compass (see above)
- hear other 'shoulder riders' (area) (do it...no don't ... yes, do it... no...)
- feel pain (closest single target)
- feel emotion (closest single target)

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

Oh YES. I look forward to the shocked faces and dismay this will initially cause. I plan on playing this very gritty.

As long as you walk the PCs through their powers so that they don't do something the players would have read about in comics. I find it very difficult in gritty realism supers because I'm a big comic book reader and because most GMs have a place where they throw the realism out and if the GM and players don't agree where this place is, then major misunderstandings will occur (like the posting a while ago where a player had forgotten to put no knockback and the GM did two very bad things: he forced the PC to go threw with the consequences of the attack even though the GM fully knew it was a mistake in the build, and also vocally saved another PC from the consequences of the action; were I either player I would have quit: the first because the GM should have helped me with the power better or changed it right then, and the second because my character had been killed off and I wouldn't accept any claim otherwise unless he allowed the first player to fix his power).

I'm very strange.

[DangerousThing]

In the US I suspect that the first time a super powered terrorist is even thought to be behind a terrorist act in the US there will be a huge clamp down on supers that will make the Japanese Internment (look it up for those who don't know about it) look like a walk in the park.

People will just disappear including the families of any super known. They may never be seen again. I was much more optimistic before the governmental overreaction to 9/11 and this would have the potential to be far worse.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by christ0pher

Interesting, I hadn't thought of technology based off the Supers. I just wonder if very few people with power would let themselves be studied that much.

Hell, yes. Venture Capitalists pay you top dollar to let yourself be poked and prodded. provide any weird needs you have, and hire really smart people to help you figure out what you can do, with royalties based on whatever they eventually bring to market. Unless some of the supers are Cosmic Gadgeteers, though, I think "2-10 years" is optimistic for cracking the secrets of mutant powers.

[Gef]

Hi Chris, I've been running a mutants campaign for a few months. Here are some of the details that may be relevant:

1) All mutants get a template, and maybe additional powers. Scale is much smaller, 50-200pt power after them template, but there are plenty to be concerned about. (How concerned? I have a PC who can open a gate, his size, and hold it for 45 minutes. I have an NPC who can shrink large vehicles. Between them, they can put a ready wing anywhere in the world, faster than an aircraft cariier and over land as well as sea.)

2) The template gives them enhanced physical attributes, mainly, plus a "Type A" personality (collection of quirks) and Fanaticism to the cause of their choice. So, they're gonna get involved, one way or another.

3) In developed countries, venture capital flows to mutants. In the US, there's a program in Bethesda partly funded by the government, and a purely private program in Silicon Valley. The latter has fewer mutants but pays better to get the best guinea pigs.

4) Gradually, the law in developed countries has become more restrictive of mutants. They're all required to be registered, and they're not allowed near important government facilities. Since a couple of disasters, there are laws being debated about mandatory protective custody, and a new facility opened in Antarctica.

4) Not many people have gone on super-powered crime sprees just because they can. Sitting back and getting paid to be a lab rat is easier and more lucrative.

5) Nobody's going vigilante, either. The property damages would be enormous.

6) Still in developed countries, mutants aren't being snapped up by military, though militaries are learning to deal with mutants, and there are some small special units being formed. The main problem with a cool mutant power is that you can;t build combat doctrine around a one-off, and the better use of the cool power is to study it in hopes of replication. Mutants that the military does take are the ones with no powers beyond the template.

7) In poor countries, mutants may in fact be out on the streets, may wind up joining brushfire wars on one side or another. Those countries can't put together a decent scientific program, so they want to use powers immediately rather than study them. The uses may be military or commercial.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by FireTigeris

larger the fire the more less alien the 'intelligence'

larger the ice block the more less alien the 'intelligence'

larger the 'air container' (balloon, beach ball- hot air balloon... air tank) the more less alien the 'intelligence'

I am confused by the construction "more less ~". Could you explain that some other way for me please?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Gef

Venture Capitalists pay you top dollar to let yourself be poked and prodded.

Maybe not. Venture capitalists require large risk premiums on the rate of return to compensate them for uncertain project outcomes, and this makes it difficult to get them to fund long-term research projects. The interesting superpowers are going to be radically unfamiliar to Science: research to unlock their secrets will take generations and lead to wholly unpredictable and unexpected applications. What's more, the chief results will be discoveries in basic science, which it is hard for the discoverers to capture the benefits of. Michael Faraday didn't make a nickel out of the electric light, because he had been dead for thirteen years before they started to become commercial.

Like all research in basic science, this has to be funded by the public and other wealthy patrons for essentially philanthropic motives.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

After this, supers are considered by law to be armed as with a gun at all times. It causes problems in banking and travel, but alternate services begin to form during the campaign. There is universal registration. Additionally, the research camps did extensive psychological testing, and several people who went tot he camps noticed that easy to get along with types went to "Green" teams, some others went to "Yellow" teams, and it was really uncommon to hear from anyone on a "Red" team again. It's rapidly exploding into a civil liberties nightmare.

At which point there's a serious motivation for supers to join forces:
Light Side supers demand that governments do not pass discriminatory laws because it is a wrong kind of law to pass, Dark Side supers do it because they just don't want to be in a bad position.

At which point you have one of the following options:

• The governments return to the straight and narrow path.
• The governments say '**** YOU!', at which point the joint supers forces either
  • Are defeated, at which point supers are either destroyed or enslaved, just like the superophobes wanted in the first place.
  • Defeat the evil governments, at which points either
    • Supers destroy the supporters of evil governments or
    • Supers put the defeated evil governments and their supporters into a situation similar to Japan and Germany after WWII