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Old 02-19-2013, 04:51 AM   #1
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Super Societies in GURPS

This post isn't about groups like the Justice League... well, I want to talk about, but it's not what "society" means in the post title. Rather, I'm interested in fleshing out the rules and social structures that might govern a world's entire community of super-humans, as well as their interactions with normals. This covers social advantages and disadvantages, Code(s) of Honor and related rules.

One particular source of motivation for this is the thought that it's often considered more "realistic" if superhero stories are violent and bloody, which is true up to a point, but realistically people are also going to want to avoid that as much as possible. So part of the goal is to design a super-society that has methods of keeping the body counts down even though they're not benefiting from four-color combat rules.

From this point of view, combat that superficially looks like four-color combat can be justified as the product of how supers choose to fight. Supers can afford to stand around making speeches because they know their opponent won't go all-out, and find it worthwhile because the goal is to force a surrender or retreat, so psychology matters! Similar logic justifies an emphasis on flashy feats over what will dispatch the foe the quickest. This all might be covered by a Code of Honor of some sort, or else Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents). The latter might have the limitation Supers Only, -50%, especially when used for villains: they don't care about "normals," but are careful about fighting other supers for fear of reprisals.

It would be nice to have some combat mechanics covering this, things like rules for various skills, ways to make it obvious when you're pulling your punches or using Innate Attack (Variable) on a low setting. But I'm not sure how to do that. It occurs to me that you could have an entire martial arts style dedicated to this form of combat.

(Speaking of justifying genre conventions: could masks/costumes serve the social role of heraldry?)

A "pecking order" among supers could also help avoid fights. Some of this could be formalized in-universe. If the Superhero Society only ever appoints one of the world's top badasses for its president, other supers are likely to defer to him or her even if they don't particularly like the Superhero Society. Now it could just be part of the setting that, "being president of the Superhero Society is worth a +4 Reputation unless word gets out that the current president is unusually weak," but it would be interesting to represent this with Rank (or even Rank that also acts as Status).

Finally, a standardized system for what social advantages a super is likely to have might smooth interactions with normals. Even the weakest super might have Social Regard +1. It would also be helpful for a setting to have guidelines for what it takes for a super to have Legal Enforcement Powers and/or Legal Immunity (possibly with Informal, -50%). Actually... looking at Legal Immunity, that may even be the key advantage here, since the 5 and 10 point versions require following rules different from those followed by normal people.

Note: I'm aware of the similarities to WHS' Sovereignty campaign, but am hoping to flesh out something more extensive, where supers form a parallel society rather than being incorporated into existing structures through the legal hack that the most powerful supers are sovereign states. Though if WHS has details on how things worked in Sovereignty, it might provide ideas here.
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Old 02-19-2013, 05:02 AM   #2
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

I'm a bit unsure if it is helpful, but IIRC City of Heroes / Villains had some interesting ideas, including supers-as-presidents, the rite of passage required for obtaining a cape etc.
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Old 02-19-2013, 06:22 AM   #3
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

Can you explain more? TV Tropes is failing me on the presidents thing. And obtaining the cape, it just talks about learning about a fallen hero, was that all there was to it?
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Old 02-19-2013, 06:35 AM   #4
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

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Originally Posted by Michael Thayne View Post
Can you explain more? TV Tropes is failing me on the presidents thing. And obtaining the cape, it just talks about learning about a fallen hero, was that all there was to it?
Well, the prime political figures are supers. Emperor Cole, Lord Recluse, and whoever is on the Heroes side. And wasn't there an actual quest chain for obtaining a cape? (Again, haven't played the heroes side.)
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Old 02-19-2013, 07:26 AM   #5
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

One of the Supers games I ran had a set of rules that varied by country but overall was the same and also signed off on by the UN.
Most Super powers required licensing to use. Similar to a conceal weapons permit but with more extensive training.
There was a Super Hero Guide kind of like the Boy Scouts for young Supers.
To go out and fight crime required special police type training but carried with it some legal protection against being sued and a paycheck.
Some supers never went the hero or villain route but used their powers for jobs.
Using a Super power in the commission of a crime was bad but killing a non powered person was really bad and got you a life sentence plus put you on the top of the most wanted list.
The combination of things kept collateral and civilian damage down.
Also there were some supers who were EMTs and rebuilding or repair.

Few Supers went into politics, at least before retiring. Less money, glory and satisfaction in most political offices after all.
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Old 02-19-2013, 09:39 AM   #6
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

Supers in Society is as big an issue as Magic in Society - it tends to lead folks to either deal in four-color absolutes, or to question things like 'who pays for the buildings that were destroyed?' and the like.

It definitely leads to a kind of arms race, with the police and military having to up their game if there are people out there who want to take over the world and who can survive a direct hit from a 120mm cannon.

It's hard to keep things realistic from a psychological sense if you're keeping them real in a physical sense. If powers can easily kill civilians and drop buildings, then the heroes are going to be careful and circumspect and the villains are going to use that to their advantage over the heroes. It's a very one-sided fight when the heroes always find themselves standing down as soon as there are hostages that the amoral bad guy is totally willing to kill.

So, what kind of rules would be in place?

Maybe it starts with only low-powered supers being allowed in the game? If the most powerful villain can be taken down by automatic gunfire, then he's going to be more circumspect himself - a little more Watchmen, if you will.

Another option is to deliberately make your villains more human, less sociopaths. That gives them a reason to be averse to violence on civilians and perhaps even property damage. Some of them might be "gentlemen" or otherwise possessed of codes of honor that keep them on the right side of the fatality line. This is much easier if you stage the game historically, obviously.

Maybe combat abilities are relatively limited, and what you find are more intellectual types, social and mental powers, that sort of thing. The fighters are bare-knuckle types, perhaps. Hard to say what happens with the availability of guns, though...
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Old 02-19-2013, 09:45 AM   #7
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

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It definitely leads to a kind of arms race, with the police and military having to up their game if there are people out there who want to take over the world and who can survive a direct hit from a 120mm cannon.
Hmm, maybe make an idealised knightly setup, where 'commoners' don't have a chance to do anything meaningful against supers, or would lose more by doing it than they would gain (a pyrrhic setup where you waste a year's GNP to get rid of a single super-criminal, whereas a super-hero can do it with a couple thousand dollars worth of collateral damage).

Why yes, this might require Artistic License - Economics. What?
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Old 02-19-2013, 10:02 AM   #8
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

Ever notice how so many superheroes are ridiculously rich? Maybe they set up a philanthropic trust to rebuild things after every super-battle. A sort of global insurance policy, say.

That, at least, takes care of the environmental damage. Now we need something to keep civilians safe...
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Old 02-19-2013, 12:50 PM   #9
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

The Sovereignty model fits into the structure of the modern Westphalian state system, and particularly of Weber's definition of the state. Because the state effectively monopolizes force in its domain, supers use their enhanced capacities for force as agents of the state, or as private citizens within the limits defined by the state, or as outlaws subject to forcible restraint by the state. And societies of supers are state-organized forces (the Super National Guard), or private societies (effectively a neighborhood watch), or criminal conspiracies (which would include vigilante-type supers).

Sovereigns are supers whom the state isn't capable of restraining by force, or whom it can restrain only by massive military force equivalent to fighting a war. And the legal category of individual sovereignty provides a regulated way for supers at that level to operate, in the same way that plebiscites provide a regulated way for nations to become states without necessarily fighting a civil war.

A sovereign is legally a state with a population of one. If they are within a territorial state, they are there as a visiting foreign national. They have the equivalent of diplomatic status, as a visiting head of state; and any property they actually occupy is treated as foreign soil, like an embassy. They can even hire locals to work on their property, but those locals don't become "citizens" because there is no provision for that.

Now, there is an alternative formulation: A return to the pre-Weberian setup of medieval and early modern states, where the state does not in fact effectively monopolize force. Supers are the equivalent of aristocrats (say, knights in armor) with the ability to engage in vendetta, and states are viable insofar as they are able to recruit a majority of force users to support a coalition—which may include both supers and conventional police/armed forces. This would treat a much wider range of supers as having special legal status. Douglass North's Violence and Social Orders is relevant to this; so is Norbert Elias's Power and Civility, especially for its discussion of "good manners" as a restraint on violence.

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Old 02-19-2013, 02:18 PM   #10
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Default Re: Super Societies in GURPS

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Originally Posted by JP42 View Post
Supers in Society is as big an issue as Magic in Society - it tends to lead folks to either deal in four-color absolutes, or to question things like 'who pays for the buildings that were destroyed?' and the like.
....
I like the idea that those contracts are the only ones super construction teams can take. Supers clean up supers, and leave the "proper" construction to mundanes.
One doesn't need The Flash or Superman level powers to be incredibly useful in construction.
The clean up funds can come from the national Defense budget. Who wants to spend billions on stealth fighters if you can get more bang for your buck cleaning up after the free super service?
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