The Anti-Super Squad

[Infornific]

Seems to me you'd want to vary personnel to the task. It might make sense to have the players have multiple PCs for the various phases of the operation.

First step would be gathering information on the target and determining an appropriate course of action. In GURPS Action terms, you'd want Investigators, Hackers and Cleaners to determine what you're up against, weaknesses and actions you could take. Also someone with high Psychology, Empathy and Intuition to determine how the target will react.

Next, you determine course of action. For the Speedster, perhaps some social engineer to draw the speedster into a trap. Then someone to design a trap for the speedster - some kind of locked room, which then fills with gas that hopefully acts fast enough to take out the speedster. Then maybe put him in some prison at the bottom of the ocean, watched and controlled remotely.

For the mentalist, I assume his scanning affects minds but not machines. In which case, monitor him remotely by drones, hacking surveillance systems (or just using them if you're the government), etc. Then use some sort of remote control method to take him out and stash him in that underwater prison (or somewhere else remote.) That's more of a Hacker/Wire Rat job.

Social engineering is another option, as mentioned - make someone's life miserable or better still, if they're already miserable, offer to help them out.

[fchase8]

What about the 'turn one super against another'? That's basically the plan of the bad guys in Batman vs. Superman and Captain America: Civil War.

Though this is less the kind of operation a government would do, than an individual. Turning supers against each other doesn't require the vast resources that governments have, but does have a lot of side casualties (except in those movies, where there's always a convenient empty lot for the heroes to battle in...).

Plus, say that happens, and one super beats the other. Now you've still got to deal with the winning super.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Andreas

Given the accelerations that speedster is capable of, a fall should probably not pose any danger. For such a speedster there would be plenty of time to accelerate in the opposite direction of the fall once the ground is within reach.

Or you know just go splat. Because if they can't take a terminal velocity collision, they would have killed themselves already.

[Mark Skarr]

David Johnston2 has pretty much nailed it. Those characters are designed to be unbeatable. They're deific-level. The only way normals are ever going to beat them is with Deus ex machina; the way Batman tends to win.

And that is my point.

While, yes, the GM does want the players to succeed, the players want to succeed or fail on their own merits and not just have it handed to them. Batman wins because the story says he will--and he'll look "awesome" doing it. But, actually trying to game that situation is incredibly unsatisfying.

GMs don't tend to throw characters into a completely unwinnable situation and expect them to Batman their way out of it--that doesn't work. Players just aren't that clever (and I have some ridiculously clever players). It works in fiction because the author has complete control over the narrative and story. In a game, the GM just doesn't. If they do, then it's not a game, it's watching the GM tell a story that your characters don't matter in.

In a story, it's possible for the author to say that Batman throws his battarang and cuts the correct wire one second before the bomb goes off and disarms it. In a game, Batman has to make that roll. And if he botches it . . .? And what if the fight takes more or less time than you expected? What if the player doesn't understand the threat and prioritizes incorrectly? What if they're out of position during that all-important last second? The GM can't control those things like the author can.

Sure, the GM can say "nope, I'll make this roll" then dictate what their narrative demands, but that's taking all agency from the players. It isn't fun, because the player didn't get to do it. Everything in Batman is done for narrative convenience, not because someone is playing it as an RPG.

[sir_pudding]

In a game Batman can have Luck and Serendipity. Or he can be allowed to spend points on successes, effect, and player guidance (possibly Wildcard points from Ninjitstu! and Detective!). Or he can have access to all of the above.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

In a game Batman can have Luck and Serendipity. Or he can be allowed to spend points on successes, effect, and player guidance (possibly Wildcard points from Ninjitstu! and Detective!). Or he can have access to all of the above.

I think Cole hits the most salient point: Batman has some narrative agency and the best way to represent that is with agency-granting mechanics: Gizmos, Wildcard Points, etc.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

I think Cole hits the most salient point: Batman has some narrative agency and the best way to represent that is with agency-granting mechanics: Gizmos, Wildcard Points, etc.

You could even probably limit his Serendipity to stuff that could be explained by him being "crazy prepared".

[Wavefunction]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

David Johnston2 has pretty much nailed it. Those characters are designed to be unbeatable. They're deific-level. The only way normals are ever going to beat them is with Deus ex machina; the way Batman tends to win.

And that is my point.

While, yes, the GM does want the players to succeed, the players want to succeed or fail on their own merits and not just have it handed to them. Batman wins because the story says he will--and he'll look "awesome" doing it. But, actually trying to game that situation is incredibly unsatisfying.

GMs don't tend to throw characters into a completely unwinnable situation and expect them to Batman their way out of it--that doesn't work. Players just aren't that clever (and I have some ridiculously clever players). It works in fiction because the author has complete control over the narrative and story. In a game, the GM just doesn't. If they do, then it's not a game, it's watching the GM tell a story that your characters don't matter in.

In a story, it's possible for the author to say that Batman throws his battarang and cuts the correct wire one second before the bomb goes off and disarms it. In a game, Batman has to make that roll. And if he botches it . . .? And what if the fight takes more or less time than you expected? What if the player doesn't understand the threat and prioritizes incorrectly? What if they're out of position during that all-important last second? The GM can't control those things like the author can.

Sure, the GM can say "nope, I'll make this roll" then dictate what their narrative demands, but that's taking all agency from the players. It isn't fun, because the player didn't get to do it. Everything in Batman is done for narrative convenience, not because someone is playing it as an RPG.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

In a game Batman can have Luck and Serendipity. Or he can be allowed to spend points on successes, effect, and player guidance (possibly Wildcard points from Ninjitstu! and Detective!). Or he can have access to all of the above.

To clarify things a little, when I say Supernormals, I'm envisaging 1,000+ point humans with multiple attributes around 20, and several Wildcards at up to 30. We can assume they have Wildcard Points, Luck, and as many levels of Foresight or Gizmos as possible. They're not realistic humans, if you plopped them into the real world they'd be viewed as superhuman, but within the context of the game they're human.

I'm also not necessarily envisaging PCs, this might make for an interesting game, but the challenges I'd present to the PCs wouldn't be enemies of this level. They might not be far off though, my players can be pretty damned ingenious. The most important difference would be that the enemy would be clearer defined, I'd know their exact capabilities, what would work and what wouldn't, as opposed to the generic examples of listed so far.

All that said, the obvious answer to 'What if he botches it?' is people die, bad things happen. I don't tend to pull my punches as a GM, and if you fail then it has consequences.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I'll say it right now. The ability is passive, and covers a "vast range". So the characters have no way to know whether the target is hearing people thinking smack about it on the other side of the planet, and just not reacting obviously unless the target is cooperative enough to tell them the truth about about its limits.

Yeah, that's a tough one. Though if he's a known super he may have mentioned his limits before now. I guess if you're assuming his range is infinite they have to find a way of either a) preventing him from reading their minds, b) giving him misinformation, or c) defeat him even when he knows all the details of the plan. All of those are difficult, the first two may be impossible depending on the details of the power, the last one may be possible.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Not consistent with having the degree of discrimination that lets it pick out a single kind of thought from among of millions of thinkers.

The way I imagined it, was more that he detects a vague sense of threat towards him, and then zooms in on it, not clearly registering all the thoughts from millions of people, just skimming until he finds something odd. I think that interpretation might be possible to interefere with through mass panic, fear, or excitement. Sorry if it wasn't clear what I was going for. Regardless you're quite right with what you said above, this wouldn't really matter if he can scan the entire planet and know their plan as they come up with it.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That would require the team to have comprehensive surveillance of a target...who can't be identified unless it wants to announce itself. Otherwise you don't know who it loves, and which location it returns to frequently.

You seem to always assume the worst case scenario, which isn't a bad rule, but it's not always correct. In this case it's likely that the target was young at some point, and either didn't have her powers, or they were still developing, everyone makes mistakes. If they can identify where she lived, and who her family are, then they've got the perfect bait. You can't assume these superhumans have no human flaws, that they don't make mistakes, otherwise they really are unbeatable. In fact they're likely to have more flaws, since the powers might make them careless.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Ideas that require the target to be a careless public ID hero.

No, ideas that require that the target isn't completely untraceable. We're not putting these guys into a fight with not warning and expecting them to win, they have months to plan in, and essentially unlimited resources to do it with. With enough time and effort I have no doubt they can ID him. Again these superhumans will make mistakes, the team just has to find those mistakes. And remember that these characters are cinematic, that to me is the definition of a supernormal, they're not just cinematically competent fighters, they're also detectives, hackers, etc. I'm not talking Bat Deduction or a Sherlock Scan, just better than any real world detectives.

Finally, thank you for going over the proposed solutions and finding the flaws, that's actually very helpful. However, you haven't proved they're unbeatable, just found a way that doesn't work.

Originally Posted by Infornific

Seems to me you'd want to vary personnel to the task. It might make sense to have the players have multiple PCs for the various phases of the operation.

First step would be gathering information on the target and determining an appropriate course of action. In GURPS Action terms, you'd want Investigators, Hackers and Cleaners to determine what you're up against, weaknesses and actions you could take. Also someone with high Psychology, Empathy and Intuition to determine how the target will react.

Next, you determine course of action. For the Speedster, perhaps some social engineer to draw the speedster into a trap. Then someone to design a trap for the speedster - some kind of locked room, which then fills with gas that hopefully acts fast enough to take out the speedster. Then maybe put him in some prison at the bottom of the ocean, watched and controlled remotely.

For the mentalist, I assume his scanning affects minds but not machines. In which case, monitor him remotely by drones, hacking surveillance systems (or just using them if you're the government), etc. Then use some sort of remote control method to take him out and stash him in that underwater prison (or somewhere else remote.) That's more of a Hacker/Wire Rat job.

Social engineering is another option, as mentioned - make someone's life miserable or better still, if they're already miserable, offer to help them out.

Yeah, these are all very good points, and one of my players actually already suggested having multiple teams if we ran this as a game.

[Anders]

This would be an interesting alternative Monster Hunters game. I would look at the templates there.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Anders

This would be an interesting alternative Monster Hunters game. I would look at the templates there.

Yes, yes, yes! I'm already mentally working on my proposal for that supplement.

That's exactly how you'd do GURPS The Reckoners: It's simply MH where the monsters are supers ("Epics").