Ideas Are Easy

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

If the supers setting is at least a little realistic, the government is going to realize that these mutants are some of their most valuable human resources, and will take measures to cultivate them. They're all getting free rides to Meta-Human Training Institutes.

It's a sweet deal, and nearly everyone takes it. But the catch is that by taking the deal you accept that you are always going to be among the first to be called up when things go wrong in a big way.

Along with other benefits, including stupid amounts of cash and other lifestyle elements.

[Johan Larson]

Originally Posted by Randyman

Along with other benefits, including stupid amounts of cash and other lifestyle elements.

Heck yeah. People with major powers would be living the lives of major celebrities. And even people with much less oomf would be well off. If you had a power that was at all useful, meaning it was worth training, you'd probably be making doctor-level money.

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by Johan Larson

Heck yeah. People with major powers would be living the lives of major celebrities. And even people with much less oomf would be well off. If you had a power that was at all useful, meaning it was worth training, you'd probably be making doctor-level money.

The government might also encourage the news and entertainment types to make legit supers (ie. government affiliated) celebrities while others are socially unacceptable in some way. Having groupies and such is a major lure for teens and twenty something.

[Johan Larson]

Originally Posted by dcarson

The government might also encourage the news and entertainment types to make legit supers (ie. government affiliated) celebrities while others are socially unacceptable in some way. Having groupies and such is a major lure for teens and twenty something.

I would expect there to be people who opted out of the system, in a free society where this is possible. (In an authoritarian one, it wouldn't be.) But I kind of suspect that enough of them would be troublemakers that the ones who aren't would keep a really low profile, to avoid being tarred with the same brush.

And the government would keep tabs on them by various means, just because the ones with high power levels could do so much damage if they went rogue.

[SolemnGolem]

The Matriarchy, the Heir, and the Trial of the Knife: A medieval-level (post-collapse) riverside settlement in West Africa has a matriarchal system, implemented to ease inheritance even with wartime male deaths. It has stood the test of the environment, scavengers, and hostile tribes to provide a safe walled city and well-watered surroundings for a stable agricultural society. However, a rebel from within the city threatens to destabilize its system.

The Heir: The city's ruler, Antanganoroa, has two recognized children, Ngoranda and Mberosha. Ngoranda appeared to be female to all outward scrutiny upon birth, but within the past few years has exhibited male secondary characteristics, such as increased muscle mass, height, broad shoulders, and a beard. The city's female rulers declared Ngoranda to be Ngoradnarof, a man, and stripped him of his eligibility to inherit his mother's rulership position. Ngoradnarof has led a revolt of the city's menfolk to the surrounding countryside, hoping through non-violent opposition to force the city to accept his own claim to the throne. He has also latched on to a more widespread "male equality" movement among the city's disenfranchised men, but is only half-heartedly committed to this movement personally.

The Trial of the Knife: In the time since the revolt by the disobedient Heir, the female rulers of the city have instituted a relentless regime of a specific gender-based surgical procedure to be performed on all adolescent girls, ostensibly to prevent them from accidentally maturing into men like the Heir. This has become something of a quasi-religious ritual designed to cow and subjugate the women, but also to rally them around the importance of uniting against the Heir. The hapless wielder of the knife is "Dadokta Ants Fadenwe" (Dr. Ernst Fadenauer), a Western-trained physician with modern medical tech. He wants to end the mutilations but he also knows that if he doesn't go through with them, the rulers will take over the process themselves without the benefit of modern medicine, inflicting even greater suffering on the city's female children.

Possible solutions: Killing the Heir or his select advisers can change the timbre and direction of the male revolt, all the moreso because the Heir has a younger sister who can take his place. The Heir is also open to negotiations and is willing to call off the strike, provided that he can enjoy a privileged status on his return. Killing Dadokta Fadenwe in a suitably bloody manner could temporarily suspend the mutilations.

To permanently stop the mutilations, it's necessary to prove their genetic cause: the Heir's father was actually a consanguinous relative to the Queen, so the Heir's intersex condition was due to parental inbreeding across a few generations - this knowledge would embarrass the ruling house but would also eliminate fears of this condition in the general populace. Tracking this information down will require many in-person interviews from the various villages that the Queen's family hails from; this society is largely pre-literate.

[(E)]

Start a post on this forum in this sub forum called what do you have in your pockets?

Each poster finishes with a 24 hour time notation and the next poster states approximately what they have in their pockets at that time.

Useful for looting zombies and other "what did they have in their pockets situations"

Variation what do you have in your pocket by TL modify contents to suit a TL from the above poster.

[David Johnston2]

For the past year a formerly notorious moneylender and recluse who had been living in self-imposed misery has re-invented himself as a generous and friendly man and even something of a social reformer. But tragically on the anniversary of his Yuletide self-reinvention the man who was now one of the most loved men in the city was struck down. Well at least now he'll be missed. Now the PCs have three mysterious clients who want them to answer one question:

Who Killed Ebenezer Scrooge?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Who Killed Ebenezer Scrooge?

Mrs Crachit, who do you think? She hired an actor as her accomplice.

[jason taylor]

Word has arrived in Lisbon that a fugitive is to arrive wanted for espionage, sedition, terrorism, and as an accessory to the recent assassination of a German officer. He is said to be accompanied by an attractive women. The PCs are officers in the local police.
As an added complication it turns out that this fugitive carries a visa signed by Charles de Gaulle. Maintaining neutrality between beligerants is hard enough. This visa will involve the local government in someone else's civil war. And whatever the PCs do they know uncomfortably that if a diplomatic mistake, is made the government won't hesitate to explain it as the work of "overenthusiastic officers".

What do they do when Victor Lazlo comes to town?

[jason taylor]

The PCs have a tough job. A Chinese partisan leader on the other side of the Himalayas needs to be supplied. All of the air routes are prioritized elsewhere and the only choice is a laborious overland trek from India via Nepal. The PCs are a band of Allied troops charged with this mission. It is a dangerous one. Made only worse by the fact that your intelligence liason will never leave off boasting of his cultured refinement and of the glories of the Prince of Wales Own West Yorkshire Regiment.