Supers in otherwise-realistic settings - Page 2

Prince Charon · 01-13-2020, 11:42 AM

So, you and your players want to do a supers game, but you also want the setting to be mostly realistic (genuinely realistic, that is, not grimderp, edgy, 'pessimists tell you to lighten up' pseudo-realism). These are contradictory desires, but they aren't absolutely mutually exclusive. Even in real life, there are people who dress up in silly costumes and act to some degree like comic-book characters - most of them are social activists or neighborhood watchfolk who just happen to wear costumes to call attention to themselves, but some do try actual vigilantism, and are generally regarded as various degrees of insane (though the neighborhood watch and social activists are not always regarded as in great mental health either, if they dress like that). The vigilantes certainly don't enjoy a huge amount of public or legal support in most cases, and comic book tropes are not in effect. So, in a world where large number of people with super-powers of some sort openly exist, there should probably be a few who try to do the superhero thing, or even the supervillain thing... but they won't be common, and most people will still think that they're nuts. Most people with powers will be using them to make money, or to make their lives more comfortable in some other way, or even just ignoring them most of the time. Only a small fraction will be acting like book characters at any one time, and if they aren't bullet-proof, they aren't likely to last long if they offend a serious criminal, or take on the police.

Depending on how much realism you want, that may be good enough, or it may not. If it's not, then you need to have something actively encouraging comic-bookish behavior. In my Five Earths setting (see .sig), I have a lot of spirits that make people luckier and more powerful if they behave in-genre, or have psychological traits that can lead them in that direction. Something similar could be done with faeries, gods, aliens, or other such beings, or just an undefined background tendency, but in a modernish world, you do need to decide what to do about firearms, especially in games set in places where guns are especially common, like New York City. You'll also need to decide how laws and law enforcement deals with the situation (which may be widely different, as not all laws are enforced to the same degree).

In a realistic setting, you're probably not using the rules for GURPS Action to reduce combat deadliness. Instead, my suggestion is that defensive advantages of various types are very, very common, with even 'Super Normal' characters like Batman having luck-based defences. Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction), possibly with Ranged Only or Piercing Only limitations, is a good example of this ('You're lucky you weren't hurt worse!'), possibly with a lower-level version of the same advantage without the same limitations (you can still take a punch better than most people). Enhanced Dodge can also help a lot, but only if you know you need to, and are not restrained. Death-rays and such can be handled similarly. Luck itself, and Serendipity, can be useful in maintaining a secret identity, as well as escaping from traps, or from prison, if captured at all.

How law enforcement deals with all this depends on a number of factors, which will probably be specific to the game:

How powerful are the top-level supers, and how common are supers at that level?
About how many supers are there in general?
Are there a lot of high-level or top-level supers directly employed by the government with duties that include keeping other supers in line?
How long have supers been publicly known?
What is the attitude of law enforcement to supers in general, and to superheroes, specifically?
What is the attitude of the general public to them, if it's different from the attitude of law enforcement?

If Superman can laugh off an atomic bomb and outrun the speed of light, the government really can't do much to him if he wants to be a vigilante and doesn't want to work for them (or not without shooting themselves in the foot rather badly), whereas if he's 'only' faster than a speeding bullet and can be harmed by a bursting shell, the government has a non-zero chance of giving him orders and making them stick. If Superman chooses to work for the FBI, he serves as a pretty good argument for other supers to likewise take up government service if they want to fight crime. If he doesn't, a lot of others will wonder why they should.

Let's say that supers start out as low-powered pulp heroes and villains in the 1930s, and maybe a few earlier. Apart from the oddity that they aren't getting shot, or aren't getting seriously wounded when they are, they mostly don't seem to have any powers, or don't have really fantastic or impressive ones. These 'heroes' are generally insane to some degree, often quite scarily so (this is consistent with how they behaved in the pulps of the time), and encountering the aftermath of one of their rampages would be disturbing. By the late '30s and into the 1940s, more powerful and obvious supers start appearing, and the government can no-longer pretend that everything is normal. Some of the heroes, and even villains, may join the war effort (if something like WWII still happens, and the country your game is set in gets involved), but not necessarily under military discipline. Police corruption in the era was depressingly common (which was used as a justification for some of the supers in the comics), but even honest coppers didn't have it easy, as the technology and methods we have now simply weren't available. This would allow even fairly low-powered supers to have a good chance at avoiding arrest, unless other supers got involved.

The next generation of supers, those who were mostly born in the 1930s and '40s and came of age in the 1950s and '60s, grew up in an era when supers are simply a fact of life. If you have powers that you think are impressive, putting on a silly costume and going out grandstanding is 'normal,' or as normal as super-powered folk get. This generation of superheroes thus tends to be more numerous, and less insane, as a greater proportion of powered people enter the cape lifestyle. As more people go out and act like comic book characters, attitudes in the public shift, and thus, over time, so do laws. How fast they shift, and in what direction, is a matter the GM needs to think about, but the right to a secret identity being enshrined in the US Constitution is not totally implausible, even if it is generally a significant stretch.

Thoughts?

01-13-2020, 11:42 AM	#1
Prince Charon Join Date: Dec 2012	Supers in otherwise-realistic settings So, you and your players want to do a supers game, but you also want the setting to be mostly realistic (genuinely realistic, that is, not grimderp, edgy, 'pessimists tell you to lighten up' pseudo-realism). These are contradictory desires, but they aren't absolutely mutually exclusive. Even in real life, there are people who dress up in silly costumes and act to some degree like comic-book characters - most of them are social activists or neighborhood watchfolk who just happen to wear costumes to call attention to themselves, but some do try actual vigilantism, and are generally regarded as various degrees of insane (though the neighborhood watch and social activists are not always regarded as in great mental health either, if they dress like that). The vigilantes certainly don't enjoy a huge amount of public or legal support in most cases, and comic book tropes are not in effect. So, in a world where large number of people with super-powers of some sort openly exist, there should probably be a few who try to do the superhero thing, or even the supervillain thing... but they won't be common, and most people will still think that they're nuts. Most people with powers will be using them to make money, or to make their lives more comfortable in some other way, or even just ignoring them most of the time. Only a small fraction will be acting like book characters at any one time, and if they aren't bullet-proof, they aren't likely to last long if they offend a serious criminal, or take on the police. Depending on how much realism you want, that may be good enough, or it may not. If it's not, then you need to have something actively encouraging comic-bookish behavior. In my Five Earths setting (see .sig), I have a lot of spirits that make people luckier and more powerful if they behave in-genre, or have psychological traits that can lead them in that direction. Something similar could be done with faeries, gods, aliens, or other such beings, or just an undefined background tendency, but in a modernish world, you do need to decide what to do about firearms, especially in games set in places where guns are especially common, like New York City. You'll also need to decide how laws and law enforcement deals with the situation (which may be widely different, as not all laws are enforced to the same degree). In a realistic setting, you're probably not using the rules for GURPS Action to reduce combat deadliness. Instead, my suggestion is that defensive advantages of various types are very, very common, with even 'Super Normal' characters like Batman having luck-based defences. Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction), possibly with Ranged Only or Piercing Only limitations, is a good example of this ('You're lucky you weren't hurt worse!'), possibly with a lower-level version of the same advantage without the same limitations (you can still take a punch better than most people). Enhanced Dodge can also help a lot, but only if you know you need to, and are not restrained. Death-rays and such can be handled similarly. Luck itself, and Serendipity, can be useful in maintaining a secret identity, as well as escaping from traps, or from prison, if captured at all. How law enforcement deals with all this depends on a number of factors, which will probably be specific to the game: How powerful are the top-level supers, and how common are supers at that level? About how many supers are there in general? Are there a lot of high-level or top-level supers directly employed by the government with duties that include keeping other supers in line? How long have supers been publicly known? What is the attitude of law enforcement to supers in general, and to superheroes, specifically? What is the attitude of the general public to them, if it's different from the attitude of law enforcement? If Superman can laugh off an atomic bomb and outrun the speed of light, the government really can't do much to him if he wants to be a vigilante and doesn't want to work for them (or not without shooting themselves in the foot rather badly), whereas if he's 'only' faster than a speeding bullet and can be harmed by a bursting shell, the government has a non-zero chance of giving him orders and making them stick. If Superman chooses to work for the FBI, he serves as a pretty good argument for other supers to likewise take up government service if they want to fight crime. If he doesn't, a lot of others will wonder why they should. Let's say that supers start out as low-powered pulp heroes and villains in the 1930s, and maybe a few earlier. Apart from the oddity that they aren't getting shot, or aren't getting seriously wounded when they are, they mostly don't seem to have any powers, or don't have really fantastic or impressive ones. These 'heroes' are generally insane to some degree, often quite scarily so (this is consistent with how they behaved in the pulps of the time), and encountering the aftermath of one of their rampages would be disturbing. By the late '30s and into the 1940s, more powerful and obvious supers start appearing, and the government can no-longer pretend that everything is normal. Some of the heroes, and even villains, may join the war effort (if something like WWII still happens, and the country your game is set in gets involved), but not necessarily under military discipline. Police corruption in the era was depressingly common (which was used as a justification for some of the supers in the comics), but even honest coppers didn't have it easy, as the technology and methods we have now simply weren't available. This would allow even fairly low-powered supers to have a good chance at avoiding arrest, unless other supers got involved. The next generation of supers, those who were mostly born in the 1930s and '40s and came of age in the 1950s and '60s, grew up in an era when supers are simply a fact of life. If you have powers that you think are impressive, putting on a silly costume and going out grandstanding is 'normal,' or as normal as super-powered folk get. This generation of superheroes thus tends to be more numerous, and less insane, as a greater proportion of powered people enter the cape lifestyle. As more people go out and act like comic book characters, attitudes in the public shift, and thus, over time, so do laws. How fast they shift, and in what direction, is a matter the GM needs to think about, but the right to a secret identity being enshrined in the US Constitution is not totally implausible, even if it is generally a significant stretch. Thoughts? __________________ Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.