How do you handle limiting power sources in your campaign?

[dean day]

One of the questions I am grappling with in the new champions game I am creating is that I want to really reduce the the origins for power sources quite considerably to make them be a little more realistic and logical

rather than a total free for all.

For example looking at many of the older villains for champs I have lost count on how many are experiments gone wrong, with yet another set of scientists on yet another secret project!

 

Instead of each power armor character being a totally new project maybe their have been only half a dozen of these in history that all such designs flow from?

maybe one super solider program that has been adapted and used for all those type of characters since?

Possibly all darkness themed powers come from an alternate dark dimension?

 

I remember champions new millennium had very particular origin sources for characters like the gate keys or specialized martial arts schools which I thought was really cool.

Do you have a finite amount of alien races or alternate hidden races on earth?

or do you keep it completely gonzo?

 

 

How do you handle such origins for power sources and character types in your campaign or campaigns you have been involved with?

[Hugh Neilson]

The GM has a far better idea of campaign background than the players do.  In the past, I've looked at PC backstory and origins and often suggested minor tweaks that will fit them in with the campaign (often in ways they will only find out about as the campaign progresses).

 

Since the scientists on those secret projects are normally nameless and faceless, could there be a common thread?  Just because the PCs and NPCs don't know about that one researcher doesn't mean he/she does not exist, only that the manipulator behind these projects does a good job covering their tracks.  Similar with powered armor - Armor Wars in Iron Man started when he realized a huge amount of Marvel Universe characters were using his tech in their suits (most unknowingly). Do the PCs know, or even ask about, the research history leading to that super soldier serum?  Every speedster in the DCU had a different origin for their powers...until we figured out they really all came from the Speed Force.

 

Reveals of connections between things previously believed to have no connections are a classic comic book trope.

[Scott Ruggels]

1.). You will have to write an extensive campaign document. 
 

2.) In this document, you need to provide examples of the comics or fiction you are basing your new “comics Universe” on. 
 

3.)To back this up, you need to set down a historical timeline ( usually starting from the 1930s), and provide notable heroic and villainous examples   This set the flavor, the tone, and player expectations within the campaign. This also sets the “tech level” of the campaign if it is slightly behind (the 1980s) or slightly ahead (Milenium City). 
 

4.) Once defined, then you have to set down the red line laws of character creation. Point totals, as well as “thou shalt nots” need to be clearly defined. So no character with supernatural origins is permitted.  No character can be from beyond Earth’s atmosphere (yet).  Or no character can be a furry.  You have to be clear on what your universe allows and doesn’t. 
 

5.) You may have to build a couple of example heroes (as well as your stable of villains) as examples for the players. You will have to be a hard ass about it and some of your players may walk. But if most buy in on it, then you should have a solid game. 
 

My fantasy hero campaign that I ran started with a document. One that was added on to over time ( and added to my contributions to the gaming ‘zines in the days before the internet. )

 

As to common technologies, say that in the 1960s, a genius at the head of a construction equipment company built the first tank with legs. DARPA, and then DOD funding gave birth to a Pre-Cambrian level of mechanical diversity on the theoretical battlefield, spurring The Soviets to respond in kind. The legged vehicles did not resemble Japanese mechs at all but instead looked more like armored insects or animal forms. The original genius, seeing projections of the Nuclear Battlefield decided to miniaturize some of his technology to make powered armor suits. The brush wars of the late 60s and early 70s might look different, but the outcomes might be the same generally to keep player assumptions tidy and on the same page. Aircraft and Aerospace would respond to these building larger and more capable transport aircraft, up to Thunderbird 2 dimensions, if not full blended lifting bodies. The military research then folds back to construction and the civil sector. Surplus tanks, by US law would have the weapons removed, but cheap chassis, often sold for scrap would be available. The “micro fusion “ power plants from the latest vehicles my find its way into other uses. Large aircraft would be available as large mobile bases.  Construction equipment would be the sources for spare parts, and chassis for a player’s new idea. It may be less comic book and more 90s toy show on flavor, but that is just this example. 
 

Just set your limiting points, and let’s your ( and your player’s) creativity spin like a spiderweb through the implications. 
 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

The simplest way is to have a shared origin such as "a strange green comet shatters and crashes into the earth and its radiation causes survivors to gain superpowers" and then everyone who has powers got them from that event.  But that limits certain concepts and ideas of characters, and also creates a specific, limited time and place when powers are gained, so it might not be ideal for every player's wishes regarding their character.

 

One of the most effective controlling ideas for a campaign is to have an event or time period in which the world becomes a place where powers can arise, such as an alternating epoch where every x time period people with powers begin to show up, then after a few thousand years stop showing up and are forgotten. This allows for a very wide variety of origins for the duration of your campaign and gives a tie to past events (maybe those Greek myths were real and that was the last epoch!).

 

Another idea is for powers to have always been available but were extremely difficult to access.  Such as "make a deal with extradimensional creatures" or "dig up a special type of crystal that is extremely rare" or "access quantum particles" whatever excuse you have, but with modern technology its more readily accessible than ever before.  So what was once a super rare lucky happenstance now is something world governments and individual labs are trying to do deliberately.  This gives you rare, scattered clusters of powers in the past, but many more today.

[Hugh Neilson]

7 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The simplest way is to have a shared origin such as "a strange green comet shatters and crashes into the earth and its radiation causes survivors to gain superpowers" and then everyone who has powers got them from that event.  But that limits certain concepts and ideas of characters, and also creates a specific, limited time and place when powers are gained, so it might not be ideal for every player's wishes regarding their character.

 

I'm flashing back to Marvel's New Universe, where the White Event caused superpowers. But we had Justice, a warrior from another dimension (who eventually turned out to be under mental power deception by an enemy, and was really a real-world cop before the White Event).

[Lord Liaden]

I'm afraid you can count me in the "gonzo" camp. 😛  Raised on Marvel and DC comics, I love having the full range of origin options available. That said, I do like having the Age of Superheroes ushered in by some physics-altering event, like the CU's Walpurgisnacht Working or the Flux from the San Angelo world. But that's just an enabling device for all those origins, and an explanation for why there haven't always been superhumans throughout history. But if you want limited source or sources, you want to define the origin of that source, then work out the implications.

 

If you want technology, for example, to be the basis for powers, you can have multiple bleeding-edge geniuses at work on Earth during the same rough era. The CU has several such parties, both individuals and groups. OTOH perhaps the initial breakthrough(s) came from a very few, but as their inventions or discoveries filtered out into the wider world other inventors adapted them -- arc reactors, Pym particles, adamantium or vibrainium, and so on. Perhaps an alien ship crashed on Earth and its tech was reverse-engineered, even improved on.

[steriaca]

Well, my idea of Champions 2050 calls for more limited powers. All powered armors, cyborgs, and unusual tech devices are basically large and clunky now. Most genetic powers are no longer easy to use (semi-manatory power limitations like Increased Endurance and Requires A Roll, etc.). Magic is not exactly reliable anymore (again, semi-mandatory power limitations). Martial artist and 'natural' mentalist and skill 'powers' are of course not exactly limited.

 

They are not exactly forbidden, just very limited. Well, at least in theory. 

[assault]

Personally I favour the gonzo approach, at least for PCs.

 

I then build out from them.

 

It's not necessary to rationalise NPCs who will only show up if you want them to.

[DShomshak]

As others have said, a lot depends on how restrictive you want to be, with "Just one origin event" comparable to the Marvel New U White Event as an extreme case.

 

But it sounds like you just want to prune things down -- not every powered armor character invented their tech ex nihilo, not so many "secret projects," etc. For which I fully agree! Like, Hugh Neilson mentioned the Armor Wars: To me it seems both plausible and artistically satisfying that yes, inventors are copying armor designs. Even just knowing that something has been done is, historically, a very good start for a competent scientist or engineer to duplicate it.

 

At risk of immodesty, let me mention that I wrote a few supplements based on just such premises: the SHARED ORIGINS series, all available from the HERO Store:

Shared Origins: Sky-Q. It's the "Smart Drug" that really works. Sometimes it works too well -- with some unfortunate side effects. Along with the brilliant technological breakthroughs, users tend to develop bizarre criminal obsessions. This is your source for nutty theme gadget villains! And some who aren't so nutty. And maybe some who are downright monsters.

Shared Origins: The Dynatron. Mauro Fuentes, a.k.a. Red Giant, invented a machine that can give anyone super-powers. After a brief career as a supervillain, he got smart and started selling origins to other people. Being the world's premier "power vendor" has not worked out as well as he hoped. But if you have the money -- he has the power.

Shared Origins: The Green Butterfly. This book of magic tells how to gain super-powers... if you're lucky. If you aren't lucky, you may suffer a fate that would make death a mercy. But if you're up on your occultism and willing to take a BIG chance, you can become a nascent demigod. Several copies are extant. Is somebody making more?

Dean Shomshak

 

ADDENDUM: Also, each of these mini-books has an appendix giving brief descriptions of three other Shared Origins that follow a similar theme, which you can develop for yourself. So, three other Origin Substances, Power Vendors, and Dangerous Choices.

[assault]

Dean's stuff is great.

 

You can do the same thing when you have your PCs too.

 

"This origin exists", therefore other characters can use it too.

[steriaca]

In theory the Ubermachine is a "official" Champions Universe shared orgin machine. Created by Professor Pomegranate (who never got any official writeup), and I don't know if the Ubermachine was ever written up. Closest we ever got was, well, either Champions 2 or 3 had a random power roll up table I think.

[assault]

Aaron Allston's Strike Force setting had the Blood, amongst others.

 

Officially published by Hero Games, although not part of the official setting established in the 4e days.

[Lord Liaden]

The current Champions Universe employs a wide range of official origins. If you haven't yet, dean day, you might follow the second link in my signature, where I compiled what I consider the most original and distinctive CU origins. You might find a few you could adapt for your own game.

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, steriaca said:

In theory the Ubermachine is a "official" Champions Universe shared orgin machine. Created by Professor Pomegranate (who never got any official writeup), and I don't know if the Ubermachine was ever written up. Closest we ever got was, well, either Champions 2 or 3 had a random power roll up table I think.

 

There was another machine like that invented by the supervillain Prism, which he used to create his support villain team Spectrum, in the 4E adventure compendium Champions Presents. There have been a few such origin-generators mentioned in Champions books over the decades, but almost none of them were more than a plot device to justify a new villain. They weren't given game stats or a range of Powers they granted.

[death tribble]

Some of the origins like super soldier and power armour programmes may depend on when these were started.

For example the Cold War. Bearing in mind lessons learned from World War II, various powers may have decided to undertake plans to build the perfect soldier using new technology etc. But this will be different worldwide and America is the most logical place for early examples of super soldier and power armour as it recovered in a better position than anyone else did post 1945.

Now if the Russians hear the US is trying to build power armour or super soldiers they will try to do the same. The Chinese also particularly if the find the Russians are at it. These ideas would be unique to each country unless spies or mercenaries can get the information to paymasters elsewhere.

Suppose it actually worked in China, did the CIA get the process out through spies to the US ? Or did the KGB find a process in the US and get it back to Russia ?

Genius is not confined to one country or one ideology so someone working in Russia may make the breakthrough that makes supersoldiers possible. Or someone in China may solve the battlesuit dilemma that had sent pilots mad or stopped the technology from working at all.

Then there is the vexed question of did one power decide to share with its allies or not ? So would the US want Britain, France or anyone else in Europe to know its secrets behind the Supersuit programme ?

Or would Russia really want Poland to have supersoldiers that are Polish and not Russian ?

Now what if one of the Allies or client states made the breakthrough instead would they share it with their more powerful sponsor ?

Take Italy for example. The governments there have been meddled with by the CIA since the end of WW2. That being the case would the Italians really want to share something really valuable with the US when the latter could steal it and market it as their own.

And the US might not have allowed early tech or chemical processes to be shared with Britain because of the fallout from Philby, Burgess and Maclean. That might have continued until say 1981 when Thatcher and Reagan were in office.

 

This assumes you use roughly the same political timeline in the world of supers that exists today. 

[Lord Liaden]

Now that leads into the history of government "super-soldier" projects in the 5E/6E Champions Universe. It goes back to the Golden Age, with many iterations each with their own origin-generating potential; and they weren't and aren't confined just to the United States. Here's a summary of the ones mentioned in books for the official setting:

 

During WW II the demon-possessed mystic Der Totenkopf ("the death's-head"), in charge of Nazi Germany's superhuman assets, performed numerous experiments on volunteer soldiers to attempt to create superhumans, combining occult rituals with "weird science" contributed by several researchers, including a young Albert Zerstoiten (the future Dr. Destroyer). They had a handful of successes amid many horrific and fatal failures, a couple of which survived WW II. These included the superstrong Der Rind ("the ox"); General Blut ("blood"), a human brain cybernetically connected to a giant tank (as in armored vehicle); and the growing brick Donner ("thunder").

The United States responded with Project Achilles and Project Ascension, which each had one success, the heroes Achilles and the Comet, both killed during the war. (No details given about their powers, but their names are suggestive.)

In the late 1960s Project Perseus developed a process to significantly augment a human's physical and mental prowess, although not to superhuman levels. That process was used to create the series of government heroes using the code-name, the All-American.

In 1977 Project Yeoman succeeded in granting low-level superhuman strength and toughness to six Navy Seals, who formed the first Ameriforce One and went on numerous covert missions, until all were killed in action in 1983. (At least they're believed to have all been killed.) 😉

In 1986 or shortly thereafter, the Cyberline process was developed to augment physical abilities in genetically-compatible people to low-superhuman levels. It was adopted by the newly-formed PRIMUS to create its Golden Avenger and Silver Avengers. The need for daily "booster" treatments to maintain Cyberline's benefits is probably the reason it wasn't adopted by the military.

Project Sunburst in 1994 was an attempt by "rogue generals" to create mutated soldiers who could survive a nuclear war, by detonating a nuclear device near a group of volunteers (not told what they were really volunteering for) while they wore "protective" suits. Most of the volunteers died immediately, or soon after from radiation poisoning. A few slipped into comas, and are still held in secret storage. Some of those "awoke" with physical and/or energy-wielding super powers; to date all such have become villains.

One of the Sunburst volunteers was apparently unaffected, but actually developed a minor brain mutation that made him the only one able to test-run the prototype powered armor developed by the army's Man Amplification Project. Unfortunately for the Army, he made off with the armor and became a mercenary supervillain, calling himself Armadillo.

Project Onslaught in 1998, based on splicing human and animal DNA, resulted in one hero, code-named Janissary, although the process left him prone to impulsiveness and violence. He was killed while deployed to Iraq. A more severe version of that side-effect led another subject to take up a villainous career under the name Onslaught.

The American military continues its research to develop a means to reliably create superhumans, as well as more effectively control them, primarily through their top-secret Department 17. D17's recent research has focused on trying to improve the Cyberline process. Note that one past recipient of Cyberline developed permanent powers, probably due to a latent mutation, and was given the code-name, Liberty Guard. The records of that accident were stolen by Soviet spies and used by Directorate Black-12 to create the Soviet Guard in the late 1980s.

Several Soviet heroes were the product of Directorate Black-12, their government's program to create superhumans to serve it. (Their successes were as mixed as similar American programs.) The Directorate was headquartered at the highly secure city of Larisgrad in the Ural Mountains, which also housed much other classified scientific research. After their government funding dried up post-Communism, the Larisagradians chose to go freelance, offering their design and construction services to the highest bidder.

Directorate Black-12 produced a handful of superhumans in exchange for killing, crippling, or driving insane hundreds of “volunteer” test subjects. Spartanyets (“the Spartan,” a low-level speedster-brick with enhanced senses and military training), Nyepobyedimiy (“Invincible,” a brick), and some members of Red Winter, the USSR's government black-ops team [see Champions Villains Volume Two], were its best-known “graduates”; its most embarrassing failure became the supervillain Gorbun (“the Hunchback,” a matter transformer and "biomanipulator"), who’s still semi-active in the Russian underworld despite his advancing age. [Paraphrased from Champions Universe p. 143.]

In either the early 1980s or late 1990s (the official lore is inconsistent on this point, but the latter fits the time line better), UNTIL attempted its own Future Soldier Program to enhance its agents. Most of the volunteers suffered severe physical and/or mental disabilities. One subject avoided mental breakdown while gaining the desired physical abilities, and still serves UNTIL today under the code-name Gladiator. Another volunteer was physically augmented, but developed rampant paranoia and fled UNTIL to become the supervillain Scimitar.

Before and during the Iraq War Saddam Hussein partnered with the (fictional) Middle Eastern state of Awad to attempt to create superhumans. The program produced only one, Saddam's personal bodyguard Turs al-Sh’ab (“the Shield of the People”). At last report Awad had secretly offered the director of UNTIL's Future Soldier Program millions of dollars to bring his expertise to Awad to revive their project, since his superiors at UNTIL had cancelled the FSP.

Another fictional rogue state, Chiquador in South America, has been conducting secret superhuman-creation experiments with the assistance of ARGENT. They have succeeded in augmenting physical abilities, but so far haven't been able to avoid severe mental side-effects.

[Duke Bushido]

21 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I'm afraid you can count me in the "gonzo" camp. 😛 

 

Same here!

 

My GM experience has proven that players are just much more into their characters and the game overall when they get to decide things about their characters.  This goes to origins, too,

 

Dont get ne wribf: we have sone mini-camoaigna with aome sort of unifying theme throughiut the characters- origins, power sources, SFX (did one where everone was some sort of Psion, for example.  Fir what it's worth, they hated it: over half my players, I discovered, never play mentalists because they detest them) to the "you all wake up, a group if strangers strapped naked to medical beds.  You here alarms and see oanic.  People in uniforms,and medical gear are running pel mel outside the drosted windows od the room, barking orders and tring to organize.  In the distance, you _think_ you hear gunfire" thing (same,game, actually).

 

But those are the exceptions.  In general, anything goes.  If it is too far out there, well, so long as you have a reasonably serious character and,you have a reasonabke commitment to make the game sessions, I will find a way to jam it into the universe.

 

Like I said: that's from experience.  Unless we are doing full-on group if amnesiacs with related powers; who am I; what us my purpose? stuff in a 4-sessions or less game, someone always ends up with a slight sulk that they couldnt have X in their background or Y kind of powers.

 

Now the _actual_ reason that I have always done it this way, even from the get-go:

 

Lord Liaden's "gonzo" is the most source-material accurate thing there is.  One guy made a deal with a demon.  One guy got computer chips put in his head.  One guy had an alien mother; one had a Lemurian father.  One is a modern day sorcerer; one fell from a plane and forgot to die.  One is a gun-toting lunatic, and another is a mutant, while still others are sentient robots and forgotten mythical races and high-tech geniuses and exrradimenionsal beings and time travellers trapped in the here and now.  One guy was part of a supersolider project and one smoked poisoned,cigarettes.

 

Why?  Becauase,it is source-material appropriate, and--

 

Well, you guys all know by kniw that I was never a comic book kid, and I down nit develop into a comic. Ooh adult.  Superheroes is ahead of fantasy for me, but it is not my favorite genre.  The honest truth is that it was absolutely impossible for me to call out even ine thing as somehow being sillier than all others.

 

There you go,

 

As for limiting a source of power, I have no doubt that you can find something that you like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 1/22/2023 at 11:27 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

The simplest way is to have a shared origin such as "a strange green comet shatters and crashes into the earth and its radiation causes survivors to gain superpowers" and then everyone who has powers got them from that event. 

 

That works.  It works well, actually.

 

If You want to have a history od super Heroes, then back back it up.  The comet struck fifty years ago.  A hundred years ago.  Whatever.  And it's random bursts of Zeta photons are responsible for super powers to this day. 

 

 

 

On 1/22/2023 at 11:27 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

But that limits certain concepts and ideas of characters,

 

 

Not at all, Sir.  You want a powered armor type or a firce field belt of an anti-grav generator or a time displacement cannon?

 

No problem.  The actual,super-power was the intellectual genius that allowed the creator to concieve of it: the intwllect to both graps the inspirarion and see it actualized.

 

Want a brick?  Same thing: zapped by comet juice, his muscles became more efficient, more sense, mire massive-  a brick.

 

Remember that the power source is nothing more than an enabling device; unless it doubles as an END battery, it is just an origin.  It doesn't constrain power types or special effects unless you want it to.

 

 

On 1/22/2023 at 11:27 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

and also creates a specific, limited time and place when powers are gained,

 

Ahh..., I jumped the gun on that.  There is no reason that the power source, whatever it is (gonna run with comet here) didn't land here a thiusqnd years ago and only becomes active as the plot needs it to.

 

Your not limited to an area, either.  Use zeta photons or peruvio electrons or dimensional ripples--

 

None of these things have to be continent-wide energies.  They can be a single finger-sized beam.  They travel through solid matter, and can reach you all the way through the earth.  Miraculously, it only has enough energy (this time) to strike the character straight in the pineal gland, and Voof!  Superpowers.

 

 

 

23 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

turned out to be under mental power deception by an enemy, and was really a real-world cop before the White Event).

 

 

Would have been way cooler to find out that it was his brwachinf the dimenionsal barrier that caused the White Event, I think.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Not at all, Sir.  You want a powered armor type or a firce field belt of an anti-grav generator or a time displacement cannon?

 

There are a lot of ways to make it work but say you want to play King Arthur with Excalibur reborn in the world.  That doesn't really fit the theme very well, especially if its really scientifically oriented.  Or a guy who finds a ring from aliens that can create energy structures; where were the aliens before?  I mean if you work hard enough you can figure out a way to get around this stuff (the aliens became interested in earth after the comet gave them powers!) but its really forced.  Full on Marvel-style gonzo ANYTHING GOES allows a lot more freedom in terms of power origins and backgrounds.

[Tech]

I touched on this in an episode I did last year. Two villains and a hero who had a serum used on them to gain superpowers in their origin was found to have had one man behind it. He meant the serum to heal them - which it did - but it also gave them superpowers. For villains who've had a chemical accident, it was found that a chemical company had done illegal dumping and the president of the company was arrested; all those villains unknowingly had a common origin.

I don't think it's too hard to do what dean day wants.

[Opal]

On 1/22/2023 at 6:39 AM, dean day said:

How do you handle such origins for power sources and character types in your campaign

So you know how you do campaign guidelines?

 

Like 12DC or 30def or 90apts or whatever 

 

Well, I went into detail with "mutation syndromes" and super-tech and super soldier serums so a player who wanted to be a mutant could see what kind and levels of powers were appropriate and how scientists and reporters would describe those.  Like a hairy beastman would be "retro-volved"

 

And there was a timeline with a lot of dead supers populating it, both lifted from the golden & silver age and original.

 

In a sense it's like presenting a menu of half-built powers & special effects.

 

I had a lot of fun with it, but I also just let players build outside of it, because nothing keeps a new mad science from being invented or mutant syndrome being described.

[Duke Bushido]

On 1/23/2023 at 7:19 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

There are a lot of ways to make it work but say you want to play King Arthur with Excalibur reborn in the world.  That doesn't really fit the theme very well, especially if its really scientifically oriented. 

 

I once heard it said id the money is coins, it's fantasy; if the money is credits, it's sci-Fi.

 

I don't exactly agree with that, and nit just because my Traveller money is called Coyn. 

 

But I like a challenge, and your example intrigued me-   you know: a "how would you make this work" challenge.

 

So let's try this:

 

Professor Astounding had given up studying the meteor years ago.  Even after a hundred years, so little was known about it.  He had been one od the rare fortunates outstanding enough in his field to merit being sought after for the continuous research project.  Most governments had teams working the thing, but some givernmenrs feltnit was important to have a big presence, all the time, and the US had been rotating people from every branch of science  in and out of the project for over eighty years.  All for squat.  Take the same,measurement ten times, get ten results.   Perform the same experiment a hundred times, get a hundred results.  It was infuriating, it was frustrating, and if he were to be completely honest with himself, it was beyond terrifying.  The one thing everyone had silently agreed upon before queitly asking to be moved off the project was that they has spent the oast eighty years proving that everything they knew and understood about the universe was wrong.  At least, it was wrong in the presence of the meteor.  No one had ever managed even to formulate a hypothesis as to why.

 

At First it was great fun- seeinf wild and impossible measurements (he remembered being quute fascinated that his first measurements and experiments- even using his own equipment-- somehow "proved" that the meteor was seven years long, four thousand pounds wide, and had a negative volume- that is, it took up far less space than it filled.

 

Oh yes- lots of laughs, lots of shared head-scratching, amd lots of jokes and gags, and peomises to one day make sense of this thing.

 

They never did.  No one ever did.  No on did anything more that begin to make themselves very uncomfortable with their ignorance, even when they were once considered absolute masters if their field.  They would slowly start to question themselves, then the universe, and would eventuslly shake or spook themselves so badly that they simply _left_.

 

Richard Astounding had done just that.  The meteor was kept in a colossal dome that had been built around the impact site.  There we're fourteen doors- each of the investing nations insisted in having their own door, after all.  In practice-  well, everyone here was either a scientist or low-level soldier on security duty, so things were pretty lax.  You went into what ever door was closest and did whatever you needed to do.

 

Professor Astounding's pushed-me-to-far moment came when the philosopher arrived.  The Italians had sent him; Astounding never did find out (or really even care) why.  He had all but given up, and was actually looking forward to the day he would rotate out: he had been having so many great ideas for new machines and new devices.  It qas probably the end result od aharing so many fields of science so freely, but he could _see_ so many new technologies in his mind's eye, and just somehow understood how to make them work.  He was done with pure research; he would rotate out of here in two years and head straight for the private sector.  If he lasted two years, anyway.

 

The meteor was really getting to him.  He had begun to think he might get the big bonus and even the contents of the betting pool (which was now over a million dollars cash for the first man to last ten years), but lately...  Every time he worked with the meteor, he understood just a little bit better that nithing he took as truth was even close to truth, and it unsettled him, badly.

 

His watch beeped and he headed for the dome.  His latest experiments with the florouscope would be completed in a dew minutes; he might as well soend rhe afternoon recording for posterity the mockery they made of the universe.

 

He stepped inside, and saw rhe Italian standing near the meteor, rubbing his chin (Astounding noticed that contrary to the stereotype, it was a smallish and well-shaved chin) staring _through_ the meteor- or at least, rhe space that it (maybe) occupied.  Astounding knew who the man was- he had been here seven weeks now-- but had never really met the man.  "Professor."

 

"Professor," the philosopher returned, affably.

 

"So what do you think of our little green rock, Professor?"

 

"Is it green?" He asked without sincerity- as if by route: a habit from years of teaching.  Then he paused and genuine confusion and an intense amasement took his face.  "Is it green?"  He asked again, this time sincere, serious, and uncertain- io is that easier for me?  I had heaes it was green, and it is beautifully so, but it seems,to sit here _exactly as I saw it in my mind..."  He trailed off and walked a few paces left, observibg a new angle, then twice as many paces right, perhaps to balance himself comically.  Who could digure a philosopher?

 

He stayed, even more intently- "woukd it appear bkue had my,mind already imagined it as blue before I for here? Could it have been larger ir smaller or uglier-?"  He rurned to Astounding.  "Thank you, Professor...  I have a new thinf to wonder, and I must detemine how to test this...."  He dell back into his silence, and Richard Astounding turned to his insteuments and his computer.  "You're welcome, Professor, but don't put too much stress on yourself.  Your experiments won't tell you anything."

 

"They already have, Professor!  Please, come with me, if you will humor me!"

 

Not having anything else to so, and grateful for the distraction from his unnervingly sensless readings, Richard happily obliged.  The Italian began to walk slowly around the meteor, oointing out this feature or that, commenting on his goals here, why he was here, what he hoped to learn.  At one point, he stopped and asked "this fissure, can you tell me what is on the other side if the meteor at this point?"

 

"Yes; it roughly lines up with a large some-like area of glassy smoothness, as if a gas bubble were going to rupture ans rhe at one cooled,bedire it could."

 

How do you know this?

 

"Well, rhis fissure,lines up with the French door.  If you through a string around the meteor at this point, it laps the bubble.  Also, if you come through the Chinese door, you are looking directly at the bubble; you can see  the two doors line up across the chamber with one another."

 

"And which door do you use, Professor?  I presume have access to the American door, and the French and Chinese doors as well?"

 

I use whichever door I am closest to when I need to get in.  We arent guarding nuclear launch codes; sexuritt is oretty lax amongst scientist who all have the same goal.  Why?"

 

I was curious how you knew what the other side ofbthe meteor looked like.  I know that it wasnt bwcause you had walked all the way around it."

 

" Hunh?!  Of course I have!"

 

"I assure you that you did not."

 

"How?"

 

"Because I have been trying to do so for the past eleven hours.  I cane in the Italian door, next to the American door through which you entered.  Thus far, no matter how long I walk, I get no further than halfway to the door on the other side of your door, Professor, and as long as you walk with me, neither do you..."

 

Astounding snapped,his head out toward the wall of the dome.  Sure enough, he was oriented with a point on the wall halfway to the French door- the nexr door down from the American door.  He glanced at his watch.  The Italian was a smooth converamsarionalist: they had bee walking and talking for over an hour, and he hadn't even noticed.  "How is this _possible_?!"

 

I do not know, Professor, but talking with you and many others, I cannot help but conclude that this meteor landed here to seal an of mankind in some sort of Klein bottle..."

 

Astounding went blank while years of research and results scrolled through his mind, and his knees weakened.  Almost-  that was almost...

Abruptly, he exxused himself, turned on his heel, and took the forty paces back to the American door, though which he left without slowing.  He crossed the compound in the same hurried but not running stride, andbhe did not alter hsi pace or the length od his stride until he reached the Admin building, where he tendered hisvresignariin, and demanded an immediate-as-possiblle return to the States.

 

 

Well this is a hundeed times longer than it needs to be, so let's shorten it up a bit:

 

The fortuitously-named Professor Astounding was given a subtle but powerdul- syperhumanly powerful- boost to his ability to conceptualize and cross-reference his own knowledge  that allowed him to become the classical "super scientist," able to vreate fantastic machines that defied science itself- perhaps he gained more understanding of the meteor than he believes he did.

 

Skip some more.

 

Good ol' Pete.  Pete the lab assistant; Pete the intern from Daniels University.  Pete who wants to be an engineer and who won some sort of internship lottery and ended up with an internship for the world's greatest engineer: billionaire Professor Richard Astounding.

 

So let's condense this a bit more:

 

Suppose the Professor is working on his newest invention: a window through time.  A loop antenna that would literally open a small portal through time.  That part had been ridiculously easy.  He was working on a means of fine tuning it now- a way to dial in a specific place and time.  Right now, it was all a matter od the earth"s position at the selected moment versus the position of the equipment in the here-and-now; this did not meet the goals of Professor Astounding.

 

Pete was in charge of soldering up a few circuits for the project.  Pete decided he needed a magnifying glass to help him, but that left him,in need of a third hand.  Looking about the half-finished projects in the lab, he discovered one project that featured a ser of earphones and a pair of antennae.  Perfect!  He could hang the magnifying glass from an antenna and keep his hands free.

 

So there sad Pete, studiously workinf away next to Professor Astounding, a man who, unbeknowst even to himself, was a lightning rod of sorts for repeated melysterious Zeta Rays from the meteor half a planet away.

 

There sat Pete.  Wearing a set of antennae of his own.  A set of antennae that were a necessary part of Professor Amazing's Telepathy Telephone.

 

With a final flash of insight, the  Professor  made a dozen quick changes to the hardware and the wiring and,deftly plugged the Time Window antenna into the control panel that Pete was still tinkering with, and was nearly done.

 

That flash of insight came from the largest flare of meteoric Zeta Rays to which Richard Astounding had ever been exposed.

 

That ray had come straight from the meteor, of course.  It passed through mountains.  It passed through houses.  It passed through trees.  It passed through Pete and his Telepathy Telephone headset; it passed through Professor Impossible, and it passed through the time window-

 

Anyway, bippity bippity boo, Arthur Pendragon is now in the body of Pete the Intern, reborn in a strange and exciting new world.  How he convinced the Professor to fish Excalibur through the time window is a whole different story.

 

 

 

How's that? 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sure, like I said you can do it if you try hard enough.

 

Or you can say "magic suddenly works again and now King Arthur is reborn in the world, because it magical".  The difference isn't "you cannot ever do this in that setting" its that you can do it much easier and more fitting to the setting or have to work hard and write a 3 page origin to make it work in this setting."

 

That's the drawback, its not a big one but it does exist.  I was just trying to show the strengths and weaknesses of each different type or origin, not create laws about what you can and cannot do.

[Duke Bushido]

Eh.

 

Realistically. I could have written that in a 2e-style two or three paragraph blurb.  It just happens that I really, enjoy writing reactions. Hyperbole. And dialogue, so I indulged myself.

 

It dedinitelt wasnt work, and,it certsonly wasnt hard.  The idea popped up fully formed; I just have to decide how much od it is worth writing down:

 

Pete the lab aasitant was helping Professor Astounding-  the man who was granted incredible engineering prowess by exposure to the mysterious Zeta Rays of a meteor secured ar a  secret research facility.  Pete had been wearinf rhe headphone portion of the Professor's discaeded psychic amplifier while working away on the control circuuts  of the Professir' new Time Window device.  A burst of Zeta Rays passed through Peteand rhe Professor and through the open Time Window and into the ancient past, for a moment linking Pete via the irradiated psychic device to Arthur Pendragin, whose spiritual essence was pulled,into the future and into Pete's body while Pete was senr in the other direction, and is now the king of the medieval brittons.

 

Five sentences?

 

 

I get it: you dont like it.  You dont like the shared origin thing.  I get it: I dont like it either; I went on at great length as to why I dont like it.

 

When you are a kid, eating greens is hard.  Makinf your bed is hard.

 

When you are older, being wrong is hard; not falling in love with the first girl who is nice to you is hard.

 

You get older still, and not telling off the,boss is hard.  Selling your first car is hard.

 

A bit more age, and gerrinf in dights is hard.  Lying is hard.  Eating greens is way easier; not mistaking decency for love is easy; parting with a clunker is easy-

 

They were always easy.  What made them hard is that you really didnt want to do it from the get-go.

 

And that's fine when we are talking an origin event ir shared origins.  It's your game; dont use thibgs you dont like.  Everyone here knows you write, and everyone here is one-hundred percent confident that, if you wanted to, you could tie any origin or powerset to a unifying event or a shared origin and make it work.

 

We have all seen that there are parts of the game  that confuse some people: New players in particular.  Don't make it scarier or more challenging for them by using "it is hard" when the only hold up is "I don't want to." 

 

I don't want to, either: I am with LL and his "gonzo" power sources.  (Though I admit: the one abive about 'an event" that created all the supers at once and the single dimensional traveller...   That would have rocked if it came to pass that the traveller breaching the barrier is what caused the event.  Deciding he was just delusional seems like kind of a cop out to ensure the setting is more importsnt than drama).

 

Either way you do it, have fun.

 

 

 

 

[DShomshak]

I should add that I like reusable shared origins, but am not a big fan of all-encompassing origins. Well, unless they are so broad they really do amount to flipping a switch on the world so that all sorts of origins become possible.

 

The Walpurgisnacht Working is a such a switch-flipping for the CU. The Wild Card virus is, eh, a little too narrow for my taste. Sure, the writers on the project did find ways to explain (or explain away) how it resulted in androids, mages, gods and whatnot, but I found the work more clever than graceful. I'd rather revel in the gonzo.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

"Revel in the gonzo" may become my new catch phrase!

 

 

One of the things I love the most about the superhero genre broadly speaking, is that it draws in conventions and imagery from practically every other genre of fiction: space opera, literary fantasy, film noir, mythology, cyberpunk, martial arts, gothic horror, murder mystery... its potential is practically unlimited. So in the RPG context it's really a whole bunch of games in one game.