Superhumans pulling an Authority

[ChuckB]

An "Authority" style campaign sounds like a lot of work from the GM and players alike , with both having to be proactive.

 

Suppose you could take everyday , real world problems and throw in some super-powered opposition.

 

Maybe Atlanteans or sea-based types getting involved in whale-killing or cola companies supplementing their foreign death squads with paranormals.

 

Sounds like it'd be more preachy than fun , but who knows , maybe it'd work.

[assault]

Originally posted by Wanderer

"Courage and vision to change the world always look like a folly and a crime to the coward and the dimwitted. Everyone has the possibility, and the responsibility, to change the world for the better. I just have a greater leverage, and a greater duty".

 

"Let's be clear about this. You tipped your hand when you dismissed ordinary people as 'bleating* masses'. In your view, normal humans are animals, and you are a higher form of life.

 

You are talking like a typical aristocrat. The common people are scum, and need a white knight to come along and rescue them.

 

But they aren't scum, and they will rescue themselves, and it's the likes of you that they will rescue themselves from.

 

For me, I will take my stance with them, and encourage and lend a hand to their efforts to liberate themselves. I will not side with your attempt to substitute your ego for their freedom, and I will fight you tooth and nail if you persist.

 

And as for your pretensions of being somehow better than humanity, just remember this - monsters can have abilities beyond those of humans, too."

 

*OOC: "bleathing" was a typo, wasn't it?

[nexus]

I'm not fond the assumption that just because some fluke of fate dropped a bunch of mostly physical power into a random character's lap, they now have a moral mandate to tell everyone else what to do. If somene handed me the power of a God, that doesn't nessecarily mean they handed me the wisdom and insight of one as well.

 

The agenda Wanderer has espoused supporting is pretty much "liberal", but in my expeirence some of those views are supported just as much be misinformation and half understoon facts as "hardcore" conservatives. Unless you're going to alter the game world to be almost as black and white as a four color universe, your PC "saviours" are going to make some mistakes, possible big one if they are as drunk on their own power and "superority" as they seem to be.

[Metaphysician]

I wonder how many points he plans to build his PCs on. Full Life Support and durability sufficient to take anything short of nukes isn't cheap.

 

I'm in a 750 point campaign, and even most of us don't have that. Maybe half of us, at best, have that level of durability ( okay, Horus-Re actually has the durability to take nukes, too, but he's Superman ), and about the same have full life support ( though not necessarily the same ones ). OTOH, we built our characters as *characters* first, rather than as unstoppable-by-sheeplike-humans juggernauts first.

[Chuckg]

Originally posted by assault

Frankly if I was playing in this kind of setting, my PC would turn against the others.

 

His argument would go: "ordinary humans have to resolve their own problems. They don't need some bunch of wannabe demigods to do it for them."

 

There's an excellent treatment of this by Grant Morrison.

 

Wonder Woman - "Are we doing too much or too little? When does intervention becomes domination?"

 

Superman - "I can only tell you what I believe, Diana. Humankind must be allowed to climb to its own destiny. We can't carry them there."

 

Flash - "But that's what she's saying. What's the point? Why should they need us at all?"

 

Superman - "To catch them if they fall."

 

-- "JLA: New World Order", JLA #4, by Grant Morrison

 

IMO, the role of the superhuman in the superhero world is to protect humankind from those who would deny it the chance to develop and grow and exercise its free will, and to provide humanity with the tools to let it make better choices.

 

The key word being "choices".

[Chuckg]

Originally posted by nexus

The agenda Wanderer has espoused supporting is pretty much "liberal", but in my expeirence some of those views are supported just as much be misinformation and half understoon facts as "hardcore" conservatives.

 

*ahem*

 

*I'm* a "hardcore" conservative, and I was one of the very first people in this thread to react with horror to Wanderer's whole premise. Ditto metaphysician. Don't go around thinking that there's anything innately "conservative" about authoritarianism, misinformation, or shaky factual grasp, thank you.

[Chuckg]

Originally posted by Wanderer

"While you wait for the bleathing masses to stop picking their noses while looking at the latest reality show and notice problems, dissidents get killed and tortured, innocents are slaughtered, the ozone hole widens, and the environement gets ruined for the future generations. If destiny has given me these godlike powers, it's my responsibility to use them as I deem best, to make the world a better place, and I won't skirt my duty. If you don't want to be part of the solution, stand aside, or be part of the problem"

 

OK, folks, this is what Wanderer wants as the life philosophy of his campaign's characters.

 

Now, let's listen to another quote...

 

"For as soon as a man appears who profoundly recognizes the distress of his people and then, after he has attained the ultimate clarity with regard to the nature of the disease, seriously tries to cure it, when he has set a goal and chosen the road that can lead to this goal - immediately small and petty minds take notice and begin to follow eagerly the activity of this man who has attracted the public eye."

 

[...]

 

"It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions but that it has always been the success of a single victor. Coalition successes bear by the very nature of their origin the germ of future crumbling, in fact of the loss of what has already been achieved. Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations, never as enterprises of coalitions."

 

-- Adolf Hitler, _Mein Kampf_

 

Hmmm.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by assault

"Let's be clear about this. You tipped your hand when you dismissed ordinary people as 'bleating* masses'. In your view, normal humans are animals, and you are a higher form of life.

 

You are talking like a typical aristocrat. The common people are scum, and need a white knight to come along and rescue them.

 

But they aren't scum, and they will rescue themselves, and it's the likes of you that they will rescue themselves from.

 

For me, I will take my stance with them, and encourage and lend a hand to their efforts to liberate themselves. I will not side with your attempt to substitute your ego for their freedom, and I will fight you tooth and nail if you persist.

 

And as for your pretensions of being somehow better than humanity, just remember this - monsters can have abilities beyond those of humans, too."

 

*OOC: "bleathing" was a typo, wasn't it?

 

"Anybody can be an hero, a prophet, an aristocrat, a saviour, and a god. Anybody can and should strive to make his life and the world as good and as free as he can. Failing to try out of cowardice or laziness, willful ignorance, apathy, these are crimes that stain the soul to the level of an animal, even worse. I'm no special. I'm doing what everyone should do, I was just given more reach to do more, and farther, and I choose not to defame my potential nor skirt my duty. Just because so many fail their duty to themselves and the world, so should I? The blood of everyone, man, woman, child, and animal, that gets hurted or slain while the likes of you waste your potential into inaction will not be on my hands. I will not oblige you; but mind you. Anyone who tries to oblige me and others like me to ignore our duty and obey laws wrong and unfair will do so at his own peril. We will resist, in whatever ways we are able".

 

OOC: yeah. It was a typo. Plus, I'm not a native English speaker. I try as much as I can, but some mistakes slips by now and then.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by nexus

I'm not fond the assumption that just because some fluke of fate dropped a bunch of mostly physical power into a random character's lap, they now have a moral mandate to tell everyone else what to do. If somene handed me the power of a God, that doesn't nessecarily mean they handed me the wisdom and insight of one as well.

 

 

The agenda Wanderer has espoused supporting is pretty much "liberal", but in my expeirence some of those views are supported just as much be misinformation and half understoon facts as "hardcore" conservatives. Unless you're going to alter the game world to be almost as black and white as a four color universe, your PC "saviours" are going to make some mistakes, possible big one if they are as drunk on their own power and "superority" as they seem to be.

 

That PCs will make some mistakes is assumed. Nobody is perfect. Much less them. We are just assuming that this particular bunch is free of that crippling reverence for the status quo that plagues classic superheroes, and has the courage to try and change the world to a degree commensurate to their abilities. Just for change, let's get some superhumans that have the soul of an activist, not of a boyscout.

[The Watcher]

So basically, Wanderer's ethical stance is "Might Makes Right." Cause frankly, I don't see any other "justification" being offered for why his "heroes" overriding the will of the people to elect their own goverment and determine their own laws and affairs.

 

Oh, and in any half-way plausible super hero universe, every super hero, super villain, and organization in the world would be cooperating to take them down.

 

And if your characters are able to take all of that and survive without cutting and runnning, then it's a munchking game with a Monty Haul GM.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by Metaphysician

I wonder how many points he plans to build his PCs on. Full Life Support and durability sufficient to take anything short of nukes isn't cheap.

 

I'm in a 750 point campaign, and even most of us don't have that. Maybe half of us, at best, have that level of durability ( okay, Horus-Re actually has the durability to take nukes, too, but he's Superman ), and about the same have full life support ( though not necessarily the same ones ). OTOH, we built our characters as *characters* first, rather than as unstoppable-by-sheeplike-humans juggernauts first.

 

Well, characters will be characters, with fully-developed personalities. Just as a necessary campagn premise, a common personality feature will be a radical activist mindset, and the willingness to defy the status quo. Just like the characters in my beloved main inspiration, the Authority: they have very different personalities, but they share dedication to their crusade as a common trait (and please just abstain from telling me at length just how much you hate Authority; you hate them probably less than I hate Superman).

 

Besides, this, there are some assumptions of the campaign: characters have to have enough powers to single-handedly, or as a small group, alter the socio-economic-physical landscape to a huge degree, creating "miracolous" changes, and withstand with a very good likelihood of defeating, large swaths of the superpowers' armed forces.Plus, this would likely be a small (5-10 chars) group. Such levels of power don't come cheap.

[The Watcher]

Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Human Race - "We've decided we can no longer tolerate your tyrannical interference in our lives and affairs, nor your arrogant assumption that your physical might gives you the moral authority to violate our freedom.

 

Frankly, we'd rather all be dead than be ruled by hypocritical scum like you. So here's the deal. You have one hour to leave this planet forever, or we'll destroy the entire world ourselves. Give us liberty or give us death!"

[Chuckg]

And before anybody goes that that's too far-fetched for an RPG, I refer them to White Wolf's 'Aberrant' series -- and the canonical ending of the Aberant War.

 

Where the humans *did* tell the novas -- "You've got until sundown to get the crap off the Earth, or we're cutting loose with the strategic arsenals and ending civilization as we know it. We can't tolerate your existence in normal society any longer, and will die free rather than live as terrified slaves."

[Wanderer]

Superman moralizing: pleargh. Let's hear about some Millar, instead:

 

Jack Hawksmoor, interrogating a just-deposed murderous dictator " He tells that killing him would be a useless and barbarous act, since he is just the puppet of a interests coalition: If something would happen to him, another would be chosen to keep on with the same policy"

 

Apollo, dropping him in the middle of the kin of the peasants slain by the dictator's death squad: "well, whoever will take his place will think twice before ordering other mass slayings"

 

...

 

JH: " We just do what any civil person would do, in our place. No sane person may criticize us for saving human lives.

 

...

 

Engineer: "How can you expect we will save people from extra-terrestrial menaces, and look the other way when dictators from our planet perpetrate genocides"

 

...

 

JH, addressing Clinton" You are not in the position to define our competences, Mr. President. Our main goal may be defending Earth, but this doesn't mean we'll tolerate human rights violations under our nose. We are not a comic-book supergroup that fights useless battles every month to keep the status quo. This must be a world that deserves being saved, for my colleagues and me keep risking our lives in the first line.

 

Clinton" Mind your steps, Mr Hawksmoor"

 

JH: "Frankly, we could say you the same, Mr. President"

 

Mark Millar, The Authority, "The Nativity. One"

 

These are REAL heroes.

[Wanderer]

Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Originally posted by The Watcher

Human Race - "We've decided we can no longer tolerate your tyrannical interference in our lives and affairs, nor your arrogant assumption that your physical might gives you the moral authority to violate our freedom.

 

Frankly, we'd rather all be dead than be ruled by hypocritical scum like you. So here's the deal. You have one hour to leave this planet forever, or we'll destroy the entire world ourselves. Give us liberty or give us death!"

 

The PCs, neutralizing the nuclear weapons arsenal with their powers: "So in your arrogance, some of you would have chosen death and destruction not only for yourselves, but for all those who want to live, your innocent and unborn children, all the lifeforms of this wonderful planet, who share the same right to live as yourselves. In your stubborness, you would choose the end of everything, rather than give up the "right" to massacre and oppress each other, to despoil your home, and make it unfit for the generations unborn. Don't you realize that is this willful ignorance and immaturity, this refusal to grow up and face your responsibilities, that forces our hand to intervene and treat you as infants? The more you keep acting like rabid beasts, the more you will need our guiding hand and feel it like a whip and a yoke. [sigh]We tire of this role. How long it will be that you realize the potential within yourselves ?"

 

OOC: the canon telling of the conclusion of the Aberrant War was complete hogwash, a fabrication after the fact by the Aeon Foundation. Toward the end of the Aberrant War, theere were dozens, if not hundreds, of novas powerful enough to blast away or disable those nuclear arsenals with a thought. Divis Mal was powerful enough to create a new universe. He could have wiped out all nuclear weapons from Earth with a thought. Novas chose to leave Earth by their own will.

[nexus]

Originally posted by Chuckg

*ahem*

 

*I'm* a "hardcore" conservative, and I was one of the very first people in this thread to react with horror to Wanderer's whole premise. Ditto metaphysician. Don't go around thinking that there's anything innately "conservative" about authoritarianism, misinformation, or shaky factual grasp, thank you.

 

That was not what I meant. I was trying to say the extremes of both sides have some of the facts wrong, and should not have total sways. Assuming all conservatives are so called "Evil White Guys" trying to rule the world is wrong too. Being superpowered and "liberal" (note the quotes) isn't justification to start a facist regeime or any proof that you are "right".

[Chuckg]

Sorry.

[nexus]

Originally posted by Wanderer

That PCs will make some mistakes is assumed. Nobody is perfect. Much less them. We are just assuming that this particular bunch is free of that crippling reverence for the status quo that plagues classic superheroes, and has the courage to try and change the world to a degree commensurate to their abilities. Just for change, let's get some superhumans that have the soul of an activist, not of a boyscout.

 

These aren't "heroes" they're arrogants tyrannts following a philsophy of "might makes right". The "reverence for the status quo" is the simple desire to give people some credit and not assume becuase I -can- do something that I should or my super duper powers give me some unique insight into the world situation or the needs of the common mans. Frankly, if these characters are that godlike, that divorced from the problems of the real people, I wouldn't -want- them in charge either.

[Chuckg]

Re: Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Originally posted by Wanderer

The PCs, neutralizing the nuclear weapons arsenal with their powers: [snip]

 

You *are* running a Monty Haul game, aren't you?

 

Even the Authority has logistical limitations.

 

 

 

Note -- Mal left of his own free will. Some of the other powerful ones entered a Masquerade and stayed on Earth.

 

But the vast majority had no choice but to pull up stakes and leave.

[nexus]

Re: Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Originally posted by Wanderer

OOC: the canon telling of the conclusion of the Aberrant War was complete hogwash, a fabrication after the fact by the Aeon Foundation. Toward the end of the Aberrant War, theere were dozens, if not hundreds, of novas powerful enough to blast away or disable those nuclear arsenals with a thought. Divis Mal was powerful enough to create a new universe. He could have wiped out all nuclear weapons from Earth with a thought. Novas chose to leave Earth by their own will.

 

With every explaination of the stand point you see as heroic, it becomes all the more terrifying.

 

Oh, and the ending of Aberrant is canonical. It was a battle against Taint riddled freaks and a few Nova would be Gods. Mal didn't give a damn one way or the other. His goal was accomplished. He had "equals" for companionship, so he split. His own philosohpy dictacted total seperation and non interference with mere baselines.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by nexus

That was not what I meant. I was trying to say the extremes of both sides have some of the facts wrong, and should not have total sways. Assuming all conservatives are so called "Evil White Guys" trying to rule the world is wrong too. Being superpowered and "liberal" (note the quotes) isn't justification to start a facist regeime or any proof that you are "right".

 

Obviously you are right calling for a limit on bashing conservatives. But Think this: the fact that nowadays the conservative politics agenda dominates politics and the ultra-capitalist thought is the canon in economics makes the evils, blunders and horrors of those schools of thought the most ones that leap to the eye, and the obvious ones a group of crusading idealists blessed with godlike powers would rail gainst first and foremost. Had this chronicle been planned a couple of decades ago, I would have likely sent our righteous heroes smashing down the Berlin Wall, destroying the Soviet military machine, freeing the downtrodden East European masses and saving the Tienanmen students from slaughter.

 

And keeping into mind all those gung-ho superpatriots of freedom and democracy that would justify washing the planet in nuclear fire rather than democracies giving up, say, the God-given right of democracies to gas guzzlers or arbitrary-enforced death penalty or whaling, well that's just the kind of aberrant thought that I would use IC to justify enforcing a fascist regime on them.

 

Never forget that Hitler and Khomeini went to power with a democratic vote. If you legitimate everything through the will of the majority, you legitimate Auschwitz and suicide bombers.

[megaplayboy]

crap, had a long post and my internet went down:(

 

But here's my question:

What happens when the biggest rival hero team, and several lesser teams and prominent solos coalesce into the most credible opposition to the PCs? What if they said:

"We refuse to recognize your accession to power as legitimate. We feel your actions are criminal in the most philosophical sense of the word, and we call upon you to stand down and face a trial by a jury of your peers, since you recognize no 'normal' authority."

 

Will they refuse to submit to the judgment of their peers?

Will they be willing to kill other heroes(unambiguously heroic, mind you, just with a different philosophy than the PCs) to accomplish their goals?

[The Watcher]

Re: Re: Here's a scenario Wanderer's "Heroes" can't win, no matter how powerful

 

Originally posted by Wanderer

The PCs, neutralizing the nuclear weapons arsenal with their powers

And the PC's fumble as the world is destroyed. No one said they were going to destroy the world with nukes. In a super tech, super magic universe there are all sorts of ways to destroy the entire world, especially when all the governments and organizations of the world are cooperating.

 

Too bad your short sighted "heroes' were too busy trying to neutralize the worlds nuclear arsenal to stop the planet cracker drilling its way into the Earth's core. Or the anti-matter bomb that's just been set off. Or the solar chain reaction that we've induced to make the sun go nova.

 

World 1, Wanderer's "Heroes" 0

[nexus]

Originally posted by Wanderer

Never forget that Hitler and Khomeini went to power with a democratic vote. If you legitimate everything through the will of the majority, you legitimate Auschwitz and suicide bombers.

 

The majority can falter as well. No one has said they can't, but overall, the democrative process has brought beneifits to the common man. As was said early, there is a reason Monoarchy is obselete. You talk about "arbitrary" death penalties where your "heroes" are going to end up killing people that stand against them, or disagree with them. Unless they're magical powers allow them to enforce their will without harming anyone. How long before they're killing people for wanting to eat a cheeseburger (equal rights for animals) or cutting down a tree for firewood (most protect the planet, after all). Now I'm not saying that all enviernmetalists are crackpots like that, but these guys being "activists" (radicals, IMHO) seem like just the type to go to these extremes. because, hey, omlettes eggs and these people are just sheep anyway, right?

[Chuckg]

Wanderer also seems to forget that in a well-run republic, what the majority can do to the minority is limited by a constitutional bill of rights -- something else his 'paradise' is sadly lacking.