"Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

[JmOz]

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

Anything goes. Well, almost anything. As someone else mentioned, there's no Super-Jesus or anything like that. Nobody can play a character that has an extraordinarily lame origin either, nor an origin which specifically introduces something I hate into the game world. But generally, I prefer a silver-age feel to my supers.

 

Super-tech works because somebody really smart made it, not because of magic or psionics.

People get powers when bathed in chemicals because that's the way it works.

I like the classic comic book stuff.

 

Good point about Super-Tech (same for my world BTW)

 

I did it my way just to explain why Batman can be so far beyond human (He is a Metahuman) and why Spiderman can climb walls instead of dying of cancer (He is a Neohuman)

[teh bunneh]

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

In my campaign, all people with powers are actually a sort of conduit between this world and another dimension. Supers with flame powers are conduits between Earth and the dimension of flame, and so forth. Supers first started appearing when an accident breached the dimensional barrier; it healed itself, but it is now much weaker and more porous, allowing supers to exist.

 

There is no super-tech, no mental powers, and no magic... well, people think there's magic, but it's just another manifestation of the dimensional energy.

 

However, people can become "conduits" through most of the classic superhero tropes -- dumped in chemicals, radiation accident, spontaneous generation during puberty (classic X-men mutant style), etc.

 

Bill.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

Mine has something of a unified origin, but it is so much in backstory that characters don't even know about it. It also explains why Earth is the target of extra dimensional invasion and magical ones, as well as sets up Thor-like god characters.

 

 

The Kings of Edom lost the war of the old ones and were imprisoned in what appeared to be an asteroid. This "asteroid" creashed into a forming planet. Now the asteroid was cracked and the Kings were working to get out. By the time they did, the planet was formed, and the magics and powers that kept them in the asteroid kept them inside the planet. Thier vast magical and cosmic powers leaked into the planet as it formed.

 

Humanity arose - And all humans were Gods (think of them as all having 50-100 pt cosmic power pools, as well as sundry other things). Then one of these proto humans discovered why everyone had these powers, and did a massive event to cut everyont off from the power (which insured no one was born like that again) and did something else to drain the power from everyone else. There was a war - he lost, but in general his plans suceeded. Many of the families that had survived left the world (these became the basis for the Greek, Norse, Egyption gods later). The war created a cataclysm that compely re-latered the world.

 

Modern humanity rose from the dust. They had no cosmic power. They were visited by cosmic ones who had fled to pocket dimensions to escape the end result of the depowering. They guided and help (most times) different cultures. But the strain of being on earth away from thier pocket dimensions became to great and as time wore on, they visited less and lesss, and then stopped pretty much altogether.

 

Every now and again someone with greater power would show up.

 

About 100 years ago, the first superheroes and masked men started showing up. It became an "epidemic" in the 40's. And the modern superhero age began.

 

 

 

So this structure allows for any classic superhero origin - Magic of course, mutant, accident, supertech (which is supertech working on rubber science rules), what have you. My "unified origin" is more the "metagene" from DC or the "Aliens tampered" in Marvel - but I believe in humanity and hated the idea of something fiddling with us - I like my game worlds to have humanity be special. So that is why I ran it the way I did.

[Theron]

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

I've done both extremes and everything in between. Since I'm currently considering doing something with Scott Bennie's excellent Gestalt Universe stuff in the near future, I'd be going with the unified origin approach for that game.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

I do not know why, exactly, but something about the "everyone has the same conception" really bugs me. I don't always hate it, as I did Aberrant, but even when it's clever and explained well it just rubs me the wrong way. Kind of like on Smallville, when, for a while there, every week was Clark vs. yet another local yokel who somehow got powers from the green meteor rocks.

 

On one level I can see the appeal. X-Men essentially uses this premise, and from time to time they do a good job of it (and I've loved the movies). I can sympathize with the desire for having a focused setting with a tight explanation for where these people got their crazy abilities. But it's just so... limited.

 

That being said, I have been tempted to run a "single conception" mini-series from time to time. I've never done it, but I may yet.

[Karma]

Re: "Use the Source, Fluke..." or Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

Main Campaign: Anything goes. Although there seems to be a prevalence of 'highly trained' there is no actuall campaign reason for this.

 

A.C.E. High: Unified Concept (High-tech and power armour). The heroes have their 'powers' cause they stole them from the 'evil multinational' (and have a rebel tech to keep them working) so everyone with powers has the same archetype. That said, one of the players convinced me to allow a little magic into the system (although without her suit it's less useful than a hand-gun).

[Houston GM]

Re: Does you campaign have a central rationale?

 

The players and characters suspect there's a common origin. I can't discuss the full details (because my players sometimes read the forums), but I will tell you what they believe.

 

The first recorded metahumans/paranormals occurred roughly five years ago. These powers can be classified into several categories.

 

MUTANTS: Mutation can occur at any point in a person's life. There are some prepubescent mutants as well as some who did not develop their powers until they were senior citizens.

 

MENTALISTS: This is probably just a variant of mutation.

 

SKILLED PEOPLE: Logically, this should be a separate origin that predates the others, and in many cases it probably is. However, it is strongly suspected that many of these people are actually mutants with very subtle enhancements. (INT 40 ain't normal, Jim.)

 

SUPER TECH: Super tech is designed by super geniuses. Super geniuses are probably mutants (since they weren't inventing death rays and powered armor more than 5 years ago).

 

MYSTICS & ODDBALLS: There are a few metahumans that seem to be outside those categories. The Count claims to be a 1000 year old vampire, but there's no record of him before 4 1/2 years ago. He might be a mutant with delusions, but how did he become so wealthy? Nick O'Keefe is a ghost who died 20 years ago, in front of witnesses. But why didn't he reappear until 3 years ago? Are his powers unrelated to all the other metahumans, or is he some kind of freakish latent mutant whose powers only manifested a couple decades after his death? Pyre claims to be a mage, but he could just be a mutant who can weild an extremely broad variety of powers.

 

No one knows for sure.

 

ALIENS: There are no known aliens on earth. There are a few people who claim to be aliens, but genetic testing indicates that they are probably mutants.

However,

The PCs have discovered that there are alien races living within 20 light years of earth. They're part of an expanding alien empire.

Furthermore,

The PCs have discovered that an alien spacecraft crashed into the Gulf of Mexico around the same time as metahumans began to appear. That's probably not a coincidence.

 

It's possible that this alien crash is indirectly the cause of all metahumans on earth.