JLA Untrained?

[Enforcer84]

Nice title, eh?

 

I'm putting together, mostly for fun, a team of second generation superheroes. The kicker here is that they are artificially created children of powerful superbeings who have been raised in a very sterile environment. The mastermind behind this intends them to be his personal bodyguards and enforcers but miscalculates and they escape. Learning more of their "Forefathers" these youthful, powerful, highly "skilled" team sets out to be the heroes their parents would approve of.

 

So here's the rub, they have never faced real life danger or intelligence. They have trained in danger rooms and artificial combat simulators, but that doesn't prepare you for real life. So beyond "limited if any skill levels", what should be missing from these characters? I'm limiting the power stunts for the brick, speedster, and energy projectors, narrow banding the mentalist, and I am unsure how to effectively limit the martial arts master/detective without crippling him. Same with the super gadgeteer and powered armor designer.

 

Anything else? I think they should had "Teamwork" and someone should have tactics at least as a familiarity, but I want to stress the fact that these heroes, while powerful and as close as a family, and potentially one of the greatest teams ever, are very raw, and have had such a limited access to the real world that they should make mistakes in judgement regularly early on.

 

Idunno am I thinking too hard here?

[Metaphysician]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

One easy way is lots of Unluck, SFX: Newby Mistake.

[Enforcer84]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

I like that too. Thanks!

[Metaphysician]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

Of course, if your running this with players, make sure they are aware of, and accept, that alot of the Unluck results are going to be in the form of "Oh no, you didn't notice. . ." or "Uh, oh, it seems the villain is actually. . ."

 

IOW, functionally speaking, minor retcons.

[Enforcer84]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

Nah, I'd not be running these guys except as NPCs. They're "Flavor Heroes" for my own Universe. Powerful, but still allowing the PC's to save the day. At least for a while.

[freakboy6117]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

they have real problems dealing with the unpredictability of the real world

 

dirt and coincidences freak them out because in the simulation there was no extraneous data.

they think everything is important if they see the same guy 3 days in a row they think he's part of surveillance team or something. the progeny find it hard to know when something is truly significant and may miss vital clues because they are unable to narrow down there search.

[Kirby]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

I like the Unluck, but I would also give them psychological limitations such as "naive/ignorant of real fighting" and "panics in real-world combat" or something to that effect. Whatever best represents them taking one of their phases to hide, dive for cover, or take a recovery.

[Bloodstone]

Re: JLA Untrained?

 

Lack of KS: Superhuman World can be crippling, as they won't have any idea who's a good guy and who isn't, let alone who's powers do what. If you some villian pretend to be a hero and then betray them, they may have trust issues that you can toy around with. Something that might be interesting is if they end up saving a major super villian from some heroes, which turns the rest of the super hero world against them... including their "parents".

 

Perhaps they are overly professional. They can't bring themselves to act like supers by dressing in colorful clothes, they don't give interviews and generally come off as dicks to everyone. There not here to make friends, there here to do a job. They might even think that they are better then everyone else, refering to other capes as "amatures" and such.

 

Also, if they were trained to be body guards for a single villian, there are countless drills and scenarios that they would have never run. The training that a cop, a soldier and a body guard have to undertake are totally different. For example, the brick should be used to being a meat shield for a single target, while the speedster should be trained to evac that target at the first sign of trouble. So some guy shows up to a party with a bomb, threatening hundreds of people. This is a scenario that nither of them will be ready for and might give them serious pause as they try to figure who to protect first.