Who Protects Them?

[Kyle A.]

In your campaign worlds do leaders of various contriies have superhumans on their protection teams? If so have you designed them and what powers do they have?

[philnicau]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

Sir John Bull he's a brick with near invulnerability , who protects the Queen of England, he has the ability to share his defences at range with one other person, basically he stays within line of sight of Queen Elizabeth at all times she is in public.

[caris]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

In my campaign world the Secret Service has been most successful at recruiting Super Powered Agents of all the US government's agencies. In particular they have several Psi's with some way of shielding the minds of other people. I have not statted any of them out, though.

[death tribble]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

The Americans have a whole cadre of supers to protect the President. The current leader is Winged Victory

When GB Mk 1 and Reagan were around it was just a simple guy called Invictus.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

In the Frisbeeverse --

 

Supers started showing up in the game universe in the early 1990's, and most of them were supervillains. For a while, the public watched them in lurid fascination, like the Depression Era bank robbers Bonnie & Clyde and John Dillinger. The first heroes started making a dent in the mid 1990's, but were poorly coordinated. The first attempt at taking over the United States government occurred in 1994. The second was in 1995 and the third was in early 1997.

 

After that, the US Government got busy with legislation to respond to what the states had been clammoring for -- The Metahuman Registration Act and the creation of the Bureau of Metahuman Affairs. The primary reason for the MRA was to have a pool of Metahumans to call on should there be a national emergency (such as a supervillain attempting to take over the government). The primary goal of the BMA was to coordinate the activites of Metahumans and law enforcement agencies at all levels.

 

Through this route, the BMA could point those metahumans interested in working directly with the government to the appropriate agencies with independent documentation of what the individual could do, while getting those metahumans with troublesome or debilitating powers the medical and psychiatric treatment they needed, or associating those supers who wished to fight crime with the various legal agencies they would need to deal with on a regular basis.

 

For the registered metahuman, the advantages are 1) limited federal police powers, 2) immunity from being sued as a result of the reasonable actions taken to protect the life and property of others, 3) assistance in interacting with other parts of the federal government, and 4) federal protection of the identies of crimefighters.

 

The downside is that the government knows who you are and can find you if there is a national emergency or a high-priority situation where the timely use of your powers could save life or reduce suffering. Most of the registered metahumans have no problem with this, since the reason they became superheroes in the first place was to help people.

 

Since the MRA went into effect, only 4% of the estimated metahumans in the United States have registered, and only about half of those are actively fighting crime. The reason the federal government is willing to assume the liability of metahuman activities is that while metahuman crime goes up when registered metahumans are active in an area, normal criminal activity takes a nosedive, more than making up the difference.

 

Do federal agencies have metahumans on the payroll in my game universe? Yes, but most of them are fairly low-powered (less 150 character points). The great equalizer is that the superhumanly smart inventor types are working for the government and making equipment which is starting to give normal law enforcers and military members a fighting chance of standing up to a coordinated onslaught.

 

Whether it will do any good remains to be seen, but ever since the MRA was passed, nobody has tried to take Washington DC by force...

 

Matt "Rubbin'-his-head-from-considering-all-the-permutations" Frisbee

[assault]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

I've actually changed my mind while writing my response. I was originally going to say "it depends", but worked out that "not usually" was more accurate.

 

Certainly it's not true in Australia in my world. It probably is true about the US. I haven't really paid much attention to other countries. It mainly depends on the availability of supers to play this role, plus the presence of actual assassination threats. It's the absence of appropriate supers that made me decide that it doesn't happen in Australia.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

In some cases. The one that comes most easily to mind is a Secret Service agent who's nearly invulnerable, and his defenses all have Invisible Power Effects. As a bonus, the are Usable Simultaneously for one other person, as well...

[GoldenAge]

Re: Who Protects Them?

 

In the case of the United Societies of America... INSEC - Internal Security (think SHIELD) is in charge of political protection against paranormal incursion.

 

Unlimited funds coupled with unparalleled research and development and a never-ending supply of highly trained operatives trumps all the paranormals I can even imagine. Heck, Batman alone is a match for almost any threat... Imagine a 100 Batmen with better equipment and a support staff of geniuses that just wont quit! Even Dr. Destroyer wouldn't stand a chance.