"Just the Facts, Ma'am..."

[winterhawk]

"...could you describe the costume he was wearing?"

 

Being a huge fan of detective shows & comics, I have decided to run a one shot (maybe every so often depending how it goes) adventure involving Chicago P.D.'s Special Investigations branch. These guys investigate crimes that may have superhuman involvement. I have a few ideas already on what I want to run, but I wanted to see what the learned panel could come up with. So what type of Law & Order/NYPD Blue/Dragnet cases could be modified to include superhuman involvement? Thanks in advance for the suggestions.

[Thirdbase]

I don't have any good suggestions right now, but here is a place to start looking. TV shows

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Honestly? Any crime performed can be performed by a super. A crime of passion (or hate) would be the easiest, i.e. a killing or a major beating. Maybe a local businessman is found in his office, electrocuted, the lock melted shut. Maybe a large group of <insert minority here> are found beaten mostly to death in a local <insert location here> where they're known to get together. Maybe the bank or a local wealthy individual has been robbed, but not a single alarm was triggered -- a couple million (or jewelry worth a couple million) has been stolen.

 

The Avengers aren't going to be called in on these cases; why bother Mr. High-And-Mighty with a 'simple' case when he probably has to go wash his spandex after saving the world this afternoon? With paranormals in existance, policework suddenly becomes more knowledgeable, more complex. Detectives and FBI Agents are all college grads; they aren't stupid, and in a world with Powered individuals, they should have a broad knowledge base about what powers can do.

 

So maybe a chap was pissed off at his boss, went in after hours to argue that HE should've gotten the promotion instead of Johnson, and found out the nasty way that he was an electrokinetic. He hasn't told anyone yet.

 

So maybe a low-level paranormal who really hates <insert minority here> walked into the <insert location here>, and basically provoked the <minority> to jump him -- whereupon his minor karate training and hyperactive nervous system (read: 27 Dex and 5 SPD) let him kick their collective asses.

 

So maybe a homeless, underage teleporter, frustrated with being a) homeless and underage, snagged a fix on the inside of the vault, collected a score of gym bags, and *bamfed* in after hours for a major withdrawl. Now he's being careful about 'living it up', but how many 15-year-olds do you know who have season tickets to the Met AND the Mets?

 

Or maybe an ultratech jewel thief, 'well-known' in Japan, was comissioned by a collector to steal the Heart of the Orient (a lovely emerald-and-jade necklace) from its current owner -- but the collector is now balking at the 'asking price', and the jewel thief is trying to figure out how the hell to put the damn thing back, considering the current police investigation...

 

None of these scenarios really require a paranormal investigator, just one who knows about paranormal abilities. Granted, partnered with someone who can sense paranormal abilities (whether mystic, biological, or technological) would really help things out, but hey, you can't have everything.

 

Also, remember that excepting the very last scenario, none of the individuals are liable to be wearing costumes; even with the last one, it's going to be a 'second story man' costume, a facemask, black clothing, and web gear for the gizmos. These crimes aren't supercrimes by supervillians, they are 'ordinary' crimes committed by extraordinary means -- but 'ordinary' crimes nonetheless. Most of these criminals won't even make a blip on the radar of most superheros, and in some cases, the superhero is going to try to figure out a way to make things right without tossing the person in jail. How many heros can you name who have con artists, rogues, thieves, or kids as contacts?

[Agent X]

Another possibility is to look at the old Power Man and Iron Fist comic book title. Many of their adventures had a detective theme to them. After all, they were Heroes for Hire!

[Prometheus]

What works in your campaign depends on the role you give supers. Are they tarnished icons, bright and shiny in the public, but with dark secrets and twisted shortcomings in private(Watchmen, Powers)? Or are they a just a prominent (or dominant) part of the population that you come in contact with on a daily basis (Top Ten, Astro City)? A domestic call from the Baxter Building will have a very different feel from one to the other.

 

The police may not want superhero involvement, either. If Rick Jones where found drowned in the Avengers' mansion pool with obvious sign of a struggle, while a house full of heroes heard nothing, chances are the cops (or the feds) aren't going to let Thor or Cap anywhere near the crime scene.

[Barton]

turf protection

 

In my game the Chicago PD is very protective of its "turf". Involvement by the Feds or any other agency (or even supers) is "unwelcome". I play them as going it alone with supers until they HAVE to have help from someone else.

The police may not have a lot of firepower, but the legal system can be used as a significant weapon. Tactics that my Chicago PD have used are watching the supers in question, search warrents, questioning DNPC's and the like. The local DA's office checks financial records and phone records to look for evidence. And of course do not forget about press conferences hinting that a super was a bad boy.

[Yogzilla]

I've been using elements I pick up from "CSI" and "CSI:Miami" - - forensics and criminalistics make for great grist on the mill of super perceptions!!

 

-Yogzilla

[Tom McCarthy]

I assume you're aware of Powers and Top Ten. Some of my favorites:

 

- A supposedly invulnerable hero is found dead

- A man is found dead in bed in a seedy hotel, and ID'd as a superhero

- A man is killed and the murder is video taped. He's talking to the murderer just before he's killed, but the murderer is invisible to cameras and recording devices (and that's not a well-known power of any given hero)

- A god named Baldur has been killed. Who done it ? (and why do the veterans on the force just chuckle and ignore the case)

- Women are getting pinched or manhandled in public places, but the groper is invisible

- A member of a superhero 'family' or team is found dead in the base. The team was known for spats and domestics. Did a teammate kill him ?

- Extradimensional drug dealers

 

Other interesting questions:

 

- What superpowers are criminal to use ? If mind control is illegal to use except in self-defence (in a parallel to weapons or lethal force), can you place the characters in a moral dilemma ? What about telepathic intruders who serve as whistle blowers ? Mind controlling a (guilty) suspect to confess ?

- What superpowers replace actual police procedures ? Supersenses instead of forensics, etc.

 

Plot seed: An animalistic hero is called in to track a prison escapee. Normally, they'd track him with hounds, but he can mind control animals and turn the hounds down a false trail. Is the hero's tracking scent up to the job ? Is the hero vulnerable to the mind control ?

 

- What variant crimes arise in a new setting ? Hate crimes against mutants ? Hate crimes against aliens ? Hate crimes against robots and automatons ? Labour unrest against superstrong construction workers ? If duplicators have multiple bodies, and the bodies marry different women, is it polygamy ? If a duplicator absorbs a dupe who is unwilling, is it murder ?

 

Plot seed: What if the biggest flawless diamond in the world is actually the left arm of Diamond ?

 

How do you Mirandize an alien who doesn't speak English ? Let's say the alien is telepathic and can broadcast his confession of guilt, but you can't prove you successfully conveyed his rights to him via broadcast telepathy. Do aliens, mutants, and AIs have rights ? Can they be effectively prosecuted ?

 

Robert Sawyer's Illegal Alien novel is a first contact story where an alien kills a human. But which alien, and why, is the key to the story, and it comes out during the trial. A couple of neat twists, like an alien taking 'the 5th' to avoid DNA testing, because he believes that the differences between the aliens is so slim (genetically) that DNA might implicate him.

 

From Robert Sawyer's Frameshift: A scientist is asked to make a sperm donation for an infertile couple. He agrees, and even impregnates the egg for the impoverished couple (ie, performs the IVF in his lab). But he doesn't use his own genetic material; he uses DNA from an archaeological find. To what degree is he legally culpable ? What is the status of the genetic throwback he's spawned ?

[Vondy]

Don't forget - detectives, especially detectives on high profile cases, often come under a lot of media pressure, political pressure (external and internal), and public pressure.

 

What is the attitude of the city government and department towards supers and vigilantes? Does the town have a bat-signal, or is their a more advesarial relationship in play?

 

Imagine being a detective on a case where a popular hero became the main suspect, or even turned out to be guilty of some heinous crime?

 

Here's one - to protect a dnpc a popular hero turns himself in for a crime the dnpc committed. He confesses to all the gruesome details - case closed - but there's something out of order and the detectives start asking questions and decide to pursue the case.

 

They may get support from their immediate superior, but the top brass won't like reopening the case (it looks bad to charge an ivory icon and then reneg, and it makes you look bad because you took his word for it). The DA won't be happy, either.

 

The media will be all over it, and the public will be sharply divided. What if a reported likes the hero and starts accusing the police of some sort of bias, or a plot to take him down because he's upstaged the department for so long?

 

You can throw in additional bits like red herrings that may make it look like the hero was covering for someone more nefarious than dear neice jessica, or have them find out perfectly legal, but distateful things about the hero along the way. It would be interesting if they uncovered another hero's identity along the way - especially if its a hero they admire. What will they do?

 

In the end the detectives will just have to do their jobs. In the end they - the people who uphold the law from within the system - are the real heroes.