Trebuchet Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility I find myself wondering why anyone would wonder why fictional beings who can fly, shoot beams of energy out of their eyes, and deliver punches with near-astronomical levels of kinetic energy would expect any of those abilities to be useful against the myriad types of cancer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zed-F Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility How about folks with healing powers, superscientist egghead types, witches in various fancy stockings with 'anything goes' magic, or cosmic power dudes who can pretty much do anything? In a world where people had superpowers, maybe there would be someone who's just plain better at the job of ruling than everyone else. That doesn't mean he'd be the one with power, though -- that would be the one who's better at convincing others he's the best one for the job: aka the super-politician. If you want to get 'realistic' about the effect superpowers would have on a world, I don't think anyone can accurately predict what would really happen. There are far too many variables involved. Anything from a complete and total breakdown of society, leading to a post-apocalypse world, to utopia on the other end, is a possibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility I find myself wondering why anyone would wonder why fictional beings who can fly' date=' shoot beams of energy out of their eyes, and deliver punches with near-astronomical levels of kinetic energy would expect any of those abilities to be useful against the myriad types of cancer? [/quote'] Because Heroic Literature is mostly about problems that can be solved by finding the right person and then punching* him. You could argue that in many worlds with both superheroes and cancer, cancer should ultimately be the fault of somebody you can punch. *Or kicking, shooting, setting on fire, etc. In a world where people had superpowers, maybe there would be someone who's just plain better at the job of ruling than everyone else. That doesn't mean he'd be the one with power, though -- that would be the one who's better at convincing others he's the best one for the job: aka the super-politician. Yup. One of the better (and most difficult to GM well) ideas in Aberrant was the suite of super-social powers. It's something that's under-explored in the comics and sci-fi as well, though it does show up now and then. Might be that it's not used often because it's just harder to deliver an interesting and convincing story about someone Super Charming (without direct mind control) than it is about someone who can punch through a bank vault door. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megaplayboy Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility Because Heroic Literature is mostly about problems that can be solved by finding the right person and then punching* him. You could argue that in many worlds with both superheroes and cancer, cancer should ultimately be the fault of somebody you can punch. *Or kicking, shooting, setting on fire, etc. Yup. One of the better (and most difficult to GM well) ideas in Aberrant was the suite of super-social powers. It's something that's under-explored in the comics and sci-fi as well, though it does show up now and then. Might be that it's not used often because it's just harder to deliver an interesting and convincing story about someone Super Charming (without direct mind control) than it is about someone who can punch through a bank vault door. There was an episode of a tv show like that once(a guy who was so "wonderful and likable", that people just did stuff for him, even though he was technically a criminal), and also a comic book where a guy basically had always on MC at the +10/15 or +20/25 level--people would just do things for him that he wanted. He pseudo-reformed at the end of the story--a guy offered to give him his car, and he said, "no, that's not fair--I'll pay you a dollar for it." The anime involving my avatar does a halfway decent job of modeling what Super Charisma might be like;) It is a little scary that you could probably build the mortal Jesus on 350 points(healing/resurrection/self-resurrection/walking on water/changing water to wine/creating food/precognition/prophecy), change the name, background and psych lims, and have a "cult leader" with an extremely devoted following... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clonus Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility Don't agree here. I've been running games for a couple of decades now where technology and some aspects of politics and religion have been changed by the presence of supers' date=' without turning non-supers into passive bystanders or opponents. Aberrant was an entire RPG setting where Supers had changed the world, and not a bad one in and of itself despite White Wolfisms that eventually wrecked it for many players. Alan Moore's Tom Strong manages it (albeit with a serious dose of whimsy), .[/quote'] Hm. Is Tom Strong really an environment in which the normals are more than bystanders? Thinking back the only normals I can remember in the series are Strong's fanclub of children, and the guy who wanted to commit suicide because he felt so insignificant so Strong pretended to need saving by him. Wait...maybe the Russian chick on the space flight? But I can't remember what she actually did... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FenrisUlf Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility I'd say that in most settings normals will be more than bystanders, if only because they've got the supers outnumbered a million to one or so. If nothing else, someone has to make all the foolish decisions to give the heroes a reason to save the day when you're getting tired of supervillains. One good way of handling it would be to look at nearly any ASTRO CITY comic by Busiek. He does some of the best 'normal stories' in superhero comics right now. Especially the opening story in his most recent collection, LOCAL HEROES, which deals with a man who starts out feeling insignificant around the supers, and winds up finding and accepting his own place in the world after he saves an infant's life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility Hm. Is Tom Strong really an environment in which the normals are more than bystanders? Thinking back the only normals I can remember in the series are Strong's fanclub of children' date=' and the guy who wanted to commit suicide because he felt so insignificant so Strong pretended to need saving by him. Wait...maybe the Russian chick on the space flight? But I can't remember what she actually did...[/quote'] Two issues here; first, Tom's fanclub of normal kids had real story impact, many of the other superheroes and villains are just trained normal people in costumes or with gadgets, normal FBI agents were a serious threat to Promethea (whose adventures take place in the same universe), and her normal friend took a significant role in her story. Second, stories are mainly about the protagonists. If the protagonists have superpowers, of course people with superpowers are central to the story. That doesn't mean that those without superpowers are not important actors; Superman without his supporting normal cast (Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Lana, arguably Lex and Bruce) wouldn't be nearly as interesting, and all of them saved Supes, the world or each-other from time to time. If a writer can't think of a use other than "bystander" for someone without powers in a superhero story, that's the writer's problem, not the genres. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Schultz Posted September 28, 2007 Report Share Posted September 28, 2007 Re: Superheroes, Power and Responsbility Regarding the 'Why don't supers cure cancer?' gripe --- I guess in a more realistic reality they might. The question is, what would nature throw at us to take cancer's place, if cancer serves a purpose in nature? From what I understand of evolution, hereditary cancers exist not because they serve a purpose, but becuase the change to DNA that causes the cancer doesn't kill the carrier off before they have kids. It's like bad eyesight: it hinders, but does not prevent, the individual from reproducing. However, there is no 'benefit' to bad eyesight: it's just not bad enough to get culled from the gene pool through natural selection. Kevin Schultz, who is looking forward to gene therapy for stuff like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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