With even greater power....

[zornwil]

One trend I've seen in the couple campaigns I've run is that as the PCs become so powerful that they are the greatest heroes on Earth, some portion of them start to get more involved in running the world, or wanting to take over the world for its own good, and each time behind the scenes and undemocratically. While the Authority and such have been declaimed for a number of reasons, some nothing to do with the point they're making, I wonder if it isn't a reasonable extrapolation that with even greater power comes even greater responsibility, and for many this means going behind the scenes and manipulating the world in some way(s)? Then again, I am not at all saying some of that effect isn't driven by ways I GM, too. But I'm curious, more generally, how has it gone where campaigns track the PCs' ascendance to godlike status/ability on Earth?

[ghost-angel]

Re: With even greater power....

 

The only Character I've gotten to a Godlike status wants to leave the dimension completely... but it's not a very friendly campaign.

 

As for the general concept.. I think it's an extension of the idea of playing something much Larger than life. Very few people don't entertain the idea of "And if I were in charge. . ." at least occasionally.

 

Combine that with fictionally playing a character who has the personal capability to exert authority that normally takes large social/political networks and/or armies and it can very much be seen as a natural extension.

 

On the other hand, it doesn't always have to go that direction, some groups are just fine with increasing the scope and physical space of the campaign and playing it as they have since they started.

[Enforcer84]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Personally I think I should run things as is. Great power be darninated.

[Narratio]

Re: With even greater power....

 

E84 worries me as he always makes so much sense... wait. Was that my thought or his? Darn his mind control satellite!

 

My players have never wanted to rule the world in any way, most of them see that as the path to having less fun and more enemies. Most of the time players are confronting the wanna'be world rulers. So they have excellent knowledge of what happens as soon as somebody puts a world domination ploy into action.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: With even greater power....

 

So let them win and take over the world. Your campaign will descend into a nightmare of bureaucracy. "OK, I need a Paperwork roll before we move on". Running the world would be very, very boring.

[Narratio]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Now there in lies a another branch of powers as yet unexplored. Super Paper Pusher (sounds better than Super-Bureaucrat).

 

Yep, once you've achieved world domination you have to spend so much time just keeping it all going. There's no point in robbing banks to fund your evil plans, you're now the government. Henchmen? Who needs them, you've got the military industrial combine on your side.

 

Gotta be boring. Apart from fending off all those assasination attempts by Viper, Demon etc.

[Shakram]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Great plot hooks:

 

You could always try to birth a golden age for your fellow man.

 

Of course evil will always try to stop you.

 

You rule the world so, you can finally make laws that help people and not hinder them.

 

Aliens preaching so called goodness would then arrive with words of balance saying you should allow energys of free will to be poor/rich, sick/healthy, and suffering/pleaseing into your world. These would help your people evolve they say... But are only there to take over your society.

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

There will be an attempt by an alien race to enable people to do something that the PCs will have to make decisions about. Actually, now that I think about it, a couple.

 

Spoiler not for Justice Squad players:

 

 

 

One race is going to start "selling" mutant/metahuman powers/abilities to people

 

Another is going to offer humans a place to go where they can work and own the land, all expenses and health care, etc., paid until the time you're done building. The only "catch", which they won't lie about but will downplay, is that once the land is developed (which isn't just building their own homes but developng the surrounding area, creating mines, for example, etc.) the planet is sold to the highest bidder(s), and whatever happens next is between the erstwhile colonists and the new owners. Although "intergalactic" treaties do provide protection from MOST civilized owners.

 

Neither of these are any more sinister than they appear except that interests in competition to one or two of the PCs will be actively involved in these as these complement plans of their owns. But that latter point won't "screw" the PCs, even, not per se anyway, it's more about what the PCs are willing to have happen to/with their world.

 

 

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: With even greater power....

 

When the team that Black Cat belonged to reached that level, the GM was going to split the campaign - the old hands were going extra dimensional and deal with dimensional problems, and the younger guys would stay and be the normal superteam.

 

When the campaign folded I basically did that for Cat solo.

 

 

In my campaign I rebooted the power team at 750 points, and was going to run a Morrison-esque JLA game - lots of alien invaders, extra dimensional aliens and such. The opening big adventure was the team taking down Dr Destroyer.

The game didn't get off the ground though. *sigh*

[OddHat]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Been a long time since I was in a campaign that got up there.

 

My earliest long term PCs, Harlequin and the Illusionist, both obtained godlike power and left Earth, with the Illusionist showing up for a while in the next campaign I ran as a sort of comedy relief super-criminal.

 

One of Satin Kitty's characters, Mindflair (a telepath), became the undisputed most powerful telepath on Earth, only to retire to become a metahuman psychiatrist. She never seemed to want political power.

 

One PC ended up as the head of Primus, and then retired.

 

In all of the above cases, I couldn't really think of games I wanted to run for PCs with that long a history; for me, it was the length of the campaign more than the power level that caused me to throw in my GMing towel.

 

More generally, the real world rich and powerful tend to seek to influence government. I've seen bullying and legal bribery up close in real world politics; I don't think it's unreasonable that powerful PCs might decide to try their hands as well.

 

Of course, there's a difference between

• "Senator, I'll give you $6 Million in campaign contributions and my personal endorsement if you vote my way"
   
  "Senator, here's a bag of money to vote my way, and if you don't, I'll show the public this video of you having sex with Naugtenticula, Deranged Divinity of the Deviant Dimension"
   
  "My fellow Americans, I've imprisoned the corrupt and uncooperative politicians of this nation in the Rainbow World of Spectracia, and now appoint myself as your Beloved Leader".

 

#1 and #2 wouldn't bother me in a campaign, and might even be fun; #3 is a sign that the game has gone places I'd rather not deal with.

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

That's interesting, as I find #1 and #2 somehow more distasteful in roleplaying than #3. Though I wouldn't mind exploring any of the 3. One PC, Laughton, is bent on world domination, through surrogates (some of whom are actually alternate identities of himself), as he sees himself as most capable to protect and guide humanity through these times, another, Nexus, doesn't really like the idea but accepts it as the least of all evils and is willing to support him within some ethical bounds, and tries hard not to examine too deeply what is going on. Nexus sees himself as a dimensional/universal guardian more and tries to look out for Earth on the macro-level. The other PCs are less interested in political games, though of course still bent on helping in general.

[OddHat]

Re: With even greater power....

 

I'd say that I look at the ethics pretty much the same way I look at the ethics of real world power.

 

#1 is how real politics usually worked, when I was in a position to observe them. Offer a favor (cash and support) to get a favor (legislation). It's no less (or more) ethical than what real world "respectable" power brokers do every day.

 

#2 is something I never really saw; that cinematic "bribe and blackmail" approach. It's ultimately an unethical means, though possibly for ethical ends.

 

#3 is super villainy, whether for noble ends or no. It could be fun to role play for a one shot, but its not a campaign I'd enjoy GMing.

[psychonaut_raz]

Re: With even greater power....

 

At the point where we folded up our old Guardians campaign it had reached the point where the PCs were talking about taking over an interstellar empire because it just made more sense than having to fight the aliens every time they decided to chuck a tantrum Earth's way.

 

It was half-joking, but they actually stood a good chance of being able to do it if they really wanted...unfortunately we never got the chance to actually run it, but it would have been interesting. I don't think there would have been an issue coming up with equivalent-level threats to keep them busy, by that stage of the game they were routinely dealing with extra-dimensional gods and abstract conceptual entities, chunks of the universe being re-written every now and then, stuff like that...

[MilkmanDan]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Great plot hooks:

 

You could always try to birth a golden age for your fellow man.

 

Of course evil will always try to stop you.

 

Evil? Good will try to stop you. If you try to take over the world, regardless of your motivation, the other heroes will stand in your way. The old saying of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" has a ring of truth to it; if you take over, you're going to cease being the good guy.

 

What it winds up being is "birthing a golden age for your fellow man, whether or not you want it. You will be living in paradise, even if I have to shove it down your puny little throats."

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

I'd say that I look at the ethics pretty much the same way I look at the ethics of real world power.

 

#1 is how real politics usually worked, when I was in a position to observe them. Offer a favor (cash and support) to get a favor (legislation). It's no less (or more) ethical than what real world "respectable" power brokers do every day.

 

#2 is something I never really saw; that cinematic "bribe and blackmail" approach. It's ultimately an unethical means, though possibly for ethical ends.

 

#3 is super villainy, whether for noble ends or no. It could be fun to role play for a one shot, but its not a campaign I'd enjoy GMing.

Historically, albeit rarely, #3 has been exercised and worked. Some would argue that's going on in Russia right now, which isn't to get into that or indicate anyone should agree ro disagree, it's just to say that it's an interesting historical happenstance that can be visited in RPGing.

[OddHat]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Historically' date=' albeit rarely, #3 has been exercised and worked. Some would argue that's going on in Russia right now, which isn't to get into that or indicate anyone should agree ro disagree, it's just to say that it's an interesting historical happenstance that can be visited in RPGing.[/quote']

 

Sure it has. It's pretty much the default for establishing new governments; gather a bunch of your buddies, remove the old guard, and announce that you're in charge. Follow by stomping on as many friends of the old guard and other challengers as you have to in order to hold on. Eventually, people get used to your boot on their throats and tell themselves that you have the mandate of heaven. Maybe you even lift the boot after a while, or apply it lightly.

 

And yes, plenty of role playing possibilities. Just not ones I want to explore in a game about Super Heroes.

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Sure it has. It's pretty much the default for establishing new governments; gather a bunch of your buddies, remove the old guard, and announce that you're in charge. Follow by stomping on as many friends of the old guard and other challengers as you have to in order to hold on. Eventually, people get used to your boot on their throats and tell themselves that you have the mandate of heaven. Maybe you even lift the boot after a while, or apply it lightly.

 

And yes, plenty of role playing possibilities. Just not ones I want to explore in a game about Super Heroes.

No, I was specifically referring to where those rulers democratized or otherwise led in a fashion which opened society against their own originally-despotic approach.

 

PS - which isn't in reference to whether it's suited or not for superhero play, simply stating that #3 can be heroic

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Evil? Good will try to stop you. If you try to take over the world, regardless of your motivation, the other heroes will stand in your way. The old saying of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" has a ring of truth to it; if you take over, you're going to cease being the good guy.

 

What it winds up being is "birthing a golden age for your fellow man, whether or not you want it. You will be living in paradise, even if I have to shove it down your puny little throats."

I think the reaction of other heroes would be a lot more nuanced than that as "regardless of your motivation" is hardly a true statement in regard to how they will gauge their reactions. Some other "good guy" (if we can make such a clean distinction) heroes will be against it, some won't, I would posit, especially depending on what the alternatives are. And of course the world setting. If/where the superbeings and specifically PCs are effectively gods, with no humanity and very few (if any) peers able to effectively challenge them, this all, I think, gets quite interesting and complex.

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

To put it another way - is Ozymandias in the Watchmen really a villain? If yes (which is a pretty fair reaction and I would say more or less yes), would he still be a villain if his plan involved the deaths of no one but "merely" the manipulation of the world powers to be convinced of an external threat and to move towards what he believes is the best for mankind, i.e., globalization, an end to US-USSR either/or options, etc.? And if in the meantime he becomes the master behind these puppet powers guiding mankind to peace and prosperity? What of a super character who "merely" uses massive powers of logic and persuasion to subtly, even subliminally, convince the world to move to this? Where is this magic line?

[OddHat]

Re: With even greater power....

 

To put it another way - is Ozymandias in the Watchmen really a villain? If yes (which is a pretty fair reaction and I would say more or less yes)' date=' would he still be a villain if his plan involved the deaths of no one but "merely" the manipulation of the world powers to be convinced of an external threat and to move towards what he believes is the best for mankind, i.e., globalization, an end to US-USSR either/or options, etc.? And if in the meantime he becomes the master behind these puppet powers guiding mankind to peace and prosperity? What of a super character who "merely" uses massive powers of logic and persuasion to subtly, even subliminally, convince the world to move to this? Where is this magic line?[/quote']

 

I'd suggest shades of gray rather than a magic line; that said, once you're killing people to protect your plan to blow up New York, I'm comfortable saying you've moved into the black.

 

If Ozzy had deceived the world's governments without committing murders, or mass murder, he'd still be a villain, but not nearly so much of one. Using logic and persuasion to sway others, without coercion or deception? I'd say that's just being politically active, and more ethically so than many of our political leaders and activists.

[OddHat]

Re: With even greater power....

 

No, I was specifically referring to where those rulers democratized or otherwise led in a fashion which opened society against their own originally-despotic approach.

 

PS - which isn't in reference to whether it's suited or not for superhero play, simply stating that #3 can be heroic

 

Fair enough; if the campaign starts in a totalitarian regime, playing the rebels can be heroic. Star Wars is a valid Heroic setting, and even V for Vendetta has its appeal (noting of course that the gray area in V's tactics is part of the story). I'd still end the campaign before the characters start spending all their time arguing about zoning laws, but yes, you can do Heroes against the Empire.

 

Personally, I consider comics that portray real world democracies as fascist dictatorships where violent revolution is called for to be, in the vast majority, adolescent pap.* There are rare exceptions (V for Vendetta). A fan could argue that Supers plotting the violent overthrow / takeover of Marvel or DC's USA are "Heroes"; I'd see them as villains. In either case, I would not choose to GM or participate in such a campaign. Political preaching and posturing relating much more to the real world than the fictional setting would be almost unavoidable.

 

*Of course, they're also a sub category of the same kind of wish fulfillment that makes people fantasize about superpowers in the first place.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: With even greater power....

 

I think the reaction of other heroes would be a lot more nuanced than that as "regardless of your motivation" is hardly a true statement in regard to how they will gauge their reactions. Some other "good guy" (if we can make such a clean distinction) heroes will be against it' date=' some won't, I would posit, especially depending on what the alternatives are. And of course the world setting. If/where the superbeings and specifically PCs are effectively gods, with no humanity and very few (if any) peers able to effectively challenge them, this all, I think, gets quite interesting and complex.[/quote']

 

Fair enough, but, if the PCs are running the world, there will be a perception that everybody else is some form of slave. Granted, they may be incredibly comfortable slaves whose lives are no different than they were before they took over, but still slaves.

 

Yes, it would be nuanced, but you'd still have lots of people standing up against the PCs, regardless of how good their motivations are. And yes, I think there would be loads of rich RPGing fodder in such a situation, as you'd have the PCs facing down people they respect and admire who have chosen to make a stand for freedom.

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Fair enough, but, if the PCs are running the world, there will be a perception that everybody else is some form of slave. Granted, they may be incredibly comfortable slaves whose lives are no different than they were before they took over, but still slaves.

 

Yes, it would be nuanced, but you'd still have lots of people standing up against the PCs, regardless of how good their motivations are. And yes, I think there would be loads of rich RPGing fodder in such a situation, as you'd have the PCs facing down people they respect and admire who have chosen to make a stand for freedom.

I think this is what made Miracleman especially interesting.

[zornwil]

Re: With even greater power....

 

Fair enough, but, if the PCs are running the world, there will be a perception that everybody else is some form of slave. Granted, they may be incredibly comfortable slaves whose lives are no different than they were before they took over, but still slaves.

 

Yes, it would be nuanced, but you'd still have lots of people standing up against the PCs, regardless of how good their motivations are. And yes, I think there would be loads of rich RPGing fodder in such a situation, as you'd have the PCs facing down people they respect and admire who have chosen to make a stand for freedom.

PS, I would also note an interesting aspect is that I don't think that most anyone will notice if the PC who wants to directly run the world gets his way. Just as a small number of people say the US democracy is all appearance and really a big sham (and I am NOT saying I agree with them), that's how the world is likely to be.

[ghost-angel]

Re: With even greater power....

 

It's the Istvatha V'han quandry...

 

She comes in, conquers you, most likely uplifts you and removes a lot of poverty and strife, puts part of her bureaucracy in charge and goes off to the next dimension...

 

You could quite likely have higher technology and standard of living than before, your army become Istvatha's army instead of your countries army, your laws are her laws now, your leader is her instead.

 

In the end, have you really given up freedom? Or have you simply exchanged one leader for another? Does the idea of a foreign entity ruling you in name cause that much difference at the ground level?

 

Or is it a matter of pride?