What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

[SuperJerry]

Title says it all...

 

In my campaign it's 4% of the overall population which I think is very comapared to other campaigns but 3/4ths of them are only 50-100 points more than normals.

 

So what's your ratio?

[assault]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

When I bothered with such things, I assumed a 1 in a million ratio.

 

These days I just use however many I want, on the grounds that superhumans are so rare and weird that it makes little sense to try to statistically analyse them.

[Pariah]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

The short answer, at least for me, is "As many as the plot requires". No more, no less.

 

I figure that superhumans are like rock stars, or top-level professional athletes. The general public is aware of their existence. Many people have seen one in their lifetime, and some may even have met one in person. But they're rare enough that if/when you should happen to meet one, it's a big deal.

 

(By the way, the rock star/top level professional athlete I've met is Ted Nugent. )

[Badger]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

The short answer, at least for me, is "As many as the plot requires". No more, no less.

 

I figure that superhumans are like rock stars, or top-level professional athletes. The general public is aware of their existence. Many people have seen one in their lifetime, and some may even have met one in person. But they're rare enough that if/when you should happen to meet one, it's a big deal.

 

(By the way, the rock star/top level professional athlete I've met is Ted Nugent. )

 

Technically I've never met a rockstar or pro athlete (though one guy who was a couple years below me in high school went on to spend a couple years on NFL practice squads and spent one year in NFL Europe, so he may count)

 

Anyhow, I dont place a number but 4% seems a little high. That means if even distribution even Pitcairn Island (population: 50) would have a couple of supers. I'd say maybe 1/1000 have at least very minor powers and/or potential to develop powers. 1/1000 still leaves you with 6 million in the world. OF course with "real significant" powers and/or potential, I dont know. 1 in a million? (which would translate to around 6000 in the world). To be truthful, I have to say if you care to figure it all out. You have to divide the world into 3 categories. 1) Normals 2) Minor-level 3) Major-level (PC level)

[assault]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

I have actually done statistical analyses in the past. That's probably why I don't have much interest in them these days.

 

I used the 1 in a million figure I mentioned earlier, and split them up by Australian state. I also imposed gender balancing guidelines.

 

I also determined their power origins by lifting part of the character generation rules for an obscure Australian published Superhero RPG called Super Squadron. It had an essentially random character generation system vaguely similar to (but apparently developed independently from!) the one in Villains and Vigilantes. It used different tables to generate powers for characters with different origins. I borrowed the table of origin types, declared it to be valid for Australia, although not necessarily the rest of the world, and scattered characters around Australia accordingly.

 

The system in question was actually pretty reasonable for generating early Marvel universe characters. It was pretty useless for generating characters more like my preferred DC titles. I worked out a quick fix for that.

 

More to the point though, it wasn't so good for generating "typical" villains, and, of course, as a random system it wasn't so good for creating the kind of teams present in the Marvel Universe. After all, (virtually) all X-Men are mutants. The core of the FF were the people involved in the initial space mission, and so on. If you squinted, it could probably produce a reasonable enough lineup for an Avengers type team, but in general it probably need to be massaged.

 

And, as I said, I preferred a more DC style anyway.

 

So I moved to a campaign oriented model: the characters that are necessary for the purposes of the campaign are the characters that exist. There's no need to load the setting up with a whole bunch of characters who will never appear, and of course you should never rule out the possibility of new characters appearing if you need them to.

 

My current default setting is basically Batman, Superman, their supporting characters, and a few random other DC universe characters. In particular, I have homages for all their Australian characters, for some obscure reason.

 

Yes, I have a homage of the Tasmanian Devil, as well as Ranger from the Batmen of All Nations. And no, not the smarmy Grant Morrison version. The real one.

[bubba smith]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

The short answer, at least for me, is "As many as the plot requires". No more, no less.

 

I figure that superhumans are like rock stars, or top-level professional athletes. The general public is aware of their existence. Many people have seen one in their lifetime, and some may even have met one in person. But they're rare enough that if/when you should happen to meet one, it's a big deal.

 

that sounds about right

[Hermit]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

It varies along the lines of Geography as much as anything in my game world. Some places just seem to draw (or even create) more superhuman activity than others. This is why, in my game world, The United States actually has more superhumans than India or China.

[jkwleisemann]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

What game am I playing? In some, there's only a handful of them per billion. In others, there's a handful per hundred (X-Men types).

 

Personally, I don't like it on a % scale most of the time - it implies that you can 'run the numbers' on anything beyond a worldwide scale. Frankly, the odds that supers would really be distributed like that are worse than the odds that they exist - the odds are that most supers would probably congregate, creating pockets where the numbers are insane, and places where they're non-existent.

[Ken Solo]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

Partly because I like to say to my players/characters "You are one in a million!" I use that number. The other part is that I did a head count of charateres in my stable, including published characters in HERO products and home brewed characters and I got 1,854 character sheets. I count groups like 'Viper Agent, Basic' as 1 sheet.

These almost 2,000 characters are just the ones who have the power level to be noticed, or the will to make themselves noticed. The later holds true for all those with no real powers, but still run in the Superhero Community. Yes, the majority of them are in the United States for one reason or another. That leaves about 4,000 people all over the world who have some ability they either keep secret, or have not realized they have yet. I like to flavor up the world with the Minor Powers once in a while. Like the average beat cop who happens to have the ability to Detect Magic. It's not enough to get him to put on a cape, and it very rarely comes in handy. But when the strange knight was slaughtering people in New York, that cop could tell others that thay wanted to concentrate on seperating the sword from the knight.

I really loved 'Mystery Men' and I want those people in my world too. They have few real powers, but just enough to get them into trouble with some hero worship/ need for recognition. Then someone has to bail them out! A plot hook!

That's what I do.

[DJ Blackrock]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

I never actually sat down and did the math (I know, sacriledge for HERO), but it would be silly to do with my setting anyway. My setting, which I'll probably write up at some point, sits dead center of basically every kind of supernatural occurance. A convergence of ley lines, making magic quite easy. Several megacorporations and prestigious universities, allowing super science breakthroughs on an almost daily basis. That, among quite a few other things, makes the saturation of supers to normals skewed. Maybe as low as one in 100. Many of them are low-powered or non-manifested, but they're there.

 

Otherwise, I'll agree, you have as many supers (or metas, or whatever you call them) as you need to tell your story.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

Eh... I really fall into the "as many as the plot requires" category. For example, when I ran World of Darkness (I know, I know, Thia? Emo? THIA?! No one knows me anymore... I'm going to go into the corner and drink spoiled milk just so I can feel) I really struggled to minimize the number of 'supers' (i.e., Vampires, Mages, Garou) to make a) the world make sense and the world believable and c) the characters feel special. I think I view everything through this same sort of Iron-Age value set, where being a hero is WORK. This is why my Dark Fantasy shines with a beautiful black sheen; because I can communicate the need for hope for the characters again the more traditional view given of "Hooray! BadGuyOfTheWeek is causing problems! PC Team! Do Stuff!"

 

Yeah. I can't do that. I'm missing some sort of gene. So my worlds lean towards humans handling the bulk of their problems for that reason. No ratio, but if you think "Every club is full of Vampires," then that's too many vampires. If every crime is interrupted by a super, that's too many supers.

[Arkham]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

I don't set a hard number, but estimate roughly 1 in 2 million, with 10 times that or more in non-powered people with 'items of power', technology, and special training and another 10 times that in terrestial non-humans most of which are non-combatants anyway.

 

This leaves approximately 2500 inately powered. There are about 25,000 agents, ninjas, 'ring bearers', and people in power armor which includes but is not limited to Iron Man, Nightwing, and Dr. Strange pastiches. 250,000 Atlantians, Lemurians, Deep Ones, sentient gorillas and civilized dinosaur men living in their remote underwater, jungle, or deep desert hidden cities, most of whom never leave but certainly _could_ make an appearance on the world stage.

 

Where the characters congregate depends on the type of characters and surrounding environments. There are vastly more martial artists and mystics in China than there are people who fell into vats of chemicals. And in the US, there are vastly more thugs with blaster rifles, industrial accident victims, and Power Armor wearers.

 

But really, its just a thought exercise as characters end up wherever they seem most appropriate for a game when they are conceived. Demographically, most of the heroes with character sheets are white males because they were written and played by white males. The others get filled in gradually whenever I have an idea for a name and power set without a clear mental image of gender or race. When I do get an idea for a specifically minority hero, it is usually due to an embarassingly stereotypical name or concept. i.e. Captain Crunk, the sonic energy projector. "WWWWWHAT!?!?"

[Kenn]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

I've never bothered with such statistics. What constitutes a superhuman?

 

If an individual has abilities that are superhuman, but is a hetero-sapien (i.e. an extra-terrestial; artificial intelligence; a super-smart, sapient collie; etc.) should they be counted for comparison purposes? They aren't really a super-human. The whole point is they aren't any kind of human, at all, super or otherwise.

[DJ Blackrock]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

I've never bothered with such statistics. What constitutes a superhuman?

 

If an individual has abilities that are superhuman, but is a hetero-sapien (i.e. an extra-terrestial; artificial intelligence; a super-smart, sapient collie; etc.) should they be counted for comparison purposes? They aren't really a super-human. The whole point is they aren't any kind of human, at all, super or otherwise.

 

Many, many many of my supers aren't really, technically, superhumans. Many are aliens, or cyborgs, or full on robots, or clones, or what-have you. I tend to use the phrase "Supernatural" moreso that "Superhuman".

 

And on that count, I like to call them "meta-humans" if at all possible, rather than mutant, or superhuman, or whatever. Not sure why, but I like it that way.

[Trebuchet]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

We figure about 2000 metahumans of all levels - from one-trick-ponies to immortal demigods - so I guess that gives us about a three million to one ratio. The assumption is that at most a few hundred participate in the "superhero/villain" thing; most operate behind the scenes or aren't interested in anything but their own pet projects. That number includes those few using high tech to operate as supers. Guys in less powerful "turtle armor" equivalents or the like are considered police/military assets rather than supers

[Querysphinx]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

The last time I ran a standard supers game it it was 2 parts per million. Which meant there were about 600 metahuman things in the U.S. at any given time. That included aliens, mythical creatures, insane A.I.s etc. The funny thing was that there were always about 600 of them. When one died another would take his place. When a few showed up a few more would disappear. The apparent Law of Conservation of Metahumans was a constant source of crogglement to the scientists of that game world world.

[Badger]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

Many, many many of my supers aren't really, technically, superhumans. Many are aliens, or cyborgs, or full on robots, or clones, or what-have you. I tend to use the phrase "Supernatural" moreso that "Superhuman".

 

And on that count, I like to call them "meta-humans" if at all possible, rather than mutant, or superhuman, or whatever. Not sure why, but I like it that way.

 

Yeah, I have a tendency to play non-humans. For my 2 characters I use most in WWYCDs: one was half-alien, half-human and got his powers from his alien genetics (nearly all members of the species have some power potential). The other was basically a normal human solider who was granted immortality by a twist of fate*. Neither would technically qualify into this discussion in the classic sense. Anyhow, I do have to add that you cant really get a feed on the % unless you only have one method of getting powers in that world (which IMO usually makes for a boring game). I ponder such things sometimes, because I am a numbers guy, but I dont give serious thought.

 

 

 

 

* You'll have to ask Death about that "twist of fate". I'm not talking.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

 

So far, i've only run Champions Universe games with HERO, so I'd have to look up what it says. I think there was about a thousand.

 

At some point, I want to run a game where the supers are only appearing now ... the PCs are, literally, among the first and may be the second-through-fifth, created in response to the first supervillain, because he's out of normal law enforcement's weight class (with house-rules to back it up, like 'all normal tech/structures take double damage from super-attacks' to avoid having 800 point monsters running around.