Alibear Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 ... do famous people get made into Supers? or Villains? In mine several have been Supered: The Spice Girls became a Supergroup not a pop group. Stephen Hawking built his own set of SuperArmour and battles crime from his University base. Tony Blair has secret mass mind control powers etc. That kid from Essen will be Meteor Lad in my game world. His powers will surface soon enough. What you got? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... Never really did the "Turn celebs into Supers" game as such, though one trope I do use is that Supers become Celebs, and many retire from their Super careers into acting, TV hosting, etc. As far as real world celebs turned supers, at the moment I can only remember a few: Nikola Tesla was pretty much a Pulp mad scientist with Heroic goals in my campaign, and is still in theory out there in a mechanoid body. Almost all saints, occultists, and others who claimed unusual powers as part of their public personas actually have them in my campaign. Tom Cruise is both a dupe and a super weapon of an Alien controlled cult (his power set is exactly what Scientologists claim their training can give); David Icke really is warning the world of the Reptoid menace, and some of those he believes to be aliens actually are; Sylvia the Psychic (of American Self Help fame) really is a psychic; Deepack Chopra is a powerful (and sinister) mage feeding on the worship of his followers. And so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... Only the ones I want to skewer, because I refuse to take any of them seriously, in game or in reality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I've generally avoided such for the sake of not getting political (though that's not always the right word). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Certified Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... This isn't something I've really played with since the super population of my main campaign world is relatively low. However, to give credit where credit is due I many need to beg/barrow/steal the idea of a power armored Stephen Hawking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I've generally avoided such for the sake of not getting political (though that's not always the right word). I once had Rush Limbaugh as a were-Elephant, Newt Gingrich as a were-Gator, and Michael Moore as a were-sloth. A few more I can't remember. Wasn't as funny in game as I thought it would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I once had Rush Limbaugh as a were-Elephant' date=' Newt Gingrich as a were-Gator, and Michael Moore as a were-sloth. A few more I can't remember. Wasn't as funny in game as I thought it would be.[/quote'] I could get away with that, I don't think anybody in my group likes them. I was thinking more like making mockeries of entertainment figures, which probably would offend/insult somebody. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Agenda Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vin Diesel, and Madonna are all Empyreans. I presume they are all real people who died young and were replaced by Empyreans altered to look like them. Madonna is about due to retire and be replaced by a human altered to look like her (AND the girl she replaced), if it hasn't been done already. Any Empyrean Transmuter should be able to pull off the cosmetic alterations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnaskar Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... One of my players took a rivalry with Al Gore, so I sort of rolled with it. Gave him a solar-powered power armor. Other than that I haven't had any yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Certified Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... One of my players took a rivalry with Al Gore' date=' so I sort of rolled with it. Gave him a solar-powered power armor. Other than that I haven't had any yet.[/quote'] Does he have a vulnerability to Heat? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nexus Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I have a few settings so it varies. For example, in the Redwood Academy setting many heroic figures that are fictional or who's abilities are made superhuman in tall tales in our world existed (Robin Hood, Hercules, John Henry) existed and their legendary abilities were examples of powers In the Wyldstrike universe that's not generally the case though some more modern celebrities have developed powers either as mutants, being caught in the Wyldstrike or purchasing them somehow (usually to stay relevant in a celebrity sphere increasingly dominated by superhumans). For example, Paris Hilton is a mutant with enhanced intellect and something of a demonologist/occultist (the paranormal is current "in" among the upper crust). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Balabanto Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... In my universe, real-world celebrities have been all but eliminated so that if the PC's want to play a celebrity, they aren't overshadowed by the media attention given to fictional superhero movies, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... In my universe' date=' real-world celebrities have been all but eliminated[/quote'] It was terrible. Breast implants and fake teeth everywhere, and the quiet sobbing of publicists, pimps and coke dealers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba smith Posted June 17, 2009 Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... not as super-heroes but in an artwork sketch on http://www.fightfantasies.com i had kirsten dunst and reese witherspoon dipiicted as prize fighters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrix3 Posted June 19, 2009 Report Share Posted June 19, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I've used Nikola Tesla as a background element, where much of modern technology was based on his genius, and some things were still being worked on in Area 51, though he wasn't a superhero per-se. My gaming group had a history where the first superhero was Neil Armstrong. Classic Superman template, and he actually made a second moon landing under his own power. In between saving the world, he lifted space station components into place for NASA. I don't thin they had any other celebs as supers, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psybolt Posted June 19, 2009 Report Share Posted June 19, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I had David Hasselhoff turned into the evil villain named Academy when he was burned by acid during the filming of the major motion picture called Aftermath: The Movie, which was based on one of the former PCs from our group, who was an acid projector. Academy became one of the top villains in the campaign world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... It was terrible. Breast implants and fake teeth everywhere' date=' and the quiet sobbing of publicists, pimps and coke dealers.[/quote'] Ohhhh! The lack of humanity .... ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinanju Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... No, I don't use actual celebrities as supers--but I sometimes use thinly disguised celebrities as models for characters. The Neutron Sisters, for instance, are basically the Pointer Sisters with nuclear-themed powers (one generates heat, one radiation, and one kinetic blasts). They just wanna party while the bombs drop. The Man-Ape is a thinly disguised version of Bruce Campbell who one day transformed into, well, a man-ape (think gorilla with human proportions and a still recognizable face) for no apparent reason (very Kafkaesque). But I also tend to run things so that superheroes (and villains to a lesser extent) tend to become celebrities. Let's face it, given how some real world people are famous mostly for being famous (Paris Hilton, for instance), in a world where people really CAN fly or shoot lasers from their eyes or are insanely strong...they're gonna be hounded by the paparazzi. Supers tend to maintain secret identities not so much to protect their loved ones from criminals as to keep the paparazzi away. You go out and do things in a mask, asnwer to Iron Maiden or Hell's Angel, then leave the scene, take off your mask or transform...and go about your daily life without the paparazzi stalking your every move. (Kind of like the reverse of real world celebrities who do their thing with their faces exposed and then wear hats and dark glasses and whatnot to move around relatively unnoticed.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matrix3 Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... No, I don't use actual celebrities as supers--but I sometimes use thinly disguised celebrities as models for characters. The Neutron Sisters, for instance, are basically the Pointer Sisters with nuclear-themed powers (one generates heat, one radiation, and one kinetic blasts). They just wanna party while the bombs drop. The Man-Ape is a thinly disguised version of Bruce Campbell who one day transformed into, well, a man-ape (think gorilla with human proportions and a still recognizable face) for no apparent reason (very Kafkaesque). But I also tend to run things so that superheroes (and villains to a lesser extent) tend to become celebrities. Let's face it, given how some real world people are famous mostly for being famous (Paris Hilton, for instance), in a world where people really CAN fly or shoot lasers from their eyes or are insanely strong...they're gonna be hounded by the paparazzi. Supers tend to maintain secret identities not so much to protect their loved ones from criminals as to keep the paparazzi away. You go out and do things in a mask, asnwer to Iron Maiden or Hell's Angel, then leave the scene, take off your mask or transform...and go about your daily life without the paparazzi stalking your every move. (Kind of like the reverse of real world celebrities who do their thing with their faces exposed and then wear hats and dark glasses and whatnot to move around relatively unnoticed.) So the goal of every paparazzi is to get a photo of the transformation/quick change into the secret identity...I wonder how much the National Enquirer would pay for those shots? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peregrine Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I handle the whole paparazzi issue quite differently. IRL, paparazzi are the problem hey are because there is a common attitude (backed up in the US by, IIRC, a Supreme Court decision) that public figures/celebrities (political, entertainment, athletes, etc.) have less presumption of personal privacy than non-public persons. In my setting, that decision went the other way - public persons have the same presumption of personal privacy as non-public persons. While US Supreme Court decisions are not binding outside the US (just as non-US court decisions are not binding on the US), that set a standard of expectation that is generally copied (with local variations) elsewhere in the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... There's a sequence in Astro City (iirc) where a comic book publisher is attacked by a Supervillain angry over his depiction in the book. Later the publisher, along with the entire company, is abducted and presumably killed by a Galactus class entity. I treat these as "real" events in my setting. I also include cases where media companies have been sued and boycotted for outing Supers. Additionally, the same laws that protect the identities of undercover Federal Agents also protect the identities of registered Supers (which is one of the incentives for registering). So, while there are occasional "outings" of Supers, they remain rare, and are most commonly associated with Supers whose adventuring careers are already on the decline and who are trying to move into celebrity or political life. The media company is risking lawsuits, federal charges, bad publicity and physical attacks by Outing a Super; if they can't be fairly certain that the Super wants to be outed, and isn't an active law enforcement officer, most companies won't touch pictures revealing a secret identity even with someone else's hands. "You believe that our employer, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, spends his nights dressing up as a bat and beating up criminals? And it is your plan to blackmail this man?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sinanju Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... I handle the whole paparazzi issue quite differently. IRL' date=' paparazzi are the problem hey are because there is a common attitude (backed up in the US by, IIRC, a Supreme Court decision) that public figures/celebrities (political, entertainment, athletes, etc.) have less presumption of personal privacy than non-public persons. In my setting, that decision went the other way - public persons have the same presumption of personal privacy as non-public persons. While US Supreme Court decisions are not binding outside the US (just as non-US court decisions are not binding on the US), that set a standard of expectation that is generally copied (with local variations) elsewhere in the world.[/quote'] Which is another valid approach, but I choose to go with the existing paradigm--public figures have a lessened expectation of privacy. (For that matter, as a legal principle, I suppose that working to maintain a "secret identity" might provide some legal protection as well as practical. I can see lawsuits establishing precedents about how much effort one must expend for your efforts to be considered sufficient and allow you to win damages for being outed; if you're too sloppy, if your efforts to maintain a separate heroic identity are slipshod enough, you lose it--kinda like trademark law.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebuchet Posted June 20, 2009 Report Share Posted June 20, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... The only real person we've given powers to in our campaign is the magician and skeptic James Randi, who spends his time IRL exposing supposedly supernatural or psychic frauds. In our campaign, he's a metahuman whose power is to (unknowingly) completely suppress all metahuman powers within 100 meters. So no wonder none of those poor psychics' powers ever work when Randi challenges them to demonstrate their abilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nagisawa Takumi Posted June 21, 2009 Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... It was terrible. Breast implants and fake teeth everywhere' date=' and the quiet sobbing of publicists, pimps and coke dealers.[/quote'] Repped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Certified Posted June 21, 2009 Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 Re: In your Universe ... The only real person we've given powers to in our campaign is the magician and skeptic James Randi' date=' who spends his time IRL exposing supposedly supernatural or psychic frauds. In our campaign, he's a metahuman whose power is to (unknowingly) completely suppress all metahuman powers within 100 meters. So no wonder none of those poor psychics' powers ever work when Randi challenges them to demonstrate their abilities. [/quote'] Must be one hell of a Suppress I think many a psychic would be honked off for not napping the million dollar Randi prize. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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