Steve

Numbers would likely be a large factor, also who is getting the powers. Statistics would imply that it’s far more likely for someone poor and socially powerless to gain powers than an existing tyrant or a member of the “one percent.” So, some former nobody in North Korea suddenly has godlike power, or a middle-class farmer with a family in Kansas, or a poor widow in London terrorized by street gangs, or a refugee in Mexico. And there are another ten thousand more stories like theirs. Maybe one or two of them are already rich or socially powerful. Boom, they all have superpowers, and some of them rival Superman. What do they do with them? How do people react to them? There’s the old saying, power corrupts. Would any people really use their powers to help others? How many of these people would feel they should eliminate the competition? How many of these newly empowered people would care if normal people freak out? Would they put on a costume to make themselves seem less scary? What if those chosen were people motivated to change things around them, if they only had the power?

Once you start getting away from comic book tropes, superhumans become a temptation for governments to weaponize. You see it in the comics, but it would likely happen much more often in a more realistic world. Some governments might even fall quickly, if the right (or wrong?) person obtained superpowers. The temptation to march into the halls of government and forcibly redress one’s grievances would be far too tempting, especially if that person was the only one (or one of a very few) in a country to get superpowers. Controlling superhumans is easier if there are many at a rough parity in power level with each other. However, it becomes far more challenging if one or a very few are at a greatly higher power level. If only one person on Earth had Kryptonian-level powers while the rest were much less powerful sorts, even sending an army of superhumans would not work, if that person refused to cooperate.

Well, that lets your husband focus more on you then, so your calm explanations as to why the situation is toxic should carry more weight. Perhaps if you keep at it during the lull, he’ll get worn down and submit. If these people are friends, does that mean you do things with them other than gaming? If not, that really weakens the friendship argument a lot. If gaming is your only social contact with them, ditch the game.

I read the first book of Wearing The Cape, and I found it interesting. Wearing costumes to keep the norms from freaking is a reasonable justification, I suppose. What might end up happening is that only a portion of the superhuman population goes for the costumed look (heroic sorts and more publicity-minded villains), while the rest either don’t use their powers much (most people, I imagine) or commit crimes in regular clothes. Passing legislation against superhumans is expected, but enforcement is still an issue. If someone is able to ignore bullets and can bash around or blast police like mooks in an action movie, you then need other superhumans to enforce those edicts. There are also issues of public popularity. Will the populace always support heavy-handed actions against superhumans? They are scary and “other” so maybe? This seemed to be the direction Wearing The Cape chose too, that superhumans would act as disaster help and civilian aid. Crimefighting happens in the comics, but probably not as much in a world closer to real life. Aberrant is probably closer to X-Men in its take on superhumans.

Has there been progress on this issue?

I was reading through the new Champions supplement Lifted and started thinking about how campaign worlds might be structured without using the classic comic book superhero/supervillain tropes. If superhumans don’t take part in the cosplay out of comic books, how would they engage with society? Would it be X-Men anti-mutant paranoia? Some other sort of dystopia? How would governments react to suddenly having superhumans in their midst today, regular people suddenly having godlike power, without a history going back to World War II? I imagine the first instinct would be to try and control superhumans, either by force or threatening their loved ones. That likely will not go over very well. What if those superhumans were pretty much immune to man-portable weapons like handgun and rifles? Would they eventually start policing each other with some sort of code of conduct? Do these issues then lead back to some kind of comic book paradigm after sufficient time has passed?

There actually is a Japanese sentai team that was written up for Hero, Zen Team. Each of them had a single superpower, in addition to martial arts and a suit of body armor. They can be found in the Allies supplement, available for sale for $5 here.

I discovered that the Knockdown and Stunning section has a similar note about making a HT roll to avoid knockdown and stunning. I don't play GURPS, so I'm not that familiar with the rules. Modifiers: -5 for a major wound to the face or vitals (or to the groin, on a humanoid male)

I didn't see this mentioned in the 4th Edition GURPS Basic Set, but there is a note under Bulletproof Nudity that topless females get an extra +1 to active defenses when this cinematic combat rule is in effect.

A religious order would work too, but it gives a somewhat different feel than noble families. Inbreeding to try to keep the blood “pure” is a possible outcome of making them nobility. A religious order could function like the witches of the Dune novels, whose name I can never seem to spell right.

What might be an interesting approach is to have a region of the known world where magic use is gender-linked, so women are the only ones with magic ability. Witch-Queens rule there, and the nobility is thus composed of women with witchcraft ability. Commoners would be those without any magic ability, but a girl displaying talent could be adopted by a noble house.

I tried looking them up. Did you mean Mosuo? That was the spelling that came to a Wikipedia entry. I suppose the elvish version could have tribal variants that are more like Greek Amazons and others that are more peaceful, agrarian sorts.

During the war years, selling counterfeit ration books could be a profitable business. A Nazi spy ring might do this to fund their operations. It could be an opportunity for Golden Age moralizing along with fighting.

An example of something with more to do than smash villains would be a plot by The Tremor, activating his new earthquake machine near Campaign City. The heroes will need to rescue people from damaged buildings and stop the damage from getting worse. Imagine if this plot happens while a Senator or the President was visiting Campaign City. The villain need not be very tough, and might only employ some goons.

I’ve noticed that forum activity seems to have dropped a lot recently. It used to be that there were new postings appearing pretty regularly across multiple forums, but not so much recently. Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just imagining it?

I could see resurrection magic perhaps coming into play where an assassination has occurred, and that would require assassins to take measures against it. Kind of like a magical life insurance policy. However, it is far more likely that the next person in line would decide to just let the old royal stay dead or the church who could perform such magic doesn't like the recently deceased royal, as the webcomic in my original post demonstrates. It could be quite dramatic in a campaign if this sort of thing ever got explored.

The latest Full Frontal Nerdity webcomic posed an interesting question and then some possible explanations. http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=2470 Given the wealth and power of royals, why do they never seem to get brought back from the dead when such magic exists?

Just off the top of my head. Dragons posing as humanoids and how they might interact with societies around them. Some dragon types might be quite social. They aren’t all like Smaug in his mountain lair. Maybe a dragon uses a tribe of orcs as its minions. A quiet little village may feed visitors to their local dragon. Maybe a dragon only wants to eat maidens. What do different dragon types eat and how often? Are they like bears, gorging for a time and then sleeping for months or years, or eating more regularly? As apex predators, their feeding cycle and what they eat will have an effect on the ecology. Maybe dragon dung is good for fertilizing? Maybe some types are vegetarians?

This is what I meant by how I built them. This is from Hero Designer. Jump-2 Hyperdrive: Teleportation 7m, MegaScale (1m = 1 lightyear; can be scaled down to 100 km/m; +4 1/4) (37 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Week, for full journey; -4 1/2), OIF Immobile (-1 1/2), 4 Charges (Recovers Under Limited Circumstances; -1 1/4), Requires A Roll (Dimensional Navigation roll; -1/2), Cannot Be Safely Used Inside A Gravity Well (-1/2). Real Cost: 4 points. A human pilot could run it with a -4 to their roll. Taking extra time to calculate the jump pretty much eliminates the penalty.

You could build the drive cheaper on Active Points by lowering it to 6 or 7 meters and upping the Megascale multiplier. Unless that was a build choice? Traveller Hero built their Jump Drives more like that.

Well, if the X-Files can have FBI resources and manpower devoted to them, why not this? Imagine what weird, real world task forces might be working away, hidden within the bowels of the CIA/FBI/NSA. There’s probably a lot of stranger than fiction stuff going on.

My understanding is that the art created is considered your property and can be treated as such, sold or whatever. Note that there are two levels of paid accounts available, and it might require a paid account for this though. I can’t remember. I bought a paid account because it removed the limits on how much you can produce. A free account will be used up pretty quickly.

One of the criticisms I’ve seen is that the program seems to have problems generating eyes right. I’ve been getting some great character portraits out of it though. It’s also fantastic at doing things like city scenes and structures, such as castles and cyberpunk skylines.

Been thinking more about this. “…they’re OUR FRIENDS”: Your husband needs to get a grip. Seriously. Who is more important to him? You, the person he’s been married to for many years? Or is it a bunch of people led by a dysfunctional-sounding DM? It all just comes across as a toxic-sounding situation, and he should be supporting you in your decsion, not trying to force you into enduring more of this. You don’t want to play? That’s fine and totally understandable based on your descriptions of things. I wouldn’t want to be in such a campaign either. I think most normal people wouldn’t. What isn’t sounding healthy is the rest of it. If you’re playing in another group without any problems, that shows you aren’t anti-social. You just don’t want to play with annoying people (substitute whatever word you like for annoying) and deal with the whims of a DM of questionable maturity and possible other issues. Your husband sounds weirdly determined to subject you to this mental and emotional BDSM going on, even after seeing how much it distresses you. That’s not good. He needs to put on his big boy pants and let you make your own decisions on who you play with or don’t play with, not cater to a gaming group like the one you describe.

Wow. Just… wow. How long have you been married? The drama you’re describing sounds more like dating someone in high school than a married couple.