Redmenace
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Posts posted by Redmenace
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I was lucky enough to have him as an instructor briefly. He was a hellion and trying to keep up with him in class was a minor glimpse of Hell but I miss the Gent.
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Re: Thanks for a starting point...
Originally posted by tyraraelNow I'll admit, I'm not a great artist, but I'd like to be better. So, first of all, thanks to you Redmenace for the black&white templates. I'm in the process of tweaking one of them for a character I'm going to be playing in a Dark[er] Champions game. Second, despite the fact that this topic is rife with disgruntled artists from the "Happy Comments Only" forum, it has flourished into a cool discussion/collaboration on how to create depth, shading, proportion, etc... I've learned a lot already. I have nothing to add as far as de/constructive criticism, but I have to say that Warp9's "Kronos" is the coolest idea {
}for a costume and it is well implemented. Personally, I always have the most trouble with the proportioning on hands and feet. Any suggestions on how to learn? Sadly, I have no art to upload from this computer, but I will post my first Champion, "Sol", soon, along with "Carbon Copy". Ladies and gentlemen, keep up the good work and pay no mind to Vanguard, Denid, or anyone else who decides to make cutting remarks against your character (not the one that costs points) instead of your artwork.
In the words of Stan Lee, "Excelsior!", and, "'Nuff said."
Tyrarael Rex
There are sets of proportions you can use to keep it in the ballpark. Burne Hogarth's "How to draw Dynamic hands" has them as do many other books.
Or, and I realise this is not that useful unless you'r a full time art student, get an 18 by 24 pad of newsprint or other paper and some pictures of hands or feet, sport's illustrated's swimsuit issue will work as can many catalogs from swim wear companies, then draw a hundred hands, feet or whatever detail is giving you problems. Try to make each reasonably small say fitting into a four" by four" box.
It can be painful but it works.
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Glad you liked it BB. As to co-creating and co-running, alas I'm in the midst of a four colored WW2 campaign at present. but. I'd love to compare notes about "reality" champions.
Let me throw out this single notion. Unless the supers are so powerful that they can push around anyone they want to, I can only imagine that they would be nationalized/drafted by their respective Governments which would seem to offer a military service for life or fugitive for life setting. That's only one take of course.
The closest I've run to this would be a pair of campaigns called Year of the Comet, in which a group of people are exposed to a super empowering radiation from a comet in the 1830s, and vaguely similar with a group of Americans and Cubans who mysteriously gain powers when the Cuban missile crisis gets out of hand.
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This isn't quite what you asked for but here are some comics and books that might serve the same purpose.
the Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, if you haven't, do
Miracleman/Marvelman, Alan Moore and various, ditto what I said about watchmen.
The Dark knight Returns and the Dark Knight Strikes Again, by Frank Miller. what I said about the previous two but exists in world with costumed supers.
All right, the basics are out of the way so here are somethings closer to what you want.
Zenith, published by 200AD, a british superhero story
Espers, by James D, Hudnall & various, group of people with special abilities
interact with a secret cabal of psis that pull the world's strings from behind the public leaders. Kind of world of darknessesque.
Rising Stars, comic by Babylon 5 creator Mike Stracyzinski. Also set in a real world with the exception of a limited number of superhumans. great characters and a grand narrative hook.
Recently, Stracyzinski has been writing an update of Marvel's Squadron Supreme, about a group of supers, based on the archetypes of the Justice League, who decide to take power and save the world despite it's self. I'd say it is very likely to have tons of material to think about.
Prose-
The Wild Cards novels, ed. George R.R. Martin, highly recommended reality based world with supers. realistic, nasty and very enjoyable, has two sourcebooks put out by Steve Jackson Games-Gurps Wildcards & GWC Aces Abroad, Also Mike Surbrook, I Think, translated all the characters from the books into Hero terms.
Captain America vs Thor, or perhaps it is the opposite, by David Brin. a short story about the Nazis using the Holocaust as a mass sacrifice to summon and bind the Norse Gods to their cause. Way of the mark of what you described but covers some similar territory of real world combat with/against a powerful superhuman.
More than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon, about a telepathically linked group of "special" people and how society reacts.
Jack of Eagles, by James Blish. a common man becomes immensely empowered.
Hope this helps.
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Re: Couldn't resist . . . Comments?
Originally posted by Jayde TigerFeel free to comment.
Thanks for lookin
J
Hey, hey nice work Jayde Tiger. There are a couple of things I particularly like here.
1.) Presentation, its a great example of simple but effective. If you have access to Photoshop try the lighting filters on a copy of this. IIt could really make a interesting experiment.
2.) For a street hero he's very colorful which, more often than not, doesn't work but you got it working.
3.) Like the mask, like the costume, any chance of seeing a full length shot?
Good Job, send more if you are so inclined to.
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Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Looks kewl so far red menace -- a few anatomy comments however:
with his arms up like that his pecs should be less squared off; they would get pulled upwards by the delts. Particularly the left pec, less so the right one.
also, his upper crotch looks a tad too flat; just a hint of a curve at the inside of the right leg and at the crotch will fix that.
the right knee is just a tad too low and the right foot is just a tad too thick on the outer edge up by the ankle and down to the toes. Makes the lower leg look too short. if you shave those down a little it will restore it to the correct proportion visually.
I really really like the pose, very dynamic! Cant wait to see the finished product!
Took some advice and made some alterations. I think the Pecs still need work as does the chest etc, etc.
The leg, I went in the opposite direction and made a more gorilla like build by shortening both some.
The crotch was meant to be a baggy area of trousers, the ourword bulge would mess up the lines but I softened it some.
Thanks for taking the time to look at the piece and telling me what you think. If you have any more, please send.
PS- I have removed the previous post so as to save Steve some bandwidth.
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I'm not sure what you are looking for but maybe this or someone else's suggestion will do some good.
Argent presumably would employ agents and some of the missions would call for stealth. I'd think we would be talking about up dated-super tech equipped ninjas.
That said I think Demon or Raven would be the most likely. Demon of course lends it'sself to mystic assassins and thieves and Raven would use more real world like ninjas, probably with James Bond kind of gadgetry.
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Re: Equity on hold
Originally posted by Gwena KittenRedmenace: Great job on these templates. They’re clean and concise. And the poses are very dynamic. The fix you made on the arms greatly improves the figure. It was really correct before, but without shadowing, the foreshortening of the arms was not apparent. Now it is much more clear and easy to use without much shadowing. : )
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I get to a point where I just can't tell how its looking.
On your more recently posted work, “brick:†Fantastic job! I especially like the work on the background, hands, and ripped seams. His hands are very impressive. All of the angles in the picture point to them, drawing in your attention, and they are immense and exquisitely detailed. The detailed knuckles and arm hair adds to this, too. Those hands are just scary. I really like the background. It conveys a setting, and again your brick’s power, but does not draw attention away from your character. The lighter lines help with this. Lastly, I think you did a great job on the ripping seams. The way they are drawn in to me really conveys that they are ripping right now, which show action and makes the character even more impressive. The idea that he is this big, and still causing more rips to his clothing, indicating that his is still getting bigger, is very intimidating. The only think that seems to jar with the rest of the picture is his shoes. Somehow they don’t seem to fit. But if this is the kind of brick that grows, like the hulk, and he was originally wearing a business suit, then this makes perfect sense. ::smile:: A brick in business shoes.
Glad you liked. Let me come clean. I think I said in the post that this was from my campaign newsletter. The game is set in the early part of World War two and the adventure that this illo came from was a kind of pre war "shakedown cruise" for the pcs. In it, DC comics characters the Joker and Solomon Grundy went trick or treating. The pic is a after the game sketch of Grundy who, in the game, I tried to play as a purely evil, hateful thing. (Kind of a blunt object to the Joker's sharp wit)
The figure I use for him is a black and white paintjob Incredible Hulk from heroclix which goe some way to explaining the Hulkiness. You got me on the shoes though.
To all: Sorry that I have not put other art on the page yet. I know that I said I would put up the colored-in version of Equity on Saturday morning, but the friend with the digital image has not gotten back with me yet. If all else fails, I should have it next Sat., but I may not. ::sigh:: Maybe I’ll just take it to Kinkos…. Anyway, thanks for sharing all of the art up here, and thanks for all the feedback! I’m looking forward to more.
Gwena Kitten
Looking forward to seeing it. Kinko's? Has come down to that?
And now for something completely different
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Here is a sketch from my campaign's news letter.
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Originally posted by dei1c3
Related question: What are the game mechanics (if any) for fighting fires?
Chris
I don't have good answer but I'd say write the water up as a suppress or dispel, maybe area effect cone or line, vs the points in the fire baught as EB or Rka.
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Questions to consider-
How far does he get (depends on how nasty your game is I guess- not too four color to burn off all the west).
The mass forest fire attack was of course actually tried by the Japanese during the second world war with incendiary devices delivered by trans-Pacific balloon.
How far would he get? As to how far he could a military grade laser thats non geo stationary could make a swipe of a third of the US with the focal, point of the beam moving at several thousand miles an hour. As I'm sure you are aware it doesn't take much, particularly when it'd hot or following a drought. That's too much for even super heroes.
I suggest that the bad guy has limited access, maybe the US military counter hackers regain control or maybe it's a neglected/abandoned Soviet system that just sputters out. With a limited time the villain would probably try to fire for effect. Hitting inaccessible, rugged areas that aren't too far from or are upwind from population centers or military bases.
1.) Some terrain is much harder to fight fires on. Very often areas that are still forested are mountainous. This slows down response, makes fighting them even more exhausting and in canyons the natural air flow can make the fires blow up hill like a flame-thrower.
A few years back Oakland Ca. had this situation with the added threat that the hills were densely built with homes. That was a bad one, take all the problems of fire fighting then add mass evacuation to it. Oakland not only received national guard help but also convict chain gangs digging fire breaks and Canadian firemen and equipment.
2.) Another side effect that happens locally is poison oak. When it burns the irritant oils are released making clouds of blinding smoke that if inhaled can incapacitate and or kill if the person can't get rapid treatment.
This is a scene/villain plan- what do you do to make a plot of it for the heroes. Are they trying to stop the villain and the lasersat, are they doing damage control on the fire...
1.) A super hero, the right one anyway, would make interesting smoke jumpers and some one with tunneling, fire or water powers could be invaluable.
2.)As a real world note, Andrews air force base and Sandia national Labs were both threatened by wildfire this year and last. They weren't evacuated but there were plans to do so. The whole fire might be a very elaborate "go for broke" gambit to divert attention while they steal military or even nuclear hardware.
3.) Fire has it's part in the natural cycle of course. Very often the removal of old growth makes an opportunity for new. If an invading species, I'm thinking extra terrestrial but whatever, wanted to supplant earth's native biosphere with there own or wished to plant body snatcher pods, carnivorous triffids, ego draining lotus flowers etc. this would be a way to get a massive head start. Hey you said 4 colour.
4.) As of late, numerous unsolved missing persons and murder cases are reopened during and after fires when a dumped body or vehicle is exposed by removed brush. I don't know what you should do with that macabre tid bit but I thought I'd throw it out.
For those that know, how much is there in the way of firefighting capability. If there were 10 separate huge raging wildwires over a 8 state area how much could each get? would it overwhelm the normal teams, would the military get involved?
In California we've had individual fires which called for National Guard involvement so something on the scale you are talking about would definitely involve a massive military reaction. We can also call upon Canadian firefighters and armed forces, and have, but only so long as their own land isn't burning. They have been routinely better equipped with water drop seaplanes, called super scoopers, that make a big difference in stopping and containing fires.
The Marines often employes C130s, big cargo planes used to drop lots of water at a time but they have to land on a runway and reload unlike the seaplane super scoopers. No body has too many scoopers so C130s are going to be a major part of a multi state fire. As an aside visibility in these situations is awful and to better direct a water drop the pilot has to get in low. This results in many crashes, fatalities as well as aviation fuel adding to the problem. A super human who could fly, lift a huge water tank and or has some super vision that allows him or her to see through smoke and IR clutter could really be the hero of the hour.
Demolitions experts could cause avalanches to smother canyon fires at the expense of the environment, but I imagine that the majority of enlisted men would be lugging hoses, clearing deadwood and other fuel, seeing to evacuation keeping looters down, always happens, and maybe setting fires to make a break in the "fuel line" of the fire. Supers could be drafted on the spot or called in by a plea from state governors or perhaps the President to do just about the same things only better.
I think you've got a start on a really different and solid adventure.
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Alternatively, there are three new Champs books coming out that you might want to save for.
Champions Battlegrounds is an extended adventure that can be played sequentially or as unrelated short adventures each with an accompanying and reusable hexmap of the major site. How useful is that to you, couldn't say but if you don't like writing adventures or want to have some on hand just in case or you like the idea of hand hex maps of certain places like a bank or a mad scientist's lab, this might be useful.
It is supposed to be out this or next week so maybe you could page through it at the place you buy your Champs books.
Reality Storm , a crossover mini campaign between Champions and Silver Age Sentinels (SAS). This product will have conversion tables for Champs to SAS which will open up a whole new set of adventures, characters and settings for your super hero campaign. It should also have many adapted characters that include major heroes, villains, agents etc. The scenario itself seems likely to be a bit high for people just starting out but in the long run it could be a good buy. If you can take a look...
Viper Sourcebook , it's quite a ways off but this sounds like it is gonna be the next must have book owing to the fact that Viper is as common in Champs as Orks are in D&D.
It's all up to you of course. If You need to get two I'd reccomend Conquerors as the most likely to be useful. As to which of the other two, if you want your campaign to be specifically in the official Champions universe then pick up Champs Universe. It will open up a lot of areas to explore.
I'm personally very fond of Millenium city so If you want a central Metropolis like city to base your campaign on and you don't think the PCs will leave it too often, then get Millenium City.Reality Storm
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Nice job Warp9, I particularly like how well the subject and background loo stylisticallty similar as opposed to the slight jarring quality you get with a drawing infront of a photograph.
Gwena Kitten, I took a look at the LtWt2 template and made some alterations then reloaded the doctored version to the original post.
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Let's see if I can't fix it, please tell me what you think.
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Two more templates
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Re: Responces to art - pg. 2
Originally posted by Gwena KittenTo Redmenace:
"Thank you, I wanted make a build that was somewhere in between the Martial Artist and the Brick in Hero machine online generator. As to the pose it may have been a mistake. The original templates on hero chr sheets had anyone who wasn't flying just standing there. At the time I thought that was all wrong for a superhero game, but then I forget how hard it can be to judge and draw the lines of a costume in perspective.
Several of my players have commented that the angle makes it hard to draw a costume onto it so maybe I'll make some versions with dotted lines for boots, masks, gloves etc."
It can be hard to strike a balance between what is convenient, and what looks good. I think that your template is worth the extra work to draw the costume on.
"The proportions are as you say altered, on purpose, to give it a bit more "larger than Life" super humanity to it and a template for any other genre would be more accurate and probably have some clothes. When I get done with a full set of templates there will be mostly exaggerated super types, a very mundane human build and something a bit in-between."
I'm looking forward to seeing some of your other templates if you're willing to share them. Especially since you are planning on making such a great variety.
"As to using it, thanks for asking and yes please use it, alter it etc. The way I figure it is that once it's on the web it stopped being mine. Thanks also for starting the thread.
RE your mentalist looks great may I use her?"
Thank you for the permission. You are welcome to use my mentalist picture and general concept, but I'm keeping my greedy little hands on her character sheet. ::grin:: It would be nice if you would mention me as far as the art goes when you use her. And that way, if any of your other players move to where I'm at, they won't think I stole her from you. : )
na Kitten
Oh yeah you get all credit but that is limited to your screen name and avatar. I wouldn't steal.
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Whoa, way to go Shrike. I’m torn by the two approaches, I really like the anime style character designs but my favorite is the dude with the castle design. Well lets get to a piece by piece review.
Metropolis, just love this one, the costume design and the background with a bit of translucency, a photoshop semi transparent layer? Just nice, I hope this isn’t one of the ones you don’t like and others do.
Arkelos, again and throughout the whole set I really like your sense of design. As a suggestion, I’d vertically flip the background with the high contrast black behind and framing the head and upper body which is the central focus of a character and play with the chroma or light levels to get the legs to stand out against a blue background. The blue works against the yellow orange but I think a bit of purple in the Blue would look good and pump up the orange/ pop the blue legs out.
Rook, my favorite based on the design, just simple elegant and to the point.
Chiten, fun
Hype, another nice piece, bold. What was Hype’s story?
AgentX , nice lighting, yours?
Gravitic, particularly like the color scheme
Green Knight, very nice execution particularly like the period armor with modern graphics on the G and neon green color scheme
Warman, nice and i disagree with the lo res issue, I think it ends up giving the image a sense of grittiness, of course it isn’t my character.
Major Savage, great looking piece but I suggest the lower right corner is a bit too bright, I think it takes away from the figure, not by all that much but...
The Machine, in contrast to the statement on Maj S above I really like the bright backlighting on this one.
Bronto, Yeah
Jackhammer, Nothing to comment, this ones just working.
Unger, completely to the point but the background color and light, while providing lots of contrast, seems a bit too much for a shady shadow dealer. That is just a suggestion.
Ricochet, nice and well chosen background color
Wu, really like your sense of design
Tenacious, as asuggestion, bridge the light green of the rib cage into one shape.
Slinger, looks good to me with my only suggestion being that i’d like to see a bit more contrast between the arm and leg on the left. Maybe isolate the arm and bring in some of that red back light on the left edge of the leg.
Breakneck, working everythings working on this, really nice
Amp, grand pose but I think a little darkness in the background would show off the light and power here, something like a radial blend sarting at white or yellowish off light and centered on the fist then gradating to gray or purple blue to show a sense of extreme halation.
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Originally posted by Lord Mhoram
That is so cool. And the reason we do this hobby- moments like that.
Agreed, on both counts
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Originally posted by Warp9
Here is the a new version of the Combat Droid which I’ve been working on. . . . I'm probably going to use it when I redo the Kronos scene.
Do you like it better or worse than the old version of the Droid?
Note: I haven’t yet worked all the good suggestions about the background into the new image, but I will make background changes soon.
They both very good and capture a comic feel very well. I was thinking that the firdt pic had a greater ratio of light to dark on the droid but maybe it was the angle. Too close to call.
When you do the scene over all those radial attachments and arms would look great foreshortned and in full 3d, kind of like a big spider. Looking forward to the post.
Originally posted by Enforcer84Wow. Virulent.
Well, inspite of the anger being bandied back and forth and the Percieved smugness of the thread's purpose...
Redmenace, those Templates are looking good. I liked the Fem3 especailly, I was looking for a good "strong" pose for a She-hulk type brick-ette and that one looks like a winner.
Good job.
Glad I could be of service and thanks.
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OK nice design, particularly well thought out background. As tp the build itself I only have two things to suggest.
1. 12/12 defense is okay but if you are going to keep your dex low I'd up it to 15/15 for a 250 point game. This isn't neccesary but I'd want more If I was going to play him.
2. Your EC has Flash, healing and Energy blast in it each of which can only be fired exclusively in a action.
(i.e. Elemental controls are really most effective when you want to be able to do all the things in it at once. As an example an energy character that wants to run a force field, fly, and shoot fire.) Your EC has three slots that becouse of the powers involved can't be used simoltaneously and the flash defense is on automatically as long as you say it's on and it isn't in a multipower that is using it's points on other slots.
What to do? You could probably save some points by putting the Flash defense as a item not in a power frame work at all, put the Healing, Energy Blast and Flash in a Multipower that should save some points and like the sunglasses, let the vest and helmet just exist outside of a power frame work, you have the Vest costing 27 points which I believe is costing you too much to be in the EC as its written. I think it should be something more like 14 with those points, ads and disads.
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yet another
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And another
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Re: On Redmenace's template
Originally posted by NucleonWell, it is exellent, very professional work. Althought irrealist, the proportions have that superheroic feel. Simple yet impressive.
Making template is kinda hard; I have made some 12-15 such templates for such an usage, and have discovered that the simplest ones -both in details and pose- are the most appreciated. Yours looks great for a brick, but a bit less for, say, a martial artist.
Thank you. I suspect you are right about about the simpler a template the better particularly when you consider the scope of characters who populate super heroic comics. Are you planning on posting any of yoyr templates?
Here are a few more I've done:
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A.) I believe that quite a few people have gone wrong with a lightsabre but I appreciate your stance on the subject.
B.) I've seen brief clips. I don't think I could give you a accurate rundown on abilities but maybe I can set you in the right direction.
Powers:
Lightsabre: 60 pt MPWR
3u 1 1/2d6 RKA, (AP for up to 3d6 RKA), OAF (-1)
3u 12 d6 Healing - note I'm guessing on this slot
3u Missile deflection-all but at range
Dispel or Suppress vs Evil Magic, one effect at a time, Incantation, must cite relevant scripture i.e. if he was to say be drowned in unholy water he might quote from the parting of the Red Sea in Exodus. If he was gagged you might have the restrainable limitation. It was particularly useful in dispelling summoned demons.
Flight? I remeber him jumping into scenes which might equate to off screen flight.
Danger Sense, i.e. warning messages from God. It seemed to work when innocent children's souls were facing temptation by this odd minion of evil who was a cross between Raggedy Ann and Linda Blair in the exorcist.
Stats: certainly atleast 20 str and probably low superhuman stats on down
Skills; He cites scripture a lot so Knowledge skills Christianity at 12-13 min, scripture 12-13 minimum etc. Maybe eidetic memory only for the King James Bible.
Disads: Dnpcs-All of christendom with a focus on children
Watched: By you know who all the time, wrathful
Hunted: Devils of temptation specifically and probably cultists, demons and various minions
Physical limitation: Guessing again but maybe some ineffectiveness when someone uses an unholy item on him and he can't recall a scriptural passage that specifically deals with the situation. (When he can he makes a soliloquis- citing said passage that acts like a Suppress vs evil magic and busts his rightuos self on out of trouble.
Psych lim: Christian ethics, not quite sure how turn the other cheek and a good smiting don't contradict but that's God's issue not mine.
Psych Lim: Role Model -(maybe a adjunct to the Social Limitation Secret ID?)
Social Limitation: Secret ID. grave consequences
Social Limitation: Subject to orders
Well tha's all I got, Good Luck
}for a costume and it is well implemented.
The world of Champions
in Champions
Posted
Re: Todays thoughts
Interesting stuff here. Let me hold off a moment on this topic and instead I'll go back to my impression of supers and nationalization.
This assumes a wide and diverse range of powers. I don't see how Telepaths, should they exist, could be ignored or simply drafted. Security, military, corporate and political secrets couldn't be guarded enough. It would be as if one person had a quantum computer out there and could just go anywhere on the net he or she wanted. Interested in the firing codes for America's nuclear weapons? Want to know what a Pentium 8 chip looks like, what Gary Condit really knew about Shondra Levi or if Iraq did have WMDs? A Telepath can find it out.
Telepaths would have to be owned, eliminated or take over for themselves. The ability to hurl a tank or project lightning is just an application of military or assassination power. That is just one example, if there are supers who can telepathically manipulate Computers it's almost as bad.
Things to think about and /or define-
1.) I think if we want to get much deeper into the topic there has to be a definition of which powers at what level and in what percentage of the population.
2.) Are the powered individuals overt? Does it just come about one day or have they always existed, perhaps in secret?
3.) Do all countries have them, only one country? What if it is the result of Cold War psychic, genetic or drug experimentation? If it was the US do we tell anyone or do we keep it secret for as long as possible like we did/do with supersonic spyplanes? Maybe it is the real reason we one the cold war.
If it was Russia, are the supers and ex KGB/and or Russian Mafia who are running things over there.
As you can see, things start spinning away from a familiar reality pretty fast.
Re: the recruiter angle, maybe I'm just cynical but it reminded me of La Femme Nikita. I can see the worst enemy coming up more often than the best friend angle.
Here is another source, Strikeforce Morituri, Marvel Comics, When a technologically superior alien species begins attacking and looting Earth, a scientific process is utilized to create superhumans to fight them.
The Morituri process enhances the physical body, avg 25-30 pt stats, and engenders apparently random and unique supernormal abilities in it's subjects. However it comes with a price, the human body wasn't created to do these things and sooner or later the process kills the recipient, maybe on the first day and at best, within a year.