Reality Shows and Superheros

..
> >
> > Murdock wouldn't know ethics if he bit them. Honestly...
>
> I thought he had a heightened sense of taste, too?
>
>
>

Obviously not, even blind his first costume was yellow!
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> In fact, absent genre conventions, the idea of superheroes
> fighting crime doesn't make much sense- in fact the very
> concept of superheroes becomes doubtful. That's why I'm careful
> about messing with genre conventions.
>
> - Eric Tolle

One interesting addition you could always do is to make the supergenome--the
genes that produce supers/allow supers to exist have a built in
self-destruct viral element--living antibodies etc protect your cells, the
minute skin or hair flakes off though the virus/bacterium devours it post
haste--of course they'd know a super was there-but not "who" (and all it has
to do is "eat" taint it enough to be unreckonizable.) This wouldn't protect
Batman and his ilk.


Also, I once mentioned about genre rules enforced by outside force within
the campaign world--godlike entities outside the universe perhaps playing a
game with this one (literally) examining how superheroes would work and
comparing it to other observed realities--they enforce the genre
conventions, sure you can DNA someone until its a superhero/supervillain,
even a plain old crimefighter other than a "normal" cop. It's always the one
in a million error they can't fix, in fact if superhuman/crimefighter
populations were actually as "low" as some settins present (never mind they
contradict themselves) but statistical chance give them a good edge thhat
unles someone is looking for it, their wierd DNA/normal DNA may not parse
through the equipment.

Supers could all also have a sort of super fortunate "jinx" ability applied
to theire secret ID--it maintains its secret because of genre rules, because
of massive psionic overminds, because the nature of superhero costumes are
made of Unobtanium Lite that prevents evidence trails of a significant
nature.


In one werewolf movie show--I think it was "Wolf" they discovered "canine"
DNA in the samples at a crime scene--and so /obviously/ it was tainted--if
people don't believe the evidence for some reason, then they'll also be
protected.

I know Marvel made it a point at one time to explain how while there are a
LOT of supers, they tend to stick to big enough cities that many smaller
city regions may not entirely believe in their existence (nevermind TV
coverage, newspapers etc)--I don't think small towns are really possessed of
people that stupid in general. But then again the tabloids warns of all
kinds of terrible alien dangers, batboy, vampires--and /we/ don't believe
them. ( )
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"Sidhain" <sidhain DeleteThis @earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:QjbGc.5928$oD3.1524@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> I know Marvel made it a point at one time to explain how while there are a
> LOT of supers, they tend to stick to big enough cities that many smaller
> city regions may not entirely believe in their existence (nevermind TV
> coverage, newspapers etc)--I don't think small towns are really possessed
of
> people that stupid in general. But then again the tabloids warns of all
> kinds of terrible alien dangers, batboy, vampires--and /we/ don't believe
> them. ( )

Frankly, I'd be more worried about them believing *everything* that came
down the pipe, tabloid-wise. "Didja hear? Dawn Knight, a.k.a., Aurora
Morgan, is believed to be addicted to cocaine!" *gasp*!!

Chris
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On 4 Jul 2004 16:14:17 -0700, schaduw.DeleteThis@silcom.com (Eric Tolle) wrote:

>I would have liked it if the non-superhero elements had been
>emphasized more. Say, Nova businessmen, Nova artists, etc.. The
>conspiracy angle fed into the superhero vibe a bit too much, for my
>tastes.

Well, the bottom line was that they probably knew good and well that a
significant part of their market was still going to be superhero fans,
for all the "it's not a superhero game" tango.
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Right, they publish a game where people can do things far beyond what normal
humans can do, far beyond what characters in their other games can do short of
a mage with fives in all spheres, and it's not a superhero game. Pull the
other one White Wolf.

Then again, maybe that's one of the reasons they didn't support it: it wasn't
dark enough for them. It had too much potential for a happy ending.

Captain Geek: with five dots in geekiness
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Eric Tolle wrote:

> Absent genre conventions, my character would not be a superhero.
> He'd be using his powers to do something else- like make money.

In my campaign there were plenty of supers using their powers to do precisely
that. The campaign wasn't about them, though; it was about the supers who
chose to use their powers for crimefighting, security or other such
"adventure-ish" professions.

> In fact, absent genre conventions, the idea of superheroes
> fighting crime doesn't make much sense- in fact the very
> concept of superheroes becomes doubtful. That's why I'm careful
> about messing with genre conventions.

Depends on the setting. My world had too many supers with too much power
with too much new tech/drugs/etc. hitting the streets for regular law
enforcement to cope with. FWIW, supers were registered and regulated by the
government, not allowed to run around unchecked.

--
Dennis F. Heffernan CoH: Venture (Virtue) hefferman.RemoveThis@comcast.net
#include <disclaim.h> MS Messenger: Venture

"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days
when Victoria reigned!" -- T.S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Detryxtyr wrote:

> In one of the early issues of Starbrand, the hero goes to a comicbook
> convention near his hometown and talks to some of the guys in the comicbook
> industry. Since Starbrand was put out by Marvel, they were actual writers and
> artists from marvel. I can't remember which ones, however. They told him that
> it would actiuually be relatively easy for someone with the determination to
> discover the secret identity of a superhero. In this case, they pointed out
> that his costume did not cover his eyes, so that coupled with a general idea of
> his height and build, would be an excellent place to start.

It was John Byrne, who was also writing the comic in question. As it happens
it was actually one of the later issues of Star Brand....

It's all moot in a supers universe anyway. Any decent mage or esper who
cares to will be able to crack any secret ID almost at will.

--
Dennis F. Heffernan CoH: Venture (Virtue) hefferman DeleteThis @comcast.net
#include <disclaim.h> MS Messenger: Venture

"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days
when Victoria reigned!" -- T.S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Detryxtyr wrote:
> Right, they publish a game where people can do things far beyond what normal
> humans can do, far beyond what characters in their other games can do short of
> a mage with fives in all spheres, and it's not a superhero game. Pull the
> other one White Wolf.
>
> Then again, maybe that's one of the reasons they didn't support it: it wasn't
> dark enough for them. It had too much potential for a happy ending.
>
> Captain Geek: with five dots in geekiness

I remember when they published Pentex: Subsidiaries. One of the
companies detailed was Black Dog Games, their self-parody in the World
of Darkness. It talks about how the creator of their version of Aberrant
(can't remember the alternate name) had killed himself.
One of his reasons was because he had spent years creating a post-modern
deconstructionist RPG of self-exploration that asked "What would you do
with the power of a god?".
But it turned out that what most people would do was put on tights and
beat each other up, because that's what pwople with super-powers have
always done. And heaven forbid the players should think for themselves.

Not too pretentious.



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>I remember when they published Pentex: Subsidiaries. One of the
>companies detailed was Black Dog Games, their self-parody in the World
>of Darkness. It talks about how the creator of their version of Aberrant
>(can't remember the alternate name) had killed himself.
>One of his reasons was because he had spent years creating a post-modern
>deconstructionist RPG of self-exploration that asked "What would you do
>with the power of a god?".
>But it turned out that what most people would do was put on tights and
>beat each other up, because that's what pwople with super-powers have
>always done.

>And heaven forbid the players should think for themselves.
>
>Not too pretentious.

The thing is, many of the things that people with superpowers might do just
aren't that interesting. Suppose you are super-strong.
Yes, you could decide to use that asset to get a job as, say,
heavy construction equipment...but who cares? The adventures
of Joe Brick who goes to his job every morning, lifts steel girders
all day and then goes home to vege in front of the TV, just aren't
going to be all that much fun. Even if Joe Brick decides to become the
tremendously controversial Olympic champion at weightlifting and battle through
the outcry of whether he should be allowed to compete with "normals", while
that may be an entertaining sub-plot,
it is not going to work as the focus for a campaign, if only because it only
really matters to Joe and not to his team-mates. Similarly Fred Wizard may use
his super-intellect to predict the fluctuations of the stock market and become
effortlessly wealthy beyond your wildest dreams...well the problem with that is
precisely that it is effortless. It only becomes interesting if it pisses
someone off to the point where they feel compelled to try to kill or abduct
Fred. And once that happens, suddenly we have people fighting each other
with superpowers.
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