What if everyone were super?

[Quertus]

So, some time ago, I had an idea for a setting. But I didn't think anyone would believe it, so I shelved the idea. The other day, I came across some of my notes, and realized that the idea is now a common household name (sort of).

So, I had an idea for a world not unlike My Hero Academia. But there were a few differences.

So, in my idea, everyone had the potential for powers. But they got to *choose* their powers.

Maybe by custom, but probably by mechanics, the powers were mutable until a certain age (let's say 18). After 18, one's powers are locked in.

The biggest role in this process is the Guidance Counselor, who lets students experiment with powers. So, logically, to choose the career of Guidance Counselor, one must have Power Manipulation powers.

In my original draft, powers were divided (perhaps by mechanics, perhaps artificially) into 3 sets of powers - primary, secondary, and tertiary. This… had several reasons. Much like Hulk can smash through walls without cutting himself, or Flash doesn't catch on fire, it allows for the acquisition of necessary related powers. (Arguably, this could be implemented as "power sets", so that "flight set" grants 'less' flight than just "flight" at the same level, but grants the heat resistance / ability to breathe / etc)

It also allows for customization: sure, the Guidance Counselor needs some power manipulation, but is it his primary power? Even if so, does he have super Charisma, or super skills, or power negation, or healing, or telepathy, or precognition, or… what, to go with it?

Everyone has the *same* power potential; people can grow as people, but their powers are static. Well, every *adult*. By mechanics or by custom, children only manifest weaker versions of these powers.

So, what makes this a utopia / dystopia, stable / unstable, playable / unplayable? What would the world look like, if every occupation could be staffed by individuals with related powers? What games does this setup lend itself to? What would you want to play in such a setting? What would you want to be, if you were born into such a world?

[SimonMoon6]

I know of two worlds of the "everyone has powers" variety (not counting Xanth which is a fantasy world):

(1) The "Top Ten" comic book series. It focuses on the people working at a police station, in a setting where everyone is a superhero of some sort.

(2) "Levram" from the "normalman" comic book series. The comic stars normalman (or "Norm" for short) who has been rocketed to the planet Levram in a twist on Superman's origin. Instead of being a Superman on a world of normal people, he's a normal person in a world of superheroes. Each issue focuses on parodying a different style of comic book.

[Pex]

To have a civilization you need a Reason why things don't get blown up. How can cities as we understand them exists when buildings get damaged or destroyed every day by various energy and strength powers? How can people feel safe and secure with their valuables with so many invisible and/or insubstantial people? Do people even have free will when mental powers exist? How many people choose Immortality/Regeneration?

1) The Reason can be altruistic. People are inherently Good and don't blow up the world by fiat. Bad people are rare.
2) There is someone with the Ultimate Mind Power who manipulates the world to have a civilization. The person is benevolent. With so many people he can't have absolute control; hence Bad People fall through the cracks.
3) As 2) but the individual isn't benevolent. He craves and has ultimate power. Civilization exists because it's boring to have power and have nothing to use it on. He exerts enough control to prevent apocalypse then enjoys the fruits of his power living in the world. He's not a political leader. He enjoys indirect influence of events along with the usual trappings of fame and fortune.
4) Something else?

[Anonymouswizard]

In general 'everybody is super' settings tend to have most parts be relatively week or have little combat potential. Combined with the fact that most people realise that everybody else has powers and the majority of people wishing to avoid harm if they can help it it generally settles down to something like our world, but with powers being used in most jobs.

Even with this setup most people wouldn't have offensive powers. Many kids would shift their powers towards battle, and they would be common amongst military and criminal types, but most people will during their teens transition their peers towards something that'll help with their dream job. I except a lot of scientists with x-resistance just to begin with. Most people also try to fit flight or teleportation in their final part set, just to make the committee easier.

What profession has likely changed the most is policing, and by extension intelligence work. Most soldiers or sailors probably have powers along similar lines to each other, at its most extreme the military starts recruiting at 16 and spends two years breaking recruits and their powers down so they can rebuild them as what they actually need. But for policing in particular I see a large split based on powers, the 'superheroes' being uniformed police officers with powers oriented towards fighting, whereas actual detectives have their powers focused more towards investigation, possessing clairvoyance, psychometry, infra/ultravision, or other things that help them locate or identify evidence. Detectives are likely routinely armed to make up for the fact that they're weak in a fight, but the ideal is that the 'heroes' take on the actual criminals.

Depowering, if possible, is highly controversial as a punishment.

Issues arrive with many people having to do a job their powers aren't suited to simply because certain jobs are vastly more popular then others, and some jobs just can't have that many people doing them.

Other thoughts if I come up with any later.

P.S. the value of 'expensive material X' crashed generations so with teens making it to try and get rich quick.

[Quertus]

Ah, something I should explain: true or not, in setting, everyone believes that everyone's powers are "set" by the man.

That is, while *technically* everyone chooses their powers, they do so as a conversation, and, really, the "Guidance Counselor" is the one who sets the powers (both that are experimented with, and that become permanent).

For most people (including those who "ask Google"), the results of growing up without a Guidance Counselor are undefined.

So you're not seeing a lot of mind control (outside the Guidance Counselor, military, police, hospitals maybe), or a lot of energy blasts (outside power plants, military, maybe metallurgy), etc - all the powers are based on what career you're looking at going into (or can convince the possibly telepathic Guidance Counselor(s) that you are interested in).

And the government has a vested interest in keeping its more…dangerous individuals happily employed. So you don't see a lot of "dangerous powers" and "ex-military". In most countries, at least.

An army medic, with some combination of force fields, armor, healing, senses, speed? Yeah, he can retire to the public sector. But the living artillery? Not so much.

At least, that's the way I see it.

[Vahnavoi]

A lot depends on what powers are available and to what extent. You can't decide how plausible a stable system is if you don't know the inputs. A lot of fictional settings only work by authorial fiat: powers that could break the status quo are not given to people with incentive to break, until the author wants that to be plot of the day, at which point the status quo either goes to hell in a handbasket or an equal-but-opposite force is invented just to maintain it. So you could use the idea of "the Man" and your Guidance Counselor as an excuse for almost any kind of set-up and then let your players wreck it.

[Quertus]

Power level? That could be important. So… a nation with no super powered X would look "roughly modern" with respect to X. Which… that's a lot of variance.

Compared to such a nation, a super dedicated to X would be better: a super soldier could be better than a tank or fighter jet, a super teacher better than the best university, a super with primary vision powers better than the best telescope / spy satellite, etc. So, the scale is, "a naked super is better than the best modern counterpart". *How* much better… might vary by underlying system implementation; if I foolishly rolled my own system (ha!), I might hope for "Superman" to defeat one tank, but not three, and aim for that "1-3" range across the board. But, with an arbitrary base system, with what the system considers "equivalent", there may be *huge* outliers (like speedsters being slower than, or 1000x faster than, the fastest vehicle).

But, of course, super inventors are a thing. So a super soldier would be outclassed by a super tank piloted by a super pilot. Which is why (I would imagine) any optimized super would be as dependent upon gear to be optimal as a 3e D&D character.

Power levels (among adults) are flat - it's only by gear and "mundane" training / inate ability that individual are differentiated.

What powers are available? Anything and everything. Again, underlying system may make that… difficult, in some cases. But, in theory, almost any power imaginable, at equivalent power levels.

[Jay R]

This really is the first thing I thought of.

https://i.imgflip.com/36pk2l.png

[Kitten Champion]

I had a similar idea, except it wasn't "choose your own superpower" so much as "an experiment in magical eugenics by a god-emperor to create a sustainable utopia" that developed into a fairly logical cast system.

I suspect if you actually could choose your superpower that you wouldn't have that much in terms of diversity at the end of the day, there'd be a clear hierarchy of what powers are superior for one's future prospects in aggregate.

You mentioned soldiers for instance - and if war was a constant reality that might become a requirement society would push - but if you took a powerset that's defined strictly by combat you could be crippling yourself for the civilian jobs market. You could get active discrimination against people who took powers outside the norm. This isn't a X-Men random "they're born with it"-kind of thing, it was decision by a legal adult. So any kind of "it's plausibly dangerous just being around them"-powers could easily ostracize an individual from society.

As to what kind of hierarchy of powers would be established, it would depend on the options available. I'd imagine super-intelligence would be in the highest tier if not the peak.

[icefractal]

The biggest question is what kind of superpowers are possible. In a typical setting, you can say that something is possible, extremely useful, but also extremely rare. In this setting though, if it's that good then people will pick it.

For example - de-aging / life extension is possible? Then it will be incredibly lucrative and lots of people will pick it. Until the equilibrium point where it gets relatively cheaper. Being returned to youth might end up with a comparable cost to plastic surgery.

Therefore it matters a lot what the limits of possible superpowers are. Kind of hard to say how much the world would change without nailing that down somewhat.


The second big question, in three parts:
1) Is "detect what powers other people have" a possible power?
2) If so, is "block some of my powers being detected" also a possible power?
3) Do people have a standard amount of total power, or does it vary a lot? Ie. would someone who allocated their power as (90% undetectable mind control, 10% make amusing holograms) seem suspicious for having their "only" power be rather weak, or is that plausible?

This matters, of course, because some powers would be outlawed. And if you don't choose your power until adulthood, I can see many nations taking a hard stance: "Knowing how illegal and unethical it was, you still chose Mind Seed (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindSeed.htm) as your power? Ok, prison for life (or execution, even) then."

Which ones? Well, strong Mind Control jumps to mind - I think most of us would be happier not having multiple Purple Man types out there, even if we ourselves had powers also. And there's plenty of others most people would agree just shouldn't be an option - Pandemic Creation, Black Hole Generation, Orbit Destabilization, and so forth.

There's others that would potentially be beneficial, but only in the hands of someone very trustworthy. Large scale weather control, or tectonic control, for example.


Speaking of powers you'd rather other people don't have, I can see this pushing a number of people to put all their power into defense. Regeneration, mind-control immunity, spatial manipulation immunity is a good power set when you have to worry about all those things, but it doesn't leave you much to do actively. Might be pretty boring if people end up putting most of their potential into defense.

That does depend on how much control you have over the precise shape of your powers. If it's more like a package-deal thing then you can just say there's no "all the defense, nothing else" options.

[King of Nowhere]

It could actually look fairly similar to our world. In our world, everyone has superpowers - granted by technology. Flight, speed, communicating at a distance, blowing up stuff - all things we can do with appropriate tools.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

This really is the first thing I thought of.

https://i.imgflip.com/36pk2l.png
Ha! Yes - but showing my age, this is the first thing I thought of:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2howud

[Vahnavoi]

What powers are available? Anything and everything. Again, underlying system may make that… difficult, in some cases. But, in theory, almost any power imaginable, at equivalent power levels.

This makes it literally impossible to predict or extrapolate anything reliably.

[SimonMoon6]

When everything is possible, I imagine the following could be a big concern:

Imagine someone like the Super-Adaptoid. Or Rogue but without morals (kind of like Sylar from Heroes). Or Amazo. Or even the obscure villain Paragon. Someone who can copy (or even outright steal) the powers of other people. In the real world, that would be a useless power. In a world where everyone has powers, especially a wide variety of powers, this can be a game-changer.

For example, the Composite Superman (who technically can't steal powers, but did get the powers of a huge group of super-heroes) was virtually unstoppable, failing only because there was a time limit to how long his powers lasted.

If you have a character who can have everyone's powers, then he will take over the world, or at least have to share ruling the world with other "I have all the powers" people.

Unless, of course, he has to have some overly ridiculous limitation, like Composite Superman's time limit, Rogue's lack of desire to steal powers permanently (especially because of how she absorbs minds too), Super-Adaptoid's copying of Captain Mar-Vell's dimension-switching bracelets, Paragon's requirement of proximity (and inability to duplicate items), World-Beater's duplication of weaknesses, Amazo's general inadequacy (he started off only being able to use one power set at a time, but later seemed to have lost that limitation but became such a scrub even characters from Gotham City could beat him), Mimic's limit of only copying five power sets, and so forth.

But realistically, any intelligent ruthless person with that powerset should easily take over the world. Especially in a world, where most people are of the "I have one power" variety. If everyone has the Superman power set, then when you have another guy who gets the Superman power set, it's not such a big deal. But if you have someone like Count Nefaria (who got the powers of a bunch of minor villains, like Whirlwind, etc, but which added up to being basically the Superman power set), then you will end up with someone that is virtually unbeatable by the "one power only" crowd.

A secondary consideration could be given to the power neutralizing characters like Leech or Neutrax (or power-messing-up characters, like Scramble), but since that's usually ALL they can do, they end up not being a threat to anyone. A guy with a gun can take them down.

[Quertus]

Everyone has three slots for powers. So everyone gets to choose "three powers". In theory. In practice, one *could* choose a "default actor package" or a "default stunt double package" or the like, and only have one choice. And doubtless some nations / cultures / individuals prefer such simplicity and homogeneous workers. Or one could choose for one of their slots to be occupied by a "conceptual power" that entails several, like "safe fight" or "safe super speed". (So, yes, you could be *faster* by dedicating an entire slot to movement, and other slot(s) to defenses that make it safe… -or- spend a single slot on the slower version with safety features built in.)

Assuming that there's not a global conspiracy, each nation / culture will have its own rules / laws / expectations regarding who can choose which powers. Perhaps in one nation, only the nobility can take mind control. Some cultures, your expected role (and, thus, likely, the state-approved powers you will be set to) is likely set from birth.

And remember, the individual may verbally seem to choose their powers, but it is the state ("the Guidance Counselor" or whatever) who *actually* sets the powers.

"Power Sense" - the ability to know what powers someone has - and defense against such are definitely possible (although "you can't read my powers" is a pretty sure sign of someone who is up to something, and likely to draw attention accordingly when noticed), as is personal immortality. Making *others* immortal… not so much. Theory is, each person has *exactly* so much super power, and such a power would violate the Law of Equality (or whatever scientists have dubbed the thermodynamics of super powers). Thus, *any* ability to empower others or similarly permanently affect others has to be indirect (like super invention), not directly adding to their powers.

Mind Seed is a tricky one. Certainly, there are therapists with mental powers that are explicitly intended to produce permanent changes in the psychology of their patients. They may have been bought with flaws like, "only to restore to previous state", "only to treat state-approved conditions", and/or "only with patient's permission". But military telepaths are indeed a terrifying thought. A nation that used "Mind Seed" tech might well be breaking international treaties. I guess we'll have to ask the transhumanists to adjudicate the morality of that one.


It could actually look fairly similar to our world. In our world, everyone has superpowers - granted by technology. Flight, speed, communicating at a distance, blowing up stuff - all things we can do with appropriate tools.

This is actually one of my big questions: is there any reason such a world *couldn't* look mostly like our own world?

I mean, yes, with Super Wisdom on the table, there's a lot of things that *shouldn't* exist… but… it would probably get political discussing which ones.

But is there anything in the general structure of our world that couldn't hold up to this scenario?


I had a similar idea, except it wasn't "choose your own superpower" so much as "an experiment in magical eugenics by a god-emperor to create a sustainable utopia" that developed into a fairly logical cast system.

I think most gamers expect magic to develop into a cast system. :smallbiggrin:

[hewhosaysfish]

Jobs

I think the mosty generically employable super-powers would be super-speed or duplication. Productivity. Whatever you are doing, you are doing more of it.
The clerk's hands blur as he enters figures into spreadsheets at lightning speed.
The waitress takes your order and then splits into two; one takes your order to the kitchen, the other moves to the next table.

Some jobs will favour one or another.
A farmhand driving a combine harvester can't make it go any faster with super-speed (unless super-speed *can* do that...) but with duplication he can be driving 2 tractors at the same time, loading and unloading grain.
A hairdresser with duplication could attend to four customers at once but one with super-speed could cut hair four times as fast resulting in a superior service (as each customer only spend a quarter of the time in the chair) without increasing costs (I believe the independent hairdressers often rent the chair from the salon. Dupli-dresser needs 4 but Speedy-hair only needs one).

More specialised powers would be, well, more specialised. A farmhand with plant control powers could maybe command the grain to walk to the silo itself, meaning he doesn't need need the expensive machinery. But if he loses that job, what else is he going to apply for except for a job at another farm? Gardening? Some sort of green-energy plant were trees shape like giant hands crank big dynamos? Limited opportunities compared to duplication.

Society

How specialised people are would depend in part on how centralised/planned the economy is.

On one end of the spectrum: the Authority sets quotas based on predicted labour needs, schools "help" students pick a path from that offering, Guidance Counsellors give you the best powers for that, the state assigns you to a place of employment, and you're expected to keep the same job for life.
Most graduates will get specialised powers. Generalist powers will be given out when the Authority wants to hedge its bets on predicted labour needs and/or the Guidance Counsellor needs to accomodate a student who won't fit in ("You're going to apply for a government license to start this cities first llama-wrangling ranch? Take duplication powers! They will be very useful in llama-wrangling... or as a barista.")

On the other end of that spectrum: there is an open job market, employers advertise job vacancies they have, people apply for job vacancies they want, schools try to prepare students for this job market, Guidance Counsellors give students what the student's have decided is best (after they've received this advice).
Most will probably get generalist powers, because they aren't sure where they're going in life. Specialist powers will probably occur most often in people who stand to join a family business. Or a really confident (or naive) entrepreneur who has a plan to start their of business.
Maybe there are "sponsorship" programs for certain roles, like the state Weather Office can guarantee you a job (for life) if you take Weather Control, or the Army can fast-track you to becoming a warrant officer if you take teleportation/disintegration/mind-control/whatever-they-are-looking-for. (Oh, and healing.) But this "sponsorship" idea is moving us away from the end of the spectrum, and towards the middle.

OP, I get the impression you are intending a setting close to (but not on) the second end of the spectrum.


IRL there hase been a problem with too many people pursuing higher education and not enough people learning trades. And a lot of the graduates are learning that their degrees don't guarantee them the comfortable middle-class career they expected because the market is glutted, while plumbers can make crazy money because there's a shortage.
The distribution of super-powers could run into similar issues of trends. Suppose everyone takes Super-Charisma (or whatever) because they think that will get them a well paid job in upper management (or politics!) and they declines powers that they think are beneath them, like maybe flight is seen as only good for working for UberEats. But there aren't that many top jobs so many of the Super-Charismatic end up struggling to get minimum wage jobs, competing with the the speedsters and the duplicators.

Actually that's not a great example. The Super-Charismatic could still do well in customer-facing roles, sales roles and such. And they would ace the interviews too.
Imagine instead if Weather Control became prestigious and everyone took those powers. But there are only so many employers looking for such powers and places fill up rapidly. So now the "surplus" Weather Controllers now have to go to interview at Starbucks and they are competing against people with super-speed and duplication (and super-charisma).
Specialistation is a big gamble.


Super-Charisma Tangent!

Every super-hero roleplaying game I can remember reading has had some form of Super-Charisma. I think it's because A) they all have some sort of charisma/social stat as a base stat and B) they have a super version of every stat. Put A and B together and you get Super-Charisma.

But it's hard to imagine how it should be portrayed without looking like some sort of hypnotism. So many attempts define Charisma appeal to some vague (or explicitly undefinable) influence or magnetism.

Maybe we can imagine some sort of Super-Emotional-Intelligence that combines super-empathy (to understand what is motivating people around you) with some sort of super-insight (to predict which arguments will have the most impact, while steering the conversation away from any questions you can't answer).


Technology

Above, I raised the example of the super-speedy farmhand driving a combine harvester.
I initially imagined that super-speed would be useless to him as it wouldn't make the combine go any faster. Then I thought that maybe a variant super-speed *could* do that, like if it effected a bubble. But also, I imagined a speedster who can take the harvest in faster on foot with a scythe than he could with a combine. And that makes me think about technology.

How long have super-powers existed in the world, compared to the development of technology? If powers appeared in a pre-industrial society then 90% of the population would be working on farms. Super-scything would definitely be a thing. Super-strength would be more useful, given the prevalence of hand-powered tools. Can't afford a horse to pull your plow? Push it yourself!
The "Guidance Counsellor" figures would be in the nobility (or the priesthood).

Perhaps technology would develop slower in such a world, or develop lop-sided. There would be no development in hydraulics in general or forklifts in particular if 90% of the population is stronger than them. Someone will invent it but it be regarded as a novelty and languish in a dusty corner as long as it is weaker than a peasant labourer. But there might be, for example, more developments in materials sciences to make stronger levers and pulleys that can multiply that super-strength without breaking.

But this is maybe wandering off on a tangent. This is getting away from "what about this specfic system of superpowers" and more of a generic "what is superpowers were real".

OP, I get the impression that you intended a setting that is (or at least starts as) modern tech level and culture.

[Drakeburn]

To add to what hewhosaysfish brought up, what technology would be rendered obsolete because of a world where everybody has superpowers?
Like for say, construction for example. How much cheaper would it be to have a superhuman construction crew than a normal construction crew with equipment and vehicles?

Why use a crane when you can have a strong telekinetic? Or how about pyrokinetic welder? Or heck, what about somebody with powers similar to that of Creati's or Overhaul's Quirks from My Hero Academia?

Other things I also want to ask is...

Would athletic and combat sports be the same in a world where everybody has superpowers? Or would new sports be invented for the super-powered?

What is there to stop wealthy and influential families from bribing Guidance Counselors to get their "precious babies" better powers than what the other students would usually get?

[Cluedrew]

What powers are available? Anything and everything. Again, underlying system may make thatÂ… difficult, in some cases. But, in theory, almost any power imaginable, at equivalent power levels.Setting is utopia, stable dystopia or gone within the year.

Here is my first draft of my request to the guidance counsellors for my three powers:
No one in my presence can delude themselves.
No one in my presence can purposefully lie/deceive anyone else.
Everyone in my presence gains "always on" versions of my powers. (In addition to their "natural" three powers.)
Now I can think of some... societal adjustments that will have to happen the moment I have to walk down the street and you could argue that not all of them are for the better, but if we assume for a moment that complete honesty to yourself and others is enough to create utopia, then we are done.

I mean if you stick to conventional powers there is a lot more work to do. But imagine if you gave someone mass telepathy/mind reading in such a way they could run elections perfectly in a second? Or I read this story (Iris something) where the second to main character had the ability to find the most qualified person for a task. Get her to put together a team to decide what powers to give out, they will do fine.

[tomandtish]

Setting is utopia, stable dystopia or gone within the year.

Here is my first draft of my request to the guidance counsellors for my three powers:
No one in my presence can delude themselves.
No one in my presence can purposefully lie/deceive anyone else.
Everyone in my presence gains "always on" versions of my powers. (In addition to their "natural" three powers.)
Now I can think of some... societal adjustments that will have to happen the moment I have to walk down the street and you could argue that not all of them are for the better, but if we assume for a moment that complete honesty to yourself and others is enough to create utopia, then we are done.

I mean if you stick to conventional powers there is a lot more work to do. But imagine if you gave someone mass telepathy/mind reading in such a way they could run elections perfectly in a second? Or I read this story (Iris something) where the second to main character had the ability to find the most qualified person for a task. Get her to put together a team to decide what powers to give out, they will do fine.

Yours scares the heck out of me, and I bolded the part that does. COMPLETE honesty (unless human nature changes dramatically) is probably not a good thing. There's usually some benefit at some times in being able to not tell the entire truth.

Note the differences in some of these scenarios....

Current way:
Your Boss: Here's my plan to handle X.
You: I can see you've put some thought into this (miniscule is still some). Have you considered how X might affect it though?

Person: How do I look?
You: As lovely/handsome as always (note that this actually doesn't say at all that they ARE lovely/handsome

Your Way:
Your Boss: Here's my plan to handle X.
You: Only a #$%^ing moron would think that would work.

Person: How do I look?
You: I've left things in port-a-potties that look better.

At least at present, I doubt society would survive if the minor white lie (especially when told to avoid conflict or hurting someone's feelings) wasn't possible.

I'm also not sure how someone would be unable to "delude" themselves.

I mean, I work for a family and protective services hotline as a supervisor. Part of my job is sometimes explaining to people why what they are calling about is not abuse/neglect. And when they ask what I think of a situation, a very common answer for me is that what I think of a situation is irrelevant since I'm bound by the state's Family Code definitions of abuse or neglect.

But if i was being COMPLETELY honest I'd be fired within a week after pointing out that only a moron (namely the vegetarian who is calling) would think a parent giving pizza 1-2 times a month to their 10yo is nutritional neglect, and thanks for wasting our time while we have real kids in crisis. (yes, that is a real example).

[Frankbit]

But as you know, everybody else has powers

[Satinavian]

At least at present, I doubt society would survive if the minor white lie (especially when told to avoid conflict or hurting someone's feelings) wasn't possible.
Living in a culture that is known for brutal bluntness in the Anglosphere and seeing it work, i don't think white lies are as necessary as people think they are. In an honest society, people would have long learned to be not easily insulted by criticism.

Also, not being able to lie does not mean you have to tell everyone everything everytime. Silence is still an option and secrets are possible.


I am more concerned with "no one can delude themself". Delusion can very well be a coping mechanism and it might be mentally unhealthy to remove that entirely.

[Cluedrew]

Yours scares the heck out of me, and I bolded the part that does. COMPLETE honesty (unless human nature changes dramatically) is probably not a good thing. There's usually some benefit at some times in being able to not tell the entire truth.If you read the previous sentences you might have picked up that I don't actually think that, it was a simplification so I could just illustrate a point about what you can do with non-standard powers if the door is open to anything. Whether honesty can fix the world's problems (without causing more) isn't actually the point. The point is, if it was, look at how I can singlehandedly enforce it at a global scale with one set of weird superpowers. (Although having to give actual honest feedback is not the example I would have used for the downsides of honesty.

To Satinavian: I want to dig down into your post so much but it is just screaming "this will get out of hand if we let it". But in short: agree, argee (and remember politeness too) and I hadn't thought of that one.

The main point is look at what can be done with non-standard super-powers not look at this one particular solution. Which non-standard super-power is best... well I'd just ask for a super-power to help me figure it out. People can guess at what the results of that examination would be, but I'm just saying you now have the tools to solve all problems and including the problem of how do we use them.

[Vahnavoi]

@Cluedrew:

Okay, so what happens when the next person walks to the Guidance Counselor and asks for:

1) Immunity to last guy's first power.
2) Immunity to last guy's second power
2) Everyone I talk to gains my powers permanently.

By the equivalent power levels principle, if your set of powers is legit, the equal and opposite powerset is legit. This why I said it's impossible to extrapolate or predict anything. When any and all imaginable powers are on the table, you create the equivalent of the halting problem (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem).

[Tvtyrant]

My powers are:
1. Everyone else loses their powers.
2. No one can wish for new powers.
3. Ability to grant people super powers.

[Satinavian]

Quertus original idea wouldn't allow either anyway due to "everyone gets the same powerlevel" and "empowering others is out".

As for the whole idea, i don't think this guidance councellor thing would work well. Basically that is way too much power and everyone would always try to fight for political control of guidance councellor. And people would totally be willing to move to other nations if that is needed to get the powerset they want for their child. Blackmarket guidance councellors would be a thing, because a guidance councelor can make other guidance councelors. Convince/blackmail/bribe one and you get an endless supply. On the other hand, targeting and assassinating guidance councelors of enemy nations would utterly cripple them.

If i would want to make that work as setting, i would scrap this part. While i see that you want a way to limit certain powers setting wise, guidance councelors just concentrate the power to chose powers and make it more abusable in every conceivable way.

[The Glyphstone]

So if only Guidance Counselors can give powers to people, does that mean only Guidance Counselors can create new Guidance Counselors? If so, you've got a great setup for a The Man shadowy conspiracy, benevolent or not; the Counselor's Guild or whatever you want to call it basically runs the world in secret via their ability to mold powers. So what the Counselors want, is your answer to why the world is still intact.

[Glimbur]

So if only Guidance Counselors can give powers to people, does that mean only Guidance Counselors can create new Guidance Counselors? If so, you've got a great setup for a The Man shadowy conspiracy, benevolent or not; the Counselor's Guild or whatever you want to call it basically runs the world in secret via their ability to mold powers. So what the Counselors want, is your answer to why the world is still intact.

Yeah, the danger of a Rogue Guidance Counselor is very high. (How often can we say that?)
However... for a conspiracy to benefit they would have to induct people under 18 to set their powers. And then hide them from the world, because "what's your power set?" would be a very common question and non-trivial to fake. But once you are in the conspiracy with illegal powers you are pretty well committed. Interesting plots can come from that.

[Quertus]

I imagine that the world - the greater setting - will contain quite a range of answers to the question of how powers are chosen. And I imagine "classic" racism ("everyone knows that the X have their powers chosen at birth… and the X think that that makes them superior") is highly likely. I expect that the nation - the smaller setting - that the PCs will be in will more likely edge towards the "open" end of the spectrum… but that isn't, you know, a strict requirement or anything - whatever makes them happy.

One thing I *haven't* explained well is training. Many super powers require training / practice to use effectively. The society that assigns you your powers at birth? Their citizens are *very* well trained in the use of their powers (and may even enter the job market at an earlier than usual age). Whereas some societies let students try out a whole range of powers, generally forbid powers outside controlled environments, or set their students to a default learning setting (increased intelligence / memory, defensive powers, communication powers… or maybe "group mind", to try to push out thoughts of individuality and instill community values. Who knows?)

Questions of, "what makes a good hairdresser" or "what makes a good guidance counselor" are very much (IMO) "what the game is about" / something that the setup allows the players to explore. It's *my* source of fun as GM.

So, I don't think that super Speed would make for a good hairdresser.

On the surface, "going to the hairdresser" is about getting your hair done, in which case, yes, super speed would seem beneficial.

But it's also something of a social outing. And a bit of pampering. And (speaking of delusions), feeling justified in putting "being pampered" and "being social" into one's busy schedule. For all of these, such speed is a detriment.

Further, I suspect that, for some, it's about dominance, about feeling good about one's self and one's place in society.

I would suspect boosted Charisma, Empathy, and Skill would be a "gold standard" for a hairdresser.

IMO, this one is *hard*. Because there are just *so many* powers that would be useful. And I had considered a unique form of Power Manipulation (to actually grant students powers) to be a requirement until @Cluedrew made me rethink my stance.

So… I'm back to reevaluating / adding to the ways that nations could run the "how is the next generation's powers chosen?"

Super speed, self-duplication, and… skill duplication / skill mimicry seem highly employable.

Weather Control… is a nice perk for anyone with an outside-facing job (including "teacher"), and a nice perk as a personal / leisure power, but is not a *primary* power for very many jobs.

Those few with retrocognition (who takes that?) may know that the past is as variable as the future. The world *may* have been a 3.5 D&D world 5 minutes ago, before a poorly-worded wish enforced power balance :smallwink: Or super powers may have always existed, as far back as anyone can remember. Or they may be more recent. Conventional wisdom - what you get if you ask Google - is that this is just the way that the world is; only crazy crackpot "round Earth" conspiracy theorists even imagine it differently.

("Google", some theorize, is someone who took really clever flaws to stretch the power of self-duplication; even those theorists don't think that there's *really* a Google of them. Google is, of course, silent regarding its actual nature.)

You cannot grant others powers. That would violate the Law of Equality (which really needs a catchy, descriptive name, since it seems that this Law is central to understanding the setting). Once someone reaches a certain age (say, 18), their powers are permanently set. But my "Guidance Counselor" idea can… not *grant* powers, so much as set how the potential of youths manifests at the time. Which… unless they take a weaker, more general power, is pretty useless outside of being a Guidance Counselor (or is it?).

@Cluedrew - I fear that, even to the extent it can work (ie, it "sets" the powers of "minors" to copies itself), your Guidance Counselor could easily be the stuff of horror stories. Especially if all powers are bought with the flaw "always on". It's the "Ice 9" of the super Hero world. Things like this are why I imagine graduation / "coming of age parties" are conducted in the presence of *numerous* state officials, whose jobs and various powers are to prevent such things from happening (and otherwise preserve the status quo).


But imagine if you gave someone mass telepathy/mind reading in such a way they could run elections perfectly in a second?

Long ago, I had an idea for a super hero like that. Will O'people, agent of perfect democracy. Not sure if that'll be possible in this setting (depends on the underlying system) - but, of so, he will *live*!


Or I read this story (Iris something) where the second to main character had the ability to find the most qualified person for a task. Get her to put together a team to decide what powers to give out, they will do fine.

That's… hmmm… I'm most often the most qualified person to write code, buy even I can make coding mistakes. Even one simple typo, and, oops, we're nuking the wrong people.:smalleek:

So simply "I've found the most qualified person" doors not seem, to me, top guarantee success; at most, it merely optimize the chances of success (sort of). 3

EDIT:
As for the whole idea, i don't think this guidance councellor thing would work well. Basically that is way too much power and everyone would always try to fight for political control of guidance councellor. And people would totally be willing to move to other nations if that is needed to get the powerset they want for their child. Blackmarket guidance councellors would be a thing, because a guidance councelor can make other guidance councelors. Convince/blackmail/bribe one and you get an endless supply. On the other hand, targeting and assassinating guidance councelors of enemy nations would utterly cripple them.

If i would want to make that work as setting, i would scrap this part. While i see that you want a way to limit certain powers setting wise, guidance councelors just concentrate the power to chose powers and make it more abusable in every conceivable way.


So if only Guidance Counselors can give powers to people, does that mean only Guidance Counselors can create new Guidance Counselors? If so, you've got a great setup for a The Man shadowy conspiracy, benevolent or not; the Counselor's Guild or whatever you want to call it basically runs the world in secret via their ability to mold powers. So what the Counselors want, is your answer to why the world is still intact.


Yeah, the danger of a Rogue Guidance Counselor is very high. (How often can we say that?)
However... for a conspiracy to benefit they would have to induct people under 18 to set their powers. And then hide them from the world, because "what's your power set?" would be a very common question and non-trivial to fake. But once you are in the conspiracy with illegal powers you are pretty well committed. Interesting plots can come from that.

Unless there is a global conspiracy, different nations do things different ways… but, yes, *someone* has to set what people's powers are. The results of not having your powers set are undefined. (And probably *does* involve a global conspiracy to prevent that from ever happening (shhh!)). Otherwise, yes, killing all those with Power Manipulation would be… potentially crippling.

Rogue Guidance Counselors, black market powers, abductions, human trafficking? That… could be… can I say "interesting"? That sounds like a campaign theme right there. But the original idea isn't about "limiting" per se, it's about what kind of laws and limits different societies would think are necessary, and how people would react.

The idea of "can't get what you want"… is… huh. It's… unpatriotic, I guess. If the nation runs on, "everyone gets the powers that they choose (with clearance required for mind control etc)", or "everyone gets the powers that their parents choose", or "everyone gets the powers that the community needs", or "everyone gets the powers that fit their station", or "everyone competes to qualify for the powers that the nation has chosen to distribute this year", or "everyone gets the powers that our Divinations say would be optimal to give them", or "everyone gets the powers our Divinations say that they will most enjoy", or "everyone gets the powers our Divinations say that they will eventually choose", or… etc, it's a matter of national pride that its members generally genuinely *believe* that this particular selection process makes them better than other nations.

[Cluedrew]

On Honesty: I not sure if understand why everyone is freaked out about it (I have some vague ideas but they are unclear) but compared to the baseline we have of "the establishment decides how good you are at things" I don't see the problem. Its already Brave New World except with superheroes, and maybe less focus on instant-gratification.

On Most Qualified: Of course even the most qualified can make mistakes. That's why you get a team of them; along with a surrounding team of people with a variety of speculative precognition powers, others who have perfect memory recall (and speak to each other in very dense con-langs), various people to detect biases and lies (anyone think this is a bad place for honesty?) plus whatever relevant cheats the power system will let you crank out. Then you have that team put together the organization that figures out what powers people get. Just in-case there is something I didn't think of, maybe even go through a couple of iterations.

Again once "anything" (at or below a vaguely defined power level) is on the table we can make designer super-powers for any situation, including how to design powers. The problem changes from "what problems can we solve with these powers" to "what powers can solve these problems". Tech heroes are a thing right? Are they the "Super Intelligence (Limited to Invention)" types? So could we have "Super Intelligence (Limited to Power Design)"?

You might need super-powers to figure out what this setting looks like.

[Calthropstu]

If everyone were super, there'd be a huge problem. People legit go crazy, often for no reason. Imagine if a woman who throws pans when she got mad had telekinesis. Or a man who did work for light shows discovered a way to also provide invisibility.

I literally can't think of any super powers that coild not be blatantly abused AND be useful. So of everyone has a super ability that helps with their wotk? You can bet your ass that people would figure out abuses.

[Satinavian]

The idea of "can't get what you want"… is… huh. It's… unpatriotic, I guess. If the nation runs on, "everyone gets the powers that they choose (with clearance required for mind control etc)", or "everyone gets the powers that their parents choose", or "everyone gets the powers that the community needs", or "everyone gets the powers that fit their station", or "everyone competes to qualify for the powers that the nation has chosen to distribute this year", or "everyone gets the powers that our Divinations say would be optimal to give them", or "everyone gets the powers our Divinations say that they will most enjoy", or "everyone gets the powers our Divinations say that they will eventually choose", or… etc, it's a matter of national pride that its members generally genuinely *believe* that this particular selection process makes them better than other nations.
You are vastly overestimating what patriotism can achieve.

Do you really belive any parents would put up with "Oh sorry that your child will die 50 years sooner than necessary, but the nation doesn't need more super health/longvity people. Not that it would cost us anything to give them that power, but we choose that X is better for well, our community." just out of patriotism ?

There is an incentive to regulate dangerous powers somehow, yes. But combat powers are not what people would want to choose for the most part anyway. But there is no single human who would not benefit from super-intelligence or health powers or "doesn't need sleep" as minor power. If people were really allowed to chose, things like those would be in nearly every powerset used. (Which coincidently would mean that super-intelligence would be the new normal and not taking it might mike you an utter imbecile compared to 70+% of the population)

[Vahnavoi]

It's dubious if a non-super-intelligent agent can say anything about the worth of super-intelligence, nevermind super-intelligence generalized across a population.

Counselor: so which power do you want?
Applicant: hmmm... Super intelligence.
Counselor: you sure?
Applicant: yes, why?
Counselor: historically, everyone who has received super intelligence has rescinded that decision and swapped it for super happiness instead.
Applicant: huh. Do you know why?
Counselor: I don't. I've never been super intelligent and they never seem capable of explaining it to me when I ask, especially not after swapping it out.
Applicant: so what other two powers do they usually ask?
Counselor: none. Just super happiness.
Applicant: ...
Counselor: ...
Applicant: ... so this super happiness, what does it do?
Counselor: apparently, it makes you happy all the time.
Applicant: that's... it?
Counselor: as far as I can tell.
Applicant: as far as you can tell?
Counselor: I've never been super happy either.

[Quertus]

Counselor: I don't. I've never been super intelligent
Counselor: I've never been super happy either.

Well, the *point* of the existence of the Guidance Counselor (in some nations, at least) is so that, "I've never been super X" isn't a thing (for most reasonable values of X).

Not all cultures approve of this method, of course.


You are vastly overestimating what patriotism can achieve.

Do you really belive any parents would put up with "Oh sorry that your child will die 50 years sooner than necessary, but the nation doesn't need more super health/longvity people. Not that it would cost us anything to give them that power, but we choose that X is better for well, our community." just out of patriotism ?

Given what *real people* believe IRL? I have no problem imagining such cultures even *without* super Charisma / super skill at… psychology / culture building / whatever.

Do you think that a proud military parent doesn't know that they have, in the aggregate, shortened the lives of their children by sending them into the military? Yet they do so.


Do you really belive any parents would put up with "Oh sorry that your child will die 50 years sooner than necessary, but the nation doesn't need more super health/longvity people. Not that it would cost us anything to give them that power, but we choose that X is better for well, our community." just out of patriotism ?

There is an incentive to regulate dangerous powers somehow, yes. But combat powers are not what people would want to choose for the most part anyway. But there is no single human who would not benefit from super-intelligence or health powers or "doesn't need sleep" as minor power. If people were really allowed to chose, things like those would be in nearly every powerset used. (Which coincidently would mean that super-intelligence would be the new normal and not taking it might mike you an utter imbecile compared to 70+% of the population)

I certainly imagine that there are several nations where 70+% of the population takes super intelligence / super wisdom / super empathy / etc as at least a minor power. I also imagine many nations where nobody bothers with such unless needed for their chosen vocation.

Most jobs don't require all 3 powers. Many nations, the individual easily *could* take at least a tertiary power of… health and longevity (possibly via Regeneration).

I want to emphasize this (especially for those who might skip past my reply to you): in nations where individuals have a choice of powers/jobs - and even in some that don't most jobs don't *require* all 3 slots; most people have room for "electives" / powers of their choice.

In fact, I imagine some nations (the ones that don't stamp such practices out) will have communes dedicated to "pick what makes you happy", where *none* of their powers are dedicated to or necessarily particularly useful for jobs, where super health and bliss on tap are much more common, and who live and work much more like *modern* humans.


If everyone were super, there'd be a huge problem. People legit go crazy, often for no reason. Imagine if a woman who throws pans when she got mad had telekinesis. Or a man who did work for light shows discovered a way to also provide invisibility.

I literally can't think of any super powers that coild not be blatantly abused AND be useful. So of everyone has a super ability that helps with their wotk? You can bet your ass that people would figure out abuses.

Abuses? Both sides of that sounds like fun campaign ideas.

Insanity? That's a problem I hadn't considered (I've been thinking "super powered therapists", rather than "criminally insane")

Crimes of passion? Yes, those would probably be more common, unless defended against. Definitely something to consider.


On Honesty: I not sure if understand why everyone is freaked out about it (I have some vague ideas but they are unclear)

1) you've written the counsellor virus. It's a self-propagating power set.

2) *mixing* a culture of brutal honesty into one… less so… is often not pretty. But having the shock of brutal honesty forced upon the dishonest? To hear what they have been hiding behind false smiles? I can't imagine not seeing how terrible this could be.


but compared to the baseline we have of "the establishment decides how good you are at things" I don't see the problem. Its already Brave New World except with superheroes, and maybe less focus on instant-gratification.

… what?

"You can do whatever you want, so long as it isn't a felony" is more the vibe I was aiming for as the *baseline*, giving players a lot of freedom with little restriction. Although there are *many* nations, and so I'm sure that something like what you posit is in there, too.


On Most Qualified: Of course even the most qualified can make mistakes. That's why you get a team of them; along with a surrounding team of people with a variety of speculative precognition powers, others who have perfect memory recall (and speak to each other in very dense con-langs), various people to detect biases and lies (anyone think this is a bad place for honesty?) plus whatever relevant cheats the power system will let you crank out. Then you have that team put together the organization that figures out what powers people get. Just in-case there is something I didn't think of, maybe even go through a couple of iterations.

Again once "anything" (at or below a vaguely defined power level) is on the table we can make designer super-powers for any situation, including how to design powers. The problem changes from "what problems can we solve with these powers" to "what powers can solve these problems". Tech heroes are a thing right? Are they the "Super Intelligence (Limited to Invention)" types? So could we have "Super Intelligence (Limited to Power Design)"?

Detect biases?! Wow. That might be even more dangerous than enforced honesty.

How would you feel if something you *believed* in (sanctity of life, respect for others, personal space, individuality, whatever) was considered a bias by your power? If you were forced to confront the fact that everything you believed was a lie, built on lies?

I strongly suspect having a Major power of super sanity would be a prerequisite for this power.

That said… most any goal is a bias. Do you want the people to be the most happy? The most productive? The most stable? Make their nation strong? I've got a longer list - what super power (discounting mind reading / precognition / whatever to get the answer from *me*) do you think would best let y'all come up with every item on that list?

Humans have all the standard human failings. At some point, you've got to create a plan, and convince the nation that your plan is good. And then the nation will develop a culture around this, *believing* that the plan is good, *believing* in their own superiority over other nations with their inferior plans.

And each nation's metrics will be geared in an egocentric way to make their way look best (our policies, designed to promote happiness, produce happiness, therefore we are best).

Now, a nation that sacrificed its children, and gave everyone Super Maturity and Super Rationality might be able to honestly reevaluate its position, and choose optimally.

But otherwise? Could you imagine if scientists concluded that a particular real-world culture was *wrong*? Could you imagine trying to "fix" that? Now imagine that that culture was supported with super Charisma (both actively, and with crafted stories / doctrine / whatever).

The scientists or other nations could try to "prove" that they are "wrong". Or attack or undermine them. But the culture will have a vested interest in being right, and will likely claim that any "faults" are unimportant, better than the alternative, and/or caused by outside interference (which may or may not be true).

I'm sure someone who actually studies psychology could laugh at my explanation, and start to explain how *really* complicated it would be. But that's a bit of how I see it as, well, complicated. Where competing ideologies are held up by their competition, and their participants' vested interest in "winning", rather than any indisputable Truth.


You might need super-powers to figure out what this setting looks like.

Well, true. But is "crowd-sourcing" a super power?

[Vahnavoi]

Well, the *point* of the existence of the Guidance Counselor (in some nations, at least) is so that, "I've never been super X" isn't a thing (for most reasonable values of X).

Not all cultures approve of this method, of course.

My point is that the powers tried, and the order they're tried in, informs what powers a person would choose. With the implication that no-one intelligently pursuing their own happiness would want to be a Guidance Counselor. :smalltongue:

If you want to put elements of mystery and horror in your setting, you can use this kind of device (conspicuous lack of certain powers or combinations of powers) as clues.

For a different example:

Observation: both immortal and super intelligent people exist, but nobody seems to be both immortal and superintelligent.

Possible explaining scenario one: anyone who picks super intelligence first can figure out that life extension technologies are so close to a breakthrough that functional immortality can be reached without superpowers and using power slots for it is waste of superpowers. (Hopeful futurism)

Scenario two: anyone who picks super intelligence realizes that the notion of individual self is horse manure and extending their individual lives is pointless. Only the System matters and they can perpetuate it better by using power slot to profilerate Guidance Counselors. (Existential horror)

Scenario three: anyone who picks super intelligence can math out that overuse of superpowers will lead to universal destruction in short and finite time, so immortality will only guarantee a personal Hell as you are trapped incapacitated in nothingess. They don't share the information because you need to have super intelligence to understand it. (Cosmic Horror)

So on and so forth.

But in any case, if "any imaginable power" is a possible value for X, the number of possible powers is uncountable and unlistable. It's impossible to allow an individual to exhaustively test different powers and it's immensely impractical to have them test more than a handful unless the entire infrastructure is turned towards producing more Guidance Counselors and their obedient slaves.

[Quertus]

My point is that the powers tried, and the order they're tried in, informs what powers a person would choose. With the implication that no-one intelligently pursuing their own happiness would want to be a Guidance Counselor. :smalltongue:

If you want to put elements of mystery and horror in your setting, you can use this kind of device (conspicuous lack of certain powers or combinations of powers) as clues.

For a different example:

Observation: both immortal and super intelligent people exist, but nobody seems to be both immortal and superintelligent.

Possible explaining scenario one: anyone who picks super intelligence first can figure out that life extension technologies are so close to a breakthrough that functional immortality can be reached without superpowers and using power slots for it is waste of superpowers. (Hopeful futurism)

Scenario two: anyone who picks super intelligence realizes that the notion of individual self is horse manure and extending their individual lives is pointless. Only the System matters and they can perpetuate it better by using power slot to profilerate Guidance Counselors. (Existential horror)

Scenario three: anyone who picks super intelligence can math out that overuse of superpowers will lead to universal destruction in short and finite time, so immortality will only guarantee a personal Hell as you are trapped incapacitated in nothingess. They don't share the information because you need to have super intelligence to understand it. (Cosmic Horror)

So on and so forth.

But in any case, if "any imaginable power" is a possible value for X, the number of possible powers is uncountable and unlistable. It's impossible to allow an individual to exhaustively test different powers and it's immensely impractical to have them test more than a handful unless the entire infrastructure is turned towards producing more Guidance Counselors and their obedient slaves.

Guidance Counselor is, indeed, one of the worst and most requirement-intensive jobs. But it is also one of the most… capable of molding the future.

But setting the powers of students, temporarily, to let them try out various powers, is what they *do*. Or, in nations where powers are chosen from birth, temporarily set their powers, over and over again, so that there is no lapse, and they are constantly training their powers.

Super intelligence won't give you those answers by itself (1&3 sound more like precognition, IMO, and 2… detect bias, maybe?).

Any imaginable power is possible. The first person to take "detect bias" promptly went insane - incurably so until copious amounts of brain bleach were applied. Now, Google offers guidance to the Guidance Counselors, who can ask about potential powers before granting them. Or more epimethian strategies can be employed.

Regardless, in the more… "experimental" countries, every *class* of power can be tried by the students (like "sensory powers" or "skill powers", even if they might not get experience with "sense typos" and "super underwater basket weaving").

Students (in "default country") are encouraged to find creative uses for classes of powers (detect bully, detect lost items, detect garden pests), and to be inventive (at least unless Divinations / Google scream "bad idea!").

-----

As to your point, someone who took super Wisdom or bliss on tap? Yeah, it might well impact their future choices. In fact, precognition and psychology could also skew the results. I certainly imagine, were a young me in that world and country, I would suggest "psychology" as a skill / knowledge that I wanted to try out.

But I don't think it's quite as simple as "no-one who took X ever took Y", unless it's something like, "no one who joined the hive mind ever willingly left".

[Vahnavoi]

There are many ways to skin the cat. The sample scenarios presume that the necessary evidence to make these deductions and draw these conclusions is everywhere, but a non-super intelligence cannot put it together in a timely manner. You can forgo that premise and instead say it's super intelligence plus some additional super power to provide the necessary information that causes the transformative revelation, or two specific super cognitive powers, etc. The specifics depend on what you decide are the Big Secrets of the Man.

The reason why some cognitive super powers would always result in the same conclusions is the mental equivalent of two supers with the same level of super strength lifting identical amounts of weight. It's one interpretation of the abstract principles of "everyone has the same potential" and "all powers are implemented to the same power level". The mechanics of the powers themselves erase individual variation. The catch, of course, being that it's not obvious if you don't yourself have the same power and don't have a sufficient number of supers with convergent powers to compare to.

[hewhosaysfish]

Guidance Counsellor's and "Guidance Counsellors"

The GC swaps the students powers with a different set of powers.
This allows the student to experiment with the powers for a while (until their next appointment with the GC, I guess). Get a feel for how they work, how to use them, how they impact your life.

The GC also offers advice on what powers to try, advice on what experiments to try with the powers they are testing, advice on what to expect from these powers, advice on what parts of the remember and focus on when looking back on the power, etc

Maybe they schedule activities and field trips that will help students understand a particular power-set. ("Remember, the beach trip is next Thursday and anyone without Waterbreathing will have to wait on the shore with Mr Jenkins. So come by my office before the end of Tuesday to get the Aquaman set. Don't leave it until Wednesday!")

Also, non-practical exercises to help students assess powers that don't have obvious feedback. For example spending a week road-testing Immunity To Disease isn't going to feel much different from any other week. If students are going to decide whether Immunity To Disease is right for them they need to read interviews and/or statistics from/about people with serious illnesses.

But I can imagine another country with different priorites for it's education system where the trained educator and the person with Power-Manipulation powers are the different people.
Regular members of teaching staff would provide the advice (and scheduling), while a specialist Power-Manipulator provides the adjustments on a regular basis.
Large schools (urban schools?) might have a full-time Power-Manipulator on staff while smaller (rural?) ones might make uses of a County Power Manipulator who does circuits of the area on a regular basis.



So, I don't think that super Speed would make for a good hairdresser.

...it's also something of a social outing. And a bit of pampering....

Fair enough. I've always seen the small talk as a cost rather than a benefit but I can understand that other people have different priorities.

However, I hope that my original point hasn't been lost: Some jobs may favour Speed, others Duplication.

If hairdressers don't work as an example, imagine a cook in a small diner. Three duplicates would be tripping over each other in that tiny kitchen. Better than he just work at triple speed.

I hadn't thought about skill mimicry. Super-temp! Hire one expert (or be an expert yourself) and fill out the rest of the team with super-temps.


Weather Control… is a nice perk for anyone with an outside-facing job (including "teacher"), and a nice perk as a personal / leisure power, but is not a *primary* power for very many jobs.

Have you ever been in an office (or a home, I guess) where two people were fighting over the thermostat? One person turns it down a couple of degrees because they're too warm. Two minutes after their back is turned, the other person bumps it up a couple of degrees...

[Cluedrew]

"You can do whatever you want, so long as it isn't a felony" is more the vibe I was aiming for as the *baseline*, giving players a lot of freedom with little restriction. Although there are *many* nations, and so I'm sure that something like what you posit is in there, too.That was not the vibe I was getting from "the counselors guide/finalize your power selection" and "the government shows up at your birthday to make sure your powers are something they approve of". Am I allowed to say "no, don't come, it's just me and my family and a few close friends"? Is not being monitored when your powers lock in a felony?


I strongly suspect having a Major power of super sanity would be a prerequisite for this power.Since we are off in missing the forest for the trees already let me walk you through my journey with this line: Super sanity? You are going to normalize someone's thought patterns to "super-human" level? That's the super-power of not being yourself. Anything unusual about your personality will be neatly corrected. Intellectually, emotionally and personality-wise you will be average beyond the human capacity for averageness. Never a flash of brilliance you will have, because that could still be wrong and that would make you insane. Forget "potentially dangerous" that is flat out- probably not what they were going for. Sanity, sanity: The quality of being sane. OK, sane: Soundness of mind (that doesn't mean anything), clarity of judgement, free from interference. Like biases? The improvement of detect bias is immunity to bias? Except it covers far more than that and would apply the results of that automatically. OK that can be what Quertus is going for its a stronger version of what they had a problem with. ... Is this mental HP like in a Cathulu game? How would that work "Immunity from emotional stimulus"? No that would include good things that induce happiness. So just "bad emotional stimulus", what does that mean? Well there probably is some reasonable definition so let's just assume they are using one of those.

That's reasonable. In general, it seems rather excessive to endure the reveal that-
-you and everyone you know has a point-of-view shaped by your experience and that means - especially combined with other factors - you may actually be wrong about things.

To err is to be human. Not that it is comfortable but I think this is getting blown out of proportion.

Well, true. But is "crowd-sourcing" a super power?By definition no, because its not super it is within normal human abilities to do so. I suppose you could have a super-power that could make you really good a crowd-sourcing. Now that is why I said "might" because there could be other ways to reach the proper conclusions. I doubt that a forum conversation (even considering how relatively thoughtful Giant in the Playground forums is) is one of them but I will not begrudge you for trying.

In fact I will. Yeah its going to be a bunch of people who were identified/shaped by super-powers, with super-powers that complement the abilities they were selected for in a large complex team with many different roles (which the counsellors and power-trainers (not assuming they are the same people) will probably be a part of) to determine the best powers. And yes there will probably be a lot of other things going on. Power-designer is probably a job, collecting field data about the uses of powers, combining that with sets of goals/desired tasks to figure out how to maximise the utility of a power while staying under the power-ceiling of a given slot. (Do the three slots have different power caps?)

[Bohandas]

Does anyone else think the guidance counselor proposed in this scenario sounds kind of like the Cutiemark Crusaders in the later seasons of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic

[Mobius Twist]

I keep coming back to PS238 (http://ps238.nodwick.com/), a webcomic where a subset of the population is super and the main focus is an elementary school for that population's kids.

The Flying Brick power set is common and boring, to the point that they have a number system tracking the next person to show up with that power set. Humans, powers or no, are still restricted by culture and society, evil people exist, misguided villains exist, and the best guidance counsellor for super-powered people is just someone with the proper training and background in human psychology.

This varies from your proposed setting's power mutability until adulthood, but there is a current storyline of changing powers based on some kind of mystical power shop run by The Management that explicitly approves every customer and approaches them directly. We've yet to see that approval process take place, though it has the stink of destiny and predestination about it.

[Quertus]

Does anyone else think the guidance counselor proposed in this scenario sounds kind of like the Cutiemark Crusaders in the later seasons of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic

Not familiar - I'll have to tap my sources for Intel.


That was not the vibe I was getting from "the counselors guide/finalize your power selection" and "the government shows up at your birthday to make sure your powers are something they approve of".

I should add this to the OP, but an obvious truth / untested lie of the greater setting is that…

A) you don't have powers without someone setting them for you

B) what was done temporarily before you turned 18 (which only lasts a few hours / days) will not carry over when you turn 18.

C) so *someone* has to get to you when you turn 18, else… ??? No one knows, because it doesn't happen. ("You are powerless, just like any other time no one sets your powers" is the standard guess.)


Am I allowed to say "no, don't come, it's just me and my family and a few close friends"? Is not being monitored when your powers lock in a felony?

Different nations handle it differently, but… " *someone* comes by to set your powers" is pretty much universal.

The "expected default setting" nation is… a touch paranoid (which, with PCs, let alone other nations, is highly justified), and sends masses of officials to ensure no mind control / outside power manipulators / etc interfere with the process of setting the individual's powers to what they want.

If the subject has obtained authorization for "restricted" powers, they are likely taken to a secure facility about a week ahead of time.

Some nations take this even further, and have mandatory boarding schools, for at least the last year. Others just have a wandering hermit who pats you on the head on your birthday. The nobility in some countries may keep empowering their kin (and everyone else) in-house.

But it's a universal constant that everyone has *someone* who will set your powers on your birthday.

(According to one of my potential players, at a preliminary pass, this is nowhere near paranoid enough)


Since we are off in missing the forest for the trees already let me walk you through my journey with this line: Super sanity? You are going to normalize someone's thought patterns to "super-human" level? That's the super-power of not being yourself. Anything unusual about your personality will be neatly corrected. Intellectually, emotionally and personality-wise you will be average beyond the human capacity for averageness. Never a flash of brilliance you will have, because that could still be wrong and that would make you insane. Forget "potentially dangerous" that is flat out- probably not what they were going for. Sanity, sanity: The quality of being sane. OK, sane: Soundness of mind (that doesn't mean anything), clarity of judgement, free from interference. Like biases? The improvement of detect bias is immunity to bias? Except it covers far more than that and would apply the results of that automatically. OK that can be what Quertus is going for its a stronger version of what they had a problem with. ... Is this mental HP like in a Cathulu game? How would that work "Immunity from emotional stimulus"? No that would include good things that induce happiness. So just "bad emotional stimulus", what does that mean? Well there probably is some reasonable definition so let's just assume they are using one of those.

That's reasonable. In general, it seems rather excessive to endure the reveal that-
-you and everyone you know has a point-of-view shaped by your experience and that means - especially combined with other factors - you may actually be wrong about things.

To err is to be human. Not that it is comfortable but I think this is getting blown out of proportion.

Super resistance to psychotic breaks. Super resistance to being reduced to gibbering madness. High willpower. Really well adjusted.

Whatever it would take to turn a corner, and find that you're now a penguin, face to face with Cthulhu and his two Dementor bodyguards, and simply roll with it unphased, extend a flipper, and say, "I'm Mr. Guinn - are you my 3:00?".



By definition no, because its not super it is within normal human abilities to do so. I suppose you could have a super-power that could make you really good a crowd-sourcing. Now that is why I said "might" because there could be other ways to reach the proper conclusions. I doubt that a forum conversation (even considering how relatively thoughtful Giant in the Playground forums is) is one of them but I will not begrudge you for trying.

In fact I will. Yeah its going to be a bunch of people who were identified/shaped by super-powers, with super-powers that complement the abilities they were selected for in a large complex team with many different roles (which the counsellors and power-trainers (not assuming they are the same people) will probably be a part of) to determine the best powers. And yes there will probably be a lot of other things going on. Power-designer is probably a job, collecting field data about the uses of powers, combining that with sets of goals/desired tasks to figure out how to maximise the utility of a power while staying under the power-ceiling of a given slot. (Do the three slots have different power caps?)

Yes, the 3 slots are at different levels. Think… point buy pools of different sizes, and Powers with flaws that make them cheaper? So super strength as your primary would be stronger than as your secondary… but even as a tertiary, taking the flaws "only once in a blue moon" and "only to pick up girls" might be stronger than a flawless primary.

Clear enough?

[Cluedrew]

PS238 (http://ps238.nodwick.com/)My favourite superhero is in that story. Its not my favourite super story over all but just as a hero (spoilers) ... 84 ... is just amazing. Its Batman "knockoff" also manages to keep up with the original.


what was done temporarily before you turned 18 (which only lasts a few hours / days) will not carry over when you turn 18.Powers unset themselves? Is that new or did I miss that completely? Also is it a few hours or a few days that's a pretty significant difference. If you were working with a single set for a while (say a 17 year old had picked and are now in training) that's the difference between meeting a power-shaper once every several days or several times a day.

For the rest: Oh basically "unflappable" as a super-power. Yes that thing about three different point-buy pools seems to make sense. Also like there might be an optimization problem in there so there would be room for power-designers as well.

[Quertus]

Powers unset themselves? Is that new or did I miss that completely? Also is it a few hours or a few days that's a pretty significant difference. If you were working with a single set for a while (say a 17 year old had picked and are now in training) that's the difference between meeting a power-shaper once every several days or several times a day.

For the rest: Oh basically "unflappable" as a super-power. Yes that thing about three different point-buy pools seems to make sense. Also like there might be an optimization problem in there so there would be room for power-designers as well.

The duration of the "power manipulation power" that Guidance Counselors use on children is not permanent. Powers only have a short window to be set permanently. Always been true, maybe not explained well. (EDIT: also, most systems I've seen, "the power has a limited duration" is going to be inherent in using the system / is the default one would expect if the system hasn't been hacked to accommodate this power being permanent. So I didn't think to stress the point as hard as I should have.)

For trying out powers, a lengthy duration isn't always needed. So a larger school could easily have multiple people with such power manipulation as a tertiary power, whose changes last hours, not days.

And they can always *choose* a shorter duration for their powers (good for the flaw, "cannot overwrite existing powers", and for things like *animal* mind control to last only until the end of… Biology/Zoology class).

I'm going to have to think hard about the "professional power designers" space. Feels very Malfoy to hire expensive private tutors… but more mad scientist / Lovegood for them to be experimental / potentially dangerous. So… the things that the Lovegood survived last year become the things that the Malfoy pay to get this year?

[Cluedrew]

On Power-Shaping: I viewed it more as an instant power to modify powers, not a duration power that grants powers. Just because of how the power slots were described, how the restrictions don't seem to line up with the "any-power" system and how that would break the "powers cannot grant powers" rule. Which is to say for me that raises a bunch of questions about how that fits into the larger framework. Do you have that worked out?

On Power-Design: Who said anything about private? They would probably act in a support role for power-shapers. Just because mastering the interpersonal (guidance) part of it and learning every in and out of the power system (every single lever, possible boosts and drawbacks, keeping up with the literature) seems like... having a psychiatrist who is also an automotive engineer.

[Quertus]

On Power-Shaping: I viewed it more as an instant power to modify powers, not a duration power that grants powers. Just because of how the power slots were described, how the restrictions don't seem to line up with the "any-power" system and how that would break the "powers cannot grant powers" rule. Which is to say for me that raises a bunch of questions about how that fits into the larger framework. Do you have that worked out?

What's the question?

So, depending on who you ask… humans have 3 chakras / 3 souls / 3-sided souls / 3 connections to the universe/divine / 3 pools of points / whatever. They are of different strengths relative to each other, but the same as everyone else's, and can be tuned to do… almost anything. Well, tuned in any *direction*, they may not reach far enough to do *anything* (you get the idea, right?).

They are… flexible in youth, able to be changed, but returning to their blank state. How powerful the power setting them is determined how long that attunement lasts.

For some reason, at a particular time, that changes, and like a switch being flipped, the "chakra flow" switches from dynamic to static.

All powers flow from these pools. Thus, there are no powers to grant powers (what would they draw power from?). There are only powers to modify what the chakras are attuned to.

Mechanically, it's trivially easy: you can spend XP to improve your "normal" skills and attributes, but your inate powers are at full power "at level 1", and no "power-granting powers" exist.

(If the underlying system turns out to be one I'm not familiar with, where such power manipulation was by default permanent (or, in 3e terms, instantaneous)? Shrug. I'm not sure whether it would be better to hack the system to match the setting, or to change the setting to match the system. That is, if powers were "permanent until changed", it would not greatly impact the setting afaict, *especially* if you add the clause that powers *must* (for some inexplicable reason) be set permanently on that one particular day. Without that clause? It changes the setting, and some of the cultures. I don't think it makes the questions less interesting, but I'd have to think it through.)


On Power-Design: Who said anything about private? They would probably act in a support role for power-shapers. Just because mastering the interpersonal (guidance) part of it and learning every in and out of the power system (every single lever, possible boosts and drawbacks, keeping up with the literature) seems like... having a psychiatrist who is also an automotive engineer.

So… if it's not private… it sounds like it could be a hobby, but… how are they making money, for it to be a profession?

Different nations might handle such things differently, of course (with experimentation being verboten in more tradition-oriented cultures), but so far I'm not seeing anything beyond "government-funded research" as a viable extension of what you've said.

[icefractal]

With the ability to reshape their powers on demand, older teens (but before the 'lock-in' age) might be highly sought after for cases where an ultra-specific power is needed.

For example, you could intern at the advanced particle research lab. A significant part of which would be having your powers set to things like "Analyze Higgs-Boson Movement" or "Time Dilation, Only vs Subatomic Particles". Or at the hospital, where it'd be things like "Cure This Specific Condition (which general-purpose healing powers don't work well on)"

Or power research itself for that matter. "Ok, we're going to set your primary power to 'Omni-Sight'. This might be a maddening huge amount of information, so if you start feeling overwhelmed press this buzzer and we'll change it back."

[hewhosaysfish]

They areÂ… flexible in youth, able to be changed, but returning to their blank state. How powerful the power setting them is determined how long that attunement lasts.

For some reason, at a particular time, that changes, and like a switch being flipped, the "chakra flow" switches from dynamic to static.


I think I have been fundamentally misunderstanding your concept. It sounds like Cluedrew had the same misapprehension.

I had been imagining that the youths have powers 24/7; the Guidance Counsellors reconfigure those powers (a permanent change); and when you "age-out" your powers stop being adjustable so that whatever powers you have at that time are the ones that you will keep for life.

What I'm hearing now is that *don't* naturally have powers (but they do have the "wellspring" of power); the Guidance Counsellors grant their students selected (and temporary) outlets for their wellspring/chakra/thing; and no-one is allowed to age-out, instead you get a sort of "Graduation" where a special Final Guidance Counsellor gives you your permanent powers.
(And most people don't know for sure what would happen if you age-out instead of graduating. The official line is that lose you ability to have temporary powers set by a GC. Which means you will have no powers at all, a wellspring forever untapped. Since having no powers is a pretty rotten situation no-one is in a rush to test it on their own children.)

[Cluedrew]

What's the question?You answered it, hewhosaysfish actually explained the disconnect quite well. I'm not sure how we all made that mistake but you might want to go into more detail on that if explain it to someone else.

I have one more question before I comment on the world further: How long has this been going on? This being the first "stable" generation


So… if it's not private… it sounds like it could be a hobby, but… how are [the power-designers] making money, for it to be a profession?They are paid by either the power-shapers themselves or whoever pays the power-shapers. They are support for the power-shapers, dividing up the job into multiple skill sets.

[icefractal]

(And most people don't know for sure what would happen if you age-out instead of graduating. The official line is that lose you ability to have temporary powers set by a GC. Which means you will have no powers at all, a wellspring forever untapped. Since having no powers is a pretty rotten situation no-one is in a rush to test it on their own children.)I think for this to be true, there needs to be a reasonably broad window to set the final powers.

If it were, say, the exact moment you turn 20, and temporary power shaping can be as short as a day or two, then you'd get some non-zero number of people who got hit by a car and were in the hospital while their final powers were supposed to be getting set. Of course people would generally take precautions against this, but across the entire world this would happen enough that I think the effects would be known.


Also, maybe I missed this -
Does temporary power setting require the target's agreement? Does permanent setting?

[Quertus]

Kudos to @hewhosaysfish for an excellent post explaining things!

If there were a global conspiracy (which, of course, Google tells you that there is not), it would be to ensure that everyone gets their powers set. Precognition, Divinations, Tracking - the government team (in default nation setting) has lots of overlapping powers to ensure that everyone gets their powers set appropriately.

Most of the nations wouldn't mind if powers stayed until actively changed (although, if you thought sleepwalking was bad, imagine sleep flying. Or mix in Invisible and Intangible. How many people want to risk their child somehow ending up with that combo?). And I think I could run the game either way. It would change *which* nations were more vulnerable to sabotage, which cultures "made (more) sense" to a given player… but afaict wouldn't change the general structure of the world.

-----

I believe that, if you ask, Google will inform you that powers have *always* existed, since before recorded history, since before any modern nation in existence. Of course, the question is kinda silly to natives - it's like asking, "how long have people had souls?" or "how long has 'chakra' been a thing?" - who would ask such a thing?

Of course, those who delve deep into the madness of retrocognition and "possible past" see that the world could just as easily have been a D&D world 5 minutes ago, before a poorly-worded wish about balance rewrote reality. Shrug. But all evidence in-universe supports Google's assertion that things have always been this way.

-----

I was wondering how long it would be before someone suggested that older teens were a prime resource. Indeed, "intern" is one of the hot jobs in some fields - although *skill* and *practice* guarantee that old-timers are *actually* more valuable than interns in the general case.

But recruiters - both for those with talents with particular powers, and for those who are gifted at adapting to new powers - are quite active in many nations.

-----

Perhaps it merely shows my own biases, but I don't imagine most power-shapers in default nation to really both care about and be capable of understanding and utilizing "state of the art" power-research methodologies. At best, they've read some articles *we* might consider disreputable (think "Daily Prophet" and "Quibbler"), but mostly serve as a glorified vending machine, struggling to balance requirements for teachers' lesson plans, and individual students' personal requests.

-----

Currently, I am arbitrarily going with a 24-hour window to have powers permanently set.

-----

Setting powers does *not* require consent (unless you take that as a flaw). Which is why sabotage is a concern (not that blackmail / kidnapping couldn't cause issues either way).

[Satinavian]

Most of the nations wouldn't mind if powers stayed until actively changed (although, if you thought sleepwalking was bad, imagine sleep flying. Or mix in Invisible and Intangible. How many people want to risk their child somehow ending up with that combo?). And I think I could run the game either way. It would change *which* nations were more vulnerable to sabotage, which cultures "made (more) sense" to a given player… but afaict wouldn't change the general structure of the world.I still think your assumptions are not very good for the setting you want to make. This concentration and monopoly of powers to set powers won't ever be not abused horribly and will always inform the power structures of nations. And it will always be quarreled about.
If you want players choosing powers completely freely and with creativity but limit harmful stuff, there are better ways to justify it.


Perhaps it merely shows my own biases, but I don't imagine most power-shapers in default nation to really both care about and be capable of understanding and utilizing "state of the art" power-research methodologies. At best, they've read some articles *we* might consider disreputable (think "Daily Prophet" and "Quibbler"), but mostly serve as a glorified vending machine, struggling to balance requirements for teachers' lesson plans, and individual students' personal requests.You are completely disregarding how important powers are. They will play a role in nearly every job because someone with a matching will be so much more effective than anyone else. 90%+ of every nations GDP will completely depend on power use. Most of the jobs in the economy will rely on powers. Not just guidance counselors, there will be no artist without supertalent, no factory worker without machine empathy (there will also be no industrial machines that even work without it), no researcher without super-intellect/super-senses/super-memory, no service personal without super people skills. It will probably be expected that everyone uses one of his 3 skills for a career or be seen as an asocial looser. The more specialized, the more powerful, but the higher the risk to be useless, when economy changes.
It is also the most important life decision ever. More important than your actual career or which university you go to, maybe even more than who you marry.

And you think people won't optimize it and leave power research to disreputable amaters to be ignored ? I would imagine that every single nation on the planet uses 1-5% of its workforce to analyze and optimize powers. Not just guidance counselors. People with power recognition skills eveluating them, catalogizing them, measuring them, comparing them. There will be research into flaws and which flaw can get which increase when combined with which power, but also about how hindering which flaw actually proved to be. There will be research into power synergies and secondary required powers and whole university libraries full of that stuff. There will also be recommendations over recommandations and studies about how to find the power set matching the person best. It will also bleed into other stuff as powers will allow new techniques for whatever and thus we get appplied power studies.

[Quertus]

In <default nation>, the choice of powers isn't left to the unskilled power shapers, it's left to the individuals who get the powers (give or take government regulations on restricted powers). Personally, I don't care what the players take (give or take "Ice 9"); I just thought that certain powers would be regulated by many nations.

I expect many nations will hold and abuse a monopoly on choice - some with citizens believing in the righteousness of such traditions, others in opposition to the will of the people.

There are definitely nations that have very strictly regulated choices of powers; I just suspected that the players would prefer a nation with more freedom… and that the existence of such wouldn't be "inconceivable".

In fact, because the government is crowd-sourcing power research and selection to the citizens, I kinda expect that it will do better than many nations in that regard. Shrug. Might just be my biases, but I don't see this as a complete failure as a model. Not exactly *optimal*, but not untenable, either, IMO.

[icefractal]

With additional info, "Guidance Councilors", aka Power Shapers, really seem like the most powerful force in society. Not only do you require the assistance of one to ever have powers (and they can choose to give you different powers than you wanted), one of them can screw you up for life during the wrong window (imagine a terrorist Power Shaper running around setting people's powers to "Uncontrolled Pathogen Creation" right before they lock-in). Or more subtly, someone who gives people the powers they asked for ... except with a hidden limitation: "Can be remotely activate/deactivated by [name of shaper]". Or subtly weakening a multi-slot power until it fits in a single slot, then using the extra slot for "Beam a small amount of energy to [name of shaper] all the time."

And any kind of rules about allowable powers only matter insofar as all the Power Shapers agree. All, because one single rogue Power Shaper can create a whole bunch more Power Shapers. That might be the best defense against a tyranny of Power Shapers - create so many they become representative of society as a whole and can't act as a bloc. This does weaken any kind of rules about powers though, as it becomes easier to find a criminal shaper who'll give you Hyper-Meth Creation or Digital Money Control or whatever.

Does it matter which slot Power Shaping is in as far as setting permanent powers? Because if not then I'd expect a lot of people taking it as their tertiary power.

I think that if permanent setting requires mutual agreement (or even can be done without a Power Shaper and they're just needed for temporary power testing), then they're still an important role, and the setting moves farther away from dystopian. Not that sufficiently authoritarian countries can't enforce it anyway "Choose these pre-approved powers, or be executed", but at least it couldn't be stealth-enacted and the possibility of deception would exist.

Also, a 24 hour window is pretty short. I think you'd see a fair number (less than 1% maybe, but still thousands/millions worldwide) of people who missed it and don't have their powers set. So it'd be pretty important what that really means.

[Satinavian]

I expect many nations will hold and abuse a monopoly on choice - some with citizens believing in the righteousness of such traditions, others in opposition to the will of the people.
I don't think there will be much difference n practice.

Every nation will want to restrict dangerous powers. Either monopolize and control them or forbid them. Differences will exist in whether a power is considered dangerous or not and whether the nation uses it or forbids it completely. And power manupulation powers will always be on this controlled list because if uncontrolled, a nation can't restrict anything else.

Every nation needs special powers for gouvernment duties. The guidance councellors, but also power investigators, people with administration powers and people in the military with combat powers. So every nation will choose lifelong officials before people turn 18 and make sure they get the corresponding powers.

Every nation will try to make sure that the rest of the people get powers suitable to their careers as well. How that is done depends completely on the economy. In capitalism, companies will provide decades long work contracts to 17 years olds that become viod if not certain powers are chosen and will compete for the youth to chose powers useful for the particular company with bonuses and stuff. In planned economies whoever does the economy planning will also plan power contingents to be given out to match. And there might be competitions or favoritism to get the limited but nice powers.
Now not every nation will force a career related power on everyone. But even where that does not happen, it will be cultural expectation and everyone doing otherwise will be a social pariah, similar to some adolesncent today who claims "Nah, i don't want to work for money. Ever. Or learn a job. Or get an education. Or make my own buissness. My plan for the future is playing videao games my whole life". That can happen in the more free countries but it will be extremely rare because social pressure is strong.

Overall the power setting at 18 will probably be the most important change fro our world. Everyone in every nation will set or have set their whole lifepath at the age of 17 and later straying from it will hurt significantly and likely ruin your whole life. It won't matter which nation, that will be a new universal truth and lifelong careers will be the norm everywhere. There is no second education, no latebloomer, no change of perspective, no side entry, no new start. Those concepts won't even really exist.

Every nation will want to make sure that once it is decided that someone gets a power to do X, they get the best power possible to do so. So everyone will invest into power research, flaw research and hit the 17 years olds or the parents or the power manipulators with SOTA power guidelines about powers best practices from millions to billions (if countries steal/share their results) of power observations.

It is most likely that most countries guidelines also have only one power be career related. There is serious unrest potential in doing otherwise.

[Morgaln]

I don't think there will be much difference n practice.

Every nation will want to restrict dangerous powers. Either monopolize and control them or forbid them. Differences will exist in whether a power is considered dangerous or not and whether the nation uses it or forbids it completely. And power manupulation powers will always be on this controlled list because if uncontrolled, a nation can't restrict anything else.

Every nation needs special powers for gouvernment duties. The guidance councellors, but also power investigators, people with administration powers and people in the military with combat powers. So every nation will choose lifelong officials before people turn 18 and make sure they get the corresponding powers.

Every nation will try to make sure that the rest of the people get powers suitable to their careers as well. How that is done depends completely on the economy. In capitalism, companies will provide decades long work contracts to 17 years olds that become viod if not certain powers are chosen and will compete for the youth to chose powers useful for the particular company with bonuses and stuff. In planned economies whoever does the economy planning will also plan power contingents to be given out to match. And there might be competitions or favoritism to get the limited but nice powers.
Now not every nation will force a career related power on everyone. But even where that does not happen, it will be cultural expectation and everyone doing otherwise will be a social pariah, similar to some adolesncent today who claims "Nah, i don't want to work for money. Ever. Or learn a job. Or get an education. Or make my own buissness. My plan for the future is playing videao games my whole life". That can happen in the more free countries but it will be extremely rare because social pressure is strong.

Overall the power setting at 18 will probably be the most important change fro our world. Everyone in every nation will set or have set their whole lifepath at the age of 17 and later straying from it will hurt significantly and likely ruin your whole life. It won't matter which nation, that will be a new universal truth and lifelong careers will be the norm everywhere. There is no second education, no latebloomer, no change of perspective, no side entry, no new start. Those concepts won't even really exist.

Every nation will want to make sure that once it is decided that someone gets a power to do X, they get the best power possible to do so. So everyone will invest into power research, flaw research and hit the 17 years olds or the parents or the power manipulators with SOTA power guidelines about powers best practices from millions to billions (if countries steal/share their results) of power observations.

It is most likely that most countries guidelines also have only one power be career related. There is serious unrest potential in doing otherwise.


If guidance councellors aren't all government controlled, I'd assume that large companies will employ their own guidance councellors, tasked with making sure new recruits do get the skill sets required by the job. They will absolutely tailor their work force to exactly the power sets they need, I expect those companies won't just settle for one of the three powers be career related but instead will try to get employees with complementary powers that are useful beyond just a single one.
These requirements are certainly part of any contract new employees have to sign. Contractual benefits could include setting specific powers ("if you work for Wearenotevil Inc, your third power will be immunity to diseases") or even letting the employee choose their third power for themselves. Companies will have a lot of control over their employees , considering they will not have many opportunities to switch employer. Getting let off is also a major threat since it will be that much harder to find a new job. The setting will be more or less dystopic depending on how much companies exploit their employees on that ground and how much protection governments are willing to provide.

I also agree with icefractal; there will be a non-trivial number of people who missed the window (potentially even ones who did it on purpose; rebellious teenagers are a thing) and won't have powers. It's just not realistic to assume no one ever slips through the cracks. These people will have barely to no chance to ever get a job, since there will always be someone objectively better suited for it. That will lead to problems, unless you're creating an utopia.
Again depending on your dystopia level, you'll have ghettos/slums where the unpowered try to survive, as well as activists/underground societies/terrorists working against the powered. The unpowered might even be the main source of innovation in technology. And lo and behold, we're back to not everyone is a super again...

[Calthropstu]

It would really suck to be this proposed guidance counciler.

"Ok jimmy, what superpowers would you like."

"I'd like to be SUPER COOL."

Hearing the dumbest things teenagers can come up with over and over again and having to explain that "No, you can't get the super power 'chick magnet' that literally pulls chicks toward you," these poor people would have to have an ablity of super patience.

I would honestly kill myself if I had this job.

[Quertus]

Nobody slips through the cracks. So says Google.

Default nation, a large team of government agents shows up to ensure things go right: Divinations, tracking, power sight / power negation (to counter anyone attempting to set unapproved powers / powers with hidden "features"), etc, with overlapping power sets. Granted, it's not good enough, as one of my potential players already found ways to bypass it. Still, it's not something exactly trivial to bypass on a whim.

The power to set powers in youths is explicitly *not* restricted in default nation. Because, indeed, (certain) companies benefit greatly from dynamic interns, teachers benefit from being able to set their own students, etc. It also puts them in a strong position in espionage wars, both offensively and defensively, to have a large "power manipulation" population. OTOH, it means that they employ a lot of people keeping powers from being abused. And tracking down invisible, incorporeal, flying sleepwalkers. And so on. Whereas the nation(s) where your powers are chosen at birth? Very different structure, very different set of problems.

Now, how it's possible that no one has ever been powerless in some of the other nations may seem something of a mystery to those of us on the outside. But Google insists it is so, so few people in setting give it a second thought. The conspiracy theorists make claims like that there's global Divinations to keep it from happening, that all countries are ruled by a single hidden hand, or even that unpowered individuals actually have happened, but get hunted and killed by the government.

Of course, there's no evidence of any of that - we know, because we've asked Google.

-----

Nations have fallen apart when a sympathetic noble or foreign power has granted power shaping to the second-class citizens.

The existence of a few nations with *lots* of power shaping a) is somewhat terrifying and destabilizing, yet b) somewhat comforting and stabilizing for recovery.

-----

Companies mandating certain powers? I mean, if you want a shift at the power plant, you pretty much *have* to have Energy Creation. And Energy Creation isn't terribly useful in many other occupations, or in your free time.

It would, IMO, be interesting to see what cultures develop, and how well they fare. For example, one version of "optimal" might be that corporations mandate X number of powers, and throw employees away when they have different needs / when they design alternate power sets that work better.

-----

As a gamer, one would certainly expect that, with sufficient flaws, power shaping as a tertiary would be as powerful as a normal primary - and it is.

Yet, for some reason, *most* nations only trust people with it as a primary for setting permanent powers.

-----

Not all nations have a military. There are several small, peaceful nations with… different values. One has 99+% adoption of "hive mind" in its citizens; another has discovered the joy (heh) of emotion control, AoE, flaws "always on" and "only happiness". Others just… seemingly, like the AC 8 3e Wizard, know that they cannot compete, and so don't even bother at all with a military.

-----

The crazy stuff kids say is one of the *perks* of the job of Guidance Counselor. Those who don't see it that way will probably burn out / should probably consider another profession.

There's more to job compatibility than just power set. And you probably don't want to waste a power just to try to become compatible with your job (especially as a Guidance Counselor, who arguably needs about a dozen powers for optimal efficiency).

[Cluedrew]

Of course, there's no evidence of any of that - we know, because we've asked Google.You are not doing a good job of supporting your statement "this is not secretly a dystopia".

[Satinavian]

I am increasingly unsure what the purpose of this thread even is.

At first i thought you were posting a setting premise and invite a discussion about how society would be influenced by it. But more and more it seems that instead are posting about your specific setting that might or might not be convincing when considering the premise.

What do you even want from us ? Do you want us to talk about how believanble it is for worldbuilding ? Do you want us to consider whether we would want to play in it or what kind of stories is faciliates ?

[Kitten Champion]

The more I consider the concept the more it's... depressing.

I mean, superpowers are supposed to be kind of liberating and fantastical -- as in a power fantasy. I wouldn't use my one-time genie wishes to be the best corporate slave that I can be, nor fight and die as a soldier. Not only is that pathetically small-minded, it's just boring. Maybe for a time it'd be cool to see and consider miraculous abilities, but in-universe it'll be trivially mundane by next Tuesday and in the end you're just recreating the institutions and power dynamics of the present again.

This is a Singularity, I think. If things keep going the way they are now except with Plus-Ultra Capitalism, then it's because people just decided to maintain it out of sheer ideological purity or a mind-boggling lack of imagination, not because they're powerless to do anything about it.

So, I guess, my point is that 18 year old me would pick whichever powers could crush Capitalism, end the nation state, and hold pansexual orgies on my perfect recreation of the Moon Castle from Sailor Moon. Not, ya'know, be a super-powered hair stylist and live on tips or whatever. I don't think I'd be alone on that.

[Morgaln]

I am increasingly unsure what the purpose of this thread even is.

At first i thought you were posting a setting premise and invite a discussion about how society would be influenced by it. But more and more it seems that instead are posting about your specific setting that might or might not be convincing when considering the premise.

What do you even want from us ? Do you want us to talk about how believanble it is for worldbuilding ? Do you want us to consider whether we would want to play in it or what kind of stories is faciliates ?

I second this; I'm also confused about what the purpose of this is.

The insistence on absolutes ("no one falls through the cracks") and using what people can find out through minimal effort ("google says so") implies that we are not talking about the setting as it truly is, but about the front that would be presented to a group of players at session 0. There's not much to discuss there, it's information that we just have to accept as is.

[Quertus]

I second this; I'm also confused about what the purpose of this is.

The insistence on absolutes ("no one falls through the cracks") and using what people can find out through minimal effort ("google says so") implies that we are not talking about the setting as it truly is, but about the front that would be presented to a group of players at session 0. There's not much to discuss there, it's information that we just have to accept as is.

Hmmm… let's start here.

Many of my potential players read these boards, so I'm trying to avoid spoilers. Which… hamstrings the conversation.

Except… the world runs on "dynamic past". So the *only* thing that's true is *now*. The only thing I can tell you is what is, and what people believe about that, and why. The question is, *is* there any possible reason that the world could be as I describe? If not, then I have a problem.

If so… is it crazy improbable? Or highly unstable? If either of those are true, then I may still need to look at my world-building.

And that's the tag I gave this thread: "world-building".

Does my intention not match the tag?

Is it possible to evaluate the world-building of a world that lacks the concept of a single, static past?

And… I'm also interested in any additions to the world that people have / which areas of the world people focus on, so that I have some idea how deep I should dig in on doing and/or providing details on the world. Which nations people might have an interest in. That sort of thing.

For instance, "ice 9" powers was something that I hadn't considered yet. So this thread is also to help me switch my PoV when doing world-building.


You are not doing a good job of supporting your statement "this is not secretly a dystopia".

Did I make such a statement?

I would like to think that it might or might not be a dystopia, depending on which path of getting here is true.

Or that "everyone is super" is capable of being *or* not being a dystopia.

But I'm willing to be proven wrong, that it can only ever be one or the other.

So I don't *think* I intended to make such a statement.


I am increasingly unsure what the purpose of this thread even is.

At first i thought you were posting a setting premise and invite a discussion about how society would be influenced by it. But more and more it seems that instead are posting about your specific setting that might or might not be convincing when considering the premise.

What do you even want from us ? Do you want us to talk about how believanble it is for worldbuilding ? Do you want us to consider whether we would want to play in it or what kind of stories is faciliates ?

Yeah, I'm not good at running a thread like this; even less good as I grow increasingly senile.

I have an idea, a premise ("what if everyone was super")… and a specific implementation (3 power pools, no power-granting powers) an über-setting I've been toying with (different nations as functionally different settings, powers mutable until 18 / static thereafter, power selection requires external agent, dynamic past), complete with explanations / conspiracy theories / possible pasts (power granting really is successful / global conspiracy (not just individual nations) enforces it / powerless are killed to preserve illusion; Google), and several sub-settings (the "default" having lots of freedom of power choice and experimentation (others with license only), power ______ as a standard power legal for everyone, large teams that hunt you down and ensure you get your powers on your birthday, "interns", "talent scouts").

What do I want? Hmmm…

I would enjoy conversations at any and all layers of the process (premise, implementation, setting, behind the scenes explanation… even possible mechanical implementation details). But keeping track of *which* we're discussing is hard. (Especially for me. Sorry.).

Anything that produces a "might not be convincing" response is, well, very important to me. Now, I'll likely initially respond in a way that could easily be mistaken for "defensive", as I'll attempt to fill in additional information that makes that make sense *to me*, with the intent of asking, "does this still produce a 'might not be convincing' response - and, if so, why?".

One of my potential players *already* broke part of the world, with a… stubborn "this doesn't make sense, let's poke at it", so I already know… that I'll either have to make something better, or accept that that part of the world is breakable / broken.


The more I consider the concept the more it's... depressing.

I mean, superpowers are supposed to be kind of liberating and fantastical -- as in a power fantasy. I wouldn't use my one-time genie wishes to be the best corporate slave that I can be, nor fight and die as a soldier. Not only is that pathetically small-minded, it's just boring. Maybe for a time it'd be cool to see and consider miraculous abilities, but in-universe it'll be trivially mundane by next Tuesday and in the end you're just recreating the institutions and power dynamics of the present again.

This is a Singularity, I think. If things keep going the way they are now except with Plus-Ultra Capitalism, then it's because people just decided to maintain it out of sheer ideological purity or a mind-boggling lack of imagination, not because they're powerless to do anything about it.

So, I guess, my point is that 18 year old me would pick whichever powers could crush Capitalism, end the nation state, and hold pansexual orgies on my perfect recreation of the Moon Castle from Sailor Moon. Not, ya'know, be a super-powered hair stylist and live on tips or whatever. I don't think I'd be alone on that.

I… don't exactly disagree, and neither do some of the nations.

The "default setting"… would happily deport you to somewhere you'd feel more comfortable… or let you live in a commune of like-minded individuals (their preferred answer). I… don't know how they'd respond to "terrorism", to attempts to overthrow the establishment. Clearly, I need to answer that question.

But my goal was to make a setting that would be… somewhat familiar (or eerily familiar), and enable thoughts of, "what makes an X", without being *completely* reprehensible.

Clearly, for some, the default setting fails.

Any thoughts on what a "good" setting - a nation in that world that you'd enjoy running a character in or being a citizen of - might look like?

[Kitten Champion]

Honestly, I think you'd end up less with familiar modern forms of social and economic organizations and more... tribes. As in, groups of people united by strong common values and interests who elect to be together, rather than kinship ties or a uniting national identity.

The value of individual labour - both physical and mental - would be so unimaginably more impactful that you really wouldn't need a large body of people to maintain an even better standard of living than we have now. Nor would nation-states necessarily provide security -- especially if political, religious, ethnic, ideological, and other sorts of factions within a nation decide they have enough power among their individuals to simply ignore or actively resist the laws and policies of the State at which point the whole system of power breaks down.

The only consistent factors relevant in this universe are:
1. The power brokers themselves who have immeasurably more worth than any other claimant to political or cultural power in human history.
2. The power of a community to persuade young adults to join them.

So, what I propose, is a universe that looks largely like Internet sub-cultures made manifest rather than empires and armies under flags. Something not premised on relationship to ones' geographic area or national identity - though some of that would presumably still hold weight it wouldn't be so determinant - but more who you follow on Twitter or what kind of videos you get via the YouTube algorithm.

Or, if that notion is too vague/terrifying, consider it more like how ancient Greek philosophers like Pythagoras or Epicurus had communities of followers shaped by their ideology. Except with, I don't know, popular V-Tubers?

[Satinavian]

I have an idea, a premise ("what if everyone was super")… and a specific implementation (3 power pools, no power-granting powers) an über-setting I've been toying with (different nations as functionally different settings, powers mutable until 18 / static thereafter, power selection requires external agent, dynamic past), complete with explanations / conspiracy theories / possible pasts (power granting really is successful / global conspiracy (not just individual nations) enforces it / powerless are killed to preserve illusion; Google), and several sub-settings (the "default" having lots of freedom of power choice and experimentation (others with license only), power ______ as a standard power legal for everyone, large teams that hunt you down and ensure you get your powers on your birthday, "interns", "talent scouts").

Ok, i have already told written why i think your setting is not very believable.

A part is about the power shapers (guidance councellors) and how their very existence would make control of them the focus of nearly every political actor, which does not seem what you want at all. But that can be handwaved as struggles of the past and not important right now.

But most of my complaints go against your "default setting". I really don't think it matches your assumptions. At least it would be a really poor way to handle those powers. But i do see at the same time that "default setting" is meant to be an inviting place for PC that allows full freedom for players and provides most power-based plothooks because enough other people are goofing around with powers as well, especially immature teens.

So what can be done ?

- Giving up default setting (will work, but is a huge cost for roleplaying just to get more versimilitude)
- Tweak the way powers work to allow default setting (that seems quite doable)
- Ignore the disconnect and just carry on. Super-settings have never held up to too much scrunity anyway.



Just to make some very rough ideas about changing the implementation :

- guidance councelors : They are super powerful, super abusable and also quite limited as they are. Could we change the power shaping power somewhat ? What if regular power shaping only allows to slightly buff/weaken somone elses power as long as you actively use it on them. Now it is a useful power on its very own. Now what if a certain number of such power shapers working together is required to "set" someones power (at 18) but is also able to take it away. Suddenly it becomes much more difficult to have rogue or underground power shapers. At the same time, restricting power shaping would have a huge cost for any nation as power shapers are so useful for buffing other people

- only setting powers at 18 : Honestly, why ? That makes it a really really big decision setting in stone ones lifepath when they are not even an adult. People will be really inclined to optimize that with every trick possible and also not let kids ruin their life. One could for example make it so that you can have set your powers later but that has drawbacks. Or make it possible to change yoour powers later but that is both difficult and has drawbacks. Now a later change would be abusable in many ways and it is understandable if that is not wanted. But most of those abuses basically boil down to "being able to goof around with cool powers without the consequence of being locked out of essential ones you might need later" which might be what you want to some extend.

- power training : You mentioned it. One could do a lot of stuff with that if it is a thing. If people need to learn how to wield their powers properly, even if resetting is possible, it might weaken people for a very long time. Also you could have mentors which means it is easier to learn a power if you have the help of someone with similar power. Which is harmful for dangerous/restricted powers, makes it harder to copy powers of your enemies and allows a lot of ways for different nations to handle it. You can have dynasties where certain powers are common and which have secret tricks to use them. Or something like trade guilds with master-apprentice schemes. Or autocratic regfimes forcing people into tutor roles for desired powers.

- who actually sets powers : In default nation, people are supposed to choose their own powers if not too harmful. How about making that a feature ? Maybe powers can only be set if a person actually desires those powers to some extend ? That would still leave indoctrination but would it make it a lot of extra effort with extra failure chance to take the decision out of the hand of the person getting the powers



At some point you also have to actually decide which powers really are possible. All of above discussions assume that powers are really nice but individually not world shattering. But there are so many superpowers that could change everything if allowed. Especially i would really be careful with any kind of mind-control powers, those can mess up worldbuilding very fast if used intelligently.

[Cluedrew]

On World-Building: When this thread started you pitched us a premise for a power system. I can tell you everything I can work out from that premise and let me tell you. It does not match some of you "well google says" at all. And that means one of twothings: the premise has not been well communicated or the building from it is faulty. I'm willing to stand by my world-building because a few of the contentious issues are pretty straight forward and seem to match what other people have said. So that leaves bad communication (never forget bad communication) so if there are any parts of the premise you have not explained, explain them, and when people ask you question about the setting you should give both the direct answer and the explanation why. Don't worry about spoilers to much, put them under SPOILERS if you need to, although there are a few that (given what information I have at this time) I am certain are not spoilers.

Let's take "What happens if someone doesn't have their powers set on there 18th birthday?" Why can't be a spoiler:
It just doesn't happen because that is part of the setting premise. If true then... there is no reveal inside the story about that. Unless the story goes very meta. The only thing that changes if you tell people that up front is no (less?) bad blood is generated when you railroad a character into not managing to cause it to happen. Not saying every character will do it, but play it long enough and someone is going to try.
It hasn't happened because everyone is really careful. That's silly, you can't be that careful on a global scale through wars, disasters, children whose exact date of birth is unknown. Every little town like Whatever Lake* has its own power-shaper? What is a storm happens, the road is blocked, you going to risk flying one in or the kid out? No super-powers is better than dead. Speaking of super-powers, it becomes less absurd but, actually I change my mind, crank up the power level and sure, you can telepathically contact a flying and invulnerable power-shaper and get them in.
OK, so no one has done this on purpose? Whether they ask for volunteers and set up a fund to support the chosen volunteer though any consequences or do it to some random kid from an ethnicity they don't like; not a single person has been curious about this fundamental process of aging? Everyone just decided that the possibility of useful/meaningful information just wasn't worth the inconvenience of someone living without one of their three superpowers to start? (Or on the villain side, no one has tried to deny that right of someone else and succeeded?)
It is known but it is not publicly available information. Disqualified on grounds that you said this only "may be" a dystopia. Even if it is not useful (doesn't effect any part of power shaping, doesn't interact with medicine in any way and has no use as a predictive model) people are curious and they are going to ask. And a cover-up so complete would be a dystopia 100%. Possibly a really stupid conspiracy if they are doing it for the laughs, but more likely it is knowledge that would be bad for the establishment.
So it is either safe to say, doesn't make sense or contradicts what has been said before.

Oh, its the third until you convince me this only "may be" a dystopia:
large teams that hunt you down and ensure you get your powers on your birthdayDo they also lock up everyone who is suffering from depression just to make sure they don't commit suicide? Force people to carry cell phones just in case? Is there a global ban on smoking and alcohol rations? How long do you spend in jail for breaking the speed limit in a car?

* A real life town I cannot prove exists it is so small and remote even google doesn't know about it. Admittedly, no other tool I have can show it exists either, so maybe it doesn't. Real life yet theoretical.

[Odessa333]

I think a lot of it would depend on how you define 'super.' I'm fond of the book 'Playing for Keeps' by Mur Lafferty, which goes into super heroes with less than useful powers: someone who never spills anything who works as a waitress and someone who can instantly sober people up working in a bar are examples from the book. These 'low tier' heroes have every day jobs while the 'high tier' heroes do more hero type work like fighting crime, averting disasters, etc. You can have a world full of people with low tier powers and not change much of anything. You start passing out death dealing eyes or hulk rage to every person you have a problem. If the majority of the population has 'super' strength say, then you likely need stronger building materials as you are not going to build with wood say if everyone punches through that. You would not have plastic forks if everyone breaks them. If everyone has super speed or flight, then you wouldn't have a need for cars, trains, planes, etc.

A lot of these problems solve themselves though: you have the local magical object creators make Diamond / adamantium /etc materials. Your teleportation heroes make a killing transporting those without flight/speed/etc.

It all depends on how what powers you make available, and in what number.

[Quertus]

Honestly, I think you'd end up less with familiar modern forms of social and economic organizations and more... tribes. As in, groups of people united by strong common values and interests who elect to be together, rather than kinship ties or a uniting national identity.

The value of individual labour - both physical and mental - would be so unimaginably more impactful that you really wouldn't need a large body of people to maintain an even better standard of living than we have now. Nor would nation-states necessarily provide security -- especially if political, religious, ethnic, ideological, and other sorts of factions within a nation decide they have enough power among their individuals to simply ignore or actively resist the laws and policies of the State at which point the whole system of power breaks down.

The only consistent factors relevant in this universe are:
1. The power brokers themselves who have immeasurably more worth than any other claimant to political or cultural power in human history.
2. The power of a community to persuade young adults to join them.

So, what I propose, is a universe that looks largely like Internet sub-cultures made manifest rather than empires and armies under flags. Something not premised on relationship to ones' geographic area or national identity - though some of that would presumably still hold weight it wouldn't be so determinant - but more who you follow on Twitter or what kind of videos you get via the YouTube algorithm.

Or, if that notion is too vague/terrifying, consider it more like how ancient Greek philosophers like Pythagoras or Epicurus had communities of followers shaped by their ideology. Except with, I don't know, popular V-Tubers?

Although I agree regarding the value of individual labor, I feel that the formation of nations will actually be more likely.

Individual clans are much more vulnerable (due to the reliance on the power sculptor, 3e Cleric style power wars of "do you have a counter to X", etc / because defense is weaker than offense). I believe that they would be much more motivated to form larger groups than IRL, and nations would form *faster* in my proposed world than IRL, in order to preserve a "way of life" (or just lives) from outside disruption.

But I've never really studied the psychology of the formation of nations, so my instincts for the driving impetus may be completely off base.


Ok, i have already told written why i think your setting is not very believable.

A part is about the power shapers (guidance councellors) and how their very existence would make control of them the focus of nearly every political actor, which does not seem what you want at all. But that can be handwaved as struggles of the past and not important right now.

Look to the movie "A Bug's Life". This *is* a concern for every intelligent politician. But they try to structure reality / belief / society / whatever such that this vulnerability is as downplayed as possible.

So, yes, it is *mostly* a thing of the past, as any successful nation will have a cultural ("it's our patriotic duty" / "we're better than everyone else *because*…" / governmental defense (default nation's squads of enforcers / spend your last year in a government/military run "boarding school").


But most of my complaints go against your "default setting". I really don't think it matches your assumptions. At least it would be a really poor way to handle those powers. But i do see at the same time that "default setting" is meant to be an inviting place for PC that allows full freedom for players and provides most power-based plothooks because enough other people are goofing around with powers as well, especially immature teens.

Yes, that's why it's the default setting.


But most of my complaints go against your "default setting". I really don't think it matches your assumptions. At least it would be a really poor way to handle those powers.
DXSo what can be done ?

- Giving up default setting (will work, but is a huge cost for roleplaying just to get more versimilitude)
- Tweak the way powers work to allow default setting (that seems quite doable)
- Ignore the disconnect and just carry on. Super-settings have never held up to too much scrunity anyway.

Being "a poor way to handle those powers" is fine, so long as it's stable (as stable as anything can be in a Supers game) and possible.

Is there a *better* default setting?


Just to make some very rough ideas about changing the implementation :

- guidance councelors : They are super powerful, super abusable and also quite limited as they are. Could we change the power shaping power somewhat ? What if regular power shaping only allows to slightly buff/weaken somone elses power as long as you actively use it on them. Now it is a useful power on its very own. Now what if a certain number of such power shapers working together is required to "set" someones power (at 18) but is also able to take it away. Suddenly it becomes much more difficult to have rogue or underground power shapers. At the same time, restricting power shaping would have a huge cost for any nation as power shapers are so useful for buffing other people

- only setting powers at 18 : Honestly, why ? That makes it a really really big decision setting in stone ones lifepath when they are not even an adult. People will be really inclined to optimize that with every trick possible and also not let kids ruin their life. One could for example make it so that you can have set your powers later but that has drawbacks. Or make it possible to change yoour powers later but that is both difficult and has drawbacks. Now a later change would be abusable in many ways and it is understandable if that is not wanted. But most of those abuses basically boil down to "being able to goof around with cool powers without the consequence of being locked out of essential ones you might need later" which might be what you want to some extend.

- power training : You mentioned it. One could do a lot of stuff with that if it is a thing. If people need to learn how to wield their powers properly, even if resetting is possible, it might weaken people for a very long time. Also you could have mentors which means it is easier to learn a power if you have the help of someone with similar power. Which is harmful for dangerous/restricted powers, makes it harder to copy powers of your enemies and allows a lot of ways for different nations to handle it. You can have dynasties where certain powers are common and which have secret tricks to use them. Or something like trade guilds with master-apprentice schemes. Or autocratic regfimes forcing people into tutor roles for desired powers.

- who actually sets powers : In default nation, people are supposed to choose their own powers if not too harmful. How about making that a feature ? Maybe powers can only be set if a person actually desires those powers to some extend ? That would still leave indoctrination but would it make it a lot of extra effort with extra failure chance to take the decision out of the hand of the person getting the powers

"Powers only set as desired" has problems: it encourages dystopian mine control (at the level of brainwashing / rewriting your desires), and *requires* the government to kill those who only want "create deadly diseases, always on", or accept unpowered individuals.

"Power training" is *less* "how use your power" (although still important, to keep Superman from sneezing and blowing sometimes head off), and more, "you have Divination - but which questions should you ask?". (Note that 80% of adults fail at the 2-4-6 puzzle.) Or "you've got Matter Sense - OK, how much molecular biology do you know?" It's not *completely* unlike the multiplicative dichotomy of "character sheet" and "player skill". (And, as we all know, player > character.)

"Permanently setting powers" is kinda the norm in super hero games / stories - it's the "powers start out mutable" that's the weird change. Initially, I had powers *not* be mutable, but I thought that that would be a neat difference from "standard" settings. It's… kinda intentional that the initial freedom gives you a different perspective on what it's like to be locked in to a single set of super powers.

Power sculpting / Guidance Counselors: others have already seen the value of Interns. And there are *other* powers for things like Power Negation (but not for buffing - that would violate the Law of Equality).


At some point you also have to actually decide which powers really are possible. All of above discussions assume that powers are really nice but individually not world shattering. But there are so many superpowers that could change everything if allowed. Especially i would really be careful with any kind of mind-control powers, those can mess up worldbuilding very fast if used intelligently.

I only know one supers system where I would consider mind control truly problematic. And, even then, "Detect Mind Control", "Dispel Mind Control", "know powers", "Mind Shield", "strong will" are all super powers commonly employed by large organizations (especially governments).

Some nations might be as sketchy as Harry Potter love potions, other nations might be much sketchier, where the nobility literally dominates the peasantry… or the citizens literally dominate the leaders ("elected" by being the worst criminals), enforcing a true democracy via contested mind control.

EDIT:
children whose exact date of birth is unknown

There is no such thing.

[icefractal]

I only know one supers system where I would consider mind control truly problematic. And, even then, "Detect Mind Control", "Dispel Mind Control", "know powers", "Mind Shield", "strong will" are all super powers commonly employed by large organizations (especially governments).This is a perfect example - to really say much about this setting, we need to know more about the powers - what's possible, what the limits are, how much trade-off between power and specialization you can make, etc.

Because for example, that mind control example -
* If specialization allows greater raw power, then offense beats defense. Because "Mind Control, requires prep-time, only works at night" is a totally valid offense, but "Mind Shield, only works at night, requires advance warning" is a lousy defense.
* If offense equals defense for the same degree of power (aka Primary Mind Control beats Secondary Mind Shield) then offense still beats defense. Because an organization who really doesn't want to be controlled needs to guard against a number of things: Mind Control, Body Control (puppeting), Doppelgangers, Technopathy, etc. Whereas the attacker can keep trying their one tactic until they find a single vulnerable person.

So to get a situation where Mind Control is not a big concern, you need either:
A) Defense is much easier than offense. Like, even a Tertiary Mind Shield stops Primary Mind Control dead, and/or it's part of a combined power like Immutable Self (blocks against any external changes, mental, physical, or other).
B) Group-shielding powers exist; like a single person with Mind Guardian can defend the entire building they're in. This might contradict the "conservation of power" principle, but maybe not?
C) Powers to detect and remove Mind Control are reliable and quick to use. Even then, you'd need to combine it with protocols that prevent a single compromised person doing too much damage.


Another area is advanced technology.
For tech that's directly a super-power, I assume the "conservation of power" rule makes it a singleton. So someone with MacGuyver can build a laser pistol out of a broken hair dryer and some LEDs, but the blueprint doesn't work when anyone else tries to follow it.

But what about Super-Intelligence / Super-Creativity? Do those exist, and if so then can people with those powers make legitimate, reproducible advances to technology at an accelerated rate? And how does that tech compare to powers?

[Satinavian]

"Powers only set as desired" has problems: it encourages dystopian mine control (at the level of brainwashing / rewriting your desires), and *requires* the government to kill those who only want "create deadly diseases, always on", or accept unpowered individuals.You misunderstood. I meant it not as "everyone gets what he wants" and more as "power shapers/guidance counselors can only chose among the things you would want to have". So the gouvernment still gets to control dangerous stuff. But it suddenly gets harder to set uninspiring working drone powers (you would need heavy indoctrination or, if existing, mind control for that) and really easy to let people choose freely (within limits).


Power sculpting / Guidance Counselors: others have already seen the value of Interns. And there are *other* powers for things like Power Negation (but not for buffing - that would violate the Law of Equality).I don't think buffing someone else by temporary giving up your own power and that being the main thing your power can do actually violates the law of equality.

[ATHATH]

I haven't read much of this thread past the first few posts, but wouldn't one of the better power choices to take be eternal youth (possibly as a secondary power to immortality)? You can't have your power choices be set in stone when you turn 18 if you can't turn 18, after all. Of course, you'd need a guidance counselor or whatever to swap out your (tertiary) powers, and your love life would probably end up in shambles, but hey, versatility (and the ability to turn off your immortality by swapping it out)!

[Cluedrew]

On Power Cap: (AKA the Law of Equity) Once you remember that this is a role-playing game it all comes down to: Yes we need the power-creation rules. Well not actually all of them, but enough to start understanding how things work in the setting.

On Campaign: You have said some things about potential players? Are you in the planning stages of a campaign? What is the campaign pitch?


There is no such thing.I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this sentence. What am I supposed to do with this sentence?

[Quertus]

I haven't read much of this thread past the first few posts, but wouldn't one of the better power choices to take be eternal youth (possibly as a secondary power to immortality)? You can't have your power choices be set in stone when you turn 18 if you can't turn 18, after all. Of course, you'd need a guidance counselor or whatever to swap out your (tertiary) powers, and your love life would probably end up in shambles, but hey, versatility (and the ability to turn off your immortality by swapping it out)!

I foresaw this loophole and… it depends on how "18" is measured; regardless, there's a theoretical, complex way to bypass each such measurement. One of my potential players skirted around this concept already. And… I'm not sure if I care. That is, if the system allows it, I don't see a reason to prevent it - especially since it ties up powers, *and* limits you to the pre-adulthood power cap.


On Power Cap: (AKA the Law of Equity) Once you remember that this is a role-playing game it all comes down to: Yes we need the power-creation rules. Well not actually all of them, but enough to start understanding how things work in the setting.

So far, all the systems I've looked at have actually been *too limiting* for my taste. But… feel free to pick a system - say Heroes/Champion, Mutants and Masterminds, Heroes and Heroines, or something better you know - and pick some random number of points for powers - say, 60/40/20. Yeah, that's a lot of variance. And I doubt any would readily allow your "Ice 9" of super powers.


On Campaign: You have said some things about potential players? Are you in the planning stages of a campaign? What is the campaign pitch?

Nowhere near ready - haven't even picked a system to mod. But I've mentioned the setting & concept, and gotten… some very directed feedback.


I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this sentence. What am I supposed to do with this sentence?

I asked my evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitute to evaluate this problem, and they came up with 3+1 of the 4+1 solutions to this problem that I came up with off the top of my head.

You've got an entire society of super heroes. This is a *trivially* solved problem. There is no such thing as "we don't know when he was born" as an actual serious problem.

Heck, here's an extra one I came up with while typing this: just set his super power to "displays his birth date on his forehead".


You misunderstood. I meant it not as "everyone gets what he wants" and more as "power shapers/guidance counselors can only chose among the things you would want to have". So the gouvernment still gets to control dangerous stuff. But it suddenly gets harder to set uninspiring working drone powers (you would need heavy indoctrination or, if existing, mind control for that) and really easy to let people choose freely (within limits).

At the mechanics layer, one could do that, but, as you said, it limits the settings (or, as they're known in my implementation, nations) you can create.

I'm favoring mechanics that maximize the setting potential range.


I don't think buffing someone else by temporary giving up your own power and that being the main thing your power can do actually violates the law of equality.

It absolutely does. Their chakra / soul / whatever has to power their powers, and "all men are created equal", so to speak.


This is a perfect example - to really say much about this setting, we need to know more about the powers - what's possible, what the limits are, how much trade-off between power and specialization you can make, etc.

Well, I haven't actually picked the underlying system yet. Feel free to pick one - say Heroes/Champion, Mutants and Masterminds, Heroes and Heroines, or something better you know - and pick some random number of points for powers - say, 60/40/20. Let me know how it works out.


Because for example, that mind control example -
* If specialization allows greater raw power, then offense beats defense. Because "Mind Control, requires prep-time, only works at night" is a totally valid offense, but "Mind Shield, only works at night, requires advance warning" is a lousy defense.
* If offense equals defense for the same degree of power (aka Primary Mind Control beats Secondary Mind Shield) then offense still beats defense. Because an organization who really doesn't want to be controlled needs to guard against a number of things: Mind Control, Body Control (puppeting), Doppelgangers, Technopathy, etc. Whereas the attacker can keep trying their one tactic until they find a single vulnerable person.

So to get a situation where Mind Control is not a big concern, you need either:
A) Defense is much easier than offense. Like, even a Tertiary Mind Shield stops Primary Mind Control dead, and/or it's part of a combined power like Immutable Self (blocks against any external changes, mental, physical, or other).
B) Group-shielding powers exist; like a single person with Mind Guardian can defend the entire building they're in. This might contradict the "conservation of power" principle, but maybe not?
C) Powers to detect and remove Mind Control are reliable and quick to use. Even then, you'd need to combine it with protocols that prevent a single compromised person doing too much damage.

In many of those systems I listed, 1 round stops mind control (especially with tertiary defense, or even good (non-super) willpower). With enough flaws… yes, defeating mind control will require, at a minimum, some generic Power Negation to sap the effect's strength down to something manageable. So… a little of B (AoE power negation, limited to mind control, for example), a lot of C.

However, outside major organizations? One can do a *lot* with properly optimized mind control (in some systems).


Another area is advanced technology.
For tech that's directly a super-power, I assume the "conservation of power" rule makes it a singleton. So someone with MacGuyver can build a laser pistol out of a broken hair dryer and some LEDs, but the blueprint doesn't work when anyone else tries to follow it.

Tricky question. It is absolutely possible to build the character you just described (I think). But…


But what about Super-Intelligence / Super-Creativity? Do those exist, and if so then can people with those powers make legitimate, reproducible advances to technology at an accelerated rate? And how does that tech compare to powers?

It's more complicated than "super smart people automatically innovative", but yes, tech can advance. Originally, I thought that some tech would start at "more advanced than modern"; I am no longer certain that this is… optimal for the game. But, yes, everyone can drive a tank, regardless of whether it's a modern tank, a hover tank, or a cardboard tank… unless it's an interfaceless tank, designed only to be used by those with appropriate powers (or some such).

[icefractal]

But… feel free to pick a system - say Heroes/Champion, Mutants and Masterminds, Heroes and Heroines, or something better you know - and pick some random number of points for powers - say, 60/40/20. Yeah, that's a lot of variance. And I doubt any would readily allow your "Ice 9" of super powers.
This is kind of nitpicking, but I can't resist; it's quite easy to make world-threatening powers in Hero and this is a fun one.

Ice 9: Severe Transform 1 point (Water into Ice 9, healed by Heat), Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Constant (+1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2), Sticky (+1/2), MegaScale (1m = 10,000 km; +2) (26 Active Points)

For comparison, 26 active points will get you handgun-strength laser eye beams, or defense comparable to SWAT-team armor.


Incidentally, the more I think about it, the more I think you should remove Super-Intelligence / Planning Ability / Organization / etc as possible abilities. For the simple reason that it makes it actually impossible for us non-hypercogs to predict how anything would be organized. "How would this society handle superpowers?" "In ways we're literally not smart enough to understand."

Secondly, the effects of everyone having superpowers seems one hell of a complex thing to extrapolate. Even figuring out the effects of a small set of powers (TK derivatives, say) on the world, when everyone has them, is significant. And this is an order of magnitude greater.

[Satinavian]

At the mechanics layer, one could do that, but, as you said, it limits the settings (or, as they're known in my implementation, nations) you can create.

I'm favoring mechanics that maximize the setting potential range.Well, yes. That was the point. Tweaking the rules to push everything in the direction of your default setting so that this looks more like a reasonable consequence.

If your rules allow a wide range of settings, it will allow a lot which are way superior to your default setting. And then you have basically to make all the NPCs idiots for not using them.. And that gets even worse if you don't want to portray "defalut country" as a poor backwater borderline anarchist place close to a failed state when compared to its neighbours but want it to be a successful country.

[Morgaln]

I asked my evil overlord mandated 5-year-old advisor substitute to evaluate this problem, and they came up with 3+1 of the 4+1 solutions to this problem that I came up with off the top of my head.

You've got an entire society of super heroes. This is a *trivially* solved problem. There is no such thing as "we don't know when he was born" as an actual serious problem.

Heck, here's an extra one I came up with while typing this: just set his super power to "displays his birth date on his forehead".



I still have a problem with your claim that this always works 100%. Ys, there are ways to optimize this. But it still involves humans, and humans are fallible, even if they have superpowers. Simply switching two numbers in a database or on a dokument can lead to calculating the date for setting the powers wrong. An earthquake or other natural disaster can well lead to a person not being reachable in time for the ceremony. A councelor can get sick or have an accident and by the time a replacement is found, it is too late. And that's not even accounting for people trying to deliberatly prevent someone's powers to be set for whatever reason.
Are you really claiming everything goes so smoothly in this world that these things don't happen? Are governments that much more competent in a supers world than they are in ours? Do people stop slacking or procrastinating suddenly because they have powers? This kind of perfect utopia completely destroys my suspension of disbelief, I will immedately start looking for the faultline in that system.

[MoiMagnus]

Well, yes. That was the point. Tweaking the rules to push everything in the direction of your default setting so that this looks more like a reasonable consequence.

If your rules allow a wide range of settings, it will allow a lot which are way superior to your default setting. And then you have basically to make all the NPCs idiots for not using them.. And that gets even worse if you don't want to portray "defalut country" as a poor backwater borderline anarchist place close to a failed state when compared to its neighbours but want it to be a successful country.

One solution to this is to dip even more in the "rules as UI, not as in-universe physical laws". Meaning that just because a power is mechanically allowed doesn't mean it is accessible to the characters in-universe.

That's mostly what Mutant and Mastermind is doing (very lax rules, but where most of the powers are assumed to require a GM approval of "this is valid for the current campaign"), and I believe that Quertus wants to do to something with even less mechanical limitations.

If one want some strict rules for which powers are accessible in-universe (and don't want to be "up to the GM mood when you ask him"), this essentially means having two layers of rules, one for general mechanics handling, and one setting-dependant that spell out what is possible or not in this setting.

[E.g. One could want to ban all speed higher than 100km/h, including teleportation (you disappear but do not appear instantly at your target spot). This would force the world in a much "lower scale", where not every single threat becomes a worldwide concern instantly.]

[Cluedrew]

You've got an entire society of super heroes. This is a *trivially* solved problem. There is no such thing as "we don't know when he was born" as an actual serious problem.No, no, no. Not why is it true (I mean I had to think about it but I've written people with that superpower before*) what does it change? Why did you bother to say it? You went back and did an edit for it, that suggests you think it is relatively important.

* It was years ago so I had forgotten about it, but there was one who could tell old everyone/everything they saw was and another who could see anyone's name and what everything was called.

[ATHATH]

Depending on how easy it is to live forever in this setting, it might start accumulating a number of Altered Carbon-esque super-elites who can remain in power forever/accrue ludicrous amounts of wealth due to never dying.

Also, the film Gattaca may or may not be an inspiration for that "people who locked themselves into power sets that aren't really applicable to their job" part of the setting that you mentioned. It might not, though, as you can at least choose what to specialize in for yourself in this setting and it'd be pretty hard to hide NOT having a superpower that'd make your job effortless.

[Quertus]

I do like Gattaca.


No, no, no. Not why is it true (I mean I had to think about it but I've written people with that superpower before*) what does it change? Why did you bother to say it? You went back and did an edit for it, that suggests you think it is relatively important.

* It was years ago so I had forgotten about it, but there was one who could tell old everyone/everything they saw was and another who could see anyone's name and what everything was called.

Good question.

So… it's about "proof", about expectations, about the type of conversations I can process.

Maybe it's hard for us to emulate super intellect, but anything that an evil overlord mandatory 5-year-old advisor can come up with should certainly be accounted for.

Any D&D world's magic item shops that aren't using Divinations to have items crafted ahead of time will be put out of business by those who use this tech. Any government that doesn't have "Ice 9" countermeasures will get "self defenced" to death by those that do.

There is a definite "you must be this tall to play" bar up, and it includes a level of competence some might find… unnatural.


I still have a problem with your claim that this always works 100%. Ys, there are ways to optimize this. But it still involves humans, and humans are fallible, even if they have superpowers. Simply switching two numbers in a database or on a dokument can lead to calculating the date for setting the powers wrong. An earthquake or other natural disaster can well lead to a person not being reachable in time for the ceremony. A councelor can get sick or have an accident and by the time a replacement is found, it is too late. And that's not even accounting for people trying to deliberatly prevent someone's powers to be set for whatever reason.
Are you really claiming everything goes so smoothly in this world that these things don't happen? Are governments that much more competent in a supers world than they are in ours? Do people stop slacking or procrastinating suddenly because they have powers? This kind of perfect utopia completely destroys my suspension of disbelief, I will immedately start looking for the faultline in that system.

@Morgaln - by all means, look for the fault! In fact, most nations, I would say *look* like they shouldn't run at 100%. But the default nation sends large teams to everyone on their birthdays, and backs its "facts" with Divinations, both at the assignment and team level, at the immediate, daily, and the more future-facing timeframe. With multiple teams assigned to each area. With diverse finding / tracking powers in each team.

I'm not sure how these teams would fail in ways that wouldn't involve intervention from other government agencies. In the event of a "natural disaster", the disaster is averted, or population is evacuated. The idea of anyone being buried in rubble, unreachable *accidently* doesn't really make sense in setting. Now, intentionally? Yeah, there are nonzero possible issues… but they're hard to engineer to bypass Divinations.


And that gets even worse if you don't want to portray "defalut country" as a poor backwater borderline anarchist place close to a failed state when compared to its neighbours but want it to be a successful country.

Well… this may just be my biases, but… it kinda *is*. It's definitely (IMO) not the Determinator most efficient possible way to do things. However, because of the proliferation of power sculptors, and just how handy / dangerous those can be, other nations… do their best to make it feel like a big boy, so that it doesn't throw a tantrum and wreck civilization.

I hadn't expected it to be obvious (and I think you think it's worse than I do). But, yeah, that nation handles some things really well, but its method is highly suboptimal compared to other nations for other things. Thus me asking if you had a better version of itself, that its 5-year-old advisor would have replaced it with. I think it fills the niche players will most want, and it's the best at filling that niche that I've developed.

[Cluedrew]

but they're hard to engineer to bypass Divinations.Why do we need to engineer a bypass for divinations?

Hypothetical situation: A medical research group (government, corporate, non-profit, doesn't matter) issues a press release stating that have a volunteer, who will have only two of their three powers set. Both the child and all their legal guardians have been informed and have agreed. A fund has been set aside to pay for any issues they might encounter because of being down a power along with some small compensation payments given over time.

Why would we need to bypass divinations? Maybe use divinations to check if any insane extremists are going to try and stop this, but who else would stop it?


This is of course after researchers have used super-powers to examine everything they can thing of without a live test.
If you answer is "I just don't want to deal with the no powers thing" just say that.
Divination is a pretty uncommon superpower, actual time travel is more common.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The most notable effect should be a huge economic boom, compared to our world. Superpowers as commonly pictured are in physics terms basically free work. There might be a joking scene every now and then about how supers need to eat more, but it is typically nowhere near proportional to the amount of energy they actually put out. With plentiful free energy, you can get lots of stuff done. And you can do it efficiently. Electric plants for instance can go completely fossil free with a few people taking turns driving the power station. And with less people needed for more basic necessities, culture and science flourish. Even if few powers can be applied to these fields directly.

Assuming this is a stable setting, as in things have been like this for a while, generations have already lived with powers, there should also be relatively few issues with people picking the "wrong" powers. Sure, there will be the equivalent of people studying liberal arts when IT would have provided better job opportunities, but it won't be nearly as bad as a situation in which you would let every regular person alive today pick a power and run with it.

There will be conflict and violence and stuff, but overall the biggest effect should be economical and positive.

[Quertus]

I lost a longer reply. In short,


The most notable effect should be a huge economic boom, compared to our world. Superpowers as commonly pictured are in physics terms basically free work. There might be a joking scene every now and then about how supers need to eat more, but it is typically nowhere near proportional to the amount of energy they actually put out. With plentiful free energy, you can get lots of stuff done. And you can do it efficiently. Electric plants for instance can go completely fossil free with a few people taking turns driving the power station. And with less people needed for more basic necessities, culture and science flourish. Even if few powers can be applied to these fields directly.

Assuming this is a stable setting, as in things have been like this for a while, generations have already lived with powers, there should also be relatively few issues with people picking the "wrong" powers. Sure, there will be the equivalent of people studying liberal arts when IT would have provided better job opportunities, but it won't be nearly as bad as a situation in which you would let every regular person alive today pick a power and run with it.

There will be conflict and violence and stuff, but overall the biggest effect should be economical and positive.

Agreed. Mostly. But humans will reproduce to reach the limiting factor instead of enjoying a post scarcity society - or, in this case, grow accustomed to a higher standards of living over working less.

And "electricity generation" is the most efficient way to power the power plant.


Why do we need to engineer a bypass for divinations?

Hypothetical situation: A medical research group (government, corporate, non-profit, doesn't matter) issues a press release stating that have a volunteer, who will have only two of their three powers set. Both the child and all their legal guardians have been informed and have agreed. A fund has been set aside to pay for any issues they might encounter because of being down a power along with some small compensation payments given over time.

Why would we need to bypass divinations? Maybe use divinations to check if any insane extremists are going to try and stop this, but who else would stop it?


This is of course after researchers have used super-powers to examine everything they can thing of without a live test.
If you answer is "I just don't want to deal with the no powers thing" just say that.
Divination is a pretty uncommon superpower, actual time travel is more common.


The nations wouldn't want it. And the citizens are indoctrinated. You would need to be an unflappable, bias-free scientist to even purpose the idea; they would need Super Charisma to get support for their crazy plan (and to not get fired for the company's bad press / dropping stock prices). Even then, the ensuing balefire riots / terrorist actions / government assassins would likely leave a crater and/or taint the results.

If someone could somehow succeed… and did so on a large enough population rather than a single individual, the lowered health and decreased lifespan would be statistically obvious. On a single individual, they might not correlate the symptoms to the cause. But the imbalance of permanently having one of your chakras blocked / part of your soul atrophy / whatever isn't healthy.

If they insisted on continuing such unethical experiments, I will admit that there is more that they could learn. Which is why the various conspiracy theories are part of the "possible past" (and I'm starting to hate not having a single, static past).

[Cluedrew]

But the imbalance of permanently having one of your chakras blocked / part of your soul atrophy / whatever isn't healthy.Why didn't you just say that when we first asked... a month ago? (OK probably it wasn't that long ago.) Still I have gotten some other world building questions, which I will follow up starting with:


(and I'm starting to hate not having a single, static past).I have been avoiding this because it is both nonsensical and irrelevant. Yeah that was funny in Elder Scrolls to explain recons between games but that's about as far as it goes.

The nonsensical might not hold if you are using "past" differently than I am. The past is the series of moments that lead to the current moment. Its not actually a property of the current moment so its not something that can be changed except by adding more moments to it. I suppose you could make it ambiguous if two moments lead to the same next moment but because of memories its pretty hard for that to happen on a level people would notice.

So I got: In universe recons or universal memory rewriting, neither of which I understand how they would work in-universe or in-game. Is it one of those? Is it something else?

[Quertus]

Why didn't you just say that when we first asked... a month ago? (OK probably it wasn't that long ago.) Still I have gotten some other world building questions, which I will follow up starting with:

Because "nobody" in setting knows these things, and I hadn't thought through what effects would be most obvious.

And it being an unknown in-world is why I put it in a Spoiler.


I have been avoiding this because it is both nonsensical and irrelevant. Yeah that was funny in Elder Scrolls to explain recons between games but that's about as far as it goes.

The nonsensical might not hold if you are using "past" differently than I am. The past is the series of moments that lead to the current moment. Its not actually a property of the current moment so its not something that can be changed except by adding more moments to it. I suppose you could make it ambiguous if two moments lead to the same next moment but because of memories its pretty hard for that to happen on a level people would notice.

So I got: In universe recons or universal memory rewriting, neither of which I understand how they would work in-universe or in-game. Is it one of those? Is it something else?

Universal X would imply either the existence of beings which defy the laws of equality (which is obviously true, given the existence of animals in setting), or that someone had totally gamed the system beyond what those in setting believe possible. But it still leaves room for angels / gods / GMs / whatever to have more power than is "possible".

I thought it was a cool idea, that I've never seen explored, that the present is static, but the past isn't.

Memories do, indeed, make the concept of "possible past" rather "silly" - if there was a conspiracy, then the people involved in the conspiracy should have memory of the conspiracy. (And, unless someone is editing in memories of a conspiracy, they shouldn't otherwise).

My idea was to try to make a world that wasn't obvious how it worked - yet possible for the players to understand - by making and keeping it consistent with multiple "pasts". But I'm really not sure that I've got the skills to make that work, in any meaningful way.

[Cluedrew]

Because "nobody" in setting knows these things, and I hadn't thought through what effects would be most obvious.Really I just think this whole issue came because you presented "everybody has their superpowers set" as a natural conclusion of the power-shapers (its not on its own) when it seems its another premise of the setting. So maybe clarifying that is what needs to be said.


Universal X would imply either the existence of beings which defy the laws of equality (which is obviously true, given the existence of animals in setting), or that someone had totally gamed the system beyond what those in setting believe possible.I was acting under the assumption it was a property of the universe - like gravity or the electro magnetic force - not a superpower of someone inside the universe.


My idea was to try to make a world that wasn't obvious how it workedYou mean as in real life? In fiction I feel I get this just by making the rules deep. I don't have a good way to define it other than: make the rules people interact with the results of other rules and figure out what those rules are. It's the "underlying logic" I've complained about D&D magic missing if you recall those conversations. Is that clear (I honestly don't know)?

[Satinavian]

Well… this may just be my biases, but… it kinda *is*. It's definitely (IMO) not the Determinator most efficient possible way to do things. However, because of the proliferation of power sculptors, and just how handy / dangerous those can be, other nations… do their best to make it feel like a big boy, so that it doesn't throw a tantrum and wreck civilization.

I hadn't expected it to be obvious (and I think you think it's worse than I do). But, yeah, that nation handles some things really well, but its method is highly suboptimal compared to other nations for other things. Thus me asking if you had a better version of itself, that its 5-year-old advisor would have replaced it with. I think it fills the niche players will most want, and it's the best at filling that niche that I've developed.
Well, if you are accepting that this is far from optimal and only look for reasons why people still do it in default country, you could

a) make a religion about. Choosing ones one powerset is a necessary part for enlightenment. Copying successful powersets is a sin.
b) Use history. Maybe in the past, powers were centrally managed. And managed quite badly, leading to a revolution to give the people the powers they really wanted, resulting in an idealisation of the freedom to choose
c) Maybe there was an event in the past that promted it. Maybe something in whatever powers all the people changed globally and cultures with rigid procedures about power distribution got a lot of problems and much of the accumulated knowledge about powers became worthless overnight which made free experimentation the way to go forward... at least for some time. And default country beliefs that such a powerquake might come again and wants to stay ready for it.

[Quertus]

Well, if you are accepting that this is far from optimal and only look for reasons why people still do it in default country, you could

a) make a religion about. Choosing ones one powerset is a necessary part for enlightenment. Copying successful powersets is a sin.
b) Use history. Maybe in the past, powers were centrally managed. And managed quite badly, leading to a revolution to give the people the powers they really wanted, resulting in an idealisation of the freedom to choose
c) Maybe there was an event in the past that promted it. Maybe something in whatever powers all the people changed globally and cultures with rigid procedures about power distribution got a lot of problems and much of the accumulated knowledge about powers became worthless overnight which made free experimentation the way to go forward... at least for some time. And default country beliefs that such a powerquake might come again and wants to stay ready for it.


Well :smallredface: I see I had a blind spot, and didn't include *religion* as a motivator in my super hero world-building. I suppose I should remedy that. But B&C are… in there, albeit in different forms than you likely would have made them. (Progression of science and "optimization wars" caused C all by itself; B is present even in the present).

But, the main thing is, yes, none of the nations necessarily need to be Determinator optimal, only viable.


Really I just think this whole issue came because you presented "everybody has their superpowers set" as a natural conclusion of the power-shapers (its not on its own) when it seems its another premise of the setting. So maybe clarifying that is what needs to be said.

Fair. The nations make it happen (or, for some, seemingly don't need to *make* it happen); it's not inherent in the mechanics, but in societies + governments.


I was acting under the assumption it was a property of the universe - like gravity or the electro magnetic force - not a superpower of someone inside the universe.

Nothing quite like that. However, Google is pretty "universal", as is super Charisma delivered rhetoric. So… centralized information, super brainwashing? Check.


You mean as in real life? In fiction I feel I get this just by making the rules deep. I don't have a good way to define it other than: make the rules people interact with the results of other rules and figure out what those rules are. It's the "underlying logic" I've complained about D&D magic missing if you recall those conversations. Is that clear (I honestly don't know)?

It's clear. Rules depth… gah, how can I explain?

Ah, I don't have to. There's a *lot* more going on in my head, but: rules depth doesn't help if the players don't get there. The 2-4-6 problem demonstrates that 80% of adults cannot comprehend how to approach such problems. Even if you are lucky enough that at least one of your players is in the 20%, such puzzles are like railroads: they only accept a single right answer. If the players get stuck, unable to realize that one step was wrong, they may disbelieve the truth. I thought there being many (and no) "true" answers may be helpful for this, so that they are more likely to successfully find a "right" answer if there are multiple.

X² - 4X = 0

[Cluedrew]

Why do you keep talking about Google?

[Quertus]

Why do you keep talking about Google?

"Why" is the funniest question.

Once upon a time, I ran a superhero game for kids. It was highly… word… "optimistic" is the best my senile mind has.

The players took their characters to multiples worlds. They played in multiple systems. They even ran multiple characters simultaneously.

And they had no problems with it. They juggled multiple characters and multiple systems like pros.

One of the things I really wanted to do was to run a "scene", a scenario from my childhood - a big "good vs evil" fight. Turns out, there was even a module for this. So I had the party appear in that universe before the events of the module, to grow acclimated to the new system and setting.

Which meant that they were in the past - the past of my childhood. Which meant that there was no Google.

Which, to these kids of the modem age, meant that this was a horror setting. :smallamused:

So, now, if I'm rolling my own setting, and there's any chance that younger players may be involved - and especially if the setting is supposed to be "approachable" and "familiar" as I intend for this one - I see if there's any way that I can include Google.

Now, mind you, in this setting, Google is just a person, whose super powers allow everyone to ask them questions. But it should be good enough to keep the younger players from having a meltdown. :smallwink: