[Setting Riff] On 1st January 2012 the world ends...

[Kiero]

...and the new one begins. This is a strange collection of ideas that have coalesced in my head that summarise themselves as Heroes (when it was good) crossed with Criminal Minds. With a playful jab at doomsaying jibberish thrown in.

I should preface by saying I'm not really into supers in a big way, all that costumes and secret identities stuff doesn't really resonate for me. I've always preferred the non-customed and street-level things, and I don't really read comics. I doubt anything I've got here is particularly original, but that doesn't matter.

The premise is set in the near-future, 2017 to be precise, five years after the event that ended the old world, and began the new. There was no cataclysm, no fire from heaven, no plagues or pestilence. 2012 began the same way as 2011 had done, the date rolled over, the sun rose, it was just another day.

Except for 0.001% of the population, they woke up different. Suddenly and inexplicably able to do things they couldn't before. Able to read minds, or recover from wounds unnaturally quickly, or able to run faster than a car. For the vast majority of these people, it was a single power. But a small fraction had more than one.

It was a few months before this phenomenon was discovered and when it was there was a media hysteria, sparked by a murder case. Something had to be done, and so laws were passed requiring metahumans (as they were called - if someone has a better name by all means suggest it) be registered and monitored. Those who went off the reservation could be arrested and jailed. Law enforcement was tasked with regulating and keeping track of the metahumans, and of course some of them were LEOs to begin with. Special units were formed who dedicated themselves to metahuman affairs.

The fear is still palpable at times, but five years on things are on a more even keel now. Metahumans go about their lives like anyone else, regulated by laws criminalising uses of their powers that breach the peace or others civil liberties and protected by non-discrimination laws that prevent employers being able to exploit them, provided they are registered. Telepaths and empaths are often highly sought after as truthsayers in corporate and law enforcement/justice environments, for example.

Essentially the notion is a near-future that isn't so far away that anything would be meaningfully different, but with long enough for supers to be both public and beginning to be integrated into society. PCs would likely be special metahuman teams working for law enforcement or other government agencies (or certain private concerns) tracking down and dealing with criminal and terrorist metahumans. Add in the usual office politics, pressure to get results and so on and I think you've got an interesting mix for a game.

Thoughts?

[Inyssius Tor]

How high does the power level go? How low? Do you ever get metas with super-high Int, Wis, or Cha?

[Mando Knight]

...The date the Mayans picked for the end of the calendar is like Dec 12, 2012...

[DragonOfUndeath]

The apocalypse, according to the Mayans, is 21st December 2012, not 12th December 2012 or 1st January 2012

[McSmack]

The ideas are really solid. It sounds like it would be a good game. You'll have to find a good system for it, d20 modern might work, or something from whitewolf.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Making a homebrew system could work.
that way you could specialize the powers allowed/disallowed and make sure the system matches the setting.

[Amnestic]

The apocalypse, according to the Mayans, is 21st December 2012, not 12th December 2012 or 1st January 2012

"There is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012. The notion of a "Great Cycle" coming to an end is completely a modern invention."~Mayanist Scholar Professor Mark Van Stone

The Mayans said bugger all about the apocalypse in 2012.

[Kiero]

...The date the Mayans picked for the end of the calendar is like Dec 12, 2012...

The apocalypse, according to the Mayans, is 21st December 2012, not 12th December 2012 or 1st January 2012

For the purposes of this notion, it doesn't matter precisely when in 2012, just that it was and that was five years ago.

The Mayans said bugger all about the apocalypse in 2012.

It's supposed to mark the end of one Long Count, and the beginning of the next one. Some idiots took that to mean the end of the world.

[Kiero]

How high does the power level go? How low? Do you ever get metas with super-high Int, Wis, or Cha?

The minimum is "peak human" for anything that relates to what people can already do. The maxium is well below cosmic-level. There are no godlike beings, the tiny proportion who have multiple abilities are no more powerful in any of those individual powers than anyone who just has one of them.

Super-geniuses, super-senses and various manipulative and personal magnetism powers are around too.

The ideas are really solid. It sounds like it would be a good game. You'll have to find a good system for it, d20 modern might work, or something from whitewolf.

This isn't a really a system discussion, because there are lots of supers systems and I doubt any of them would struggle with it.

Making a homebrew system could work.
that way you could specialize the powers allowed/disallowed and make sure the system matches the setting.

No need for a homebrew, there's plenty of systems out there that can manage it.

[potatocubed]

It's an interesting idea; I'm seeing 'espionage but with minor superpowers'.

For systems, I'd leap to Spycraft with added powers, but as I recall Godlike had a similar premise set in WW2 so that would probably work 'out of the box'.

It raises a question about what constitutes evidence: if you're working for the law, you're going to need some sort of proof that someone was altering brain waves to enact a get rich quick scheme before you bring them in. Likewise, you might be able to read someone's mind and be certain of their guilt, but still have to prove it through conventional methods.

Hum. When you look at it like that, maybe some variant of Trail of Cthulhu?

EDIT: Ninjaed. Also, to clarify, I'm thinking that maybe this is not so much a game about superpowers as a game about something else that also contains superpowers.

[Kiero]

It's an interesting idea; I'm seeing 'espionage but with minor superpowers'.

For systems, I'd leap to Spycraft with added powers, but as I recall Godlike had a similar premise set in WW2 so that would probably work 'out of the box'.

It raises a question about what constitutes evidence: if you're working for the law, you're going to need some sort of proof that someone was altering brain waves to enact a get rich quick scheme before you bring them in. Likewise, you might be able to read someone's mind and be certain of their guilt, but still have to prove it through conventional methods.

Good question. I'm sure some countries (those with more repressive regimes) would happily switch to using telepaths to determine innocence or guilt (in those cases when they actually cared), but in those with a tradition of due process, is a mind-scan admissable? Are someone's memories deemed reliable when read by a telepath?

Hum. When you look at it like that, maybe some variant of Trail of Cthulhu?

EDIT: Ninjaed. Also, to clarify, I'm thinking that maybe this is not so much a game about superpowers as a game about something else that also contains superpowers.

That would be an apt description. It's kind of a police procedural/office politics/contemporary action sort of game that happens to have some superpowers in it as well.

[imperialspectre]

Good question. I'm sure some countries (those with more repressive regimes) would happily switch to using telepaths to determine innocence or guilt (in those cases when they actually cared), but in those with a tradition of due process, is a mind-scan admissable? Are someone's memories deemed reliable when read by a telepath?

In countries with something like the U.S. Constitution's 4th Amendment, courts would likely rule that telepathy is an invasion of privacy subject to said restrictions (in the US, a probable cause warrant). So in the US, for example, it would likely take legislation and a Supreme Court case to allow telepathic observations in criminal cases.

Additionally, regarding the question of "reliability," people with telepathic powers who were not members of the law enforcement community would, depending on case law and legislation, likely not be allowed to give testimony based on these powers without proving that they met the qualifications of expert witnesses. It's likely that it would take a number of years for people with telepathic powers to be allowed to testify in court.*

So actually, by 2017, it's entirely possible that law enforcement professionals or characters in a "police procedural"-themed RPG who had telepathic powers would never actually be able to use them in court. It would just be something that could help you figure out where to search for evidence based on witness interviews, and people who had the abilities would likely keep them very secret. Rumors that law enforcement professionals were using powers like this would likely circulate on the internet and possibly radio and TV, but a lot of people might not even believe them.

*This is obviously speculative, but I have professional training regarding the 4th Amendment and rules for expert testimony, so I figured I would provide some slightly-credible speculation.

Edit: Consider the statistics we're working with here. If 1 in 100,000 people (the figure given in the OP) gains superpowers, that means there are roughly 3,000 people with superpowers in the entire US population. Of those, how many have telepathic powers? And of the ones with telepathic powers, how many of them are employed by a law enforcement agency? And since telepathy is the kind of superpower that is extremely difficult to actually detect unless someone tells you they have it (which would normally be viewed as evidence of mental instability, not superpowers), chances are nobody really knows (let alone can prove) that a tiny number of cops are reading your mind when they interview you.

[TheAmishPirate]

In countries with something like the U.S. Constitution's 4th Amendment, courts would likely rule that telepathy is an invasion of privacy subject to said restrictions (in the US, a probable cause warrant). So in the US, for example, it would likely take legislation and a Supreme Court case to allow telepathic observations in criminal cases.

I can see adventures, and maybe even campaign arcs based around things like this, depending on how close to the "new world" the time is. With such a radical, and rapid, change in society, there are going to be growing pains. Landmark cases would be happening right and left, and with cases of that magnitude, there are bound to be people on either side who stand to gain/lose a lot. A group of adventurers could try to demonstrate why a certain ruling is necessary, or purposefully cause trouble to get certain rights of a powered individual removed.

I think the legal aspect could be really interesting, and allow for an entire new element of play. Who needs rule lawyering when you can do it in-game?


EDIT: Something else I just thought of: The PC's actions will have huge consequences in this setting. A single incident they cause can blow up into a media scare. Most anything they do will have to be as discrete as possible to avoid bringing down the wrath of the law.

Also adds another layer to the Law vs. Chaos axis, doesn't it?

[UserClone]

This sounds like loads of fun! I'm seeing it being played in Wushu, with your main (5) ability being your supernatural power (for those PCs that even have one), which is actually an interesting way of limiting use of the main ability, insofar as it's a bad idea to get caught as an unregistered super...