Always wanted to
Apr. 8th, 2008 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzu As I noodle around on my supers setting building construction kit I have a question for my hordes of fans [Listens, daffy duck-like, for crickets]. Is there any super-hero concept that you've always wanted to play but either have had the opportunity or haven't found a system that could handle it?
In my case two spring to mind (there used to be more, but I did get to play my super smart guy and my super-strong cowboy ideas in now defunct PBEMs).
The first is an Adam Strange style SF adventurer: a two fisted science hero with a jet-pack, ray guns and other gadgets who, while a member of the super team on contemporary earth, is actually the defender of a different planet, time or timeline. The system would have to be able to handle someone who was basically a skilled, smart normal person with flight, a good dodge and a modest energy blast - a little tricky in some systems but more a matter of lacking opportunity rather than systemic problems.
The second is someone who has a separate energy body, similar to Negative Man, Raven's Soul Self or, ideally, Antibody from the New Universe book DP7. This is much harder to work mechanically - Cambias once recommended doing it as an Ally, or perhaps it's duplication where one of the duplicates has all the powers, or something of the sort. It's a really neat idea, but finding a system that could handle it is the problem.
This latter is one of the reasons why I'm building the supers setting construction kit: the hope of being able to simply define the characters potency, versatility, and scarcity and have it be in the world as its own distinct power - if the scarcity is high enough (or even if it's not with an oddball power like this one) my PC might be the only person with it, but it would be a quickly defined part of the world.
Finally, as a villain I still love the idea of a mummy whose internal organs were eaten away by vermin that now occupy his body cavities. He would be able to have his eyes turn into snakes, vomit up spiders, breathe out termites and so on for a variety of nasty effects. Icky, yes, but it just sticks with me,
In my case two spring to mind (there used to be more, but I did get to play my super smart guy and my super-strong cowboy ideas in now defunct PBEMs).
The first is an Adam Strange style SF adventurer: a two fisted science hero with a jet-pack, ray guns and other gadgets who, while a member of the super team on contemporary earth, is actually the defender of a different planet, time or timeline. The system would have to be able to handle someone who was basically a skilled, smart normal person with flight, a good dodge and a modest energy blast - a little tricky in some systems but more a matter of lacking opportunity rather than systemic problems.
The second is someone who has a separate energy body, similar to Negative Man, Raven's Soul Self or, ideally, Antibody from the New Universe book DP7. This is much harder to work mechanically - Cambias once recommended doing it as an Ally, or perhaps it's duplication where one of the duplicates has all the powers, or something of the sort. It's a really neat idea, but finding a system that could handle it is the problem.
This latter is one of the reasons why I'm building the supers setting construction kit: the hope of being able to simply define the characters potency, versatility, and scarcity and have it be in the world as its own distinct power - if the scarcity is high enough (or even if it's not with an oddball power like this one) my PC might be the only person with it, but it would be a quickly defined part of the world.
Finally, as a villain I still love the idea of a mummy whose internal organs were eaten away by vermin that now occupy his body cavities. He would be able to have his eyes turn into snakes, vomit up spiders, breathe out termites and so on for a variety of nasty effects. Icky, yes, but it just sticks with me,
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Date: 2008-04-09 07:34 pm (UTC)I did have a player ask to do something similar to this in a very successful Champs game I ran back in the day. His secret ID was the team's butler/chauffeur, while his super-athletic, mildly psychic ninja Hero ID would appear to work with the team during a case. The team was supported by a consortium of insurance companies with a public base of operations, and one of his bits was offering tea to gatecrashing heavies and bouncing them before they could distract the occupants.