On September 11, 2001, the greatest act of terrorism on American soil up to that point took place when one man melted the Empire State Building to funerary ashes and slag. The individual responsible killed himself. The inability of the United States to do so first marked the start of a new age.
It is now 2004, and the world rests in the hands of just under a score of individuals. You are not world leaders. You are not heroes. Your very existence demeans justice. You cannot hope to be good as people are good, because you cannot live as people do. This is what unearned - impossible to earn - power costs.
Try not to end the world.
The most direct inspiration here is the new comic series
The Power Fantasy (which everyone should read and buy), which is touching on themes that I've been thinking about and looking for in battle manga, xianxia and superhero comics - that is, any genre where individuals can get essentially unaccountable, massively destructive power. Sadly most of these genres are more interested in cool fights, homoeroticism or numbers going up rather than the geopolitical tension of having a nuclear arsenal sealed in your gut or the social order when a class of people are inherently untouchable to violence from the masses.
Go figure.
The core premise is very, very basic: when superheroes are as powerful as the nuclear powers, they have to
behave like the nuclear powers. Not only will they ruin each other if they fight, they will probably ruin a significant portion of the globe with it. So they have to compromise and try to get along, while trying to accomplish things in the strategic calculus of MAD.
This leads to a few design principles, which will themselves be reflected in the rules below as best I can.
[*]
Characters need to get into, and out of conflicts
The nuclear powers - as large economies that require a large number of inputs and have to manage their populace - obviously care about the state of the world in a way that isn't necessarily true of a person who can throw a nuclear weapon with their mind. For the purposes of not having characters who just sit out of the way, any playable character has to have reasons to act, and incentives to act against each other.
[*]
Violence cascades
Characters should get into fights they don't precisely intend to. They should make bluffs that end up called. And if they get into a fight - and even if they win it - they should know they're at risk of getting murdered opportunistically. Also, plenty of people are likely to die when this happens.
[*]
Characters should get a chance to react (to a point)
Rolling turns are a dangerous bit of design space for GSRPs, but this game is trying to simulate confrontations where there isn't time to communicate, reassess, and so on. So, instead, the mechanics will allow characters to define how they
would react. What they care about. What they might end the world for.
[*]
Characters should be big fish in a small pond.
This is less a direct mechanical statement than it is an aesthetic principle. No Asgards, no Skrull Empire, no intervening angels or demons, no multiverse. Earth is floating in a great black ocean, and the Superpowers are the highest power there is. A fragile, precious place. If it survives, if it doesn't, there is no second chance, no guarantee that culture and life and love are happening on some other planet, nobody to remember and witness the decisions made except the people who were there.
[*]
You're the only ones who matter (kinda)
Therefore I don't need to actually model nation-states wheeeeeeeeee-
All playable - and therefore all active, known superpowers - need to define
Their Agenda. Whatever it is, you should care about things liable to bring friction with other Superpowers. There's room in theory for Superpowers who live quietly, but there isn't in this game.
The
Agenda defines the psychology of the Superpower. And when you're a Superpower, psychology is everything. When you clash with another Superpower, or a Superpower moves against you, the GM will be referring to your agenda to help decide how you react, generally
without any further input from you.
Players construct their
Agendas by giving various objectives
Priority. A Superpower's own survival, freedom of thought, et cetera, is considered to be Priority Rating 12. Priority ratings are player decided, and can go as high as 15, to represent principles that the Superpower would be willing to martyr themselves for - or which could be threatened in order to make a Superpower back off. Priorities cannot share the same rating, for GM comfort.
Agenda's can be amended each turn, though only within reason, and major, rapid shifts should have some public event to justify them. While wildly inconsistent Superpowers are possible, they are also generally dead. A Superpower's Agenda at game start is public. All amendments afterwards are secret.
A theoretical
Agenda might look something like this-
14 - Prevent Superpowered Destruction Of The Earth
12 - Survive
8 - Protect The Powerless
4 - Defend Institutions
2 - Behave Ethically
It's generally encouraged to leave a rank or two between priorities, because…
Superpowers aren't static emanations of superhuman doctrine. They make decisions, and these decisions have their own Priority and Effort.
Priority is the same as on the Agenda
. An action could be considered a one-turn modification to the Agenda, in effect. Actions can have the same priority as each other or as agenda items, as to do otherwise might be overly restrictive. That said, please order them if possible.
Effort is how much work the Superpower is putting into the activity. Each Superpower has 15 Effort each turn by default, and can gain more. When actions conflict and resolve, the
effort is generally considered to be visible to others, but the
priority is not.
A high-priority, low-effort action might be declaring an area off-limits on pain of death - an attack on this location could quite likely succeed, but risk fatal consequences even for a Superpower.
A low-priority, high-effort action might be an action that puts a lot more emphasis on
not getting caught than it does on scaring off other Superpowers. Or, it might be a bluff that tries to make other Superpowers act in certain ways for fear that it is actually
high priority. To reiterate:
effort is visible. Priority is not.
Action Name
Priority: X
Effort: Y
Description Of Intent:
A
First Strike is an unqualified decision to commit violence against another Superpower. You can only do a First Strike when you are not already in a conflict with the target. See Conflicts, below.
Effort can be saved for a future turn, but only for a specific action (or similar enough action). This is declared with a normal action, except the description of intent states that it is in preparation for a future turn. This preserved effort halves at the end of each turn, so if you save 10 effort, next turn you have 10 effort, the turn after you have 5, and so on, rounding down.
If you really want somebody dead, you can, in fact, send over 50 effort worth of force at them by building up for a few turns. Be warned! If you don't dedicate additional effort to actions hiding what you're doing
, people are going to notice you charging up a kamehameha, even if they don't know who it's for.
Hiding actions from passive detection, or avoiding leaving traces, should be done as a
second action supporting the primary action, so that the GM can know what the priority is. Particularly complex actions, like reforming a government, should also be broken up.
Effort can also be dedicated on a contingent basis. A contingency is constructed like a normal action, with priority, effort and intent.
- A trigger condition must be declared. This condition cannot be 'nothing happens' or anything similarly broad. It should be relatively simple.
- You do not have to spend the effort unless the trigger condition occurs. The cost in effort for the effect is multiplied by 1.5. This is the benefit of calling your shot.
- Once the trigger condition occurs, the contingency behaves like a normal action. If you have spent all your effort for the turn, it will take effort from lower priority actions in order to be implemented, as per the normal priority rules.
- A contingency cannot be a First Strike or directly initiate violence. It can threaten other Superpower's agenda items, but conflicts resulting from contingencies will always roll forward.
- The above rule does not apply to contingencies related to responding to a First Strike with violence directed to the perpetrator of the First Strike.
You can declare up to three contingencies a turn, for the sake of GM sanity. See the
Conflicts section for more rules on throwing down.
In addition to the base 15 Effort all Superpowers have, you can gain 3 Effort by achieving the following during a turn. Capped triggers can only trigger once. Uncapped can trigger multiple times.
Advance an Agenda Item (Capped)
Advance an Agenda Item with Priority > 10 (Capped)
Advance all of your Agenda Items (Survival Assumed) (Minimum 5) (Capped)
Deliberately enter into a Conflict (See Below) (Capped)
Win a Conflict (Uncapped)
Commit Violence (See Below) (Capped)
Win Violence (Be Less Damaged) (Uncapped)
Have a Flashpoint be accepted (See Below) (Capped)
It's a sad fact of geopolitics that entirely too many decisions are driven by 'don't look like a bitch', but here we are-
Lose A Conflict (Capped)
Outside Of A Conflict, Have An Agenda Item Interfered With (Capped)
Have An Agenda Item With Priority > 10 Interfered With (Capped)
Actions taken without Superpower opposition are assumed to succeed, within reason. Please don't make orders restructuring large societies, especially if you don't have mind control or something. If you want to rule a smaller country as God-Monarch, that's fine, but you have control of the
Superpower, a singular human (?) person with the
force of a country, rather than control of an entire country. Further, the GM retains the right to say an action requires more effort to be accomplished.
When actions
conflict, the assumption is that the action with more effort succeeds in matters where there is conflict, while the action with less succeeds where it does not conflict. However! An action that finds itself opposed by another Superpower will be
reinforced under certain circumstances
. Effort dedicated to actions with lower priority will be retasked to a contested action of higher priority until the action succeeds or there is no more effort to retask.
Items on your Agenda are treated as actions with Effort 0 and Priority equal to what they are given on your Agenda.
Therefore, even if you did not make an explicit action defending an agenda item, you might be distracted and drawn into a conflict when another player treads on your lines, causing lower priority projects to fail. Obviously, this generally includes defending your life - an easy way to distract someone if you're willing to risk it.
Retasked effort is no less effective than regular effort, however there is a tendency for more collateral damage. This is, in conjunction with minimum effort for some effect, to encourage players to
not make a whole raft of actions with low effort and then only reinforce as needed.
Superpowers will also
avoid reinforcement if it's clearly throwing good effort after bad. If, before retasking, the opposing effort is more than twice the priority assigned to the action, effort will not be re-tasked. This does not apply if the priority is 12 or greater.
In situations where two Superpowers have dedicated 7 or more effort to conflicting orders, including effort from reprioritization, and these orders are
not directly about committing violence to each other, the conflict will roll over into the following turn in order to give the Superpowers room to talk. The orders stay the same, with the exception that they are now
assumed to be willing to direct violence at each other if conflicts continue.
If the orders in this second turn do not, after reallocation, lack conflicts or have a Superpower dedicating less than 7 effort to a conflicting order, violence
will occur.
If the violence is directly included as the intent of the order, there is no roll-forward necessary and violence resolves that turn. Note, that you cannot make violence conditional to bypass the roll-forward: either the violence is committed to completely, or you enter the roll-forward. If violence is the direct intent of the order, that is considered a
First Strike. See below for rules on those.
Violence in a roll-forward conflict
can be conditional, if there is some condition that would cause the Superpower to escalate even if less than 7 effort is dedicated by the opposition ie. 'if they try to act in the region after negotiation, attack'. Do not overcomplicate this, please.
A Superpower's status following a violent conflict is as follows, and can be analogized to having three hit-points:
- Unharmed: A very unlikely outcome, barring an overwhelming first strike. There is no significant damage to the Superpower.
- Damaged: Available Effort is reduced by one third. If this is the first turn you are Damaged, some appropriate damage to a major agenda item will occur.
- Ruined: Available Effort is reduced by two thirds. If this is the first turn you are Ruined, some appropriate damage to a major agenda item will occur.
- Destroyed: The only thing left is spite. The Superpower may declare a 7 Effort action, solely for destructive ends, and then dies. Trigger your Second Strike.
If a Superpower takes part in violence, their status cannot improve. A Superpower's status improves by one stage at the end of any turn it doesn't take part in violent conflict.
Outcomes are rolled as a binomial distribution of three dice with a probability equal to the ratio between Effort on the sides of the conflict. Outcomes are rolled separately for each Superpower.
No successes means
Destruction, one success means
Ruined, two successes means
Damaged, and three success means
Unharmed. The rules defined above will then be applied to find the nearest possible outcome.
For an evenly matched conflict, this means there is a 12.5% chance of being Destroyed, 37.5% Ruined, 37.5% Damaged and 12.5% Unharmed. If one side has twice as much Effort as the other, there is a 3.7% chance of being Destroyed, 22.22% Ruined, 44.44% Damaged and 29.63% Unharmed, with the probabilities reversed for the Superpower which is outmatched.
If you declare an action to attack another Superpower directly
or attack some target a Superpower would defend with their life (Priority 12+), this is considered a
First Strike. You may not declare a First Strike for any purpose
other than attacking a Superpower or attacking their highest priorities. This is shooting on sight, this is choosing violence, pausing even just to say 'get out of my way or die' is not part of the game plan.
A First Strike is treated as having 7 additional Effort for the purposes of resolving Violence. There's advantages to swinging first. A First Strike will
immediately initiate violence, with no roll-over turn.
Uninvolved Superpowers whose Agendas or Actions are impacted by a First Strike will behave in the following ways.
Priority 12+ - The additional Superpower is treated as though they are also a target of the First Strike. This is an excellent way for a First Strike to go very wrong.
Priority 7-11 - Effort is reprioritized as normal in opposition to the First Strike, but is treated as half-value for the purposes of Violence, as the Superpowers are caught flatfooted. If more than two Superpowers are drawn into a First Strike in this way, the GM will roll to determine if violence occurs due to sheer chaos.
Priority 0-6 - Effort is not reprioritized and does not contribute to Violence. Actions will either retain Effort to try and salvage their goals or Effort will be retasked.
However, you may declare Contingencies against a First Strike. You have to identify either a specific target other than yourself or a specific Superpower who will be attacking
any target. If this occurs, the Effort tasked for that contingency will behave according to the Contingency rules and be fully effective. There's benefits to calling a shot.
Every Superpower may have up to 20 points of effort as part of their retaliation strategy. The specifics depend on the Superpower, but it must be an offensive response which cannot be prevented even if the Superpower were taken out instantaneously. Mass suicide psychic programming, unstable singularities only held together by active intervention, fail-deadly viral packages.
Other Superpowers can act to disable these contingencies, and a Superpower can choose to actively protect them as part of their agenda, replenish them or not have them at all. Second Strikes may be secret, though if they are being replenished a secondary action to keep them secret is needed.
Second Strikes are distinct from Contingencies as Special Actions, though if you really want to play on the brink you may do both.
Yes.
To be more specific, as Superpowers, you are
assumed to have (though you can specifically ask to not, if you like)
- The ability to directly attack other Superpowers with lethal force.
- A somewhat lesser ability to survive the aggression of another Superpower.
- The ability to rapidly reach across the globe, in some fashion.
- The ability to cause a truly horrendous number of casualties.
- The ability to detect other Superpowers.
- A somewhat lesser ability to deceive or disguise from other Superpowers.
- Some ability to create, sustain or use some sort of infrastructure.
- No particular reliance on infrastructure, in the medium-to-long term. If you're a technological Superpower, you can and will build from a box of scraps.
- A broad immunity to anything that isn't the aggression of another Superpower, or extremely expensive strategic weapons.
You
cannot have (and if I did let you have it, you could assume the next turn opens with 'everybody gang up on the would-be-hegemon')
- Anything which violates the principles above: you cannot be continually faster than another Superpower can react, cannot mind-control another Superpower except as a lethal psychic assault, cannot be immune to the targeted violence a Superpower can direct, cannot know every plot against you and so on.
- As a specific extension, psychic and other subtle powers can only be so subtle, particularly when attacking a target larger than a few squishy humans.
- Implied but worth stating explicitly: no time travel, precognition, anything that meaningfully interacts with 'alternate universes' etc. There is one, causally linear course of events.
- The ability to instantly remove a double-digit percent of the Earth's population. You can totally kill the world, but you can't kill more than a few cities before other people have a chance to realize what's going on and intervene.
Finally, Superpowers and Earth as a whole are
special. Not metaphysically, per se, but narratively and psychologically. There's a little bit of cosmic horror inherent to MAD. Therefore, the following principles.
- God Is Subjective. You can have powers derived from higher (or lower) beings, dimensions or divinities, but only that Superpower can witness/communicate/interpret the desires, perspective and so on of whatever they claim as a power source. Skeptics have to be free to believe that it's all in their head, that they're just tapped into some raw torrent of energy.
- The aliens are far away. You can be Superman, but Krypton has to be dead and its cultures gone, and you have to be the sole survivor. Thematically, there is no interstellar community of peoples, no multiplanetary empires, no Heaven or Hell, such that the destruction of Earth is merely a tragedy and not, perhaps, the dying of the only light in the universe.
- Superpowers cannot be shared. Whether you're a sorcerer or a scientist or some horrifying lab accident, you can't release your patents and have a whole bunch of Superpower level tools in the hands of nations. The rules function the same for you as they do for people with inexplicable psychic powers. Every Superpower is a one-of-a-kind.
Beyond limitations and requirements key to the game concepts, specifics are less important than aesthetics. A strong aesthetic will limit you in some ways - to take an example from
The Power Fantasy, Etienne Lux, a world-spanning telepath, is not capable of blowing up a major city in the physical sense or, really, doing much to purely physical objects.
However, as an extremely powerful telepath, he certainly
could set up Manchurian Candidate style programming in nearly anybody he'd like to, which is something not just any Superpower could do, and might have an advantage in gathering information.
Absent a strong aesthetic, the default is assumed to be one of those knock-off Supermen who have more laser beams or telekinesis and such, to such a degree that it meets the requirements above. A stronger aesthetic which limits you in some ways might empower you in others - and, frankly, it's cool.
Note: please do not try and Vs Debate out the logical consequences of some power in a way that would violate the design principles of powers in this game.
Name: Ray 'Heavy' Harris
Origin Story:
(All Superpowers in the game have gotten past the initial introduction stage - hence why their agendas and beliefs are public.)
Rose to prominence during protests in 2002 after the destruction of the Empire State Building, throwing cops out of the way. Ripped a chunk out of the Atlantic coast to create a floating sanctuary for people with powers in the aftermath of expanded security powers in the USA, and has held Haven in the air ever since.
Agenda:
13 - Protect Haven (Sanctuary/Cult Location)
12 - Survive
8 - Protect Those With Weaker Powers
5 - Advance Progressive Policies
3 - Be Cool
Personality:
(A good way to help guide interpretation of the Agenda.)
An aging hippy who sees himself as the sole protector for the various minor talents in the world, and perpetually mad at Ronald Reagan and all his ideological consequences, Heavy is also prone to showboating and reckless action. A bit of a savior complex.
Superpower: Gravity Manipulation
(Explain how the power achieves what a Superpower has to be able to do.)
Heavy can 'heal' himself by holding his body together, and defend via gravitational deflection. He can fly at extreme speed, move mountains and crush targets into degenerate neutron soup. He can create strange forms of matter, up to and including singularities, which interferes with other powers.
Second Strike (10/20)
A handful of asteroids are suspended over Earth - not orbiting - and ready to fall if Heavy does.
Note: You can lie about your superpower and second strike - but not to the GM. Please send a PM if you want to play shell games and declare what you like publicly. You can have up to twenty Effort in your Second Strike, or you can not have one at all. Your choice.
Appearance:
The weight of middle age and drinking habits hangs over strong muscles. Long hair hides slight balding. His nose has character and his eyes are kind. Rarely wears a shirt by choice. A lot of scars. Extreme use of his power warps light, but otherwise acts invisibly.
> Agenda:
13 - Protect Haven (Sanctuary/Cult Of Minor Powers)
12 - Survive
8 - Hide your newborn son and his powers from others.
6 - Protect Those With Weaker Powers
4 - Advance Progressive Policies
3 - Be Cool
Changes To Agenda:
New Agenda Item - Hide your newborn son
> Actions:
Priority 6, Effort 10
Bring the floating sanctuary city of Haven over Manhatten to intimidate anti-Superpower elements in society and government and defeat the power registration bill and embolden sympathetic politicians. (Advances Agenda: Be Cool, Protect Those With Weaker Powers, Advance Progressive Politics)
Priority 2, Effort 2
Make a lightshow that'll impress on the way in. (Advances Agenda: Be Cool)
Priority 10, Effort 3
Keep Haven and its gravitational singularity active (Advances Agenda: Protect Haven, Hide Your Newborn Son)
> Contingencies (1 out of 3):
Priority 7, Effort 5
If: The US Government Attacks Haven With Strategic Weapons/A Superpower
Throw Florida Into Orbit.
> Second Strike (10 Effort out of 20)
A handful of asteroids are suspended over Earth - not orbiting - and ready to fall if Heavy does.
> Suggestions For Future Flashpoints (0 out of 3):
When submitting orders, please feel free to include ideas (preferably based on twisting real history) for events to occur in the next turn to draw Superpowered interest. If one gets added to the turn to come, you get some extra Effort! 
