Edgewise
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I've been toying with the idea of a corporate supers campaign setting for a while. I've mentioned it before, but I've been inspired by recent anime (One-Punch Man and My Hero Academia) as well as some American takes on the idea (mainly The Boys, but I hear The Tick has elements of that). What I like is that it combines the standard superhero tropes with shades of grey while avoiding the edgy or grimdark route. Moral ambiguity derives from negotiating the compromises and temptations that come with existing withing a corporate framework. Experiences with popularity, celebrity and wealth are a nice hook into modern preoccupations with social media and reality TV.
I'll break this up into sections to make it a little more readable.
Origin of superpowers
Anyway, my current approach is a slightly more "realistic" take on superpowers in a slightly more realistic society. The first set of superpowers were caused by a virus invented by a frustrated scientist looking to bootstrap posthumanism by massively enhancing human cognition. The pseudo-sci-fi explanation for how she did this was to use information leakage between parallel timelines to achieve infinitely scalable parallel processing. In other words, intelligence is enhanced by having mental problems solved simultaneously on an unlimited number of parallel timelines, and aggregating the data in the current timeline.
This was only intended for the scientist in question but of course it got away from her and other people manifested these powers. First-generation post-humans manifested these abilities in different ways resembling certain psychic powers: precognition, mind reading, slowing down perceptions, enhancing somatic control, etc. The scientist herself obtained the ability to intuitively understand natural laws, enabling her to produce artifacts of super-science technology. Once these powers (especially super-science) and her high-tech gear started to trickle out, other forms of "superpowers" were developed for different purposes. These include things like genetic enhancement, energy control and interfacing with nanocellular bionic implants.
History of superpowers
Many of these were through government programs, but since viral vectors were a common way of introducing powers to people, some of them got out and some of them were reverse engineered. Super powers are not common, but they have spread beyond the control of the elite.
For a while, most superpowered beings worked for different governments, and this eventually leads to a kind of superpowered world war. The consequences of this conflict are so grim and terrifying that a new kind of Geneva Conventions are drafted. The main principle to emerge is that supers cannot be employed by sovereign governments in any capacity. Sort of like how there is a firewall in the US between civilian and military leadership, this creates a similar barrier between superpowers and government work.
This is where the corporations come in. Superpowers must be registered, and can only be legally used in a limited number of professions. One of the most popular legal uses of superpowers is policing illegal superpowers, and generally speaking, supercorps are privately contracted by municipal governments for this purpose. The corporations make significant profit from downstream marketing of their more popular employees - e.g. merchandising, TV/movie tie-ins, etc.
Campaigning
The default assumption is that PCs are superheroes (i.e. "post-human deputized civilian paramilitaries"), but other possibilities exist such as unlicensed or independent (e.g. "Heroes For Hire") superheroes, superpowered revolutionaries or even secret government superpowered black ops. I'm thinking that the power levels would be high enough that you would really want superheroes to hunt supercriminals, but not so powerful that they can completely ignore mundane military force. They would work in partnership with local police departments under a tight net of regulations, and their wealth and status would depend on their popularity. Managing popularity could have a wide number of benefits that I'd want to code into the game mechanics - things like more resource, more leeway during arrests, more cooperation from authorities and generally more influence.
Of course, there would be plenty of room for corporate intrigue, and all sorts of dark corners in public and private life for the heroes to confront. There's lots of justification for the "hero hunter" trope that you encounter in corporate super anime; disillusioned individuals who violently reject the supercorps and their influence on society. Maybe the PCs find themselves hunted by a group of ruthless and dedicated non-superheroes, like the titular conspiracy of The Boys. Maybe they are "The Boys."
The big picture
Right now, I'm wondering what else I might want to consider for the setting, what kind of rules I'd want to use (although I'm tempted to adapt my "famous" Lark Fantasy rules to Lark Supers), etc. What other things might superpowered people do other than superheroism? I like to imagine that the real world would find many non-combat uses for such abilities, although they would have to be carefully regulated. For instance, I'm sure that a precog would be forbidden from working as a hedge fund manager. But a telepath might be an excellent therapist. Or expert witness. I want to push back a little at the way that things like magic and superpowers are always applied primarily to combat. It makes the world feel a little more lived-in and credible.
So any opinions? Criticisms? Suggestions?
I'll break this up into sections to make it a little more readable.
Origin of superpowers
Anyway, my current approach is a slightly more "realistic" take on superpowers in a slightly more realistic society. The first set of superpowers were caused by a virus invented by a frustrated scientist looking to bootstrap posthumanism by massively enhancing human cognition. The pseudo-sci-fi explanation for how she did this was to use information leakage between parallel timelines to achieve infinitely scalable parallel processing. In other words, intelligence is enhanced by having mental problems solved simultaneously on an unlimited number of parallel timelines, and aggregating the data in the current timeline.
This was only intended for the scientist in question but of course it got away from her and other people manifested these powers. First-generation post-humans manifested these abilities in different ways resembling certain psychic powers: precognition, mind reading, slowing down perceptions, enhancing somatic control, etc. The scientist herself obtained the ability to intuitively understand natural laws, enabling her to produce artifacts of super-science technology. Once these powers (especially super-science) and her high-tech gear started to trickle out, other forms of "superpowers" were developed for different purposes. These include things like genetic enhancement, energy control and interfacing with nanocellular bionic implants.
History of superpowers
Many of these were through government programs, but since viral vectors were a common way of introducing powers to people, some of them got out and some of them were reverse engineered. Super powers are not common, but they have spread beyond the control of the elite.
For a while, most superpowered beings worked for different governments, and this eventually leads to a kind of superpowered world war. The consequences of this conflict are so grim and terrifying that a new kind of Geneva Conventions are drafted. The main principle to emerge is that supers cannot be employed by sovereign governments in any capacity. Sort of like how there is a firewall in the US between civilian and military leadership, this creates a similar barrier between superpowers and government work.
This is where the corporations come in. Superpowers must be registered, and can only be legally used in a limited number of professions. One of the most popular legal uses of superpowers is policing illegal superpowers, and generally speaking, supercorps are privately contracted by municipal governments for this purpose. The corporations make significant profit from downstream marketing of their more popular employees - e.g. merchandising, TV/movie tie-ins, etc.
Campaigning
The default assumption is that PCs are superheroes (i.e. "post-human deputized civilian paramilitaries"), but other possibilities exist such as unlicensed or independent (e.g. "Heroes For Hire") superheroes, superpowered revolutionaries or even secret government superpowered black ops. I'm thinking that the power levels would be high enough that you would really want superheroes to hunt supercriminals, but not so powerful that they can completely ignore mundane military force. They would work in partnership with local police departments under a tight net of regulations, and their wealth and status would depend on their popularity. Managing popularity could have a wide number of benefits that I'd want to code into the game mechanics - things like more resource, more leeway during arrests, more cooperation from authorities and generally more influence.
Of course, there would be plenty of room for corporate intrigue, and all sorts of dark corners in public and private life for the heroes to confront. There's lots of justification for the "hero hunter" trope that you encounter in corporate super anime; disillusioned individuals who violently reject the supercorps and their influence on society. Maybe the PCs find themselves hunted by a group of ruthless and dedicated non-superheroes, like the titular conspiracy of The Boys. Maybe they are "The Boys."
The big picture
Right now, I'm wondering what else I might want to consider for the setting, what kind of rules I'd want to use (although I'm tempted to adapt my "famous" Lark Fantasy rules to Lark Supers), etc. What other things might superpowered people do other than superheroism? I like to imagine that the real world would find many non-combat uses for such abilities, although they would have to be carefully regulated. For instance, I'm sure that a precog would be forbidden from working as a hedge fund manager. But a telepath might be an excellent therapist. Or expert witness. I want to push back a little at the way that things like magic and superpowers are always applied primarily to combat. It makes the world feel a little more lived-in and credible.
So any opinions? Criticisms? Suggestions?