"Realistic" Super Hero Setting

>>53016505

First things first, the people gifted with abnormal powers are refered to as "supers" or "mutants". One person out of One thousand is a super. There is a wide variety of powers, some are
useless and some others are powerful. You can have supers born with the ability to set their nails on fire alongside other supers able to control elements.


In this setting, most people gifted with powers will not take the vigilante route for many reasons (Although the players could take this route). Most of the time it's because they fear of being discriminated for who they are
and thus chose to hide their powers, but some actually decide to use their powers and most of the times they use it for their own purpose wether by becoming stars on social medias
or crimelords.

In general being a hero is far too risky, doesn't pay much and people are likely to hate you anyway because you are different plus you'll surely have the govnerment hunting you
in order to turn you into a weapon or to dissect you in their top secret lab (And also because they usualy don't like it when somebody else brings the justice).

That is why most supers take the easy route : either hide or fight for you own sake by becoming a crimelord/mercenary.

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>>53016510

As you can see on the map, I have rated the different Countries around the World with a Stability Index directly linked to supers' activities.

Heavy Green Countries : These countries have managed to control their supers population. Every kids are analized to spot the abnormalities as soon as possible. Supers
with interesting powers are handled by the government in special institutions where they recieve a top notch education but are also be endoctrined. These supers will then
be used by the govnerments as weapons in the war or for other means. In opposition to most countries in the world, supers are viewed as heroes of the nation and discrimination towards them
is percieved negatively by most people (athough there are still human supremacists groups in these countries). However, the governments control their supers populations very
heavily, so much so that children between supers and humans are strictly forbidden. The governments will track every individual in order to spot intersting powers, if they
can't have some supers on their side they will simply dispose of them and study their body for science.

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So you're running Darker than Black?
We discussed it earlier. >>>52994920

>>53016533

It is in these heavy green countries that we are likely to meet the "vigilante" type of super hero, but such heroes are usually only tools for the government's propaganda.

Light Green Countries : These countries are fairly stable, but that's only because their population is too low to have a ratio of supers capable of creating problems.

Yellow and Orange Countries : The balance is weak. Supers are not as ostracized as in other countries but they are still questions raised regarding how dangerous they may be. Supers have theorically the same rights as humans but most people are still uneasy near them, simply because they are different.Light Red Countries : Supers are oppressed, most of them chose to hide their nature in fear of being ostracized and supers getting beaten up in broad daylight is a common sight.

Heavy Red Countries : High Criminalty rate and daily civil unrests. These countries are on the verge of Civil War. Some red countries have been taken over by Supers or Human supremacists
who seek to purge their countries from the presence of Supers.

Black Countries : These are the countries where every trace of civilization has been erased. They are either giant wastelands or giant battlefield. Every bit of govnerment has fallen
and people are strugling for their lives in an apocalyptic world (if they are even still people).

>>53016536

I only know this by name, I never watched it

I dunno, watch them netflix adaptations and maybe heroes because that's pretty much what you want. Oh, there also pretty good anime called Tiger and Bunny which is all about western type superheroes and hero sponsoring but without all the tropes that come with capes and anime

I don't think the ostracism would be that much of a problem. A bit of media exposure and people would mostly go "oh dang, so that's a thing now?". I mean, we're so exposed to this kind of shit in fiction, unless there' a huge actual danger and numbers about supers doing bad shit, there should not be that much of a problem. Extreme minorities do happen, however.

If anything, I imagine the world would create three actual problems. Government programs, super terrorist groups, questioning of religion

>>53016560
Contractors are people with some superpower. They vary a lot. Some are super useful, others useless. Contractors are also required to do a specific behavior, called an obeisance, to use their power. This is usually some weird OCD tier behavior.

Anyway, most of these contractors are underworld assassins or criminals of some sort. Most developed countries also have some sort of special ops force made up on contractors.

When did powers start showing up, and how is it at all possible to handle as you indicate in the heavy green countries when it's as common as one in a thousand?

>>53016505
So despite superheroes being relatively common (1 in 1000 is a pretty sizable chunk of the population) people are still trying to dissect them and crap?

I can understand governments wanting to keep their populations under control, though in most places I feel that would be better done by simply giving cushy government jobs to any supers who have impactful powers. Some of those might be pushed into joining the military or becoming agents. Others the government might be content to just have living in a condo on their dime in exchange for not trying to rescue kittens from trees or rob banks with their nuclear firebreath.

I'm not sure what your justification for Europe being so in the red is. South america and africa I can understand, but I would expect Europe to at least fall more towards the middle.

As for public perception, you say a lot about people fearing these, but why? Is this a world without comic books or mythology? Once it becomes clear that these people aren't made of Satan or whatever, I think you'll find more understanding than you expect. I mean, with 1 in 1000 people, that makes it very likely that you'd be able to easily find and talk to one of those people.

Granted, that might depend more on what powers you get. Someone with something lame and harmless might get picked on, but they could also probably hide it easily or just go a long time without discovering it. Someone with something strong might get more fear and possibly try to abuse it, but any kid who uses his magnetism powers to steal other kid's lunch money is just gonna get bent over backwards by any local agents who are experienced with this sort of stuff. It'll be easy to explain to him how that using those powers for industrial purposes could make him more money than stealing ever could.

It's only places that are already wartorn that I see staying that way, just with more powerful people in charge and more superstition going on

>>53017048

>When did powers start showing up

the first signs of powers in the modern age were sighted 50 years ago, but it is believed that the world has already experienced periods of high mutants activity in the Dark Ages and Ancient History (Those ancient mutants later spawned legends such as Hercule ).

Mutants seem to appear and disappear abruptly throughout history and scientists are puzzled about what the real cause could be.

>how is it at all possible to handle as you indicate in the heavy green countries when it's as common as one in a thousand?

Extreme control of the mutant population. Governments do their best to spot mutants and take them on their side. If they can't the mutants are just eliminated.

Also it's difficult for mutants to have children, they have to get an authorization from the government.

>>53017255

>So despite superheroes being relatively common (1 in 1000 is a pretty sizable chunk of the population) people are still trying to dissect them and crap?

well yes

>As for public perception, you say a lot about people fearing these, but why? Is this a world without comic books or mythology? Once it becomes clear that these people aren't made of Satan or whatever, I think you'll find more understanding than you expect. I mean, with 1 in 1000 people, that makes it very likely that you'd be able to easily find and talk to one of those people.

Lorewise, DC and Marvel comics (and super hero comics in general) never existed (why ? because I said so). If people fear mutants it's because of the many prejudices spread about mutants. Your average mutant hater will think that almost every mutants have dangerous powers and are a threat to mankind (although powers that dangerous are uncommon within mutants).

>I'm not sure what your justification for Europe being so in the red is. South america and africa I can understand, but I would expect Europe to at least fall more towards the middle.

Lorewise, it's because Europe didn't try to control its supers population. Pretty much like in the real world, Europe has failed adapting itself to changes.

>>53017309
This is a modern setting, right?

Then essentially America, Russia and China evolved into extreme police states over the cold war, and barring a few exceptions everywhere else is under high social unrest?

>>53016505
I would think that even if 1 out of 1000 had powers, most of them are mundane, most people would just use them to make day to day life a bit easier
>>53016533
Wouldn't country that have control of the super population encourage them to breed? Supers are the new nukes, you always want to have more than anyone

>>53016533
And to make it interesting I would put spots of extreme black in the green zones and extreme green in the red or black

Like say in America Florida has completely fallen to chaos
And in the Middle East the Israel enclave still stands

And have some part of the world a complete mystery, like North Korea, it is completely unknown what there situation is, something blocks all attempts at spying on them, looking at them, and even thinking about them for too long.

>>53017400
You need to do more than just erasing comics. A whole fucking lot of fiction involves a hero being ostracized for being different, superpowers or not and showing kids that differrent does not mean bad.

Even more so If that's a thing noted in history even If brief. It means that the field studying the existence od supers already exists and people are somewhat aware of It.

You'd have to create a rather grim history of supers killing thousands of people in the past and assume that a lot of fiction and cartoons are about ordinary heroes killing evil outsiders.
Then again, It creates a world of psychopats, where bullying and categorizing people is encouraged and seen as something positive

>>53016505
>Hey /tg/ I'm working on creating a "realistic" setting where super heroes are involved

Pretty certain that nothing other than amorphous immortal space horrors would "evolve" in an universe that doesn't even sport stable laws of physics.

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>>53016505
I use Worm as the measuring stick for 'realistic' superhero settings.

Have you ever given that a look, OP?

>>53017479

>This is a modern setting, right?

yes

>Then essentially America, Russia and China evolved into extreme police states over the cold war, and barring a few exceptions everywhere else is under high social unrest?

yes

>I would think that even if 1 out of 1000 had powers, most of them are mundane, most people would just use them to make day to day life a bit easier

Yes, still, most supers don't show off their powers in public (not even in their private circle)

>And to make it interesting I would put spots of extreme black in the green zones

I'm already planing on this, I don't know where to put them though. I only though of Detroit in the USA. I'm still wondering about making whole states go black inside green territories.

>and extreme green in the red or black

I have no fucking idea how I could make that work

>And have some part of the world a complete mystery, like North Korea, it is completely unknown what there situation is, something blocks all attempts at spying on them, looking at them, and even thinking about them for too long.

Nether though about doing things like this, thanks for the tip

>Even more so If that's a thing noted in history even If brief. It means that the field studying the existence od supers already exists and people are somewhat aware of It.

Further information is not available here (mostly because I haven't written it). I guess pre-modern knowledge about supers would mostly be myths and occult stuff.

>>53017662

What is worm ? I never heard of it

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>>53017690
Web serial (novel) that deals with a teenage girl who gains the power to control insects and decides to become a hero, in a world where powers have been showing up since the 80s.

Defeats one of the most powerful villians in the city, but ends up mistaken as a villain herself, and shit gets real complicated as she's essentially sent undercover to infiltrate a small time villain gang to avoid the consequences for her actions (like having a huge crosshairs on her head for defeating a really feared gang boss).

And the story expands as more of the setting is revealed, with the whole heroes vs villains schtick really being essentially a game (think extreme LARPing) that's allowed by society because it keeps a force of practiced superhumans out and about, which is necessary when the *real* monsters show up: the wrong kind of power on the wrong kind of person that results in millions of deaths and parts of the world becoming uninhabitable.

For example, Japan doesn't exist anymore in the world of Worm. After hours of fighting him, and probably the closest a defending force has come to defeat him, the continental plate finally gave in under the weight of Leviathan's macro-hydrokinesis.

>>53017690
the main draw of worm is the world building and very creative powers, if thats your bag i'd second it.

>>53017865
>very creative powers

The outright unfair powers are the best. The Number Man is my husbando.

>>53016505
I'd take a look at Myke Cole's books. They're about "magic" not "supers" and I wouldn't be surprised if Cole played a bunch of Shadowrun as a kid, but the way things work makes it close enough to rip stuff off for a realistic superhero setting. Also Wild Cards.

>>53016505
well, as a capeshit addict who's run a cape game for a few years to mostly positive reactions, I'd say the biggest hurdle for super games is that theres no real way for society to remain as it is.

I dont just mean "oh we'll have to accept supers now", no I mean no matter what happens, unless the powers are near useless, supers are probably going to fundamentally shake things up.

Disclaimer: I might be biased because a lot of my experience comes from a relatively high power setting.

So, instead of trying to play sociologist (which I knew I'd fuck up), I took it to an extreme.

Everyone got powers. In a sense anyway. The basic premise is that "awakening" events would occur seemingly at random, and the result would be akin to the zone from stalker. Mutants, physical anomalies, powerful artifacts, and sometimes some people who just win the super power lottery.

So in other words, post apocalyptic, post scarcity microcosms isolated, or quarantined, from the rest of the world.

This makes your job so much easier.

So, getting to the actual question, the biggest thing you're going to need to do is actually think through peoples powers. All possible uses, the possible effects they'd have on a small community, how they 'work' vaguely. Be incredibly firm on what a power can or cannot do, an what it's limits are. Worm does a good job of that generally, but I'll provide examples.

Ok so we got this guy named alpha, he turns into a giant wolf thats basically a werewolf, and in that form he can summon smaller 'minion' wolves. only about 10 at a time every 12 seconds or so. The wolves function like normal wolves who treat him as their alpha, with the exception that they are surprisingly fragile. the big wolf form is slightly variable in stats, decided upon on the shift. E.g. he could make it faster at the cost of strength, or turn up the wolf senses but be frail in return. If he dies in the wolf form (1/2)

>>53019756
(2/2) then all minion wolves will immediately cease functioning. He on the other hand, will simply respwn in human form where he originally shifted, and lose the ability to use his power at all for about a week.

Now thats a dense power, lot of things to consider right? From a game play perspective, sure, from a world building perspective, he really only does about 4 things

1. infinite food- the wolf summoning ability is basically free meat, and quite a bit of it too. If food is at all a concern, this means people will flock to him.

2.presence- a common mistake would be to think alpha would be amazing at holding territory or a siege scenario. after all he basically gets infinite mooks and do overs in the fights right? while thats sort of right, look at the limit of the minion power. the wolves are just wolves. they wont follow orders, and if he lets them do their own thing, they might just become a feral pack that he cant really control anymore. Also, the second anyone learns about the respawn, they can just keep a land mine where he shifted. he might be decent muscle, but hes not going to be a setting distorting threat probably.

3. doggo's delivery- while minor, one thing you want to ask constantly is how parts of your setting function. What do they eat? how are they supplied? logistics stuff is always good. Looking at alpha, he might make a decent courier/messenger. Now we've hit a question about the power we haven't answered, namely how much can he carry and how fast can he move that amount? I kinda didnt define that because it depends on the system to an extent, but lets assume about a ton, at 60 mph. In effect, he'd be a one man mini caravan with infinite back up. So his presence would basically allow you to connect two closer settlements, and have an in universe reliable supply chain. very useful from a world building perspective.

4. the man behind the dog- always give a talent a personality. things they believe, things they want, things(2/3)

>>53019966
they wouldnt know. flaws in character are important because a) they give you alternate ways to beat a strong power, and b) they affect how the power is used.

So lets say alpha is dumb as fuck, but loyal, and loves to fight shit.this basically means that he can't be trusted as a courier unless he has an escort, and he probably wouldn't spend enough time in town to pull the wolf farm trick.

This means that, depending on what company you give him, you have an asset in your world that can answer multiple questions. even if the question is just "Why the fuck do wolves keep attacking us?"

I could talk about societies and communal structures if it helps. I do worry all this stuff is retardedly obvious though.

I just realized i misread the post, fuck, ill delete my shit

>>53016505
I think "realistic" reasons for superheroes end up being kind of boring, Worm as an exception for me. I like having it be full gonzo but having realistic consequences for superheroes.

>>53016505
1 in a thousand is fine for a comic book world, but 7 million paranormals wreaks havoc on any kind of realism. Even assuming only 1% of them are paragons and the rest are useless, that makes 70,000 superduper people. This entails a massive rewrite of reality. Cut the number drastically otherwise figure out the colonies on Mars, the abandonment of conventional warfare, etc. "They still build tanks and aircraft carriers in that country? How quaint."
I would make the number very small, a few hundred at most. When one dies the spark goes to someone conceived at the moment of their death.

>>53016551
>>53016533
It seems to me that you looked at south america and said
>Yup, a whole continent of favelas.
You'd have some BIG variations there.

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Billions of years ago, an alien race created artificial laws of physics on top of the natural ones as a stepping stone to leave this universe for a new one.

Some humans have learned to tap into those artificial physics, allowing them to use what appears to be super powers.

It allows for all the typical capeshit tropes, but if someone pushes their usage or understanding of the source too far, they get horribly fucked up because it's basically like a bacteria trying to understand string theory.

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>>53016533
>North America has managed to remain stable
>despite being populated by two political groups that hate each other more and more every year and are basically just waiting for an opportunity and an excuse to wipe the other out

The US would have devolved into anarchy almost immediately. At the very least, it'd be split down the middle, and would probably fracture further as each subgroup within its two major political factions start to realize they have very little in common beside their hatred of everyone on the other side.