Quoth1 Earl, our illustrious GM:
We will be playing in the "Sovereign Powers" world. Modern day with "light reality" (normals are very easy to break). The excuse for powers is mutation or directed evolution a la Bear's Darwin's_Radio: Species-wide "genome computer" stores up mutations that might be useful later. When the species is under stress, children start being born with suites of adaptations that might work better than the current model. When one such suite is demonstrated to be successfull, all subsequent children have it.
(That is, humans are "breaking" the computer with environmental mutagens (radiation, chemistry, etc...) Note that this implies superpowers are a disad in evolutionary terms, or at least, not ready for prime time.)
The idea is to get "Gold/Silver" age heroics - heroes are very powerful, not particularly constrained by petty laws, wear costumes (Geneva conventions), and are occasionally forced to operate at "merely" human levels. Unlike previous campaigns, I suspect I will be using "mega" villians [single toughs, rather than whole teams] so power levels will go both up and down from the PCs.
Therefore: Heroes are human-baseline, with Vast Powers. 250+100 disads, 60 point powers, you can work out dex/spd yourselves, but 26/6 [no doubling] seems right. Ideally for the full effect you get the 1/2 limit on "powers" dropping you to the 100 point (tough) human level, but it isn't required... [loses powers in near vicinity of alien life forms, such as meteorites from mars? For the whole "superman" effect :-)]
Aliens are expected to be named and numbered, and possibly fit into plots. Trip has already requested special permission to play the reptoid advance scout/cousin to the british crown (not really). Trip has also helpfully pointed out a villian with whom to plague Jeremy.
Tech is only slightly "super" - bigger guns, fiercer jet fuels, looser carry laws. Heroes are to shine, not their foci. Enhancement foci are allowed [i.e. the ceramic tube to focus your fire powers or your special saxophone that can handle the jet-engine force of your breath]
GM is placing the campaign arbitrarily in Chicago. Carl helpfully suggests the Sears Tower as a base ("with extraterritoriality!") because of the whole Doc Savage riff.
Yes, in the 1950s, there were Giant Monsters resulting from nuclear testing, and so Enormous Ants, Fireflies, or Killer Shrews may pop up from time totime. "WTO protests hold megacorporations responsible for Electric Lobsters, film at 11."
Legal implications will be back-filled as required to support our Heroes in their quest to fight Evil.
1: Some paragraphs may have passed through the hands of others en route.
Team Justice is:
Session Writeups
This file was last modified at 1627 on 05Mar03 by trip@idiom.com.