by Spleen » Tue Apr 07, 2009 2:13 pm
There are some things that are difficult to discover. One of those is how to make fire, but that's a baseline and universes where that was the big breakthrough don't tend to be the interesting ones. Relativity's a nice one, too, but you might be surprised how tenacious Einstein's archetype is, so it crops up. Wormhole travel before the 23rd century requires a certain type of scientific atmosphere to have cropped up, and by "certain type of scientific atmosphere", I tend to mean "world-girding psychic hive-mind". The multiverse can be an odd place, you know?
I guess the thing that's most difficult to discover is conclusive proof of the existence of a higher power, if there is such a thing. That's a heavy subject, even if you go somewhere out on the rim of probability where everyone in the world decided to become peacefully Buddhist (universes like this exist!). Everything's got a rational explanation of some kind, even if it's nebulous and makes William of Ockham (the razor guy, in a few universes where he existed) roll in his grave, so as far as we know no one in any universe has proof of something that can't be explained without a god or something. No one's got the perfect answer, because if someone did, even the Precinct would feel okay in spreading it around the multiverse.
So when we got word that mapped Earths - universes the Precinct has ties to, has data on, can contact - were suddenly touting conclusive proof and then going dark, the higher-ups in Precinct decided to get a team together. Maybe the knowledge these universes found kills rational minds and makes world civilizations into giant Kool-Aid cults. Maybe God said something funny to the people with their fingers on the "NUKE" buttons. Or maybe there's something even more sinister going on here.
No one ever said this job was easy, right?
_____________
This game will be using the Mutants & Masterminds system, which is a d20 system for superheroes. I can send people documents of interest, just hit me up on AIM (DeusFio). I'm thinking about making the power level of the RP something like 13 or 14 or 15, I haven't decided yet. I'm still learning the system, a little bit, though it sounds like a lot of fun so far.
Your character is limited to one true superpower (you can have none, at your option, of course). You can have as many Powers under the system as you want, as long as they're facets of your one superpower (i.e. things listed under Alternate Powers for that power and possibly other thematically appropriate things) or are things that you could get without being a superhuman (like the Additional Limbs power, the Strike power, the Device power, etc.). This is a tone and atmosphere thing, not a game balance thing. It's to make the powers at work here more like the powers from Heroes and less like the powers of Marvel characters (not that I have anything against Marvel, I just wanted a less power-focused game).
Powers that I'm going to make illegal from the main book (which is the only one I've read through): Cosmic Energy Control, Gestalt, Immunity (above rank 9), Life Control, Luck Control, Magic, Mimic, Mind Control, Mind Switch, Nemesis, Power Control, Space Travel, Summon, Super-Senses (Precognition only), Time Control, Transfer, Transform (6 point version).
Feats that I'm going to make illegal: Minions, Sidekick.
The setting is a new setting that I just came up with in a flash of brilliance: The Precinct, a multi-universal organization dedicated to bettering lives by exploring the outer reaches of the multiverse. The Precinct has the luxury of being able to recruit the best of the best of the best of the best - when they want to train an army, they find the greatest commander in a universe in which, thanks to some combination of quirks of chance, great commanders happen to be commonplace. If they need someone to build computers for them, they tap someone from a universe that's had artificial intelligences for longer than our universe has had indoor plumbing. If they need psychics or technopaths or water-breathing people or people who can crush rock in their bare hands, they go to universes in which Earth's got 'em. They have unknowably vast resources.
The Precinct is based on a barren iteration of planet Earth on which life never evolved, officially known as Planet One but called any number of names, from the Earth that Never Was to Bureaucrat World. The Precinct's headquarters more or less covers Pangaea on this world, and from it the organization sends its agents and researchers and explorers out into the infinite abyss of the multiverse.
I'll be looking for probably 4 or 5 players for this, maybe 6 if you're all really nice to me. Times are to be determined; I'm flexible, but my best nights are Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.
"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you. Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers. You have my permission to boast openly that you have beaten the daylights out of me."
-Hermes, the Iliad (Stanley Lombardo, translator) Book 21