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So I'm trying to write a dystopian future for a game where the corporations grown so powerful as to take over the government. There are vast gulfs between the rich and the poor, with the wealthy never aging and living a hedonistic decadent lifestyle and the poor are their slaves in all but name.

The idea of the game was some kids suddenly developing superpowers, and the guys in charge see this as a threat to their supremacy, and so try to control and/or exterminate them.

Any ideas on how to write and describe such a setting?

While super powers are attractive enough on their own to draw the attention of MIB style kidnappers and evil scientists, I'd note that nothing really gets pulses racing like the promise of immortality. If the villains have managed to merely retard aging rather than defeat it outright then there's that much more incentive for them to do whatever it takes to capture and experiment on any poor shmuck who happens to have a healing factor or the ability to transfer their consciousness. That way the villains have incentive for occasionally making certain supers straight up disappear instead of trying to cut all of them in on the deal.

Wiseman wrote:So I'm trying to write a dystopian future for a game where the corporations grown so powerful as to take over the government. There are vast gulfs between the rich and the poor, with the wealthy never aging and living a hedonistic decadent lifestyle and the poor are their slaves in all but name.

The idea of the game was some kids suddenly developing superpowers, and the guys in charge see this as a threat to their supremacy, and so try to control and/or exterminate them.

Any ideas on how to write and describe such a setting?

If the superpowers are all "understand and interact with the rapid pace of technological change better than adults" that's called "cyperpunk", or if you are half as cynical as I am, "reality".

For dystopian superhero games I liked the take on superheros in the game "Brave New World". Not the mechanics, (Matt Forbeck didn't put a lot of work into them and actually suggested using Champions mechanics) but the setting. It doesn't have megacorps, but it's as dsytopian as hell with persecuted supers, though Matt underestimated the NSA...

If any of the superpowers eat into the profit of a megacorp, that megacorp is going to take an intense interest in those powers. Like if one power is "spontaneously generate fruit," Not-santo would be very interested in that sort of thing.

Smaller groups are quicker to adapt to changes.
Rebels used the Internet to fight governements long before governments started using the Internet to control rebels. It's the same with pretty much all societal or technological change.

There's a problem with the way megacorps are handled in many cyberpunk universes. They're often described as ruthless and efficient, as in a capitalist wet-dream where letting private sector handle things mean they'll be handled in the most efficient way. Real-life has shown more than once that this just can't work this way.

When you have a handful of megacorps controlling the world you're not likely to have a world of ruthless competition. You're more likely to have an oligopoly, where the biggest corps agree on their share of the world so as to maximize everyone's profit. And when your megacorp controls more than any nation state ever did, the bureaucracy also becomes bigger than any nation state's ever was.

So what you'll actually get would be huge and slow megacorps that use their weight to make sure they're not threatened by anything. If someone has a "generate fruit" power, Not-Santo is more likely to attack him for violation of some patent or copyright than anything else. At least at the beginning.

So there are these people with powers. You have:
- Rebels adapting quickly, organizing and using these powers to serve their cause
- Small companies doing the same, in the hopes of overthrowing the megacorps
- Megacorps trying to crush all this, relying not only on their firepower but also on their mediatic abilities to start a witch hunt against the mutants
- Small groups in the megacorps higher spheres with top-secret projects for harnessing or replicating these powers.

Wiseman wrote:So I'm trying to write a dystopian future for a game where the corporations grown so powerful as to take over the government. There are vast gulfs between the rich and the poor, with the wealthy never aging and living a hedonistic decadent lifestyle and the poor are their slaves in all but name.

The idea of the game was some kids suddenly developing superpowers, and the guys in charge see this as a threat to their supremacy, and so try to control and/or exterminate them.

Any ideas on how to write and describe such a setting?

Isn't that the Cyberpunk 2020 spinoff CyberGen?

So I'm trying to write a dystopian future for a game where the corporations grown so powerful as to take over the government.

Is it subtle and just sort of understood or is it the White House Sponsored by Pepsi?

There are vast gulfs between the rich and the poor, with the wealthy never aging and living a hedonistic decadent lifestyle and the poor are their slaves in all but name.

Never aging but still dying is a thing worth exploring. This sets up youth as an idea. If the rich need to exploit the poor to stay young (paying off payday loans with organs, for example), that's both theme and something to fight--for and against.

The idea of the game was some kids suddenly developing superpowers, and the guys in charge see this as a threat to their supremacy, and so try to control and/or exterminate them.

We talkin' powers like, "I can defrost a tater tot with my mind," or a power like, "I can fling baked potatoes at my foes--they're very hot baked potatoes," or a power like, "I can turn the moon into a potato"?

Because that makes a difference.

Any ideas on how to write and describe such a setting?

Establish the technology level. Establish the degree of totalitarianism and surveillance. Give the players tangible goals and a handful organizations and figures with whom they can fight and ally. Describe a day in the life of the status you expect PCs to occupy. Prepare yourself for outliers ("I want to play a rich girl who's slumming!" and, "I want to play a rogue corporate cop with no powers!" and, "There are ninjas, right? There better be ninjas!") because players are sometimes jerks.

Hey_I_Can_Chan wrote:We talkin' powers like, "I can defrost a tater tot with my mind," or a power like, "I can fling baked potatoes at my foes--they're very hot baked potatoes," or a power like, "I can turn the moon into a potato"?

Because that makes a difference.

Speaking as someone who's involved in the game it's being played in M&M 2 and it's PL 12. To put that in perspective Super Man (depending on which version of superman) is generally statted out as a slightly over pointed PL 10 and people like Thor or the Hulk are statted out as PL 15. So the powers in question are between superman and the god of thunder.

Technology levels are futuristic, with hovercars, bubble shields, powered armor, cybernetics, and the like.

And yes, the government is white house sponsored by Pepsi.

darkmaster wrote:Speaking as someone who's involved in the game it's being played in M&M 2 and it's PL 12. To put that in perspective Super Man (depending on which version of superman) is generally statted out as a slightly over pointed PL 10 and people like Thor or the Hulk are statted out as PL 15. So the powers in question are between superman and the god of thunder.

How are Thor and the Hulk even close to on the same power level?

http://marvel.wikia.com/Thor_Odinson_%2 ... litiesEdit


EDIT: For that matter, what are organizations with anything resembling the power to not be WTFPWNT by Thor doing being purely terrestrial?

Frankly, if you want this to be a game you have to decide what the players are going to do. That is the most important part you have to describe. Anything you want players to be doing is not only something that can be done in the setting, but something that doesn't have any obvious workarounds that rational players would do instead,

So if you want the players to spend a lot of time finding their way on foot through ruined cities full of nanite zombies, they probably shouldn't have flying cars.

-Username17

The hulks actual power is that there is literally no limit to how strong he can become and heal almost any wound almost instantly.

Edit: Also, Thor is still 3 power levels higher than us... usually it depends on the writer ect, and while that doesn't sound like much that meas it takes at least four of us to equal one of him.

Edit Edit: That article includes all of Thor's powers across all continuities, so it really can't be used in this context.

I was intending for it to be a sorts overthrowing the corrupt corporate leaders as a goal of the campaign.

How the players go about doing that, via joining up with a rebellion or striking out on their own would be up to them.

Although one issue I have with M&M is that even a few ranks in movement powers essentially turns it into SPEED: Anywhere you fucking want.

would limiting movement powers work well?

Well, if you want to it might not be a bad idea. M&M generally has different assumptions about movement and measurements than, say D&D because it doesn't have tactical movement by default. But if the goal is to make the game more enclosed it would work.

But frank makes a good point. If you want people to do something, doing that thing needs to be a good idea. The great divide episode in Avatar the Last Airbender works in the show because the characters are being written by a writer. In an RPG you instead get Avatar Abrigded where Sokka's just like "well isn't that interesting let's fly over."

darkmaster wrote:Edit: Also, Thor is still 3 power levels higher than us... usually it depends on the writer ect, and while that doesn't sound like much that meas it takes at least four of us to equal one of him.

That puts you in the category of, "beings that will not be WTFPWNT by Thor"

darkmaster wrote:Edit Edit: That article includes all of Thor's powers across all continuities, so it really can't be used in this context.

I thought this was the list of all Thors, and the other article I linked was the "main" version of him.

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Regardless, you're supposed to be more powerful than Superman, and that tells me that the only things holding you back from booting basically any earthly dystopia into history are other supers and your own personal unwillingness to disregard democratic process and/or assassinate historical figures.

Any ideas on how to write and describe such a setting?

Other than the thing about kids with superpowers, your dystopian future is pretty much real life.

Don't forget you'll always have the kids who are either goody-two-shoes or honestly believe in the system or have morals of negotiable value.

In other words, you're going to have government/corp backed supers. Especially in a world where there's a solar system sized gap of distance in the distribution of wealth.

Not necessarily. Given the tech level it can be assumed the setting is a mish mash of the urban dark ages and Re: the Golden Age. The second of which is assumed to have a default power level of... really high. Like, you know how the Kree or Skrull could reasonably just glass the earth and be done with it but they don't because plot contrivance. That kind of high.

One of the Avenger's most dangerous villains is Kang the Conqueror who's thing is "guy in super powered armor but from the future." Fuck Doctor Doom's power armor is made from existing technology and he regularly kicks the shit out of the likes of Silver Surfer who is definitely at or above the PL 15 cosmic level thresh hold.

Plot devices where Batman won't kill the joker "because" just don't work in RPGs. No, the villains won't keep getting sent to prison where they can escape at a time that the GM feel is convenient. They will simply be turned into dog food by the PCs once they see how it works.

If you want the players to overthrow the corps they have to have a reason and ability to do so. The problem is that if your players have the ability to overthrow the most powerful organizations in the world they have the ability to do whatever the hell they want no matter what anyone says or tries to do to stop them.

If I understand super hero stories correctly, all power (like strength) and powers (like eye lasers that can cut through doors) are completely set based on the plot. And do in fact change from scene to scene.

So if you want a Super Hero RPG it would make sense to emulate something like that, right?

Doing that with some kind of WoF model can work. All actions succeed automatically, but you need to roll dice to see if your super strength is available / how high it is for this scene etc.

Plot devices where Batman won't kill the joker "because" just don't work in RPGs. No, the villains won't keep getting sent to prison where they can escape at a time that the GM feel is convenient. They will simply be turned into dog food by the PCs once they see how it works.

Bat-man's player's GM is using a ruleset that either rewards Bat-man ridiculously every time for not killing the Joker or would punish Bat-man so severely for killing the Joker that it's not even an option.

I mean, seriously, that is where Bat-man gets all his wonderful toys: "O, hey, thanks for not killing the Joker this session. Have a Bat-plane. And an night with Catwoman."

Ishy how do you go from "Superhero powers are active or not as determined by the plot" to "A superhero RPG should emulate this behavior" to "Superhero powers should be active or not as determined by a random die roll"?

The first jump is because you want your RPG to resemble the super hero genre, why would you make a super hero RPG otherwise?

The second is because you're playing a game and not writing a script, thus you need some kind of gameplay. And an inversion from plot => capability, to capability => plot seems like an actual possible way to do that.

- Edit: it doesn't have to be a dice roll though, you can also do something like: you gain 30 cards to spend in the next 5 'films'. And since you chose batman you get, 5 cards from the detective pile, 2 cards from the survive being hit by superman villains pile, etc.

Depends on what kind of game you want.

Or alternatively just make breaking into the enemy's compounds part of the game.