Roleplaying in the Wormverse (We can do better than this)

[hyzmarca]

I just recently stumbled across a web serial called Worm. People at another site I frequent were gushing over it. It's a pretty compelling story, and is set in a world that has plenty of room for roleplaying shenanigans.

Original POD is in the 1980s, when a very sad flying naked golden man appears. People who touch him have their diseases cured and also break down crying due to the extreme grief that he's constantly broadcasting.

A short time later, trigger events start happening. People are are in extremely stressful situations develop superpowers. These people tend to be more than a little unhinged, both because of the circumstances necessary to trigger a power and the effects of the power on the mind, which compounds preexisting psychological issues. Indeed, the sources of these powers are specifically engineered to make cooperation difficult and promote conflict.

Not surprisingly, many of these people go "fuck the law, I have superpowers." Others decide to fight to uphold the law, but you generally have a 8:1 ratio of superpowered criminals to heroes and law enforcers, which isn't exactly good.

Then in the early 90s an invincible kaiju shows up and starts smashing cities on a reliable schedule. He can be driven back, but there's no way to kill him. And the only reason he can be driven back at all is that he's playing a game, holding back. And even then, when they have hundreds of people fighting him at once, usually half or more of them die. 50% allied fatalities is considered an excellent casualty rate.

He's followed by two more, one who is known for drowning entire islands and coastal cities. One who can predict the future and control minds to such a degree that she can set up traps years in advance. The policy for her is to kill anyone who fights her for more than 10 minutes and quarantine any city she attacks. If the city is too big to effectively quarantine, then it's usually carpet-nuked until no one in who was range of her song is left alive.

As a result, the world is pretty fucked. Major cities are abandoned to become Mad-Max style hell-holes while the governments of the world to keep a grip on the territories they can control. Democracy hasn't completely broken down, but it's teetering on the edge, and supervillains are beginning to set up feudal fiefdoms inside American borders.

On top of that, there's an huge conspiracy led by a random middle-class black woman and an uneducated child from a small fishing village who was accidentally given a power that can be summed up as "I win." A power which unfortunately does not work against the creatures that are trying to destroy the world but remains sufficient to let them collect ludicrous amounts of power while remaining totally incompetent.

And there's an end of the world threat looming, as well as a barely touched on post-apocalypse setting after the end.

All in all, it has enough hooks to be a really interesting RPG setting and I was surprised to learn that someone was writing actual rules for it.

Then I found the rules that were being written.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17WI ... edit?pli=1#

I mean, it starts with completely randomized character generation. Cumbersome completely randomized chargen at that. And there's not much else to it.

Certainly, we can do better. So I'm making this challenge to everyone.


Edit: Actual story found here.

http://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/

[Mask_De_H]

HERO/Champions/M&M 3e. Half way between street level and (the useful) Avengers in power level.

Thank you and goodnight.

How does something so terrible get so big? Is it the TVTropes thing? Saints Row with Superpowers? Am I just retarded or is it not just nerd cape wish-fulfillment wankery with ~*gritty*~ ~*worldbuilding*~?

[hyzmarca]

HERO/Champions/M&M 3e. Half way between street level and (the useful) Avengers in power level.

Thank you and goodnight.

How does something so terrible get so big? Is it the TVTropes thing? Saints Row with Superpowers? Am I just retarded or is it not just nerd cape wish-fulfillment wankery with ~*gritty*~ ~*worldbuilding*~?

No defiantly not a wish fulfillment fantasy. No one would want to be one of those guys. They're fucked in in non-superficial ways and tend to be brought down by their own flaws. The whole thing is a classic tragedy, really.

The protagonist is a very broken girl who has a host of mental issues that no one would want, which aren't downplayed. She makes some objectively terrible decisions because of these issues. And after she's built herself back up, found something to worth living for, she systematically tears herself back down and destroys herself in an attempt to save the world that's marred by a martyr complex and severe trust issues.

It's a tragedy, with very relatable and well-realized characters, set to the backdrop of a world that's spiraling towards, and later passes, the apocalypse.

[Mask_De_H]

You say one thing, the narrative says quite the opposite. Least in my opinion. A little bit of 90's grim and gritty doesn't make a story more substantive.

Taylor is always absolved by the narrative, is never truly wrong except when it would cause some cheap drama (hey Grue), never really suffers lasting consequences for her actions (wasting Alexandria), gets amazing breaks because she's the protagonist (getting backed up by the school who barely acknowledged her existence against Shadow Stalker or whoever, the handoff to Chicago) has a really fucking amazing power that keeps getting sold as lame, goes over people way the fuck out of her league and is always in the right for it (Lung, Armsmaster, Alexandria again) gets that power upgraded to ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL so she has near godlike powers as of Extinction. The actual story is a basic morality play but made ~*gritty*~ by making the good guys the bad guys and (Taylor's crew of) bad guys the good guys.

Also, Jack Slash is the worst villain in Internet fiction. This is including shitty fanfiction. All of the bullshit of Aizen, all of the immunity of Joker and his power is literally being edgy.

But back on topic, M&M 3e but slightly more deadly would probably work wonders for running a Wormverse game. Make it so your paras have pretty much one superpower or superpower suite and go to town.

[hyzmarca]

You say one thing, the narrative says quite the opposite. Least in my opinion. A little bit of 90's grim and gritty doesn't make a story more substantive.

Taylor is always absolved by the narrative, is never truly wrong except when it would cause some cheap drama (hey Grue), never really suffers lasting consequences for her actions (wasting Alexandria), gets amazing breaks because she's the protagonist (getting backed up by the school who barely acknowledged her existence against Shadow Stalker or whoever, the handoff to Chicago) has a really fucking amazing power that keeps getting sold as lame, goes over people way the fuck out of her league and is always in the right for it (Lung, Armsmaster, Alexandria again) gets that power upgraded to ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL so she has near godlike powers as of Extinction. The actual story is a basic morality play but made ~*gritty*~ by making the good guys the bad guys and (Taylor's crew of) bad guys the good guys.

Also, Jack Slash is the worst villain in Internet fiction. This is including shitty fanfiction. All of the bullshit of Aizen, all of the immunity of Joker and his power is literally being edgy.

But back on topic, M&M 3e but slightly more deadly would probably work wonders for running a Wormverse game. Make it so your paras have pretty much one superpower or superpower suite and go to town.

Well, except for the part where she loses her humanity, goes completely insane, admits that she should have done things differently in her final lucid moment, and then gets shot twice in the back of the head.

[Mask_De_H]

Oldest narrative trick in the book; the Hayes Code Gangster Flick "Repentance via death".

So, uh, you gonna talk about making this game or are we going to continue to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of Internet fiction? Because even among paras there's not a lot of balance in "low level" capes (Grue first, Regent, Assault/Battery, Jack Slash, assumed Skitter) and "high level" capes (Alexandrian, Dragon, Teacher, Bonesaw, the Siberian, Skitter in practice).

First off you have to find a way for the Undersiders to actually work as a group of players without Skitter and Tattletale doing everything that isn't face work (Regent) or stealth that also requires opposable thumbs (Grue).

On the evil side, you have to justify Jack Slash's continued existence without giving players/the MC the ability: "has an 18th level loli cleric and a walking Fuck You field as minions"

[NineInchNall]

Wait. I was giving this thing the benefit of the doubt, but ...

Grue isn't an allusion to an actually intractable problem in linguistics and epistemology?

[Grek]

I'm pretty sure Grue is actually a Zork joke, given that his super power is control over darkness.

[Rawbeard]

Do the Kaiju play any role in this other than being a terrible plot device to create the status quo? The description sounds really fucking stupid.

[hyzmarca]

Do the Kaiju play any role in this other than being a terrible plot device to create the status quo? The description sounds really fucking stupid.

They're mostly used as plot devices to make massive changes to the status quo. Two major arcs are dedicated to fighting them, and a couple of others to the cleanup and aftermath. Their personalities get slightly fleshed out near the end and we get a picture of why they did what they did, but they're mostly treated as mysterious forces of nature. But they have huge impact on the plot throughout it all.

And yeah, the description does sound kind of stupid. But that's probably just my inability to nutshell things well. The Endbringers don't get much screen time, and most of what they do get is in the middle of combat against the good guys.

Oldest narrative trick in the book; the Hayes Code Gangster Flick "Repentance via death".

So, uh, you gonna talk about making this game or are we going to continue to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of Internet fiction? Because even among paras there's not a lot of balance in "low level" capes (Grue first, Regent, Assault/Battery, Jack Slash, assumed Skitter) and "high level" capes (Alexandrian, Dragon, Teacher, Bonesaw, the Siberian, Skitter in practice).

First off you have to find a way for the Undersiders to actually work as a group of players without Skitter and Tattletale doing everything that isn't face work (Regent) or stealth that also requires opposable thumbs (Grue).

On the evil side, you have to justify Jack Slash's continued existence without giving players/the MC the ability: "has an 18th level loli cleric and a walking Fuck You field as minions"

Eh, I'm pretty sure that was just protracted suicide by villain. The fact that she is suicidal and self-destructive is a major driving factor for most of her actions, one that other characters bring up on multiple occasions. She started out trying to get herself killed while saving people. She ends up succeeding.

But regarding the game balance, it seems to me that synergies are pretty important. A lot of teams hit well above their weight class because their powers work well together even if they individually suck.

Grue and Skitter, for example, make a great team because his Darkness doesn't impede her Swarmsense (while he has to hold back when working with other teammates).

The 18th level chaotic evil loli cleric is a different issue, though. But Bonesaw isn't actually that much more powerful than any other tinker. The difference is a matter of being more creative and less moral than most, thus not restraining herself.

Most of the powers in the Wormverse are very abusable by someone with loose morals and some experience at min-maxing.

[Username17]

Personally, I can't think of any plot device that I would be less glad to see in a potential RPG than an unstoppable giant monster that you had to fight but which was really only testing you and saying "Just as Keikaku" a lot. That is exactly like the MC trolling you.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

Yeah, hyz, as designers we've got to make sure that people can play the same game and the way the Wormverse is set up, that ain't happening. We can't get away with the same narrative bullshit a writer can, so when people roll up as Taylor or Riley, we have to make sure the game doesn't fall down.. Synergy is nice, but it doesn't fix the problem where a lot of that synergy buffs one character at the expense of all others becoming irrelevant.

Disregarding that, there are at least four paras with "Just as Keikaku" as their primary ability (Scion, Contessa, Tattletale, Alexandria, maybe Dragon) and Jack Slash's power might as well be that too.

The Undersiders run the gamut from "complete control of invertebrates if she tries" to "has a tazer". The conceptual space needs to be hammered down immediately so there is a game to play.

[Sir Neil]

The Leviathan fight was awesome, but the other kaiju fights are lame. System wise you could get some mileage out of Fantastic, if you wanted to dust it off and finish it. The power level would be about right. Or you could do something that embraces the nature of Passengers and their need for conflict. After Sundown might be hackable for that.

I'm not thrilled with the metaphysics of the setting, though, so I decided to just steal the cooler supers to pad out my NPC files.

[Grek]

Worm has three areas that make for good RPG plots: The pre-takeover supervillian crime sprees, the post-takeover supervillian simcity sim, and the post SH9 "track down the evil bad guys before they destroy the world" arc.

The various Kajiu fights are interesting to read, but don't make for a good game. Each one is ultimately a single battle, and not one that you're allowed to win.

[Mask_De_H]

Which boils down to playing Saints Row with capes or standard cape plots from the 90s. Personally, I'm more interested than the first than the second, so having mechanics for rep and gaining turf being a tangible thing will be important.

Some basic tenets:
You have to have a crew. Running solo is a good way to get fucked up. Whether it's something like the Wards or the ABB, there's strength in numbers.

Police are useless. Muggle cops straight up don't handle parahuman crime without parahuman backup, and parahuman crews are either dangerous vigilantes or crooked cops on a super power trip.

Everybody gets one: this is more Misfits than Wormverse, but the general idea should be your trigger power is something simple, easily definable and singular. They should also probably be limited in some way.

[Rawbeard]

"track down the evil bad guys before they destroy the world"

Evil bad guys who want to destroy the world? Who wrote this, a retarded 5 year old? Why is this even a discussion at this point? All I hear about this just smells of horrible writing.

[Username17]

Saints Row with super powers sounds awesome. What does the Wormverse bring to the table that is better than just throwing that down and dropping the mic?

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

but the general idea should be your trigger power is something simple, easily definable and singular. They should also probably be limited in some way.

The idea of a singular superpower is really pretty horrible for an RPG setting.

On the game balance front, you get guys like Ben Grimm who has two superpower Really Strong, Really Durable, the drawback really ugly and then some non-combat skills like piloting and intimidation - but he has TWO powers. Contrast with Magneto, who has ONE power: Complete Control of Magnetism - which lets him fly, telekinetically lift people in battle armor (or just belt buckles), manipulate or destroy machinery at range, put up force fields, and occasionally do really crazy power-stunts like puppeteering people by magnetelekinetically controlling the iron content in their blood.

On the source material front, pretty much no comic book superhero has just one power. Superman has flight, superstrength, superspeed, nigh-invulnerability, heat vision, x-ray vision, spinning, super hearing, super breath, and access to alien technology. Batman has peak human reflexes, combat training, super-acrrobatics, super detective-ing, utility belt, custom vehicles, vast fortunes, secret lair, etc. Spiderman has clinging, web-swinging, superleaping, web-shooting(which is in itself like 6 powers), spider sense and build super-science counter-gizmo. Even supposedly one-trick pony characters like the X-Men's Cyclops doesn't just have "shoot energy blast from eyes" But instead has "shoot killing energy blast from eyes", "shoot stunning energy blast from eyes", "shoot area of effect energy blast from eyes:, "fix machinery via using eyebeams to weld parts", "tunnel through earth using beams", "do precision drilling or engraving with beams" "immunity to brother's similar energy blasts", "break fall of self or temamates via pulsing energy blasts from eyes" as his "singular" power before we get into the frequently retconned stuff about how they are powered by sunlight absorbtion or extra-dimensional energy or the non-powered abilities of the character.


There are basically three approaches to this sort of thing:

First is the Champions / HERO approach where you buy everything effects first and then receive massive "power framework" cost reductions if you can tie them together by a common special effect and claim they are all part of the same power. This is tricky and does result in a more-than fair share of DM vetoes for trying to tie things like Flight and Puppeting People Around into your Magnetism framework.

Second is the late 80s/ early 1990 DC Heroes RPG approach. In this you buy a power and it has one or a billion sub-powers listed under it. So if you buy "Has Claws" it's cheap, but all you do is have claws. But if you were to buy say "Beast Form" it would cost more but you would have claws and animal senses and an animal movement mode and possibly environmental effect resistance and maybe some other stuff all bundled into one power. The problem with this approach is that players find the high-value power bundles really fast, and suddenly everyone is taking Superspeed.

Third is the FASERIP Marvel Approach. You get some powers, they do X,Y and Z. But if you expend a character-specific resource and make some dice rolls, you can pull off a Power Stunt and decide that your power to do X lets you actually do Q in this scene. If the rolls are successful you then technobabble up some ad-hoc rationalization for why you could do this here. The game kind of assumes that you will only use Power Stunts for big dramatic scenes when nobody has a more appropriate option and also assumes that you won't use the same power stunt repeatedly. The problems here are that this is about half a step up from magic tea party with any power able to answer any problem furthermore players will run short on imagination and repeat stunts, making what are cool one-off ideas in the comics into repeated "not again" moments in an actual game.

It's worth noting that Mutants and Masterminds uses bits of the first and second approaches. You can buy powers individual and then link them together into one bigger umbrella power. Or you can buy powers which are prebuilt to include many subpowers.

[Josh_Kablack]

but the general idea should be your trigger power is something simple, easily definable and singular. They should also probably be limited in some way.

The idea of a singular superpower is really pretty horrible for an RPG setting.

On the game balance front, you get guys like Ben Grimm who has two superpower Really Strong, Really Durable, the drawback really ugly and then some non-combat skills like piloting and intimidation - but he has TWO powers. Contrast with Magneto, who has ONE power: Complete Control of Magnetism - which lets him fly, telekinetically lift people in battle armor (or just belt buckles), manipulate or destroy machinery at range, put up force fields, and occasionally do really crazy power-stunts like puppeteering people by magnetelekinetically controlling the iron content in their blood.

On the source material front, pretty much no comic book superhero has just one power. Superman has flight, superstrength, superspeed, nigh-invulnerability, heat vision, x-ray vision, spinning, super hearing, super breath, and access to alien technology. Batman has peak human reflexes, combat training, super-acrrobatics, super detective-ing, utility belt, custom vehicles, vast fortunes, secret lair, etc. Spiderman has clinging, web-swinging, superleaping, web-shooting(which is in itself like 6 powers), spider sense and build super-science counter-gizmo. Even supposedly one-trick pony characters like the X-Men's Cyclops doesn't just have "shoot energy blast from eyes" But instead has "shoot killing energy blast from eyes", "shoot stunning energy blast from eyes", "shoot area of effect energy blast from eyes:, "fix machinery via using eyebeams to weld parts", "tunnel through earth using beams", "do precision drilling or engraving with beams" "immunity to brother's similar energy blasts", "break fall of self or temamates via pulsing energy blasts from eyes" as his "singular" power before we get into the frequently retconned stuff about how they are powered by sunlight absorbtion or extra-dimensional energy or the non-powered abilities of the character.


There are basically three approaches to this sort of thing:

First is the Champions / HERO approach where you buy everything effects first and then receive massive "power framework" cost reductions if you can tie them together by a common special effect and claim they are all part of the same power. This is tricky and does result in a more-than fair share of DM vetoes for trying to tie things like Flight and Puppeting People Around into your Magnetism framework.

Second is the late 80s/ early 1990 DC Heroes RPG approach. In this you buy a power and it has one or a billion sub-powers listed under it. So if you buy "Has Claws" it's cheap, but all you do is have claws. But if you were to buy say "Beast Form" it would cost more but you would have claws and animal senses and an animal movement mode and possibly environmental effect resistance and maybe some other stuff all bundled into one power. The problem with this approach is that players find the high-value power bundles really fast, and suddenly everyone is taking Superspeed.

Third is the FASERIP Marvel Approach. You get some powers, they do X,Y and Z. But if you expend a character-specific resource and make some dice rolls, you can pull off a Power Stunt and decide that your power to do X lets you actually do Q in this scene. If the rolls are successful you then technobabble up some ad-hoc rationalization for why you could do this here. The game kind of assumes that you will only use Power Stunts for big dramatic scenes when nobody has a more appropriate option and also assumes that you won't use the same power stunt repeatedly. The problems here are that this is about half a step up from magic tea party with any power able to answer any problem furthermore players will run short on imagination and repeat stunts, making what are cool one-off ideas in the comics into repeated "not again" moments in an actual game.

It's worth noting that Mutants and Masterminds uses bits of the first and second approaches. You can buy powers individual and then link them together into one bigger umbrella power. Or you can buy powers which are prebuilt to include many subpowers.

[Mistborn]

Saints Row with super powers sounds awesome. What does the Wormverse bring to the table that is better than just throwing that down and dropping the mic?

-Username17

Honestly I have no idea and I like Worm. The reality is that what works in fiction doesn't always work in RPGs. The "big draw" to Worm is that everyone has a fairly unique ability, that's really the opposite of what you want in an RPG. I don't see the setting working either because it's GM penis NPCs all the way down.

[Grek]

Evil bad guys who want to destroy the world? Who wrote this, a retarded 5 year old? Why is this even a discussion at this point? All I hear about this just smells of horrible writing.

The plot sounds stupid and cliche because I wrote that description as vaguely and generically as possible as to avoid spoilers. If you really want, I can PM you a more extended explanation. Or you can just trust me when I say it is better than it sounds.

Saints Row with super powers sounds awesome. What does the Wormverse bring to the table that is better than just throwing that down and dropping the mic?

-Username17

I think the idea that the Wormverse's one good idea:

"There are super-powered Kajiu that periodically attack the Earth. We have no way to permanently stop them and fighting back requires that heroes and villains team up. As such, the majority of heroes and villains obey a code of conduct (no murder, no permanent mind control, no rape, no targeting family, no breaking the truce during Kajiu attacks) that makes these team-ups possible. Supers who have not broken this code may not be killed or permanently imprisoned."

is something that could be imported into any setting.

[Username17]

I think the idea that the Wormverse's one good idea:

"There are super-powered Kajiu that periodically attack the Earth. We have no way to permanently stop them and fighting back requires that heroes and villains team up. As such, the majority of heroes and villains obey a code of conduct (no murder, no permanent mind control, no rape, no targeting family, no breaking the truce during Kajiu attacks) that makes these team-ups possible. Supers who have not broken this code may not be killed or permanently imprisoned."

is something that could be imported into any setting.

Frankly, I think that's a pretty lame and heavy handed reason to not execute Mr. Atomo when he is captured. It takes all the drama out of your fight with Mr. Atomo because it's already explicit that you're on the same side and today's fight is just squabbling over who gets the bigger slice of pie. It also railroads the fuck out of everything, because you know ahead of time that there's going to be a kaiju big battel and that Mr. Atomo is going to fight side by side with you. Fuck that.

It doesn't take contorting your setting or your plot in much of any direction at all to contrive a reason why the governments don't administer capital punishment to metahumans. Here's a thirty second idea: "Magneto will drop a fucking space rock on the capital of any human nation that enacts capital punishment on any mutant for any reason." Boom. Done. It leaves Mr. Atomo's hands free to be as dangerous and aggressive as he wants, and doesn't force the hands of the players to do any particular thing nor does it railroad the plot in any particular direction. It just means that when you defeat Doctor Wraeththu on behalf of the United States government, that the United States government will attempt to keep Doctor Wraeththu in prison, and if that enemy is well received he can get broken out of prison later and you can fight him again.

Or fuck, here's another one: "Every time one of the demigod scions actually dies, a seal on the Titans breaks with it, and it releases a giant monster to ravage things." Suddenly the heroes have to all have a code against killing, but you can still have murderous antagonists. Or another: "Each of the Angelborn have within them a seed of apocalypse and they unleash a plague when they die." Not only do the good guys now want to keep the defeated villains alive, but the villains are now compelled to put defeated heroes into elaborate death traps while they run the fuck away.

If you want to have the players refrain from murdering major antagonists so you can use them again, it's really not that hard to write something to that effect into the setting. Unbeatable "just as keikaku" kaiju is like the douchiest method I've ever heard of or contemplated.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

Josh, when I say one power, I mean it in the FASERIP sense, with the potential ability to design a set of powers like Champs. A class system like FANTASTIC! where the classes are the Wormverse designations would be perfect for this sort of thing, actually.

And Saints Row with superpowers is Worm's moneyshot, Frank. Unless you're into uber strong supermonsters, Just as Keikaku or crazy blond girls. Or black and grey morality that's really black and white through a gritty lens.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you have recurring supervillains, how do you avoid the Joker Problem? Even if you provide an in-universe explanation as to why heroes don't dispose of murderous supervillains (like Magneto will have reprisals that dwarf the spree killings, Joker revives as a demon out of hell, too many powerful supervillain deaths opens a gate to the apocalypse, etc.) all these explanations really do is just keep the heroes' hands clean. It doesn't really solve the underlying grimdarkness.

[Username17]

If you have recurring supervillains, how do you avoid the Joker Problem? Even if you provide an in-universe explanation as to why heroes don't dispose of murderous supervillains (like Magneto will have reprisals that dwarf the spree killings, Joker revives as a demon out of hell, too many powerful supervillain deaths opens a gate to the apocalypse, etc.) all these explanations really do is just keep the heroes' hands clean. It doesn't really solve the underlying grimdarkness.

I don't see anything particularly grimdark about how accepting that a certain number of criminals will be repeat offenders is less worse for society than the cold blood murder of everyone you think is guilty. I mean, that's what the actual ethical calculus of our real world society is telling us. It just doesn't feel grimdark to me at all.

Frankly, the lessons of the abject failure of Li Si's legalism would lead me to believe that not having the death penalty for super criminals would probably be the right move regardless. Remember "Even Chen Shang can be king" and all that shit. I would be pretty surprised if Mr. Atomo surrendering when defeated and then maybe escaping later and surrendering when defeated again left more people dead than Mr. Atomo fighting to the death with his last drop of radiation juice because he was a dead man anyway if captured.

When you hand it over to the players, you're going to have to give them a one sentence reason why killing Mr. Atomo instead of sending him to jail is a bad idea, but in the real world killing people instead of sending them to jail for a while is already a bad idea. You can't expect every member of your audience to grok utility theory as applied to criminal justice statistics, but the equation already supports mercy over punishment. I don't honestly see how superpowers would change that equation, they'd just make the calculus more blatant the moment Positron's last ditch plan to avoid getting dragged to the gas chamber was to detonate Chicago. There's nothing grimdark about the fact that repeat offenders exist, it's simply the price we pay for having a lasting society rather than having our empire collapse into dust like we were Emperor Qin Er Shi.

-Username17