Superpowers

You might enjoy looking through this thread from about a week ago.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125399&

No problem.

We could probably come up with a hundred additional "superpowers" if the gang here puts their minds to it.

I've never been into graphic novels that much, but when I was younger and read a lot of "comic books" I always liked those characters who didn't so much have superpowers as they did a slightly more rational "super ability". For example, Iron Man and Captain America. Have you considered something like that for your novel? That is, instead of a superpower, give the character a unique and original device, tool, weapon, or technique that effectively makes them "superheroes" (please, no magic rings, laser glasses, or invisibility cloaks).

Besides the collateral damage issue, there are a couple of systems that punish superheroes for using powers:

1) Strikeforce: Morituri: The more a character uses a power, the less he lives. SF: M characters had less than an year to live (they were soldiers) until a cure was found.

2) Endurance: From the Champions system, a superhero has a limited amount of endurance when it comes to their powers. Although it recharges, it can leave the hero literally dying to power their abilities.

3) Aberrations: In the Aberrant RPG, the more powerful characters get, the more problematical their lives get. They begin to pick up psychological, pshysiological, and power-based problems, and the smaller problems intensify as the character picks up bigger ones. Also, the character finds it harder and harder to relate to baseline people.

If it helps...
FR

I think the hardest thing to do when dealing with super powers is maintaining the drama. I was watching the animated Star Wars with the grand kids the other day and in one scene the jedi knights jumped down about six stories from one platform to another. She then jumps back up in a couple of leaps to the original level. Two scenes later, the bad guy is allowed to get away because the first Jedi must save the other Jedi from falling off the same platform. Big holes in the story like that are hard to write around.

Some of my science fiction work details a future where psionic based powers have not become the norm, but have become normal enough that there are laws, registries, S.C. decisions and even a federal enforcement agency to deal with them.

Most of the powers are divided into two types: kinetics and paths.

Kinetics are those who are able to manipulate matter in order to affect their environment - pyrokinetcs, cryokinetics, telekinetics and thelike.

Paths are those that deal with the mind - telepaths, empaths and the like.

However, there are a few that aren't supposed to ever exist, but they do. One of the characters in this series is an empath.

Which, in this realm, isn't just a lesser form of telepathy but works on a different level altogether. And this one character I created is being called a 'physical empath'. Which isn't good for him. What this means for the character is that if a person is emotional enough to want to kill someone, the empath character actually feels the effects of that emotional desire.

There is a scene where two telepaths are being used to do a mind scan (one is a law enforcement official, the other is working for the suspect's attorneys). The one telepath really hates the other and in an unguarded moment desires to shot the other. The empath character is then affected as if he's really shot. Including all the biological and physiological aspects of receiving such a wound without actually receiving the wound.

Rabe...
...who admits, he's not at all nice to that character...

If you want to see an interesting take on the legal issues relevant, the Champions Supers book covers the issues quickly (even though it comes down to just extending our already existing laws). White Wolf Games published a "Psi Law" handbook for its Trinity RPG; it does a bang-up job of exploring the legal ramifications of psionic abilities (even though I'm annoyed it didn't cover teleportation!).

Of course, if you just want to throw something fun into the mix, check out the Damage Control from Marvel Comics; the issues caused by having supers pay for insurance have been interesting, to say the least.

FR