This is an idea I had that could work as both a comic story-line for CoT and in-game story-line content. Basically, there is a serum that Tyrosine Corp was making in secret. Different scientists were given different parts, most were/are in the dark about the big picture, of the serum to create. One scientist, after finding out, stole the key parts and hid them. Tyrosine Corp hired the Aether Pirates to get it back. So the smart kid pays the bully to beat up the nerd. They can't find it, kill the scientist and his family, but the scientists son survives. His dad left him clues of where he hid the evidence and he wants revenge.
The serum is called Titan Serum and has two effects. When imbibed, or drunk, it gives a 'non-super' temporary Titan-like powers. However, if injected straight into the blood stream, like through a dart shot from a gun, it temporarily suppresses that person's power/super abilities...effectively making them a normal person. The duration is unstable and many more rounds of testing would be needed to be able to set a time duration. This kind of weapon could allow a gang of non-supers to take over Titan City in a matter of days.
However, other groups learn about what Tyrosine Corp is looking for. Some of them try to make an alliance with them...some try looking for it for themselves. Since the key components and plans were stolen, Tyrosine was set back and can only create a most-basic serum, far from reliable and very volatile. The hunt is on to either find the missing evidence or get scientists that can recreate the work.
I guess it's like Titan kryptonite in liquid form.
As far as in-game mission content, the further you progress the better the serum gets, both in boosting the imbibers and limiting the PC's. Who knows how many missions/story arcs have multiple cape-chaser groups intermixed, but this could be one?
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
This all sounds like a good "rough draft" idea for a trial/task force in CoT. I guess the big question I have is did you expect any version of the serum to affect PCs directly while playing or would that just be the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin]MacGuffin[/url] that this plot revolves around? If it does affect PCs how would you balance it out without it becoming overpowered?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
It could be used as like a stun, just makes it so you can't activate powers for a time.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I know I personally don't have a problem with suffering temporary weaknesses in a superhero setting - the whole concept of "Superman versus Kryptonite" is a foundational cornerstone of the comic book genre.
The problem is there are those that can't stand the idea when you try to impose ANY kind of weaknesses on the player characters of a MMO. The very idea of it drives some people completely crazy and they become very vocal about being against the idea.
So the idea of forcing people to get "Kryptonited" doesn't really sit well with everyone. Besides even if it did how do you explain that kind of thing affecting "natural" characters who don't technically have any "superpowers" to lose?
Basically there are a lot of questions concerning how this kind of thing could work for everyone.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's a good question. I am not as smart with gaming mechanics but if I had to personally dictate how it would be done, I would say maybe 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 'bad guys' would have the serum in the form of darts, poison, etc, to suppress PC powers. Most of the others could have it to be beefed up because that wouldn't affect the PC's, just the difficulty of the enemies.
As far as the suppression of the PC powers go, I would think it could affect the recharge rates and overall output modifier (like lessening or suppressing the powers instead of completely taking them away..cuz then what could we do?). Perhaps only during the last big boss of the whole story dealing with this would the serum be able to completely render a power, or powers, unusable for a limited duration. But even that may be more player headache than the fun of the additional challenge.
When I thought of this, I thought of it being similar to that anti-mutant gene from X-Men: The Last Stand, except that it could never completely rid anyone of their powers. (maybe it didn't do that in the movie/comics/lore either? I don't know). I just think it could be a fun, different, more challenging aspect to the game. This could also tie with the difficulty setting of the missions in that story arc, the higher the difficulty, the more serum there will be in both forms.
So, for my own sanity, the serum would affect (if it were applied in-game) to recharge times and output modifiers (making the powers less powerful). I think there would also be an anti-serum being worked on when news of the serum hit, so there could be a temp buff that counteracts its effects. How to get that temp buff? No idea. How often you could buff with it? not sure, because you wouldn't want to completely take away the threat of the serum...that would make the entire story arc pointless. It would just become like any other story line.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
How do you 'kryptonite' Batman?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Kill his parents.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Yep... I pretty much asked the same thing in my last post.
But it's not only the "pure natural" humans you'd have to worry about. What if you "explain" that your character gets his/her superpowers via a method that would make no sense for a "serum" to be able to affect. For example how does an anti-power serum counteract the benefits provided by a magic amulet? How would it affect a robot?
Just a few little problems like that to work out.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Also a very fair point. My personal answer/argument is that every PC in CoT is a Titan. No matter what character you make, you are not a normal person. This may not mesh with every PC's backstory/RP style perfectly, but I would argue everyone PC is a Titan and would be affected by the serum.
Now, that brings up another good point. How would the serum affect attacks that aren't based on the character? Like guns? Not sure, maybe it wouldn't. If this was actually implemented in the game, the devs would have to go through and decide which abilities would be affected by the serum. Even so, the workaround is that the enemies are taking the serum and become stronger. But, the short answer, it would affect PC's differently depending on their abilities.
Thinking along those lines, someone hit with the serum that uses a gun would be weakened and perhaps their accuracy (due to reduced strength) would be affected. In my mind this works since even a 'non-super' Titan in the game is taking hits and getting stronger with each level, something normal people don't do. The weakest Titan is still stronger than a normal person. Now that could open a new can of worms of HOW Titan people are...like thugs, for example. They could be the same but are stronger at higher levels. I would argue they have a certain amount of 'Titan' in them, but I digress and that's not an important discussion as it doesn't matter since this serum isn't being implemented in the game and its a moot point.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Agreed. I didn't see your post before I posted my last post. You bring up a big point. My answer is that it wouldn't affect everyone the same, nor would it affect every ability the same. This may seem unfair, but I think it would be fun to bring in something to the game that wasn't 'equal' to all PC's. And since it would be confined to one story-arc it really wouldn't matter that much. And if it was made into a comic, it would only affect those involved.
For robots, even they use fluids for lubrication, cooling, etc. So there might be something there. As for the magic amulet example, that's a fair point. I don't think it should be able to affect magic, but it would weaken the user so the combined magic would be weaker, despite the magic from the amulet not being affected.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
These are problems already tied up in the entire concept of aesthetic decoupling. If you already accept that you can use mental powers or poison on robots to the same effect as half-clothed barbarians, and fire powers on a fire being do the same damage as on plant beings; then you should be able to accept that Batman has a kryptonite.
The game doesn't know what your origins or powers are in your roleplaying head, so it is up to us to figure out how Titan Serum would work on our heroes.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I'd have no problem with a Macguffin that can somehow affect everyone like Kryponite regardless of the actual basis of their superpowers as long as the "explanation" for how something could do that is very strong and convincing. Just saying it works like that "just because" might not be enough for many people.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Bullets.
Back breaking seemed to work.
Batman has lots of kryptonite. He just has writers who won't let him get put down as easily as he should.
Now, when in his own city and no outside villains showing up, looking to take him out when not fighting, let's say, Superman in hand to hand, he's usually golden.
I'm going to echo what others have said here:
My problem with a one-size-fits-all kryptonite is that I just can't wrap my head around how it would work.
Okay, let's say it cancels out any mind over matter, and any strange particles or dimensional weirdness.
Why would it, then, suppress the enhanced senses of that canine police chief? Those senses aren't magical. They're regular chemoreceptors and bigger ears. Why would a serum suppress that? And wouldn't it, then, make a normal person blind and deaf?
What if someone's enhanced strength comes not from some kind of metaphysical power, but simply from more contractile fibers per unit area of muscle? There's nothing to suppress or turn off. It's just classical physics. If it "suppresses" that, then it should make a normal person paralyzed or even stop their diaphragm and thus their ability to breathe or even stop their heart.
What if someone's a robot?
Sure, everyone in comics has something like kryptonite, but it's not the same thing for everyone. Supes doesn't have to worry about fire any more than Martain Manhunter has to worry about kryptonite. To make a universal kryptonite, to me, would be to dumb down the story to well below graphic novel levels, even below hanna-barbera cartoon levels.
Hey, Hanna-Barbara cartoons could be pretty smart... sometimes.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Just about the only reasonable "Universal Kryptonite" I can think of would probably have to be some kind of combination illusion/mind control that could make any sentient being "think" they were experiencing a situation where whatever their "actual Kryptonite" happened to be was actually happening to them. Basically this situation could only be feasibly managed on [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menagerie_%28Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series%29]Talos IV[/url].
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
How about a middle ground? Instead of canceling out all of that titans abilities it only cancels out one primary ability? Or perhaps one set of abilities (I’m thinking primary or secondary sets here not tertiary)? Or maybe travel abilities are affected. It’s a lil easier to explain it affecting most any Titan if it isn’t all encompassing...
Just a thought...
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
If you read any of my prior replies, you'd know it isn't a one-kryptonite-for-all. I stated there are abilities it wouldn't work on. The thought is that it targets anything above normal-human levels. When you start getting into the exact biomechanics of it everything falls apart because its a video game. Literally every single comic and fictional character/setting/ability/etc, falls apart when you start digging in as deep as you mentioned in the biomechanics/biophysics of how it would work.
Seems people are caught up on the word 'kryptonite' when that is not what it is. It's a suppressant of Titan-like abilities and qualities. It could affect magic, mutation, natural, etc. It can affect all those the same because the game is fake, the physics are fake, everything is fake. You can only take logic so far when you talk about this stuff trying to debunk ideas. I only used 'kryptonite' to get a general idea of suppressing powers/abilities, not a copy/paste of its effects.
I also mentioned that there are things it wouldn't affect. Normal people, for example. They don't have any Titan-like qualities so it would have no effect on them. Robots, for the most part, unless they were perhaps bio mechanical, like Transformers, or sentient, and the serum got into the liquid systems inside of it. I also said it wouldn't affect everyone the same if implemented in the game...the devs would have to go through each ability and power and decide if it would be affected and how. Some abilities would be, some wouldn't be.
Prime example is Batman vs Superman. If Batman is just a super smart guy, nothing supernatural about him, then he should have 0% chance of winning a fight with Superman since S-man can move faster than Batman could ever react or comprehend. End of story. Is that how it goes? No. For some reason when they fight Batman can land punches and shoot S-man with things that S-man should REALLY be able to dodge 100% of the time.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
I never said it would be all encompassing. I said it would affect some and wouldn't affect others. Same with abilities/powers. ANd it wouldn't cancel them, it would suppress them. There are many levels of suppression. In-game, this could look like, if you were hit by the serum, a +10% recharge time to simulate your powers slowing down and having to come back, or -10% to show a slight suppression of that ability.
The only time I said a total cancellation of a power or ability would be the final final boss of the story arc, and even then it would have to be temporary. Like if you got hit by the most powerful serum that only the final boss has, a random ability/power is 'grayed out' and can't be used for...30 seconds? 1 minutes? 15 seconds? Any serum that isn't the max serum would only affect the abilities power and/or recharge time to simulate suppression.
It's not kryptonite.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Yeah I guess you didn't. I was really more trying to aim that at the folks bringing down your idea. I like the idea myself.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
"[b]DON'T[/b] be kind. [i]Rewind[/i]."
That's just about the only kind of "universal screw you" that I can think of, since it basically allows the antagonist to "read ahead in the script" to know what's coming AND have the power to "rewrite" future events based on that knowledge without negative repercussions.
In other words, hand them the Universal Plot Hole™ and walk away.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Just as bad as those power dampeners in shows with powers. :p
They're not the same powers! How does that power dampener work on a alien natural abilities versus human super for instance? :p
Also, I prefer dampeners, that only weaken, not totally get rid of, or have a chance to work that way anyways. Nothing worse than seeing the most powerful hero taken down by the same thing that takes down everyone else. :p
Thanos is defeated! We put power dampeners on him!
Just doesn't work imo.
To be clear I don't technically dislike the basic idea here - I just see it as something that would be pretty hard to do "right".
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Actually, the biomechanics I listed are physically possible. If you were to explain a comic book character with those sorts of mechanics, it wouldn't fall apart when you dig deep. The story might, if the main character has too much plot armor, but the mechanics wouldn't. I was listing realistic ways something could have a greater than human attribute (more variety of chemoreceptors for smell, more muscle fiber density for strength etc). And, the muscles still work the same on a molecular level, so if it affects the "super" it would also slow down/dampen normal people too, because they follow the same physics/have the same proteins/have the same enzymes, just in different amounts. If you decrease the amount by 20% to make them normal, then you decrease the normal's by 20% also to make them sub-normal. So I guess what I'm saying is, I have a problem with the fact that it magically doesn't affect normal people. If the super isn't super from magic but from physics, and it slows/weakens them, then it should logically slow/weaken the normal person by the same amount or even kill them.
The only answers that make sense so far is 1) Lothic's suggestion about mind control, or 2) "It's Magic because Magic is Magic" or the answer we're currently going with 3) because it's comics and comics aren't supposed to make sense (which is not an answer).
Isn't that more or less what the ultimate nullifier does?
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I specifically pointed out that the serum would target anything above the natural, normal human condition. This thought is under the assumption that since this is a fictional world with advanced technology, aliens, etc, they can modify the serum to not affect normal people negatively. They should be smart enough to do that since it's fake anyway and we decide how smart they are and what they are capable of. I would also argue that "because it's comics and comics aren't supposed to make sense" is actually an answer...because no comic makes sense. At all. 99.99% of comics physics and abilities make no sense. What power allows Superman to fly? There is no answer, no logic, nothing. That's also not considered 'magic' in the comics for him. Some have flight because of magic, some because of mutation...but none of that is logical.
I would also disagree that the bio mechanics are also not physically possible. Batman, who is not supernatural at all, has performed feats of strength that put our real-life strongmen to shame (Hapthor Bjornson, Brian Shaw, etc). When you say "realistic ways something could have a greater than human attribute", THAT is what I am considering a 'Titan'-like ability. Anything above normal human standards. Also, muscles obviously don't work the same on a molecular level because to maintain the strength that they have, they would be massively huge and fat. That's why strongmen eat 8k+ calories a day to maintain their strength and, by default, carry so much fat on them as well. Batman throws people dozens of feet, sometimes over a dozen feet in the air at the same time, with minor effort. The strongest man alive couldn't do that. So obviously Batman, who is by all accounts in the comics a 'normal person', doesn't follow realistic bio mechanics and, in my scenario, would be considered a 'Titan".
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Physics of Superman show postulated that he used either magnetism, or anti-gravity to fly.
Personally, I think Superman never grew up, but simply harnessed his childish won't-power.
Don't jump up there! You'll fall!
"I won't!"
So he doesn't.
Don't let the bandits shoot you! You'll be killed!
"No, I won't!"
So the bullets refuse to damage him.
Superman is amazing because he seems so normal while maintaining the longest-running 3-year-old's temper tantrum.
Will-power makes things happen and Won't-power keeps them from happening.... sometimes.
Be Well!
Fireheart
How did this thread go this long without the obvious:
Shout "Martha!"
[img]https://media.giphy.com/media/XaB6nWtHe4r84/giphy.gif[/img]
Honestly it probably took this long because the movie was bad and completely forgettable.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."