Paragons: Old is the New New
Basics
M&M 2E game based on the Paragons setting gone crazy-Aberrant meets Shadowrun while surrounded by the Umbra. You play a small group of adventurers/up-and-coming demigods who seek to change the world to best suit your viewpoints, find new and interesting experiences, and strike it rich. With the Earth seeking admission as a power into the galaxy's equivalent of the United Nations (as a small unimportant newcomer but you can't get everything), the Imagineria open to everyone who seeks to explore it and find fantastical devices, artifacts, and magical beings, and the problems on Earth still unsolved, there's plenty of things to do for anyone who wants to get their hands stuck in someone else's problems.
And just because you have superpowers doesn't mean people won't want to take you down a peg if you step on their toes.
Mechanics
Power Level 12, 200 power points.
Background
Gifted have always been with us, men and women who were almost certainly the inspiration for the legends of Beowulf and Grendel, Achilles, the Odyssey, King Arthur, Roland. Magic has always been with us. But it was rare, difficult to master, found only in the darkest shadows of secret societies and shadowy conspiracies. In either way, they have shaped the world in their own methods, often in the shadows but sometimes overtly, sometimes allies, sometimes butting heads.
And then something changed. Sometime in the 1980s, someone blew the lid wide open on the magical world, on the secret demesnes which hosted the rich and powerful in the world of dreams. On the fact that many could have this talent and use it. Where there had been perhaps a few hundred real sorcerers and and their apprentices and lackeys, much less powerful, now millions of people wanted in on this hidden world. The Imageria, built and bolstered by belief and fantasy, its stepping-stones magic, became ever-easier to access, with people capable of now fully stepping through into an umbral realm that defied all expectations.
The Gifted started changing too. Something in their makeup stopped keeping them limited. Their powers became, to some extent, contagious. Like a disease, they spread like wildfire. The vast majority of 'infected' manifested little but allergic reactions and discomfort. A handful of those, perhaps 3%, gained something from it. Enhanced strength, speed, intellect, charisma. Mild telepathy. Armored skin. A smaller handful, perhaps one out of every twenty-five to fifty thousand, became like gods among men.
Magicians
Everyone has their theories about magic, and nobody has any evidence their theories are right. Yet they still persist. Some say it's due to the spirits inhabiting anything. Others have rule systems which say that magic is handed down from gods or demons. Others think it's some sort of exploit based on quantum physics, or psionic power, or some other pseudoscience theory. Whatever it is, magic is real and can do some incredible feats. Just about everything which has found its way into some sort of fantasy book is possible via magic.
Yet the talent to make use of this fully is rare. Those men and women who learn magic well enough to do it are part of a rare breed, combining talent, dedication, and decades of experience. It is rather unfair, considering that creatures from the Imageria are often born with magical talent, but it is what one has. If you aren't one of the Gifted, yet you want to exceed human and transhuman limits, the chance that you do have enough magical talent to master it is all many have.
More intriguing is the fact that there are a handful Gifted who have learned to use magic, implying that the talent to wield magic and the power of these superhumans is not mutually incompatible.
Gifted
Gifted are heroic figures, larger than life entities with unbelievable power. On the low end, they are somewhat above human, often with superhuman ability in fields or paranormal powers. Although they have existed since prehistory, and many now attribute the tales of myth and legend to their work, it is only recently that they have erupted into a phenomenon. Nobody knows what has turned these powers 'contagious' in humans, but the result has been more than a hundred thousand new demigods walking the earth, and many more people with enhanced abilities or paranormal power. The rapid spread has allowed humanity to come in contact with galactic civilization, to colonize the stars, to leapfrog generations in technological advancement, and to fix many slowly-accumulating problems on Earth.
This phenomenon of a handful of supernaturally gifted individuals exists throughout every sapient race, and there are a dozen different names for those who go above and beyond normal limitations of competence and ability, or manifest incredible powers.
Hypertechnology
"Hypertechnology" is the term for Gifted devices which aren't easily reproducible and seem to snub normal physical law. These devices can do just about anything, but cannot be understood by non-Gifted. They tend to be produced in small numbers at most, bolstering the numbers of more conventional advanced systems rather than replacements. Hypertechnology is often a one-man project, but can also be done via groups of Gifted individuals collaborating on a system. Mass production of hypertechnology is possible (in, for example, the case of FTL drives), but extremely arduous and rare, and done only for systems which may have a huge impact on the world.
Augmentation
There are those Gifted with preternatural intellect and the ability to create hypertech often find themselves wanting to exceed their physical, as well as their mental, limits. Hypertechnology is the answer. Whether taking the form of beyond-cutting-edge cybernetics, retroviruses, symbiotic creatures, or robotic exoskeletons, rigorous training regimens, or anything else the Gifted mind can imagine, these augmentation forms allow those superhuman in mind, but not in body, to compete with others who are far more physically adept.
Of course, nothing says hypertechnology has to be used by its creator and nobody else, and artificially empowered individuals can sometimes find themselves built by Gifted geniuses who have some motive for creating artificial gods. Some even make new forms of life in the forms of genetically engineered chimerae, robots, or more.
Rules Changes
Human Maxima
The human maximum/maximum modifier for any attribute is 18/+4 and human normal skill limit is +6. Past that, humans need to take Enhanced Ability (there is no equivalent for skills, so skills above +6 are allowed if you have a good explanation). Similarly, base attack/defense bonuses above +6 need an explanation (typically Enhanced Dexterity, some form of Precognition, or something else). Aliens, weird mystic creatures, and the like do not suffer from this issue.
Archetypes
You can be someone with (or who channels) magic, someone with strange mutant paranormal not-a-nova-really powers (the Gifted), an alien, or someone whose enhancements stem from magical ritual or hypertech. Want to be Batman and beat up guys with superhuman ability while just being normal human? Zannen desu ne.
Magic
Magical powers stemming from actual sorcery use the "Magic" descriptor in addition to whatever other descriptors they get (so a magical chain lightning zap is Magic and Lightning) and can be nullified by something that nullifies either-on the other hand, this means magic-users can counter other magic-users at will so it evens out. Magicians should probably take Magic as their primary power and just take everything else as alternate power feats.
Guys whose enhanced abilities come from being a dragon/demon/angel/elemental/tentacle monster should either take naturally high abilities or just slap Innate on their Enhanced Abilities. Guys whose enhanced abilities come from magical buffs shouldn't.
Mutants
Mutants just use one descriptor for their abilities (Lightning, Mental, blah blah blah). You've played Aberrant, you know how it works. If it isn't obvious enough yet when I talk about Aberrant, mutants run on the same rules that Novas do as to their power themes (broad thematic, but what they do has to fall under that thematic).
Aliens
No there are no aliens who have naturally evolved the ability to shoot lasers out of their eyes or fire bullets out of their ass. Aliens get their 'powers' from advanced equipment, genetic engineering, artificially induced psionics, using magic (what, did you think humans were the only people who figured out how to say fancy words?), and so on.
Gadgets
Gadgeteers are probably mutants (or mystics) with the ability to make devices for themselves (enhanced Intelligence and high engineering/scientific skills). The assumption of this game is that technology is more advanced than 21st century Earth, sometimes incredibly so, but it is also consistent. This precludes Iron Man as a unique concept (due to the fact that you don't make nearly as much money as nations do and if you can build it, maintain it, and have spares they probably can do the exact same).
Similarly, constructs are almost always capital-D Devices built via super-science and super-engineering that violate precepts of science and/or engineering and cannot easily be mass-produced. Which isn't to say that all robots are one-offs that don't get built en masse... just that PL12 ones are.
Characters
This is a lonely section :(