Something I'm musing on after watching Marvel's Jessica Jones. One of the recurring characters was part of a black ops outfit that used combat drugs to temporarily amp them up to supers level. They may have been derived from some sort of reverse-engineering of the serum that created Captain America.

Red pills enhance (possibly some sort of adrenaline booster making them stronger, faster, more alert, more resistant to pain and injury, possibly healing faster too); white pills maintain the red high; blue ones bring you back down safely (and without the blue pills, your respiratory system stops working when the reds wear off). There are side-effects while under the influence of the red pills - a sort of tunnel vision where you focus on your main task to the exclusion of everything else and lose a lot of empathy and ability to interact with people.

All of which lends itself to being operationalised as game mechanics and also opens up the door to other possibilities, ie other powers granted temporarily via pharmacology.

The real question though; could this make for an interesting and fun sort of game? Playing a team of non-supers who can temporarily be supers?

Sounds cool to me. Kinda like a variant on magic potions... So long as the PCs have enough innate ability (while sober) to keep them relevant in the game.

Obtaining new pills or variants (green, orange, etc) would be good plot motivators too.

Its akin to say some SHIELD agents who get assigned experimental gadgets that have simmilar effects. Your spy gear is assigned and goventment property.

Or inventor type heroes who have a limited power supply and shunt from one type of power to another and cant really maintain several at once. A player I know online runs a superhero like that.

Or units where theres a limited set of gear each with separate powers. Something like Spitfire and the Troubleshooters. They each had a single gadget that granted some power as that was all they could make with their limited student grant. And they swapped gadgets as circumstance demanded.

Its also akin to some of D&D's "X use per day" powers or items. Or as noted by the poster above, potion use.

Quote from: Omega;919796Or units where theres a limited set of gear each with separate powers.

Made me think of Whedon's Dollhouse, where people would load up skills into their brains and had to move some things (like "empathy" or "mercy") to USB thumb to make room.

Like Shadowrun's skillsofts.

Quote from: Robyo;919783Sounds cool to me. Kinda like a variant on magic potions... So long as the PCs have enough innate ability (while sober) to keep them relevant in the game.

Obtaining new pills or variants (green, orange, etc) would be good plot motivators too.

Yep, I'd assume they all have law enforcement, military or some other pretty active backgrounds that allow them to be capable even without their drugs.

Take a look at the old cartoon series Centurions. That had a group of heroes whos suits were modular attachments. Theres a few other variants on that sort of theme over the decades.

Or villains like Bane who get a power boost from the limited supply of injection they have. Or Elastic Man who got his powers from a potion.(A rare soda)

Cool in concept, nightmare in execution.  Personal experience with a Dark Champions 4e game.  Your Mileage May Vary.

I could see this.  At one time, I wanted to play a Superhero that could temporarily 'manifest' an ability.  Sort of an anti-hero.  I went with a hi-tech vigilante instead.

Quote from: Crüesader;920135I could see this.  At one time, I wanted to play a Superhero that could temporarily 'manifest' an ability.  Sort of an anti-hero.  I went with a hi-tech vigilante instead.

Technically, given the system is artificial and requires quite a bit of Superhero Pseudoscience anyway, that's pretty much what Keiro is suggesting.

I like the idea, MY PLAYERS at the time liked the idea, hell, they're the ones who pitched it at me, I just wish I could have made it work back in the 90's.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;920151I like the idea, MY PLAYERS at the time liked the idea, hell, they're the ones who pitched it at me, I just wish I could have made it work back in the 90's.

It'd be fun to play as a sort of 'Commissar of Superheroes' to make sure they stay in line.

I think it could be fun, but it depends in part on the system.  or if all the major number crunching was done before hand (as most of the supers games I'm familiar with are point by).
I think the system for Brave New World could work for that, what with the template powers and all.  Savage Worlds might be good too.  Gurps or the Hero system IMO would be bad fits.

Quote from: Kiero;919779Something I'm musing on after watching Marvel's Jessica Jones. One of the recurring characters was part of a black ops outfit that used combat drugs to temporarily amp them up to supers level. They may have been derived from some sort of reverse-engineering of the serum that created Captain America.

Red pills enhance (possibly some sort of adrenaline booster making them stronger, faster, more alert, more resistant to pain and injury, possibly healing faster too); white pills maintain the red high; blue ones bring you back down safely (and without the blue pills, your respiratory system stops working when the reds wear off). There are side-effects while under the influence of the red pills - a sort of tunnel vision where you focus on your main task to the exclusion of everything else and lose a lot of empathy and ability to interact with people.

All of which lends itself to being operationalised as game mechanics and also opens up the door to other possibilities, ie other powers granted temporarily via pharmacology.

The real question though; could this make for an interesting and fun sort of game? Playing a team of non-supers who can temporarily be supers?

I don't see why not.