I know that the power choices for the playbooks is largely a suggestion and optional. When I look at each playbook and see how the powers fit in the playbook I can immediately recognize archetypal characters or my favorite characters from my favorite superhero media. With all that being said, I’m having a bit of trouble figuring out how someone with Multiple Man’s (Jaime Maddrox) power could fit into a playbook.
I’m thinking the Delinquent is the best fit and it would also be easy to fit the Legacy and the Beacon. What else do you guys think?
Delinquent, Sure. Beacon: only if each version is unsuperpowered, so your power is “a bunch of dudes”. I know someone’s making a “Stepford Cuckoo” playbook, so that’ll definitely be a source for “multiple characters, one PC.”
A Legacy of Multimen is interesting. Instead of one tongue lashing, you get five at once.
I don’t really know anything about Jaime Maddrox aside from his superpower, but I’ll say it depends on the type of story you want to tell. I could also see The Bull; you’re tough because the bad guys have to fight like a dozen of you, and having your memories and emotions multiplied that many times explains your strong attachments to your Love and Rival.
The Protege would be an interesting choice, if you have an older hero who helped you get your powers and identity under control. Say, how about a superhero whose secret identity is a choreographer? They know all about coordinating multiple people in a fist-fight.
The Janus could be neat. You could actually have your ‘original self’ stay at home and guard your secret identity, while your multiples go out and fight crime–all the while wondering if it’s really you that’s making a difference.
If I played it I’d do it as The Doomed, though, and you’d be one of the duplicates. Your original self would be your nemesis, with your doom being that either you get reabsorbed or you split yourself so many times that you lose cohesion. Over time, your DNA growing unstable with every split would bring you closer to the brink, while also bringing about new mutations represented by your Doomsigns.
Maddrox is a character with identity issues. It’s impossible to know if he is the original or a duplicate. When he absorbs one the duplicates, all that knowledge and those experiences become a part of him. The duplicates also possess the power. So all the copies are indistinguishable from the original and sometimes, some of them want to live separate lives and things like that.
Nova would be cool too, with the threat of making TOO MANY clones with too much power that then run wild causing massive collateral damage.
There is a character coming down as a stretch goal that will deal with that in some capacity if I remember correctly.
I really don’t think it works for a Janus though. That’s just cheating the whole premise if you can always choose both lives at once.
I dunno, Tim. I see what you’re saying, but I think the struggle of the Janus isn’t so much “I have to choose between my heroic life and my mundane life” as it is “I have very real responsibilities in both lives, and even my superpowers can’t meet them all or make them go away.”
Taking that view, you just need to make sure the problems that come up in your secret identity move are the sorts of problems that can’t be solved by there being five of you (same as you would with any other power). You’re not meeting your social obligations with your S.O. because you’re distracted, you’ve actually caused yourself problems at work by using your powers and the boss has come to expect five times as much work out of you, you’re sleeping instead of watching Grandma because you’re pushing yourself to be in a half dozen places at once and it’s killing you–whatever works.
That inward turmoil of “even with five of me, I’m still not good enough” seems pretty Janus to me. “I can’t be in X places at once” is still a problem they have; changing the value of X changes the flavor, but I don’t think it invalidates it.