The Art of Being Super

I had the pleasure of attending a show by Penn and Teller once. Part of the show involved Teller having his body separated into several boxes. Each part seeming to remain separate and still interact with Pen who was disassembling his partner. That was impressive enough but then they showed you who Teller did it, exiting the stack of boxes through a trapdoor in the stage and crawling on his back between each box to stick his head, foot and foot through to create the illusion. Here, watch it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbb7dJwAdPo

Really Teller's level of dexterity and flexibility is amazing. Not oh gee lookie that amazing. Scary amazing. 

A few years later I'm in an rp playing Wildcat, an aged and ageless super hero who started in the 40's and was essentially a buff guy in a cat suit. Doesn't sound like a super hero. People argue whether Batman should be called a super hero because he doesn't 'do' anything. Wildcat doesn't even have a utility belt or stellar reasoning ability.

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111019191450/batman/images/5/56/Ted_Grant_07.jpg

Recently in character Wildcat explained to a younger hero starting out (also no super abilties - one of Bruce's interns) that indeed they were super heroes. His reasoning? He defined a super power as when you can do something that most other people can't. 

http://arousinggrammar.com/2013/04/21/wildcats-getting-old/

Doing backflips and pounding the snot out of people from mid-air definitely is the kind of skill I had in mind. So does Batman's trick of knowing where you're going to look, moving slightly out of vision and then moving back when you look somewhere else and a few thousand other tricks he mastered when must teen boys were playing video games and indulging in autoerotic activities.

The lesson can be applied to most rpgs games. Of course having gear a few tech levels beyond the locals is a sort of super power all its own but even if locals get your gear will they kjnow how to use it? 






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