By-and-large, it is hard for me to think of a good name for a "Superhero" or atleast Superpowered roleplay. With the usual portrayal of superhumans, there is the usual trope of the superhero and their sidekick being gifted the "key to the city" by the mayor - which is what this RP gets its name from, albeit it is going to be a bit of a misnomer as I am trying for this to have a different vibe and theme,
especially for how this world/universe will work,
For starters:
Superhumanity is effectively normalized; yes, in this universe's "United States" or atleast its equivalent - there had been both presidents with and without superpowers. There is no X-Men type thing where people without abilities "hate the superpowered people" or whatever, though with how Superhumanity works, I am going off of the X-Men thing that all superpowers are natural(istic) meaning you are not "cursed" by them. There is no sort of "you get in a nuclear accident" or whatever and then your body develops abilities to it, like the Hulk or any other superpowered characters who get powers from "Gamma radiation" or whatever.
Superpowers in this are effectively the same way as "mutations," essentially everyone is born with superpowers though at the same time it isn't quite "you have superpowers or you don't," it's more of, "there's levels to it" with it being like, there are people who can have children with superpowers though who do not have superpowers themselves. Then superpowered people who can carry superpowers to their kids even though their kids do not have the same abilities as their parents. Lastly, people who don't have it at all. Just simply "lucked out" but even if they don't have superpowers, they still tried to do superheroic deeds. (essentially your Punisher-types or any other vigilante character who just doesn't have any remarkable ability)
Aliens or any lifeform not originating from this universe's Earth - do indeed exist. There have been famous people in this world's universe who actually were aliens, even if they had taken that secret to the grave.
I do want this to be "modern-ish" but with powers like Superintelligence, technology is going to be very different from IRL-2024. To the extent that androids, bionics, cyborgs et al are possible. Think of your Steve Jobs in this world being more akin to Tony/Howard Stark or any supersmart/inventive character from Marvel/DC/et al. There are entire industries and sectors to this sort of thing. If the genius didn't go into trying to "be a superhero" and instead monopolized their intelligence by creating a company and then mass-producing cybernetics or whathaveyou - then it'd exist.
With there being "aliens" and "cyborgs" in this, I wanted to get this out completely that I am not at all intending on this RP to be "realistic" or "toned-down" or whatever. I'm a person who is tired of the genre not being played straight or trying to make up an excuse for your character to be superpowered. This is not "we're afraid to embrace the Superhero-y-ness of the genre," this is "we're going to take a nosedive straight into it," or play it straight.
To "play it straight," would mean to have both Superman-types or The Flash-types but also The Punisher-types. Antiheroes and Antivillains but to not see everything through thirty different shades of grey so as to say being an actual "Boy Scout" or "Good Samaritan"-type doesn't exist. I want people to be encouraged full-on to take the wide spectrum of the world, not just having everyone be an antihero and everything being thirty different shades of grey.
I am promoting choice and flexibility in this thing. To me, it is no fun when you see a "Superhero" game/whatever, but cannot play a person who likes killing. Your USAgent and Punisher-types should be able to exist if your Batman or Spider-Man types exist aswell. If there's the "I don't kill my villains no matter what"-kind of character, there should also be the "everyone gets these hands"-type.
Balance: just how Thanos likes it.
"Superhuman" or "Superhumanoid," et al are terms in this, not "Metahuman" or whatever. I hate the term "Metahuman" and I just, in a way, feel like it's one of those terms in the genre that try to remove the camp from it. It's Super for a reason, not Meta.
Superspeed (and powers similar) are not truly "overpowered," it's all in how one roleplays or thinks of it. I, myself, would just want there to be "Superman" or "Juggernaut" types (the latter being something I am using in general, not the actual X-Man villain) who can bust through walls and all. Like, upper limits to someone who controls water (cyrokinesis and hydrokinesis) or technology (technokinesis) instead of "I can only control the same amount as a bottle of water" or "I can't use technokinesis to have swathes of drone-soldiers all around me but I can hack easily into this person's phone." I have this sort of problem with Flight aswell, though I just use cyrokinesis and technokinesis as examples. With flight/levitation, it's "I can achieve the same amount of power as a literal Flying Squirrel" or "I can levitate but only for 20min" or something like that, with the power not even being a superpower anymore and just becoming a Cool Party Trick.
"Magic," in a way, exists - because I do want the supernatural part to be here and it'd also feel weird for me to plain-and-simple ignore it and not have a Scarlet Witch-type in this. Just that it's treated the same as a superpower in this. It's not going to be "Aquaman, that guy in the Justice League who can have a fieldday with his aquakinesis" and "Zatanna/Dr. Strange, that one person who just learned to be like that, but we treat his ability like someone taking up an instrument and becoming a Saxophonist," more like: This One Girl who can use electrokinesis and This Other Chick who kinda-sorta has a thing like ecokinesis only there's an inbuilt theme to it"
Yes, there is a reason to why I say "superpowered" and not "superhero," as I was trying to allow for versatility and not "you have superpowers so this means you have to join this universe's equivalent to the Avengers or you just become Enemy of The State," and also because literal Presidents and other politicians have existed in this America's history with superpowers, it'd be safe to say superpowers =/= superhero or that there are/can be people not wearing Spandex who have powers. A woman dressed like
all casual and stuff can still exist and exist just as fine as a person wearing "a supersuit" and does the usual superhero thing of having a Secret Identity and all that stuff.
Ones' actions/persona is what makes them "superheroic" not necessarily "this man looks like he came out a costume party, must be a 'supe"-sorta thing.
Rules:
The basis:
Some politicians had superpowers; others, just flat-out did not. This universe's POTUS
As superpowers are normalized and it's sort of a 50/50-thing of who has them, both sides had superhumans though the situation was resolved with the monarchy winning and completely stopping the terrorists.
Politics and the overall World Stage are not the "juicy" part of the roleplay, really it's serving as the background and "how this universe is different" or the worldbuilding. Just that Russia did not fight in WWII. It was kept to the rest of Europe. Japan didn't fight but China still has a role to play in it and by the end of it, still isn't Communist.
Vietnam and Indochina still are bloody conflicts, especially for the FAR only since there is no Peoples' Republic of China or Soviet Union, it's more like a series of insurrections in America-aligned countries that the FAR keeps sending its army to put down, only for the insurrection to become a bloody mess and there to be no true "winner" or "loser," other than, "Oh wow, that was alot of chaos, want to try to rebuild now?" and several agreements taking place.
