Which superpowered Universe is the most fair?

[Celestia]

case in point: Articuno is PU. the lowest tier of pokemon possible. as in, "peeyew, it stinks" because it is Ice/Flying.

why is this so bad? because both types are weak to rock, so its x4 weak to rock.

meaning you can defeat a legendary, by just going up to it and throwing a rock at it, because that rock will probably take out Articuno in one hit. ARTICUNO! THE LEGENDARY BIRD! CONTROLS THE CLIMATE! EASY DEFEATED BY ROCK TO THE FACE!

The ×4 weakness to rock is significant because of stealth rock, which seriously wrecks face in the competitive scene. It's also why Charizard sucks. fite me.

[Traab]

I still say its one piece because there is literally nothing that cant be surpassed by a normal human going through extensive training. The best devil fruits can be countered by haki. Even conquerors haki can be ignored or overcome by being strong willed yourself. (Or hopped up on fishman steroids) Super powers are available for literally anyone willing to put in the effort to get them, with the only limit being your own willingness to keep training harder and maybe finding a good enough teacher to take yourself past basic levels of super like marine mooks. Pokemon is a good choice but the issue there is, it isnt "your" power, its the animals you enslaved and trained.

[Lord Raziere]

The ×4 weakness to rock is significant because of stealth rock, which seriously wrecks face in the competitive scene. It's also why Charizard sucks. fite me.

Your not disagreeing with me. Moltres is Fire/Flying as well. all of them die to rock in face. steal rock is a rock in the face, if a very pointy rock.

[deuterio12]

I still say its one piece because there is literally nothing that cant be surpassed by a normal human going through extensive training. The best devil fruits can be countered by haki. Even conquerors haki can be ignored or overcome by being strong willed yourself. (Or hopped up on fishman steroids) Super powers are available for literally anyone willing to put in the effort to get them, with the only limit being your own willingness to keep training harder and maybe finding a good enough teacher to take yourself past basic levels of super like marine mooks.

Then why are only a few marine sailors able to use haki? The navy has quite a bit of haki masters, are they skimping in the training department? Why don't seasoned adventurers that are on the run from the navy like Robin learn it either?

But ok, let's assume that anybody can learn haki just by training and the navy is too incompetent/corrupt to properly train their own troopers on it and Robin's actually too lazy about it despite her very life being in the line.

Even then at best haki only allows you to be super tough and hard hitting. But devil fruit users are the ones getting crazy utility like flying and teleportation and changing people's genders and healing and plain immortality and splicing people's souls to animate objects and whatnot. No matter how hard you train, you'll still be pretty limited to the lucky ones who got a devil fruit.

[Reddish Mage]

I'm telling y'all it's gotta be HxH. While combat nen is kept secret by the Hunter's Association (and very poorly, since a lot of people manage to learn it without getting their Hunter's License), literally anyone dedicated to learning a skill can unconsciously develop Nen that will make them supernaturally better at performing that skill.

You wanna become a counterfeiter? Work at it enough and you'll not only be able to create fakes good enough to fool their creators, but be able to recognize fakes just by a glance. Unless, of course, that object was also created with Nen, but something nice about the system is that anyone who uses nen is that they can recognize anything made with it, even if they don't know what it is specifically. There's literally a character who wanted to grow up to become a fortuneteller, so over time she developed actual divination powers, without even knowing how or why it happened. And if that's not fair then i dunno what is.

The concept works perfectly except the bit about the powers have to be public. I don't know about the diviner, but I think its pretty clear a counterfeiter would want to keep that power secret.

Also the process by which one gets the powers is secret. You said the diviner herself was surprised by it.

However, Hunter x Hunter is a shounen with tournaments, super heroes, special people, and so on. There's no way the protagonists are just ordinary people anyone else can be like.

This is the thing her. The OP's concept of "fairness" to superpowers is quite extreme and exactly the opposite of stories about people with powers go for. You need total equal opportunity (everyone has an equal shot to get it), total publicity (everyone knows it), and a totally identical library of accessible powers to everyone.

Yet people are talking about big popular manga stories with the big heroes on the thread. The entire notion that someone can stand out for having powers completely runs against the grain of what's being demanded. Just because something is obtained through hard work or desire or something doesn't make it equal, let alone public and part of a power-catalog that everyone gets.

Think about it, if something comes by hard work, there may not be equal access to the leisure and means to work hard to get the power. If it is obtained by desire, you are making a mistake if you think that people are absolutely in control of their own desire.

Even if you jump the equal opportunity hurdle there are two others to get through and none of these Shounen do that either.

[Lord Raziere]

You need total equal opportunity (everyone has an equal shot to get it), total publicity (everyone knows it), and a totally identical library of accessible powers to everyone.

Yes, many of these settings fail. if not all.

Lets try and evaluate it by this rubric:

Name:
Equal Opportunity: Y/N
Total Publicity: Y/N
Identical Library: Y/N

Examples:
Avatar The Last Airbender:
Equal Opportunity: No (have to be born that way)
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No. (separated by elements)

Pokemon:
Equal Opportunity: Almost Yes (Most pokemon are freely available to capture and train which forms the vast majority of the power of the setting, and the few standout powers don't impact the setting on a wide scale and can be defeated using the commonly available methods)
Total Publicity: Yes.
Identical Library: Yes.

Naruto:
Equal Opportunity: No. (while its publiclyy known, and theoretically anyone can train it, only certain hidden villages actually train you to use chakra)
Total Publicity: Yes but maybe No (many clans keep their techniques secret to preserve their usefulness)
Identical Library: No. (while there are some common techniques, two-element jutsus and above are locked by certain bloodlines, many clans keep their techniques secret from everyone else, the beast containers have massive amounts of power no one else has, the rinnegan and Sharingan are hax, and so on)

One Piece:
Equal Opportunity: No. (heres the thing: there are fishmen slaves. the Navy is primarily human. fishmen are often pirates. that discrimination, so fishmen are discriminated against by the World Government, as they often salves to the World Gov's Nobility, so not equal opportunity)
Total Publicity: Yes (but might be No- if its not public WHICH devil fruit grants, then you can't really say its total publicity if people don't know what power you actually GET eh?)
Identical Library: No. (different races, different fruits, weird cybernetics, King's haki, and so on all locked behind this and that)

Bleach:
Equal Opportunity: No.
Total Publicity: No.
Identical Library: No.

Fairy Tail:
Equal Opportunity: Yes (since there are forms of magic even the magicless can use to be elite mages)
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No. (Dragon Slayers don't seem to be the same, needing to be chosen by a dragon and lot of forms of magic seem to run on different principles)

DC Universe:
Equal Opportunity: No. (you need to be born an alien for some powers, or need to experience freak accidents or....)
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No.

Marvel Universe:
Equal Opportunity: No. ( X-Men superpower birth lottery is not equal opportunity. some have it some don't, and thus some just don't get the same opportunity, because there will inevitably be powerless people or those who have a power so minor it doesn't matter)
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No. (Again, X-Men superpower birth lottery makes this an automatic no)

Eclipse Phase:
Equal Opportunity: Yes or Almost Yes (anyone can get the right upgrades and body if they're willing to go into debt, and anyone can be infected with the Watts-Mcleod strain of the Exsurgent virus to get organic brain-hacking powers at the cost of sanity...if you consider infection to be equal opportunity)
Total Publicity: Yes (everyone knows about the transhuman tech that keeps everyone alive)
Identical Library: Yes (every single power is a known made thing on the market available in catalogues)

Dungeons and Dragons:
Equal Opportunity: No. (powers are gated behind either alignment or score gates that not everyone will possess, so no, not everyone can be a wizard)
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No. (different classes have different spell lists, different races have their own little powers, monsters have their own little powers)

Dragon Ball:
Equal Opportunity: No. (Saiyans have powers that humans don't for one)
Total Publicity: No. (ki is kept secret on Earth despite it being common elsewhere, and primitive civilizations in general may not know about it)
Identical Library: No. (While ki techniques are pretty much the same, Saiyans have power-ups that humans don't and Buu, Piccolo and Cell can regenerate because of biological reasons that others don't have)

El Goonish Shive:
Equal Opportunity: Yes
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No. (spells are developed individually can thus there is no common spells for everyone to draw upon)

Harry Potter:
Equal Opportunity: No. (you have to be born a wizard)
Total Publicity: No. (its secret)
Identical Library: Almost yes (Parseltongue is a power Harry and Voldemort have, other than that everyone uses the same spells)

Exalted:
Equal Opportunity: NOPE
Total Publicity: NOOOOOOOOOO
Identical Library: HAHAHAHA NO.

Star Wars:
Equal Opportunity: No. (you have to be force-sensitive to be wield it, so not everyone can be a Jedi)
Total Publicity: Yes
Identical Library: No. (sith force lightning seems to be exclusive to evil, so you can't really say its identical, and Droids have their powers that biological beings don't)

[Forum Explorer]

Well lets put mine to the test.

Bioshock
Equal Opportunity: Kinda (the powers cost money, so obviously that's a restriction right there. But at the same time it's not insanely expensive either, so most people can afford a power or two)
Total Publicity: Yes (they are actively advertised)
Identical Library: Kinda. (Again more money = more powers. But also some powers the player gets are experimental, or are hidden in some way)

[AvatarVecna]

Superpowers are more or less inherently unfair; there are approaches to it that are fair in some ways and decidedly unfair in others. Aliens are superhuman by right of birth (you barely ever read stories about aliens that are weaker than humanity, because where's the fulfilling conflict?). Magic is either an innate gift of birth or knowledge of how to use it is hidden away to keep the world sane. Mutations are literally a freak accident of birth. Even powers gained through training or technology are inherently unfair: any superhero that's playing at a real super level who got there through training is more or less a peak human in every conceivable way, to the point that it basically has to be divorced from the real world.

Even ignoring the absolute ridiculous levels everything gets to in DBZ and beyond, ignoring all Goku's crap, look at Krillin: prior to training, he pushed a boulder a hundred times his size, and ran a 10 second 100m dash - when he said he could try out for the Olympics if he wanted to, he's not joking. If I'm understanding the wiki correctly, he was 9 years old at the time, and is right up against the male and female world records for the 100m dash...and Roshi beats him a minute later! But ignore Dragonball entirely, that's weird anime crap, what about Batman? Let's be real: even if we were pulling from the less insane Arkham games (rather than using comic feats like where Batman pins two cape buffalos at once through sheer physical strength or switches drinking glasses with somebody in the time it takes them to blink), Batman is still very clearly at least peak human (or beyond peak human) in multiple physical and mental categories. And reaching peak human status in any particular area requires both the genes and the training to reach - somebody naturally faster who doesn't train, or somebody naturally slow who trains their heart out, is never gonna be the next Usain Bolt. When somebody is able to reach that level in such a variety of fields, a good bit of that has gotta be just the perfect storm of genes and determination, and it's difficult to measure against that even if you want to.

But what about technology? Well here's the thing: technology is great for if you've got the smarts to make it or the money to buy it, but the former is more of the same "genes+training" thing I just mentioned, while the latter...well, the kind of money that can buy tech-based superpowers probably wasn't exactly earned fairly (the closest you'll get is guys like Batman who, rather than getting it by being a savvy businessman with all that entails, inherited it from a savvy businessman, but inheritance isn't exactly earned either).

Of course, all of this gets back to a question, and it's not the "what's a fair way to get superpowers" question the OP is asking. The question is "who deserves to have superpowers"...and the answer is, nobody. Nobody deserves to have superpowers, and that's why no method of acquiring superpowers can be fair, outside of a Syndrome Situation.

[AvatarVecna]

Well lets put mine to the test.

Bioshock
Equal Opportunity: Kinda (the powers cost money, so obviously that's a restriction right there. But at the same time it's not insanely expensive either, so most people can afford a power or two)
Total Publicity: Yes (they are actively advertised)
Identical Library: Kinda. (Again more money = more powers. But also some powers the player gets are experimental, or are hidden in some way)

My questions are phrased the way they are because I've only played the first game.

1) Don't the Bioshock games take place in areas more or less cut off from the world at large?

2) Wasn't one of the main problems in-universe that the people who weren't able/willing to splice early on were either under the thumb of Andrew/Frank/the Splicers, or dead by the time the game starts?

Spoiler: 3) Wasn't the reason you were able to run roughshod through Rapture unopposed because...

Show

...you're Ryan's son, and thus have access to resurrection technology and the pods allowing travel between sections that others don't? Meaning you can throw bodies at every problem until you succeed, introducing an in-universe and very intentional advantage for those of the Ryan bloodline?

4) Speaking of how the pods limited what parts of Rapture people had access to, some of the good powers were in later levels of the game, and thus unavailable to people who were trapped in earlier sections. Does this crew with Identical Library enough?

[Forum Explorer]

My questions are phrased the way they are because I've only played the first game.

1) Don't the Bioshock games take place in areas more or less cut off from the world at large?

2) Wasn't one of the main problems in-universe that the people who weren't able/willing to splice early on were either under the thumb of Andrew/Frank/the Splicers, or dead by the time the game starts?

Spoiler: 3) Wasn't the reason you were able to run roughshod through Rapture unopposed because...

Show

...you're Ryan's son, and thus have access to resurrection technology and the pods allowing travel between sections that others don't? Meaning you can throw bodies at every problem until you succeed, introducing an in-universe and very intentional advantage for those of the Ryan bloodline?

4) Speaking of how the pods limited what parts of Rapture people had access to, some of the good powers were in later levels of the game, and thus unavailable to people who were trapped in earlier sections. Does this crew with Identical Library enough?

1) Sure, but considering the almost complete lack of interaction between the areas and the general world you can almost label them as being a world unto themselves.

2) Maybe in the first one, but not by Bioshock Infinite. Also that's a different problem to the superpowers.

3) Was that the reason? It still doesn't really make sense considering you end up killing Ryan permanently.

4) That's more a matter of society falling apart. Before everything went wrong, there was nothing suggesting movement was limited.


On that note, Bioshock is an interesting example. The superpowers might be fair (cheap to purchase, easy to use, more or less same library of powers), but the societies they are in are not (one being a pure capitalist society, and the other being a slave owning and very racist society).

[AvatarVecna]

1) Sure, but considering the almost complete lack of interaction between the areas and the general world you can almost label them as being a world unto themselves.

2) Maybe in the first one, but not by Bioshock Infinite. Also that's a different problem to the superpowers.

3) Was that the reason? It still doesn't really make sense considering you end up killing Ryan permanently.

4) That's more a matter of society falling apart. Before everything went wrong, there was nothing suggesting movement was limited.


On that note, Bioshock is an interesting example. The superpowers might be fair (cheap to purchase, easy to use, more or less same library of powers), but the societies they are in are not (one being a pure capitalist society, and the other being a slave owning and very racist society).

1) Everybody in Harry Potter is capable of magic as long as you only focus on people who are part of that society sealed/hidden away from the rest of the world. Unless there's canon evidence/implications that splicing/etc has spread significantly beyond the settings of the games?

3) A quick check of the wiki indicates that this was indeed the reason: the only person genetically keyed into the Vita-Chambers was Andrew Ryan...and apparently, as part of his final **** you to the protagonist, he turned the one in his office off deliberately, for some reason.

[Traab]

Then why are only a few marine sailors able to use haki? The navy has quite a bit of haki masters, are they skimping in the training department? Why don't seasoned adventurers that are on the run from the navy like Robin learn it either?

But ok, let's assume that anybody can learn haki just by training and the navy is too incompetent/corrupt to properly train their own troopers on it and Robin's actually too lazy about it despite her very life being in the line.

Even then at best haki only allows you to be super tough and hard hitting. But devil fruit users are the ones getting crazy utility like flying and teleportation and changing people's genders and healing and plain immortality and splicing people's souls to animate objects and whatnot. No matter how hard you train, you'll still be pretty limited to the lucky ones who got a devil fruit.

For the same reason the marines dont have 50 bazillion admirals. Its a military outfit with set limits on ranks and what you are taught. Not everyone is going to reach flag rank. Whether thats due to lack of skill, lack of desire, lack of openings, lack of luck, or politics of some sort, most people wont rise above a certain rank. Also, the world government is all about control, you think they will just hand out the techniques that would let anyone stand up to them to every first year seaman? But that doesnt change the fact that going by the words in setting, haki is something ANYONE can learn. And thats just the haki, the rokushiki is something virtually all the marines learn at least 1-2 of. And people like luffy and sanji recreate on their own just by knowing its possible. Even if it may not be done precisely the same way. Allowing people to do things like walk on air, move at blinding speed, fire off long distance attacks that can cut through freaking mountains! Yes devil fruits give unique abilities that regular folk cant copy, but again, they arent skills that cant be overcome and defeated by regular humans. Not even counting the various weaknesses they have.

As for Robin? She has been a traitor who is betrayed by everyone she has met since she was a little girl. Who precisely was she supposed to trust to teach her haki? Who would trust her enough to TEACH her haki? We cant be sure if she has or has not learned to use either observation or armament haki over the timeskip yet, maybe in wano we will get to see more of her skills. And none of that matters though, because in this setting, everyone can explicitly learn how to become superhuman through hard work and training.

[lord_khaine]

1) Everybody in Harry Potter is capable of magic as long as you only focus on people who are part of that society sealed/hidden away from the rest of the world. Unless there's canon evidence/implications that splicing/etc has spread significantly beyond the settings of the games?

Anyone is not able to use magic. But those are the shunned exceptions.
Like the janitor guy with the cat.

For the same reason the marines dont have 50 bazillion admirals. Its a military outfit with set limits on ranks and what you are taught. Not everyone is going to reach flag rank. Whether thats due to lack of skill, lack of desire, lack of openings, lack of luck, or politics of some sort, most people wont rise above a certain rank. Also, the world government is all about control, you think they will just hand out the techniques that would let anyone stand up to them to every first year seaman? But that doesnt change the fact that going by the words in setting, haki is something ANYONE can learn. And thats just the haki, the rokushiki is something virtually all the marines learn at least 1-2 of. And people like luffy and sanji recreate on their own just by knowing its possible. Even if it may not be done precisely the same way. Allowing people to do things like walk on air, move at blinding speed, fire off long distance attacks that can cut through freaking mountains! Yes devil fruits give unique abilities that regular folk cant copy, but again, they arent skills that cant be overcome and defeated by regular humans. Not even counting the various weaknesses they have.

Well.. of course.. its in theory everyone can learn to use Haki, though there is no guarantee how good they can get either. The same way, everyone can open a lawbook and study jura, but not everyone can get good enough to pass the tests for becoming a lawyer.

Rokushiki is a rather exclusive art. We have seen examples of people unable to master more than 2. Rob Lucci saw them as trash.
And its at the same time not something all learn. We have examples of officers not demonstrating even 1 of the forms, though they were under captain level.

Still.. i think the unfairness is around the one in our world. I mean, if you want to be an olympian athlete, then you could train your entire life, and still fail if you did not have the genetic for it.
So.. i guess this actually muddle the issue further. You can fail simply because you by nature isnt dilligent enough.

[Traab]

Anyone is not able to use magic. But those are the shunned exceptions.
Like the janitor guy with the cat.



Well.. of course.. its in theory everyone can learn to use Haki, though there is no guarantee how good they can get either. The same way, everyone can open a lawbook and study jura, but not everyone can get good enough to pass the tests for becoming a lawyer.

Rokushiki is a rather exclusive art. We have seen examples of people unable to master more than 2. Rob Lucci saw them as trash.
And its at the same time not something all learn. We have examples of officers not demonstrating even 1 of the forms, though they were under captain level.

Still.. i think the unfairness is around the one in our world. I mean, if you want to be an olympian athlete, then you could train your entire life, and still fail if you did not have the genetic for it.
So.. i guess this actually muddle the issue further. You can fail simply because you by nature isnt dilligent enough.

Now that is true, though to quibble, lucci was basically the equivalent of that old blind master of shaolin movies in that he didnt just know the skills, he had utterly mastered them, to the level where he unlocked special abilities of his own. So its understandable that he would look down on the others. Its like bruce lee looking at some mid rank belt student. Yeah the guy knows the moves, but he hasnt mastered them even remotely to lee's level. And honestly, there is no way around the whole lack of natural ability. Its just a simple reality that some people are going to be better at things than others. But at least in this setting, its pretty explicitly stated that these are skills anyone can learn. They may never be able to truly master them, but they CAN learn. So I think thats why I would judge it the most fair of super powered universes. In marvel you either have a mutant ability or some other special circumstance, or you dont. In harry potter you either have magic or you dont, and most dont. In one piece, these superhuman skills are ones everyone has the capacity to learn to one extent or another. You may be lousy at sky walking, meaning you can barely keep your balance and your elevation is constantly changing, but you can still DO IT.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah.. the point i were trying to make were also that it was a pretty fair super powered universe.
Its not binary like marvel, dc or or a lot of others like Bleach.

You can still be unlucky, train 10+ years, and be beaten by someone who only trained ½ the time but had superior aptitude.
But at least you likely has a chance. Zorro is an example of how far you can get with just basic initial training.. and then dedidicating your entire life to a goal.

[Forum Explorer]

1) Everybody in Harry Potter is capable of magic as long as you only focus on people who are part of that society sealed/hidden away from the rest of the world. Unless there's canon evidence/implications that splicing/etc has spread significantly beyond the settings of the games?

3) A quick check of the wiki indicates that this was indeed the reason: the only person genetically keyed into the Vita-Chambers was Andrew Ryan...and apparently, as part of his final **** you to the protagonist, he turned the one in his office off deliberately, for some reason.

Except they aren't. There are quite a few muggle characters and interactions with muggles. And said interactions with muggles have a big influence on the setting and what happens in the books, even if it's only typically the beginning of the books.

For Bioshock? The surface is only interacted with once, in a vision quest thingy. It's there and exists, but it doesn't have any impact on the story. In either Bioshock one or Infinite. It's basically a world apart from the world of Rapture/Columbia.

Now that is true, though to quibble, lucci was basically the equivalent of that old blind master of shaolin movies in that he didnt just know the skills, he had utterly mastered them, to the level where he unlocked special abilities of his own. So its understandable that he would look down on the others. Its like bruce lee looking at some mid rank belt student. Yeah the guy knows the moves, but he hasnt mastered them even remotely to lee's level. And honestly, there is no way around the whole lack of natural ability. Its just a simple reality that some people are going to be better at things than others. But at least in this setting, its pretty explicitly stated that these are skills anyone can learn. They may never be able to truly master them, but they CAN learn. So I think thats why I would judge it the most fair of super powered universes. In marvel you either have a mutant ability or some other special circumstance, or you dont. In harry potter you either have magic or you dont, and most dont. In one piece, these superhuman skills are ones everyone has the capacity to learn to one extent or another. You may be lousy at sky walking, meaning you can barely keep your balance and your elevation is constantly changing, but you can still DO IT.

I think that's worth emphasizing though. You might say that Haki might just be hard work, willpower, and effort, but quite frankly that's not equal between people. And it can be a pretty dramatic difference too.

[AvatarVecna]

Except they aren't. There are quite a few muggle characters and interactions with muggles. And said interactions with muggles have a big influence on the setting and what happens in the books, even if it's only typically the beginning of the books.

For Bioshock? The surface is only interacted with once, in a vision quest thingy. It's there and exists, but it doesn't have any impact on the story. In either Bioshock one or Infinite. It's basically a world apart from the world of Rapture/Columbia.

I think you're trying to down play the similarities that are very much there. You say "everybody who's already in Rapture gets a totally fair chance at superpowers" as if that means that the rest of the planet that doesn't get superpowers access doesn't count as the same setting. It would be one thing if superpowers were only available in Rapture, but it was open to the public and people could visit to try their luck at playing the superpower economy.

Instead, not only is most of the world outside of Rapture (and thus doesn't have access to superpowers), not only is it impossible for anybody in the outside world except for very specifically the game's silent protagonist to enter Rapture once it's locked down, not only are Rapture's superpowers only discovered because of what would be illegal experimentation anyplace other than Rapture on extremely rare deep-sea slugs (which makes it difficult-to-impossible for these superpowers to even accidentally happen somewhere else), not only are the sections of Rapture separate from each other (preventing everybody from having even access to library of powers even inside Rapture, as evidenced by how some of the neat powers in later sections of the game don't appear early on, like the Houdini abilities), not only are the vast majority of Rapture's inhabitants cold corpses lying everywhere (some of which are confirmed via audio logs as some of the final waves of new arrivals that didn't get much of a chance at all to participate in the superpower lottery before getting offed), not only is it a major plot point that Ryan used his authority and influence to steal away with the company making superpowers and attempted to crack down on how available they were, not only are the freaking in-universe resurrection powers only available to one dude and his one unintended unknown child, but the entire point of Bioshock is pointing out how the idea of this "everybody gets a chance" utopia just plain didn't work specifically because Ryan was rigging the game from the start so that he'd come out on top, and the only reason he lost while cheating the system is because he went up against somebody even better at cheating the system.

All of those issues cause little problems here and there for the three categories put forward, in ways that bear more than a passing resemblance to some of the other settings put forward. What could change that, for me, is if it was confirmed in some way in-canon that the outside world at large has access to superpowers in some other fashion that is comparable to Rapture's (even if they don't take the opportunity to capitalize on them); even that would run into "power library" issues, but at least it'd be something. Beyond that, you're going to have your work cut out for you convincing me that Rapture is a capitalist utopia of a fair and balanced superpower lottery, given that I've played through Bioshock and taking the quite frankly incredibly simple point the entire game was making about the idea of Rapture and ADAM.

[Knaight]

Some slightly odd ones:

Godlike: It's a WWII superheroes RPG setting in the ORE family, and the way superpowers are assigned is absolutely unfair - it's some sort of dispersed human ability that seems to get activated by large scale cultural trauma and take a form influenced by the myths and culture heroes of that country. The setting also explicitly has a very screwy distribution of superheroes by country because of this, so in some places you're pretty likely to get some (Canada), and in others you're out of luck (Japan, though that changes very abruptly at the tail end of the war for two very obvious reasons). It seems, at first blush, horrifically unfair.

The great equalizer is what those superpowers get you - thrown into the grist of WWII to get killed just like everyone else, quite often not by other superheroes. The first major superhero, gifted with flight powers that made him better than any flying ace in a plane? Brought down by the invention of the proximity fuse, as delivered by an AA gun. Also one of the major superpowers is just an effect that shuts down the rest of them.

This does involve playing a bit fast and loose with the fairness criteria, but when the major effect of most of the superpowers is to slightly change how you get killed in WWII, and basically everyone already has a worryingly high chance of getting killed in WWII there's basically parity.

Dying Earth: There's powerful magic (heavily implied to be Sufficiently Advanced Science (TM) from a much more developed previous culture) out there. How to access it is public information, you go wandering through a dangerous world poking at dangerous things and hope you get lucky, and even then it helps if you've got guile by the bucketload. This also fits the other two criteria perfectly - there's no special bloodlines that get you powers, and the powers out there to be found are the powers out there to be found, no matter who has them. It's fair, in much the same sense as the lottery and Russian roulette. The process is also a little like both of them together, but with the odds increased dramatically. For both of them.

Tigana: Tigana is a fantasy setting based mostly on Italian history, but with a side of magic. This magic is available to everyone, everyone knows exactly how to access it, and the process can be reliably performed without getting killed or similar. All you have to do is cut off two fingers, and while I don't remember which two it's two on the same hand right next to each other, one of which is the middle finger. Either way your grip is shot and everyday life gets a whole lot more inconvenient. Plus cutting off fingers hurts.

[Some Android]

Does Smash Bros Count? I only ask because I think the Wii Fit Trainer is a playable character in one of the games* and if that person can go toe-to-toe with the hero of time and an intergalactic bounty hunter then there must be something for average people.

*The last Smash Bros game I played was on the N64 so I'm out of the loop.

[Forum Explorer]

I think you're trying to down play the similarities that are very much there. You say "everybody who's already in Rapture gets a totally fair chance at superpowers" as if that means that the rest of the planet that doesn't get superpowers access doesn't count as the same setting. It would be one thing if superpowers were only available in Rapture, but it was open to the public and people could visit to try their luck at playing the superpower economy.

Instead, not only is most of the world outside of Rapture (and thus doesn't have access to superpowers), not only is it impossible for anybody in the outside world except for very specifically the game's silent protagonist to enter Rapture once it's locked down, not only are Rapture's superpowers only discovered because of what would be illegal experimentation anyplace other than Rapture on extremely rare deep-sea slugs (which makes it difficult-to-impossible for these superpowers to even accidentally happen somewhere else), not only are the sections of Rapture separate from each other (preventing everybody from having even access to library of powers even inside Rapture, as evidenced by how some of the neat powers in later sections of the game don't appear early on, like the Houdini abilities), not only are the vast majority of Rapture's inhabitants cold corpses lying everywhere (some of which are confirmed via audio logs as some of the final waves of new arrivals that didn't get much of a chance at all to participate in the superpower lottery before getting offed), not only is it a major plot point that Ryan used his authority and influence to steal away with the company making superpowers and attempted to crack down on how available they were, not only are the freaking in-universe resurrection powers only available to one dude and his one unintended unknown child, but the entire point of Bioshock is pointing out how the idea of this "everybody gets a chance" utopia just plain didn't work specifically because Ryan was rigging the game from the start so that he'd come out on top, and the only reason he lost while cheating the system is because he went up against somebody even better at cheating the system.

All of those issues cause little problems here and there for the three categories put forward, in ways that bear more than a passing resemblance to some of the other settings put forward. What could change that, for me, is if it was confirmed in some way in-canon that the outside world at large has access to superpowers in some other fashion that is comparable to Rapture's (even if they don't take the opportunity to capitalize on them); even that would run into "power library" issues, but at least it'd be something. Beyond that, you're going to have your work cut out for you convincing me that Rapture is a capitalist utopia of a fair and balanced superpower lottery, given that I've played through Bioshock and taking the quite frankly incredibly simple point the entire game was making about the idea of Rapture and ADAM.

No, I acknowledge that the society Rapture has makes it unfair. But the superpowers themselves? Anyone can get them, they aren't expensive to make, and there is pretty much one library of them. Theoretically, there is nothing stopping Rapture from being a society that sold them like the USA sells guns.

In fact, Columbia (Bioshock Infinite) is basically this. You even win your first power as a carnival prize. Or it was being sold in a carnival, I can't remember. It's not entirely fair, because Columbia is a slave owning state with a massive underclass, and thus the society itself isn't fair. Not that it stopped the inevitable uprising from getting their hands on powers when it came down to it. It just was illegal for them to do so. But hey, when your plan of action is to stick the current head of state's head on a pike, I don't think you are bothered about breaking the law. But I digress.

The point is that the powers themselves are fair. You don't need a genius level intellect, to be a master level martial artist, or have the will of a god. You don't need a special bloodline, or to be fated by the stars. You don't need to be a pure hearted maiden, or make a pact with a demon lord. You don't even need to be a brooding billionaire. It cost a lot, sure, but it's about 20 000$ today (to take a really rough estimate). So expensive, but affordable.

[deuterio12]

Also, the world government is all about control, you think they will just hand out the techniques that would let anyone stand up to them to every first year seaman?

Considering the number of pirates with devil fruit powers and pirate fishmen and whatnot, why yes it would make the world government's job a lot easier to expand haki training instead of losing control all the time a haki and/or devil fruit or fishman pirate shows up that can and will curbstomp any number of normal navy mooks.

If all it takes is training, one would expect every navy ship and port to have at least one haki dude, just like every ship/base worth their salt has a medic and engineer and other specialists, but haki doesn't show up at all for the first several arcs of the story. Funny that.

Yes devil fruits give unique abilities that regular folk cant copy, but again, they arent skills that cant be overcome and defeated by regular humans. Not even counting the various weaknesses they have.

That's like claiming that being able that being a top black belt is as useful as being a top medic. Yes, the black belt can break the medic's face, but the top medic will be the one saving countless lives and earning more money and status and winning a nobel prize then going down in history as the guy who found a cure for that incurable disease that you can't just solve with violence.

Being a combat haki master only makes you good at close personal combat, devil fruits can make you much more. Like that other king that got deposed and then just used his devil fruit powers to become filthy rich and buy himself a whole new country.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Not that I really consider it too important to stay on topic, but it seems to me that a lot of these suggestions are straying rather far from the suggested premise. I'm not too familiar with a lot of these settings, but based on what people are saying about them, it seems that they are exactly as equal as, say, the DC universe.

Batman is lacking in superpowers and can beat any of the superpowered beings in a duel. Thus proving that the superpowers in that universe suck badly enough that a simple human with no powers can overcome any of them. Simply because of "training". I'm talking about what is "possible" in universe, which as I have learned from Uncle Internet is pretty much anything because Batman has a long history.

Granted, I'm not sure if I've even seen anything that quite fits the OP's criteria. But it didn't specify anything like, "exclusive superpowers don't count if they suck badly enough that normal people can still beat superpowered characters". It asked for superpower distribution that is freely open to anyone and not "unique" in incarnation. That excludes settings with unique/hidden powers even if those powers are terrible. And it excludes settings with any sort of superpower restriction, even if those restrictions are "balanced" with other restrictions or powers.

And now I realize that maybe the conversation has gone in this direction because there might genuinely be nothing that matches the OP's criteria. Oops. Carry on.

Does Smash Bros Count? I only ask because I think the Wii Fit Trainer is a playable character in one of the games* and if that person can go toe-to-toe with the hero of time and an intergalactic bounty hunter then there must be something for average people.

*The last Smash Bros game I played was on the N64 so I'm out of the loop.

Actually, it's possible now to make a Mii fighter. Which is more or less a stand-in for the player. So, you can be in the game now and you stand roughly on par with an intergalactic bounty hunter, the hero of time and a princess with chronic abduction syndrome. Well, no fewer than two princesses...

[deuterio12]

Actually, it's possible now to make a Mii fighter. Which is more or less a stand-in for the player. So, you can be in the game now and you stand roughly on par with an intergalactic bounty hunter, the hero of time and a princess with chronic abduction syndrome. Well, no fewer than two princesses...

Well Mii Fighters at least get cannons or swords or super martial arts.

The Villager is a simple villager with a plain wood axe and gets a fair chance to murder everybody else.

[lord_khaine]

Considering the number of pirates with devil fruit powers and pirate fishmen and whatnot, why yes it would make the world government's job a lot easier to expand haki training instead of losing control all the time a haki and/or devil fruit or fishman pirate shows up that can and will curbstomp any number of normal navy mooks.

If all it takes is training, one would expect every navy ship and port to have at least one haki dude, just like every ship/base worth their salt has a medic and engineer and other specialists, but haki doesn't show up at all for the first several arcs of the story. Funny that.

It assumes it is easy to train people to the point where they can use Haki though.
So far the fastest seems to be around 2 years of personal instruction for a combat prodegy.
It also seems like most navy ships does indeed either have a DF user or someone with Haki as captain.
The exception likely being East (or was it north?) Blue, thats widely regardet as the weakest ocean.

[Knaight]

Not that I really consider it too important to stay on topic, but it seems to me that a lot of these suggestions are straying rather far from the suggested premise. I'm not too familiar with a lot of these settings, but based on what people are saying about them, it seems that they are exactly as equal as, say, the DC universe.

...

And now I realize that maybe the conversation has gone in this direction because there might genuinely be nothing that matches the OP's criteria. Oops. Carry on.

Pretty much - though I think my example of Tigana might actually fit.

[Ibrinar]

In journey to chaos everyone can learn magic, well everyone in that world, it is a setting with different worlds and some have a severe lack of mana like ours. But anyway it is a whole world so I don't think that is the same as harry potter and muggles. Everyone has learnt some magic though to be a master requires learning and different people will be worse or better at that (but I don't read the OP as forbidding differences in ability to learn/handle the powers as long as that doesn't come from blood line powers (not just normal genetics) or something, I think Reddish Mage is stretching the interpretation when concluding smartness differences can not matter). Though the world does have deity like beings, but I don't think gods really count. But there are different species and orcs for instance are rather durable and strong and there are plenty sentient animal and stuff and birds probably have weaker bodies etc. so not fair in that aspect. Haven't read enough of it yet to know whether there are people with extra special powers. The guilds receptionists spatial storage magic seems a bit specific to her for instance.

[deuterio12]

It assumes it is easy to train people to the point where they can use Haki though.
So far the fastest seems to be around 2 years of personal instruction for a combat prodegy.

I'm pretty sure your average medic takes a lot longer than 2 years to train, and I wouldn't trust a sea ship to an engineer with only 2 years of training either.

It also seems like most navy ships does indeed either have a DF user or someone with Haki as captain.
The exception likely being East (or was it north?) Blue, thats widely regardet as the weakest ocean.

Yeah Luffy and Zorro and Sanji, clearly only weaklings in there. Also nevermind at least one whole island just taken over by angry fishmen.

[lord_khaine]

I'm pretty sure your average medic takes a lot longer than 2 years to train, and I wouldn't trust a sea ship to an engineer with only 2 years of training either.

It seems you missed the bit about 2 years being for combat prodegies?
Or that it makes quite a difference that you can train medics in classes?

Yeah Luffy and Zorro and Sanji, clearly only weaklings in there. Also nevermind at least one whole island just taken over by angry fishmen.

Well.. when your done showcasing your ignorance..

One Piece chapter 51. Mihawk straight up tells us East Blue is the weakest ocean.
Before beating Zorro with something the size of a pen knife. How much better do you think Luffy or Sanji would have done?

[Lord Raziere]

It assumes it is easy to train people to the point where they can use Haki though.
So far the fastest seems to be around 2 years of personal instruction for a combat prodegy.
It also seems like most navy ships does indeed either have a DF user or someone with Haki as captain.
The exception likely being East (or was it north?) Blue, thats widely regardet as the weakest ocean.

khaine, lets say it takes four years of instruction for non-prodigies, thats still equivalent effort to a college bachelors degree. that would still lead to a lot more people having Haki than this. heck, even if its 10 years, that still leads to something more common than it is in the Navy.

If it was 20 or 30 years to learn Haki, well that would start get to reasonably small numbers. thats a big chunk your life learning that. but if its anything close to two years for normal people, there is no reason not to put as much people as you can through the courses to learn it.

[lord_khaine]

khaine, lets say it takes four years of instruction for non-prodigies, thats still equivalent effort to a college bachelors degree. that would still lead to a lot more people having Haki than this. heck, even if its 10 years, that still leads to something more common than it is in the Navy.

If it was 20 or 30 years to learn Haki, well that would start get to reasonably small numbers. thats a big chunk your life learning that. but if its anything close to two years for normal people, there is no reason not to put as much people as you can through the courses to learn it.

Yes.. but the important part of this is its 4 years of personal instruction. Of having a master dedicating the majority of their attention to said student.
The difference from college bachelors is you can train those in groups of 20-30 people.

And you dont at the same time posses a desperate need using those professors who should be teaching them to instead beat up amateur Logia users.

Thats what im arguing. That Haki runs on ancient kung-fu rules. The wise old master can only train 1-2 students at the time.

I do think the Navy is taking the reasonable course of action here. By using retired masters like Garb or Senku to train the next generation of Marine heroes.