Brave New World (role-playing game)

Brave New World is a role-playing game originally released by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1999. The game was sold to Alderac Entertainment Group in 2000. The game is an alternate history superhero game set in a neo-fascist United States living in a perpetual state of martial law since 1963. Inspired by the Kingdom Come and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns comic storylines, X-Men, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the political and social upheavals of the 1990s, the game depicts renegade superheroes fighting a corrupt and evil government.

The game debuted at the 1999 Gen Con Game Fair in Milwaukee.

Development
Matt Forbeck left Pinnacle Entertainment Group to move to Alderac Entertainment Group just before the two companies ended their relationship, and sold his Brave New World role-playing game to AEG.

Deltas
While the history of the Brave New World setting actually diverged from real history in antiquity, the first point of divergence known to the general public was in 1918 during World War I, when a dying soldier spontaneously gained the ability to turn incorporeal. He became the Silver Ghost, the first superhero and a spy for the US Department of War who helped end the war month earlier than in our timeline.

Soon after the end of the war, many other super-powered humans began to appear, as people in mortal danger would sometimes manifest superhuman powers. In the 1920s and 1930s, most of these new heroes did not use disguises and secret identities, and the government and public were fairly accepting of their vigilantism. Super-powered criminals appeared as well, but were kept in check by their heroic counterparts; this period was analogous to the Golden Age of Comic Books in our timeline. Scientists began to refer to these super-powered beings as "Homo Delta" or "Deltas", meaning change.

In the late 1930s, a superhero named Yankee was officially deputized as a law enforcement officer by Chicago, and worked with Eliot Ness to bring down Al Capone, becoming a role model for other superheroes.

Alphas
On December 7, 1941, Naval Station Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese fighters alongside Deltas associated with the Empire of Japan. Deltas began fighting for both the Allies and Axis in World War II. The US Army founded a super-powered unit known as Delta Squadron.

In the autumn of 1943, the Yankee and his young sidekick Sparky were captured by the Wehrmacht and imprisoned in an extermination camp. Yankee and Sparky staged a revolt after nearly two years of torture, but were seemingly killed. However, as their corpses were thrown into the ovens to be incinerated, a new Delta emerged, coming to be known as Superior.

Sparky had transformed into a new Delta, and was quickly found to be the most powerful Delta of all, being virtually immune to firearms, capable of moving at incredible speed, and possessing superhuman strength. He rescued Yankee and two other Deltas from the ovens before killing every Nazi in the camp. A Nazi Delta known as Kaptian Krieg received the distress call and soon arrived to put down what he thought was merely another uprising, only to be torn apart by Superior. The hero then flew to Berlin, fought his way into the Führerbunker, killed Adolf Hitler, and then flew across the world to force the surrender of Japanese Emperor Hirohito. In only a few hours, the Second World War was brought to an end months earlier than in our timeline.

As the Cold War began, the United States did not develop nuclear weapons until several years later than in our timeline, as the early end of World War II caused the cancellation of the Manhattan Project. In place of the nuclear arms race was the new "Alpha" class of super-humans. A handful of other Alphas, similar to Superior, emerged at the end of the war—the Soviet Union was able to artificially create several new Alphas, none as powerful as Superior, though still enough to challenge him. When the Soviets successfully detonated the first nuclear weapon in August 1949, and Superior expressed uncertainty over whether even he could survive a nuclear blast, the United States quickly finished its own nuclear program. Senator Joseph McCarthy held his HUAC hearings over paranoia during the Second Red Scare, but a Delta hero named Patriot eventually shamed him into closing them earlier than in our timeline.

Forced registration
The largest divergent point in this alternate history occurred on November 22, 1963. In Brave New World, as in our timeline, President John F. Kennedy was the victim of an assassination attempt. However, in Brave New World, Kennedy survived due to the intervention of Superior. Instead of sniper fire, in this world, Lee Harvey Oswald was one of several super-villains in power armor who attacked the President's motorcade with energy weapons. Although Kennedy was saved, the incident caused the government to begin dealing much more harshly with super-humans. The Delta Registration Act was quickly passed by Congress, making it a federal offense punishable by life imprisonment to not register superpowers with the government within seven days of manifesting them. Furthermore, all super-humans essentially lacked any civil rights, and could be used by the government in any way it felt appropriate. Delta Prime was founded as a super-powered law enforcement agency to control unregistered Deltas. Witch hunts begin to flush out super-humans who had not registered.

A group of heroes emerged to fight for freedom and civil rights. Calling themselves the "Defiance", they were a loosely organized resistance group that opposed having to register their superpowers. Portrayed as domestic terrorists by the government, the two sides fought for decades. In 1966, a battle between Delta Prime forces and the super-villain Devastator (who was among those responsible for the assassination attempt on Kennedy) ended with Devastator escaping after four square blocks in New York City were destroyed and thousands of lives were lost. In the aftermath of this, Kennedy declared martial law throughout the country. Stoking fears of Delta terrorists, he established himself as President for Life, ignoring the Constitution, and keeping the public under control by manipulating their fears. Congress and the Supreme Court were relegated to mere advisory bodies. Protected by a Secret Service detachment of Delta Prime, Kennedy began enforcing his will through hearings, secret trials, and extrajudicial executions of many prisoners. A super-powered, supermax prison known as the Fortress was constructed in Nebraska to imprison Delta and Alpha enemies of the state.

Disappearance of Alphas
On July 4, 1976, the "Bicentennial Battle" erupted in downtown Chicago as a showdown between the Devastator, his minions and allies, and Superior and the forces of Delta Prime. Devastator threatened to detonate a mysterious "doomsday bomb" on top of the Sears Tower unless Superior surrendered to him, but his ultimatum was refused, and the bomb was detonated—everything within 25 mi of the Sears Tower vanished, leaving a shallow crater into which Lake Michigan flowed, creating the Chicago Bay and killing millions. At the same time, every Alpha in existence spontaneously vanished. Over the next few years, Chicago, now known as Crescent City due to its shape, was effectively rebuilt from the ground up on the shores of the new bay. Established as the center of superpowered activity on Earth, it became the headquarters of both Delta Prime and the Defiance.

Without Superior and other Alphas to keep the world relatively calm, global affairs quickly fell into anarchy. Without the fear of Alphas, the Defiance and Delta super-villains were emboldened to act, leaving many cities scarred from super-powered conflicts. Many nations collapsed into various wars. When the Soviet Union neared collapse in 1988, a coup restored communist power, and the CIA orchestrated the assassination of the general responsible. In 1989, in response to an incident involving Deltas in Chernobyl, a limited nuclear war broke out between the US and USSR, destroying Atlanta, San Francisco, Kyiv, and Minsk.

The Defiance reached its greatest strength as the development of the Internet in the 1990s made it much easier for Deltas to stay in contact and organize. Secret, encrypted web pages, email, and offshore data havens helped the Defiance movement grow from a loose group of malcontents into a much larger and more organized movement. Kennedy was unable to quell the issue by simply shutting down the Internet, as doing so would damage the already struggling economy.

Outside the United States, 1990 to present

 * Nelson Mandela was murdered in 1996, ending any chance of a peaceful settlement of apartheid in South Africa, where racial order is enforced by superhuman powers.
 * Australia is actually quite open and hospitable to Deltas, and is one of the few havens in the world where they are treated as equal citizens, assuming they can make it to Australian soil to claim the offer.
 * Canada has its own laws requiring registration of Deltas, but they are nowhere near as harsh as in the US.
 * China is strangely shorthanded with Deltas, compared to other countries, for reasons not well understood. Fearing that the United Kingdom would not return Hong Kong, they staged a military invasion of the island in 1998, which still was ongoing as of the 1999 date of the books.
 * The European Union never formed, and Europe is a fractious, contentious continent of heavily armed police states, although Norway and Sweden are also havens for Deltas.
 * Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, but the world was too distracted to expel the invaders, so Saddam Hussein is slowly building an empire of his own in the Middle East.
 * Madras was destroyed by a nuclear weapon, although it could never be proven it was from Pakistan, so a nuclear war was narrowly averted.
 * In the aftermath of the Bicentennial Battle, Hirohito reasserted his power and divinity, renounced pacifism, and began to rebuild the Empire of Japan, with the rest of the world too distracted to be able to stop him.
 * The Soviet Union still exists, with a government plagued by constant coup and assassination attempts.

Game system
The game system of Brave New World was based on a simplified version of the rules system developed by Pinnacle Entertainment Group earlier in 1996 for Deadlands. Brave New World eschewed the use of poker cards and poker chips, and only used six-sided dice instead of the many polyhedrals of Deadlands. Superpowers were represented as specific "power packages" of thematic powers grouped together, such as "flyer", "speedster" or "blaster" (similar systems of archetypes are found in other superhero games, like City of Heroes).

The Brave New World books were mostly black & white, with small glossy color sections that would give exposition about the setting and plot, and very important information, like new power packages.

The back of each book contained a "Guide's Handbook", which was information specifically for use by the game master, such as some of the secrets of the setting (see below).

The game was published from 1999 until early 2001, when AEG cancelled the line. Author Matt Forbeck has revealed on his web site the general plans for the game when it was canceled, and the direction it was going to take. A coming expansion would feature Superior reappearing in the skies of Crescent City, wounded and exhausted, but alive, and with him would be revealed the truth behind what really happened to him, all the Alphas, the City of Chicago, and eventually reveal where Alphas and Deltas got their powers, and other mysteries of the setting.

Matt Forbeck has stated his interest in returning to produce new Brave New World materials, possibly in PDF format, but acknowledges the legal and licensing issues that may make such a project very difficult. However, in 2009, Alderac have released all of the Brave New World books in PDF through DriveThruRPG.

Secrets of the setting
Brave New World books always were intentionally vague about some parts of the setting, implying that there were mysteries that the general public (and player characters) would not know about. The truth to these elements was revealed in the "Guide's Handbook" part of each book. Elements of the setting that were planned, but never published, were revealed on the author's web site in 2004, providing a much clearer picture of the Brave New World setting.

The most important secret was that President Kennedy was dead. He really was killed by assassins in 1963. The man who calls himself John F. Kennedy is actually "Facade", an Alpha shapeshifter who Superior convinced to temporarily impersonate the President to allow for a more orderly transfer of office. Facade was not about to give up the most powerful office in the world so lightly, though.

Famous Defiance martyr "Patriot", supposedly executed by the government, was secretly rescued by the Defiance and living in hiding, with the Defiance unwilling to reveal he was alive and lose a powerful martyr, and the government being unwilling to admit that one of their biggest enemies was forcibly rescued from New Alcatraz.

The reason that the USSR did not fall and that coups have failed is that the Premier is a Delta himself, with superhuman healing as his power. Whenever he is poisoned or shot, he recovers within moments. China actually does have as many Deltas as other nations, but it keeps their existence a closely guarded secret, preserving an illusion of scarcity.

Alphas and Deltas got their power from being descended from extra-dimensional entities. In other universes, the laws of physics were different, allowing beings to fly, or shoot beams of energy, or be incredibly strong. When they traveled from universe to universe, they were sometimes mistaken for gods, like they were on Earth. They interbred with the native humans, before being chased away by mysterious "multiversal police" who were an order of being far more powerful, "Omegas", who were as far above Alphas as Alphas were from Deltas. The Multiversal police considered it a serious crime to visit universes that did not natively have superpowers, as it seriously damages the fabric of reality to use superpowers in a world that isn't able to support them.

Thus, the gods and monsters of legend and the angels and devils of religions were real, and are not around anymore because they were chased away by other powerful beings. However, most of mankind is descended, however distantly, from at least one of these beings. Most humans have the raw genetic potential to be Deltas and Alphas, but never get the chance. Only the greatest stress could trigger the subconscious to actually use Delta powers, and the same stresses could turn a Delta into an Alpha. While Delta powers were not natural to Earth, their use was not very injurious to the universe. However, mighty Alpha powers were beginning to slowly destroy the world. If something was not done, the world would be destroyed fairly soon.

The Multiversal Police returned to Earth, and spoke with Facade (impersonating President Kennedy), explaining the real nature of their powers and the danger their world was in, and they made a deal with him. They provided Facade with a device which would eliminate most of the Alphas and prevent Earth's entire universe from collapsing. This device was handed over to Devastator, being told it was a doomsday bomb, which he activated during the Bicentennial Battle.

At the moment the bomb was activated, every Alpha on Earth who was not specially protected (such as being in a special prison) was teleported to a specially prepared pocket dimension, along with everything within 25 mi of the bomb (the Chicago metropolitan area). Thus, the entire city of Chicago, along with almost all the Alphas on Earth, were imprisoned in a pocket universe, seemingly forever. It was intended for Superior, aided by a quarter century of work by every Alpha formerly on Earth, to escape, and for the truth about Facade, the Multiversal Police, the source of Delta powers to be revealed, and for heroes from Earth to be able to explore other universes, but that book, "Crossroads", never got to be published.

Reviews

 * Pyramid
 * Casus Belli #122