So, it looks like I'm a little late to the party… Don't know if anyone will see this or not.
I'm considering converting my current game into SA2, or maybe Sorc, since I tend to prefer fantasy over scifi… But SA2 seems the better fit. Still, it seems like I will need to shift the settings a little bit, and I don't know how much I can shift it before I have to break certain assumptions of the setting. So, I thought I'd check here, if this was possible.
My current setting:
The players have been kidnapped from modern earth and brought to a world where they are given powers by "gods" and are forced to go through "dungeons" and to fight others, all for the entertainment of said gods. The players are aware that the powers they get are the result of the gods enslavement of some type of other beings, that seem almost spiritual in nature. There are hints that the other inhabitants of the world, including the denizens that stock the dungeons, are from other worlds and were kidnapped, also.
In my behind the scenes notes, I know that the PCs were not literally kidnapped but were, rather, copied. The "gods" are highly advanced, highly immoral beings who are doing all this for sport.
I want the PCs to be able to escape and maybe even to seek revenge against the gods or to free the others that have been kidnapped/copied. I was thinking SA2 or Sorc might be the way to do it.
Now, I know the easiest way would be to make the world they're on simply a digital reality, a simulation. I'd like to avoid that, if possible. I was thinking, if I used SA2, the "modern earth" that the PCs are all from would turn out to be a world that had forgotten the Diaspora, that had been engineered to be as much like Old Earth as possible. The planet the PCs currently inhabit is far outside any civilization's influence. The "gods" are descended from amoral transhumanists. As far as the dungeons and their denizens being from other cultures… Perhaps the gods could have a whole society focused on engineering these elaborate sets and creatures to inhabit them, then wormhole-ing them into position when ready?
Most of the powers the PCs have displayed, so far, would be easy to duplicate using Nanotech and Stringtech- flight, fireballs, etc. Some of them would be more difficult for me to explain- personal Teleportation, phasing immaterial like a ghost.
My thoughts are that some Stardwellers can come upon them and seek to rescue them. But, with the Powder Keg universe being so busy with other stuff, no major civilization wants to waste time rescuing a few hundred primitives.
Would the kinds of things these gods are capable of doing be in the realm of 5s and 6s in capabilities? Or have I stretched things too far?
I feel like Sorcerously Advanced could do this by using various other worlds, though I don't know what the lasting implications would be to the setting. And, also, I feel like the system is a little bit more complicated to explain than SA2, though not enough that that would be a deciding factor.