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Reed Richards Is Useless: Difference between revisions
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*** And the d20 version of ''Adventure'' has Maxwell Mercer doing things like finding an anachronistic transistor-based computer built decades ahead of its time... and locking it away in a vault forever 'because mankind is not yet ready'. Sheesh! When did you suddenly turn into Randall Dowling, Max?
* ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' features many of the [[Mad Scientist|Inspired]] ''trying'' to stop being useless, but it's not going well because normal humans cause Wonders to break, dissolve, or start hungering for their creator's blood.
** This trope was played with in the [[Old World of Darkness]]. Spectacular changes like a Universal Translator or a superpowered healing magic were certainly available to player characters, especially in [[Mage: The Ascension]]. However, they were prone to malfunction because the world was a [[World Half Empty]] running on [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] and humanity just didn't believe in the super-tech or old magic. Many supernaturals and human groups also had very good reasons to enforce [[The Masquerade]], and would make sure any Reed Richards who drew too much attention was discredited and then buried in a shallow grave. However, using your power to make the world subtly better was certainly possible. Running around the hospital ward curing folks like a [[Dungeons
** The fundamental question of Genius is "what does Reed Richards think of Reed Richards Is Useless?"
* Not done with technology but with magic in most editions of ''[[Dungeons
** Averted in ''[[Eberron]]''. Low-level magic is common, but high-level magic is rare and monopolised by the Dragonmarked Houses, who exploit their inherent magical abilities for profit. Their efforts ''have'' raised the standard of living in Khorvaire's main nations, resulting in a setting closer to [[Dungeon Punk]] than your standard medieval fantasy.
** Also, the key phrasing is "enough magic". How many mages that can cast that spell do you think there are?
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** Teleportation aside (as it is fairly powerful magic), less potent spells should eliminate all kinds of hazards. Even low-level curative magic should prevent folks from dying from anything which doesn't kill them outright. Remove Disease costs a low-level cleric nothing to cast and a few of them could essentially eliminate the danger of sickness in a community (especially if they understand triage). Furthermore, spell casters should be researching spells and making items which aren't related to dungeon-crawling to use in their mundane lives. However, since no player is going to get excited about "Ripen Crops II" and "Plowblade of Quick Tilling," they won't be in more recent (3.0 and later) editions. Earlier editions actually had such mundane magic from time to time.
*** Being fair, given that the typical published d20 worlds have population levels and surplus wealth entirely out of line for realistic medieval economies and more appropriate to a world in at least the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, its entirely likely that they ''are'' using ubiquitous household magic to make up the gap. In fact, it would be a [[Plot Hole]] if they ''weren't''.
* Explicitly enforced in ''[[Warhammer
** To put this in perspective for those who don't follow the setting, the Imperium consists of countless worlds, some of which are using technology that corresponds to the late Renaissance or earlier. Some humans are living in pre-agrarian societies. In one instance, Imperial citizens traded with a race of aliens, the Tau, for farming equipment. They were declared heretics and punished.
*** There are a damn good reasons for this however. Alien technology has a tendency to drive users insane, transform them into aliens, or just plain turn out to be incompatible with humans. As for innovation, well; apart from the constant and omnipresent threat of demonic corruption, there's also the fact that Imperial technology is already Sufficiently Advanced, in accordance with Clarke's Third Law, that no one outside of the Magos of Mars have a freaking clue how they actually operate. Finally, good luck coming up with something more efficient and reliable than the technology that has been tried, tested and refined by the greatest minds of the galaxy over the last ten thousand years.
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* In ''[[Raidou Kuzunoha VS King Abaddon]]'' you can find an "element #115", which matches to the atomic number of [[wikipedia:Ununpentium|Ununpentium]] an element where all known isotopes have a half life measured in ''milliseconds'', that can stay in your items for the entire game. What do you do with this seemingly stable form of an element too short lived to research? Make swords!
** This is a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[X-COM]]'', a game made before the element physically existed.
* In ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'', Aperture Science developed several technologies that, with proper application, would have revolutionized the world. Just one, the portal gun, could have, in an instant, solved nearly every transportation and logistical problem on the planet, enabled [[Casual Interstellar Travel]], and incidentally made the company trillions. They also developed [[Brain Uploading]], [[
** In summary, Aperture doesn't change the world because Cave Johnson is loony.
* In almost any RPG with an onscreen plot-related death, you will have at least one healing character—in some particularly absurd cases the majority of your party—present who has up till now cured everything up to and including most minor forms of death, and they do precisely dick this time for some reason. Sometimes justified with whatever kind of magic killed them, but usually not. Some games actually do a better job of explaining it: a common theory is that they're not exactly dead but ''almost'' dead, or just incapacitated.
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* Justified in ''[[Fine Structure]]'', which makes this a plot point. Scientists would like to use The Script for teleportation and other discoveries, but they'll only work until the ''the fundamental laws of the universe'' are changed by Something so it can never be used again.
* The ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' could have changed the world with the SCPs...[[Justified Trope|if they weren't so dangerous]] and most of those that aren't are mostly used to help containing other SCPs. And the Serpent's Hand still consider the Foundation enemies, because they do not want to improve the world with [SCPs=].
* ''[[Superdickery.com]].com'' presents [http://www.superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=846:superman-joins-the-army the most inefficient use] of ''[[Superman]]''. "Again, couldn't he pretty much instantly win the war if he wanted to?"
* [[Chuck Norris Facts|Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer]]. Too bad Chuck Norris has never cried. [[Do Not Taunt Cthulhu|Selfish bastard]].
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* On ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', a parody of Reed Richards is shown to be a sociopathic arm of the military-industrial complex, abandoning Dr. Venture in the arctic wilderness for procrastinating and flirting with his oppressed wife; later, he withholds alien technology, needed to save the world, that was left to Venture by his father, claiming it's because Venture is not responsible enough to have it (which is a quite reasonable argument) but most likely due to him wanting all the credit. In general, there's lots of other super-science doo dads floating around in the series that the general public never gets a chance with.
** Also lampshaded on occasion: in "Tag Sale, You're It!", one of the items in the titular sale is an actual lightsaber which Rusty couldn't sell because "The Army told me they don't fight with swords, and Hasbro wasn't interested in a toy that cost $20 million in parts alone". To add insult to injury, it doesn't even work.
* On ''[[The Fairly
** Unlike Timmy, Chester tries doing this after he's granted Norm, the temporary ex-genie, as his fairy godparent. Of course having a [[Jackass Genie]] as a fairy godparent predictably doesn't turn out well for him. When he wishes the deserts would have enough water for everyone to drink or make the ice-caps warmer to make the penguins less chilly, he ends up flooding the deserts and <s>creating boiling pools of water</s> ''[[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|causing global warming]]''.
* In ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', an item said to possess infinite power, and could solve pretty much any energy related problem, is used to power a time machine. So yeah.
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