Agency Levels and Low Level Plots (or Why You're Not Supposed to "Balance Superman")

The moment your players get access to "Detect Whodunnit" powers, your table becomes immune to "low level plots."

And this is NOT A BAD THING.

A common folly of most DMs I know is persisting on  the idea of running the same basic plots at high levels, only to kick and scream that "the game is broken" because the table's lvl 12 diviner solves their "clever, intricate murder mystery" in six seconds.

But... what is a low-level Plot?

Be understood a Low Level Plot as an adventure premise that only works on PC parties with the minimum amount of agency contemplated in a given game. As PCs numbers grow bigger and their abilities' repertoire grows, so does their ability to trivialize an increasing number of premises. Furthermore, if we're talking about non zero-to-hero games, they're likely to have said "disruptive" abilities at their disposal from the start:

• Characters with flight or otherwise "travel powers" make of "the trip to PLACE!" sessions a non-issue and void most environment-based hazards and obstructions.
• Genius-type characters void "Go ask the sagely NPC" hooks since they can figure out solutions themselves (because, you know, that's their whole schtick and raison d'etre).
• ESPers or otherwise "diviner"-type characters bypass any "detective stories" (or, at the very least, easily skip over half the loops the GM had planned).
• Any characters able to do "tunneling" or straight punch through walls dismantle "dungeons" in minutes.

I'm sure you get my point by now.

(no, the solution is NOT nerfing Superman, it's either not using him for this story, or coming up with a story better suited for him. Credit: the-gutters.com (url now dead))

Bad GMs throw a fit and resort to Pre-Emptive Gaming, constantly coming up with ways to cancel the PCs abilities in order to force the players through the hoops they had planned:

• Even 7/11s are warded against divinations.
• Every-single enemy is fire-based once the wizard learns Fireball.
• All buildings in the city are made of Antiplayerium

...and otherwise any form of Green Rocks of Lazy Writing.

Good GMs adapt and make their peace with the fact that heroes of different power levels have different stories.

Superman isn't supposed to care for petty crooks (leave those to Robin!), and you don't use Superman in a Nancy Drew novel, he'd just use his super-senses and X-ray vision to uncover the culprit right away. He's supposed to be out there saving sinking ships trapped in hurricanes in the middle of the Pacific: a needle in a haysack only he can pinpoint with his world-reaching super-hearing and only he can reach in time with his hyper sonic speed before all crew is dead. When he fights, he fights other terrestrial gods without secrets or weaknesses that no one but him can fight.

Batman no longer cares for petty muggers in Detective Comics (ok, he does, but he does his beat "off camera," one-sided beatdowns don't make for engaging stories), he chases the masterminds behind global conspiracies that use nameless operatives without fingerprints, are fed by slush funds no sane person can track, have meetings in ultra-high security facilities not even other metahumans can easily access, and plan webs of schemes that often take outright unnaturally accurate leaps of logic to untangle (remember, Batman is NOT "a normal human"). When he fights, he fights super-criminals of low-to moderate metahuman ability that fight dirty and constantly deploy abusive tactics of the kind that would kill any other vigilante dead without the chance to fight back (and would have your players flipping the table at you)... but not Batman, since he's a master tactician and is prepared for everything.

In zero-to-hero games (i.e dnd and all its derivatives), the narrative and dynamics likewise have to change as the PCs go up in levels: 

Early Game:

PCs are barely elevated muggles, they know nothing and live bumbling through peril and somehow live to tell about it. While the PCs are handy to have around in the neighbourhood, the problems they deal with are ultimately things you could solve by calling the police. Examples: "Go hit the neighbouring goblins with a pointy stick," any Nancy Drew or Scooby Doo mystery. Any story within the horror genre. THIS is what I call Low Level Plots. This tier is where all high-lethality adventures live.

No divination powers? Check

No means to beat the main bad guy face-to-face? Check

You could substitute any member of the cast at any moment for any Joe off the street? Check

Yes, this is a low-level plot.

Mid Game:

PCs are problem solvers that actually know what they're doing and use their considerable talents to tackle problems outright impossible for muggles (and they do it all ON THEIR OWN POWER, with no aid from "sage NPCs," external McGuffins, or otherwise deus ex machina). PCs in this tier no longer fear being mugged in an alley, and while they can still die, nothing short of overwhelming odds or dropping a moon on them will stick. If the PCs turned to villainy, they could handily take over the city. Examples: Solve a "mystery" for which there are no mundane clues whatsoever (i.e a perfect crime), assassinate a warlord that lives in an inaccessible place (castle in the sky, pocket dimension, etc), stop an invasion.

Endgame:

The PCs are the setting's high rollers and, being honest, they're more Plot Devices than they are characters at this point. They are The Magnificent Seven Elminsters, they are The Justice League. This time, the PCs are the "elderly quest giver" that pays cheap labor in peanuts to do menial tasks while they actually make sure there will still be a world tomorrow. At this stage, "death" is merely a temporary setback and the laws of physics are "just guidelines"... and such degree of agency is not "an advantage," it's merely the entry fee. The only reason the PCs haven't taken over the world is because they have bigger fish to fry (or they're Superman). Examples: Stop an earthquake before the city crumbles or any civilian dies, time travel shenanigans until the heroes realize the past plain cannot be changed, broker peace between two near-omnipotent entities.

Granted, not all GMs have the creativity of Mark Waid or Robert J. Sawyer (nor they are obligated to). If high-agency is not your thing, then I recommend sticking to low-powered games. There are many good choices in the market (my personal recommendation is Gumshoe) and it's both easier and better for everyone than throwing tantrums at your players because you keep shoehorning low-level plots to high-agency characters.