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View Full Version : First time DMing Mutants & Masterminds coming up.



overduegalaxy
2008-12-19, 09:22 PM
For those more experienced with the system, what are things I should know? Anything I should look out for during character generation? Any tips for the system?

I've been playing and DMing DnD for a few years; I'm not new to the d20 system as a whole, so no worries there.

sombrastewart
2008-12-19, 11:14 PM
Watch power combos, they can get really abusive, really fast. Example: duplicate and mimic.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-19, 11:33 PM
In fact, certain powers should be disallowed altogether - Duplicate and Mimic being chief among them. Fortunately, the books tell you which powers should be left for NPCs, and even makes distinctions between different grades of those powers. Low-level Mimic is pretty fine, as is very limited Duplicate, but Duplicate with all the Extras and a high level is going to mess up your game. It's even worse if the character has any other powers, especially offensive ones. "I Blast every enemy 20 times." "... what!?" "You heard me. Now squeal, piggy!"

Tadanori Oyama
2008-12-20, 12:01 AM
Make your players give you concepts before they ever get a sheet or look at the book so that you can help to guide them in a controllable direction. It'll help you know what you'll have to deal with.

Monstrodoom
2008-12-20, 02:05 AM
Don't let anyone take Nemesis.

If anyone's a speedster, apprise them of the autofire rules before they take the feat. Also remember that super-speed applies both forms of quickness for every rank; that's an easy detail to miss, and the rate at which a speedster can perform routine tasks becomes very fast very soon.

Watch out for Immunity.

I'm supporting caution regarding duplicate; also Summon unless you're tailor-making their summons for them. I don't necessarily recommend that.

All that said though, M&M is built in such a way that it's easy for players to be super-under-balanced, as well. Love your players every bit as much as you hate them, sometimes they'll need it.

"Nobody bought skill points?"

Tsotha-lanti
2008-12-20, 02:16 AM
Make your players give you concepts before they ever get a sheet or look at the book so that you can help to guide them in a controllable direction. It'll help you know what you'll have to deal with.

This is so true. Concepts are critically important, and can be tricky. Just creating a character with a pile of powers doesn't work at all - players need a running or central theme for the character to be built around. Similarly, some concepts won't work for some power levels, or need modification. For instance, a PL 6-8 paragon won't have Str 30, flight, and invulnerability; but he can have Str 20+, super-jumping, and great toughness. (See Minuteman in Freedom Force vs. Superman; they're the same concept, but with radically different power levels.) Meanwhile, making Wolverine at PL 10+ is hard, because all he really has is Regeneration and Strike. It's a valid character, and might even work in a PL 10+ game, but it's damned hard to use up all the points.

Also, make use of the hero point rules. They're a great story-telling tool, because they allow you to fairly screw over the PCs in the name of the plot - take them prisoner without really allowing a chance to resist (because the adventure/issue/episode calls for them to escape from captivity), let the villain get away, etc. The PCs get hero points in return, which essentially let them turn the tide at a later time, boosting their powers, improvising new powers (most appropriate for magicians and espers).

BardicDuelist
2008-12-20, 02:30 AM
This is so true. Concepts are critically important, and can be tricky. Just creating a character with a pile of powers doesn't work at all - players need a running or central theme for the character to be built around. Similarly, some concepts won't work for some power levels, or need modification. For instance, a PL 6-8 paragon won't have Str 30, flight, and invulnerability; but he can have Str 20+, super-jumping, and great toughness. (See Minuteman in Freedom Force vs. Superman; they're the same concept, but with radically different power levels.) Meanwhile, making Wolverine at PL 10+ is hard, because all he really has is Regeneration and Strike. It's a valid character, and might even work in a PL 10+ game, but it's damned hard to use up all the points.

Also, make use of the hero point rules. They're a great story-telling tool, because they allow you to fairly screw over the PCs in the name of the plot - take them prisoner without really allowing a chance to resist (because the adventure/issue/episode calls for them to escape from captivity), let the villain get away, etc. The PCs get hero points in return, which essentially let them turn the tide at a later time, boosting their powers, improvising new powers (most appropriate for magicians and espers).

Just a note: PL 10+ Wolverine would have some of the martial arts stuff, weapons training, some skills, etc. Remember to round out characters as well. As someone mentioned "No one bout skill points?" is a common thing to run into first time playing (unless you have a "Batman").

Hzurr
2008-12-20, 01:18 PM
It's actually kind of amusing to read this, because my very first character I made for M&M used duplicate & mimic. That being said, it was obvious (as is with any point buy system) that it could be broken very easily, so my GM and I spent some time working on it to make sure it wasn't ridiculously broken, and I went out of my way not to abuse it. Essentially, it was like being a 3.5E Wizard with Time stop and polymorph that didn't break the game. I think when we finally ended up comparing me with the other characters, we realized that the only dice roll that mattered was initiative, and whoever won initiative would win if it came down to a dual.

The concept, if anyone is interested:
The idea was that I was a giant hive-mind of nanites who would take the shape of a vaguely humanoid creature. So, I had all the penalties and bonuses that comes from being a robot, as well as the ability to "flow" into spaces that weren't water-tight or better. When I duplicated myself, I simply split a large number of my nanites off to make another copy of me, and this way we justified me only being able to duplicate myself so many times because I only had enough nanites to make 5 (I think) copies of myself.

The mimic ability was the idea that I would analyze how something worked, and re-program myself to use those abilities

The character's backstory was that I was a weapon invented by the Israeli government as a method of combating all the new super-powered people that were appearing in the world. So far, the Israeli government had no superheros on it's payroll, so they built me. My characters name was Borgstein. "Borg", because he was a robot who assimilated people's abilities, and "stein" because he was Jewish. The various duplicates were all identified by having a different colored star of David on their chest. It was an awesome character.

lisiecki
2008-12-20, 01:20 PM
For those more experienced with the system, what are things I should know? Anything I should look out for during character generation? Any tips for the system?

I've been playing and DMing DnD for a few years; I'm not new to the d20 system as a whole, so no worries there.

Watch for containers.
What to watch out for is a player taking one really high level power, and then takeing multiple Alt Powers for it.
I would say dont alow the alt power feat more than once per each power

UserClone
2008-12-20, 02:15 PM
It's actually kind of amusing to read this, because my very first character I made for M&M used duplicate & mimic. That being said, it was obvious (as is with any point buy system) that it could be broken very easily, so my GM and I spent some time working on it to make sure it wasn't ridiculously broken, and I went out of my way not to abuse it. Essentially, it was like being a 3.5E Wizard with Time stop and polymorph that didn't break the game. I think when we finally ended up comparing me with the other characters, we realized that the only dice roll that mattered was initiative, and whoever won initiative would win if it came down to a dual.

The concept, if anyone is interested:
The idea was that I was a giant hive-mind of nanites who would take the shape of a vaguely humanoid creature. So, I had all the penalties and bonuses that comes from being a robot, as well as the ability to "flow" into spaces that weren't water-tight or better. When I duplicated myself, I simply split a large number of my nanites off to make another copy of me, and this way we justified me only being able to duplicate myself so many times because I only had enough nanites to make 5 (I think) copies of myself.

The mimic ability was the idea that I would analyze how something worked, and re-program myself to use those abilities

The character's backstory was that I was a weapon invented by the Israeli government as a method of combating all the new super-powered people that were appearing in the world. So far, the Israeli government had no superheros on it's payroll, so they built me. My characters name was Borgstein. "Borg", because he was a robot who assimilated people's abilities, and "stein" because he was Jewish. The various duplicates were all identified by having a different colored star of David on their chest. It was an awesome character.

That is...really, really neat, actually. Now I want to play M&M. Not that I never have wanted to play it before, but the chargen is intimidating. It just seems really easy to forget something important. (e.g., the aforementioned skill points)

Tengu_temp
2008-12-20, 02:24 PM
I would say dont alow the alt power feat more than once per each power

Unless they are all attack powers, with different extras/power feats. Then it is a good way of allowing a character to have a large variety of attacks.

Green Bean
2008-12-20, 03:31 PM
Unless they are all attack powers, with different extras/power feats. Then it is a good way of allowing a character to have a large variety of attacks.

Exactly; power-wise, it isn't height you're worried about, but depth. For instance, it's totally fine for a Fire Manipulator to have a few Area Blasts AP'd, or even some status effects (Visual Obscure smokescreen, Snare for a "Ring of Fire", etc). Where it goes wrong is when the player tries to be a Swiss Army knife, having a power for every situation. Look for characters with powers targeting all 4 saves, and certain utility powers AP'd off of offensive ones (Healing is a big offender).


I'll also kick in a bit of general system advice. First, always make sure that you players know which particular generation of comic heroes you're looking for. Parody aside, nothing takes you out of a game like The Punisher blowing away Lex Luthor when he steals 40 cakes, or Superman trying to thwart Ozymandias using a ridiculous plan involving 8 kinds of Kryptonite and a Lois Lane robot.

Second, try to be stingy with combat Hero Points and generous with RP Hero Points. Using too many HPs for NPC rerolls may make the players feel useless, that they're only allowed to win when the GM lets them (while this is technically true, it's important not to let them think it). Conversely, RP Hero Points are an excellent way to make your players feel like part of the story, and a tangible incentive for general RP.