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View Full Version : So, you wanna be a supero, eh, kid? (M&M)



dsmiles
2010-10-04, 05:25 PM
So, my friends and I have an insane urge to break away from the fantasy/fiction genre for a while, and play a superhero game. I understand that Mutants and Masterminds is a very good system. As the GM, I have some basic n00b-ish questions. (Because I hate buying something that I know nothing about, and haven't played.)

1. Is is worth the money to invest in this system for the sort term?
2. For the long term?
3. Is it an easy system to learn?
4. Is it easy to plan sessions (easy in terms of: can I improv in this system without too much trouble)?
5. Is this system better for zany, Tick-like antics, or serious superhero action?
6. What's the most current edition?

I'm sure I'll have more questions as these get answered. Thanks in advance. :smallsmile:

FirebirdFlying
2010-10-04, 05:32 PM
I've only just started playing, so keep that in mind:

1+2) Seems like it to me. It works as a generic system, too - just refluff things and you're good to go.
3) The basics I'm finding easy. Specific things, not quite as much, but I think I'm picking them up.
4) Dunno
5) I think it would work for both.
6) M&M 3e, technically called DC Adventures.

Toptomcat
2010-10-04, 05:32 PM
I don't really know what you mean by 'short-term' and 'long-term', though Green Ronin is usually quite good at supporting its products with additional sourcebooks if that's what you mean. It's rules-heavy, but familiarity with both 3.X and any point buy-based system will make learning the system a fairly simple exercise. Lacking that, it will take you longer, but it's worth it. Improvisation is...well, it's easier than 3.x, but anything based off of the d20 chassis is not as naturally well-suited to that sort of thing as something light like Risus or Wushu. It's well-suited to an extraordinary range of genres, being equally capable of doing the Tick, DKR, Star Wars, and Naruto. The most current edition is 3rd, which is brand-new and expected to get support for quite a lot of time to come.

In my opinion it's a truly fantastic system and a very impressive piece of game design.

Of special note is the game's vibrant community at www.atomicthinktank.com.

dsmiles
2010-10-04, 05:38 PM
Is 2e still a viable option, even though 3e is available?
I'm not keen on spending a ton of money on a system I haven't ever played. Heck, we may not even like it.

The Rose Dragon
2010-10-04, 05:42 PM
Is 2e still a viable option, even though 3e is available?

Yes. Most people haven't switched to 3rd Edition yet. They may not even be aware that 3rd Edition is available. And 2nd Edition currently has a lot more support in terms of Superlink and Ronin books.

Grynning
2010-10-04, 05:44 PM
2e is a fine game on its own if that's what you have available. 3rd ed is basically the same, it's just refined and in some ways simplified, and it also drops the last vestiges of the game's D20 system roots.

As far as money goes, the beauty of M&M is that it absolutely does NOT require a ton of books. For 2nd ed, you only need the main book and Ultimate Power, both of which have softcover pocket editions and PDF's available, which are much cheaper than hardcover. For 3rd ed, there's only the one book out right now (the DC Adventures game), and it's really all you need (and quite nice as far as production values go too, I might add).

Edit: also, you won't need any new dice. All the rolls just use one d20. that's it.

dsmiles
2010-10-04, 05:45 PM
Yes. Most people haven't switched to 3rd Edition yet. They may not even be aware that 3rd Edition is available. And 2nd Edition currently has a lot more support in terms of Superlink and Ronin books.

That's good, I know where I can obtain some 2e books (of dubious quality) for less than retail.

Da Beast
2010-10-04, 05:58 PM
2E is a great system. I'm honestly weary of the new edition because I can't think of anywhere near an editions worth of changes that need to be made. 2E can have some balance issues, but as long as you have a GM willing to put his foot down on some things and players who try not to be jerks it shouldn't be a problem. Most of the problem powers are actually called out as such in the rules with suggestions on how to keep them from breaking the game. As long as you limit variable powers (shapeshift, gadgets, whatever) and anything that grants extra actions (usually through having extra characters from the summon or duplication powers) you'll be fine.

Edit: You don't need ultimate power to play, it just helps if you really want to be able to make any power you can think of. For cheap books check eBay or used bookstores I guess. I think the Green Ronin website sells PDF versions of most books for cheap.

Dubious Pie
2010-10-04, 06:17 PM
I prefer 2e, it is more GURPSy. Well, M&M2e is basically GURPS Core + That GURPS Superhero Thing. It is good.

The Rose Dragon
2010-10-04, 06:18 PM
I prefer 2e, it is more GURPSy. Well, M&M2e is basically GURPS Core + That GURPS Superhero Thing. It is good.

Except much simpler, much less flexible and much more interesting to read.

At least, I think so.

Tengu_temp
2010-10-04, 06:33 PM
1. Is is worth the money to invest in this system for the sort term?
2. For the long term?
3. Is it an easy system to learn?
4. Is it easy to plan sessions (easy in terms of: can I improv in this system without too much trouble)?
5. Is this system better for zany, Tick-like antics, or serious superhero action?
6. What's the most current edition?


1. You really only need the core book, so I'd say yes.
2. Definitely yes. You can run over 9000 different campaigns in it.
3. Learning the system is pretty easy. Character building can take a lot of time and math-checking, but the actual game is fast-paced and simple.
4. Yes. Creating NPCs and enemies on the spot is very easy, and terrain has minimal effects so you don't need to pay a lot of attention to the encounter's surroundings when they're not plot-important.
5. Both. It works well for most settings, in fact. The only ones that don't really fit are very gritty settings where a single gunshot is bound to kill you, and Christmas Tree-style fantasy where you gather treasure and spend it on buying better and better equipment.
6. 3e/DC Adventures. It streamlined and simplified some 2e elements (grappling) and took care of the more abusable parts, but 2e has more supplements and is more popular for now. Nevertheless, DC Adventures is a slightly better system. My suggestion: if you want to play this game online, get 2e, if you only want to play with your own group, get DCA.

Ragitsu
2010-10-04, 07:19 PM
As a roleplaying gamer, I am naturally reluctant to try any system i'm not used to. So, it took a month or so of persuasion from a friend of mine before I took a look at Mutants and Masterminds Second Edition.

It has been a little over half a year later and I now count this book among my most valued gaming resources.

---

Mutants and Masterminds Second Edition is a pencil and paper RPG that is partially constructed on the popular "d20" rules. The d20 rules are the basis of Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars, Spycraft and numerous other roleplaying games.

I say partially, because Green Ronin has taken the core concept and altered it beyond what most Wizards of the Coast/AEG players are used to. First of all, the familiar level-based structure by which characters advance in power and influence is gone.

That's right, this is a point-based system. Essentially, characters do not have to gain "experience" in order to advance to another "level", but instead earn Power Points, which is a kind of currency to purchase character abilities, feats, powers, skills and more. This means that a character can change dynamically within the span of a game session without having to make complicated mathematical alterations to their sheet.

And it has to be: when the main focus of an RPG is comic book superheroes, you should expect anything and everything to happen. The usual powers, such as Flight, Super-Strength, Blast, Elongation, Immunity, Mind Control and so forth are here, as well as quite a few lesser known ones like Postcognition and Spinning.

But the great thing is, the information within this book allows you to go beyond Superman, Wolverine, Caitlin Fairchild, etc, and make characters you've known from anime, books, cartoons, movies, games...virtually anyone you can conceive of. Therefore, the system is highly versatile.

For example, I have seen owners create Connor McLeod (Highlander - movie), Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden - videogame), He-Man (He-Man - cartoon), Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach - anime) and Deadpool (Marvel - comics) with little to no difficulty. Ultimately, this proves that the system's versatility is it's strongest point and it really allows players and Game Masters alike to focus on the roleplaying without having to put the rules at the forefront of their thoughts.

I can't say Mutants and Masterminds is entirely flawless though. For one, lower powered adventures are not handled especially well and will often be a transitory period rather than the focus of an entire campaign. Also, some of the more granular details incorporated in other RPG systems are gone to speed up gameplay: while this probably won't be an issue given the genres the rules are geared towards, some gamers will feel it lacking and would do best to seek a more in-depth system like GURPS Fourth Edition along with it's superhero supplement.

Still, if all you want to do is get a game going where the players's characters are capable in action, yet concise in construction, you can't do much better than Mutants and Masterminds Second Edition.

Dragonmuncher
2010-10-04, 07:30 PM
So what's the difference between 3rd and 2nd? I liked 2nd a lot, but I know it was definitely a bit abusable. Although the solution for that was... don't abuse it.

Is 3rd worth getting?

Beleriphon
2010-10-04, 07:44 PM
So what's the difference between 3rd and 2nd? I liked 2nd a lot, but I know it was definitely a bit abusable. Although the solution for that was... don't abuse it.

Is 3rd worth getting?

I think so, there have been several major changes. The biggest is dissecting several different powers that were subsumed by Afflication, the whole power structure has been changed to effects that you build powers from, skills have been changed, and the whole whack of feats are now Advantages.

It's very similar, but it isn't the same. Defenses are better balanced (fort + will is <= 2xPL). I'd personally recommend the system, I like it a great deal and I own a plethora of Second Edition books. That nice thing is that it's not that hard to convert between the two, or use material from older books.

Ragitsu
2010-10-04, 08:03 PM
I liked 2nd a lot, but I know it was definitely a bit abusable.

Any point buy system can be abused: that's what GMs and advice are for. In exchange, however, you get great flexibility.

dsmiles
2010-10-05, 04:32 AM
Thanks for all the input, guys/gals. Thus far, I have been completely convinced that 2e M&M is 'the shizzle,' and 3e made some improvements, but only has one book (how you can improve upon 'the shizzle,' I'll never know).

Now I just need some input from my players as to the theme of the game. If only I could get them on here. :smalltongue:

Ragitsu
2010-10-05, 04:39 AM
No problemo.

Drascin
2010-10-05, 04:46 AM
I think so, there have been several major changes. The biggest is dissecting several different powers that were subsumed by Afflication, the whole power structure has been changed to effects that you build powers from, skills have been changed, and the whole whack of feats are now Advantages.

It's very similar, but it isn't the same. Defenses are better balanced (fort + will is <= 2xPL). I'd personally recommend the system, I like it a great deal and I own a plethora of Second Edition books. That nice thing is that it's not that hard to convert between the two, or use material from older books.

I still need to give this book a good read - see the changes and how Affliction has modified things and such. The "losing of the d20 vestiges" thing that's been mentioned in this thread makes me sad, because its superficial similarities with D&D while at the same time being more flexible were precisely what allowed me to get groups that would refuse to try some games to give M&M 2e a look, though. Still, sounds like not too bad a change, perhaps worth looking into when my current campaign ends.

kamikasei
2010-10-05, 04:56 AM
On game styles: of the four games I currently have active, all are M&M 2e and none are comic-book superheroes. One is a special ops magical girl squad, one a UN alien-fightan' transforming heroes team, one a group of dead people resurrected to play a mysterious game, and one an urban fantasy about a secret war between mages. It's a versatile system.

Just make sure that the players talk to each other and to the GM when coming up with concepts and working out stats. It's very easy to make one completely rules-legal character who accidentally overshadows another, either overall or in a particular niche, so it pays to stake out roles and baselines in advance, and to ask the GM to adjudicate particular restrictions or non-standard applications to make a generic power match up with specific flavour.

dsmiles
2010-10-05, 04:56 AM
I still need to give this book a good read - see the changes and how Affliction has modified things and such. The "losing of the d20 vestiges" thing that's been mentioned in this thread makes me sad, because its superficial similarities with D&D while at the same time being more flexible were precisely what allowed me to get groups that would refuse to try some games to give M&M 2e a look, though. Still, sounds like not too bad a change, perhaps worth looking into when my current campaign ends.

Personally, I haven't had any problems getting people to try other systems. Maybe i've just collected more open-minded people over the years, who knows. I even switched a group from (d20) DnD 3.5e to (d%) CoC 6e. Big change in the game dynamic, there.

dsmiles
2010-10-05, 05:01 AM
On game styles: of the four games I currently have active, all are M&M 2e and none are comic-book superheroes. One is a special ops magical girl squad, one a UN alien-fightan' transforming heroes team, one a group of dead people resurrected to play a mysterious game, and one an urban fantasy about a secret war between mages. It's a versatile system.

Just make sure that the players talk to each other and to the GM when coming up with concepts and working out stats. It's very easy to make one completely rules-legal character who accidentally overshadows another, either overall or in a particular niche, so it pays to stake out roles and baselines in advance, and to ask the GM to adjudicate particular restrictions or non-standard applications to make a generic power match up with specific flavour.

I am the GM, and we're all new to M&M. when we sit down to do character generation, I plan on finding out exactly what they want to do with the system, and we'll go from there (but I try to do that in any system, no matter how many times we've used it). They're probably all about the aforementioned zany, Tick-like antics, if I know them at all.

Terraoblivion
2010-10-05, 05:06 AM
Adjudicate powers to fit the flavor of the game is important as well. Especially the magical girl, special forces squad game has some fairly clear restrictions on what you can and can't do to fit the subject matter.

And yes, the system can be used to do a lot of different things. Apart from being in two of the games Kami listed, the magical girl one and the one about dead people playing a mysterious game, i'm in another one as well. It's basically a cloned amalgam of Firefly, Gundam and Skies of Arcadia and again, no superheroes there. Only one character has any kind of powers beyond those of action movie lead characters and she's still just a very weak psychic.

kamikasei
2010-10-05, 05:16 AM
I am the GM, and we're all new to M&M. when we sit down to do character generation, I plan on finding out exactly what they want to do with the system, and we'll go from there (but I try to do that in any system, no matter how many times we've used it).
That was intended as general advice independent of your role at the table or knowledge of the system. What I mean is, there's no "tough hero" class you can take if your character is meant to be The Big Guy. If you want to play that role, you should let others know and make sure that e.g. you have the highest Toughness and other saves at the table. From the other side, as GM you may want to tell people "no Mind Control" or "you can have Teleport, but only at a low rank or with certain flaws or restrictions". In other words, when you're working out what you want to do with the game, you'll also need to make some fine-grained jugdments about mechanics.

dsmiles
2010-10-05, 03:40 PM
From the other side, as GM you may want to tell people "no Mind Control" or "you can have Teleport, but only at a low rank or with certain flaws or restrictions". In other words, when you're working out what you want to do with the game, you'll also need to make some fine-grained jugdments about mechanics.

As of this posting, I'm not sure I'm qualified to make those judgements. I am studying the book this week and next week, however, in the hopes of having a general working knowledge of what could potentially break the game. (Mind Control? Check. Teleport? Check. Shapeshifting? Possible check. Duplication/Summoning? Possible check.)

Prime32
2010-10-05, 04:27 PM
As of this posting, I'm not sure I'm qualified to make those judgements. I am studying the book this week and next week, however, in the hopes of having a general working knowledge of what could potentially break the game. (Mind Control? Check. Teleport? Check. Shapeshifting? Possible check. Duplication/Summoning? Possible check.)Many of these restrictions will depend on the setting.

kamikasei
2010-10-05, 04:30 PM
Don't worry too much about brokenness. I was speaking in terms of certain things just not being part of the concept you have for the setting - you don't want people to be able to go that fast, or teleport that far, or you don't want to deal with adjudicating mind reading or mind control, or whatever.

For a quick and dirty guide to brokenness: be wary of flaws that don't really make a power less useful, and be very wary of action-reducing extras: movement powers as reactions (though I think errata/UP eliminates this?), free action attack powers, etc. A combo like Lucky + Ultimate Effort (Aim) gives you a free autohit each encounter, while too much Quickness can let a character make one-shot inventions at ridiculous speed to expand their repertoire. But these are mostly things that will be clear as soon as you read through the sheet and think about what the character can actually do. Emergent problems are best solved by being generous with rebuilds if you decide something's too good and need to ask a player to change it.

Ragitsu
2010-10-05, 04:39 PM
at ridiculous speed

In the comics, nothing is ridiculous :smallcool:. I know we're talking about a P&P RPG, but I thought i'd throw that out there all the same :smallbiggrin:.

dsmiles
2010-10-05, 05:07 PM
Emergent problems are best solved by being generous with rebuilds if you decide something's too good and need to ask a player to change it.

Very solid advice. Hopefully, my players will follow their standard DnD character building strategy, and not break the game (intentionally, though it has happened on accident once or twice).


In the comics, nothing is ridiculous :smallcool:. I know we're talking about a P&P RPG, but I thought i'd throw that out there all the same :smallbiggrin:.

Ridiculous? You must not have read my sig...:smalltongue:

dsmiles
2010-10-07, 04:36 AM
So, I've read the recommended chapters 1-8, and started chapter 9 last night.

I will probably have to nerf mind control and teleportation, and possibly mind reading, just to keep a story going. Not too worried about shapeshifting (none of my players would try to break the game with this) or duplication or summon minion (since minions can't have minions, and a duplicate doesn't have the duplication power). I think this will go well.
I also picked up the Mastermind's Manual, Ultimate Power and some Archetypes book (which I can't remember the title of) all for under $25 (total).

Prime32
2010-10-07, 04:54 AM
Mecha & Manga has some interesting rules like vehicles, Super Modes, and "comedic damage".

kamikasei
2010-10-07, 05:09 AM
Mecha & Manga has some interesting rules...
Much as I like that book, I should warn that this statement is true in the Chinese sense too. There are some entertainingly broken things in there. Not so bad that they shouldn't be allowed, just ones that warrant a little extra scrutiny.

FelixG
2010-10-07, 05:16 AM
This threads title reminded me of the iron man kid skit on robot chicken, where he gets tossed into the giant crab mechs engine.

I have the books (2e) but i have yet to play a game of it sadly, this thread is giving me a good deal to think about though! thanks!

Cubey
2010-10-07, 06:50 AM
Mecha and Manga - oh dear. That book is so broken. To be more precise, its feats are broken. The additional rules such as fighting styles or creating giant robots are awesome. It's a lovingly crafted rulebook, obviously written by people who know their anime. Just... use it with care.

As for core: Magic is a broken power, because it allows you to Alternate almost anything off it. Better to just buy normal powers (Blast as Magic Missile, Flight for... well, flight, etc) and give them the Magic descriptor. But powers in general are pretty balanced, breaking them is mostly about Extra modifiers abuse. Huge explosions that engulf everyone on Earth, free action attacks, stuff like that. But it's hard to do this by mistake so do not worry, your players are unlikely to create overpowered characters if they are new to this.

Differences between 2e and 3e are not too big, but they exist. Stats are a bit different and, in my opinion, better balanced. Likewise saves. Skills are more expensive, and some of the more confusing, useless or easy to abuse powers are gone.

dsmiles
2010-10-07, 04:02 PM
Unfortunately, the books I picked up were the only ones at the used book store that I 'live' in.

EDIT:

This threads title reminded me of the iron man kid skit on robot chicken, where he gets tossed into the giant crab mechs engine.

I have the books (2e) but i have yet to play a game of it sadly, this thread is giving me a good deal to think about though! thanks!

If you're in Northern Virginia (Alexandria/Lorton/Woodbridge area) I can ask my group to let you in (since we play at my group's house, not mine).

GoatToucher
2010-10-08, 11:35 PM
GM involvement in character generation is -key- in MnM. The only limits to the PCs power are the ones set by the GM.

FelixG
2010-10-09, 04:47 AM
If you're in Northern Virginia (Alexandria/Lorton/Woodbridge area) I can ask my group to let you in (since we play at my group's house, not mine).

The offer is appreciated but i live on the other side of the nation (Oregon) :D

Thanks though!