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View Full Version : The City: A Mutants and Masterminds Setting Tool



Arcane_Snowman
2013-10-10, 09:39 AM
So, this is still very much in it's inception, and I would very much appreciate a bit of hand expanding upon this idea. I haven't finished up on the seasonal activities yet and wherein the roles fit into everything. But it's late and I'd like to get some feedback.

What is this system expansion trying to do?
Well, "The City" is supposed to be a mini-system tacked on to Mutants and Masterminds (for now), which gives the city in which the heroes and villains live in stats, allowing it to grow, or decay, over time. The intent is to make a sandbox tool which grounds the PCs somewhat, giving them both a base of operations, as well as a measuring stick for their progress.

The other feature that comes as part of this change, is an active measurement of time, which then provides the players with a number of seasonal activities they can undertake under the time restraints to allow the city to grow. Currently these time blocks are a season in length.

Current Design Limitations:
This system is currently being designed with a very large group (11 people) in mind, the intent is to provide a tool with which to decentralize the role of DM, as well as splitting up the people in any given scene, allowing players to play both villains and heroes, without relegating them to playing either or for the entire duration of the game. The setting is conversely going to take a lot of up-front work as pregenerated characters are probably going to be in abundance.

Character Types:
To help facilitate the feel of playing in a big metropolis with a lot of things going on, even on a heroic/villainous fashion, the party needs to be able to be split on multiple occasions. Therefore, I’m putting guidelines on the various types of characters that can be played in a given scene.

All of these Archetypes are playable characters, with the system determining how many of each will be present during a given adventure, this means that a player can during one adventure be playing his Hero, and then another time be playing a Mercenary for the Villains or the Heroes, or be in control of a number of mooks.

The Villain: PL X
What it says on the tin.

The Second Fiddle: PL X-1
Sometimes villains don’t work alone, and have a staple second in command. You are she. The Villain may have no more than a single Second Fiddle.

The Force of Nature PL X+2
A villain whose only motive is destruction, they have a high rate of bouncing between prison and the world as they have little need for anything beyond immediate gratification.

The Hero: PL X-1
Also what it says on the tin.

Mercenary: PL X-2
Somewhere between mook and villain, the mercenaries are individuals who get hired to assist either the Heroes or Villains, sometimes both.

Mook: PL X-4
The nameless hordes of generic bad, and sometimes good, guys.

The City:
The following stats have assigned a number between 0 and 10.0, the integer part of the number is referred to as the Score and the fractional part as Points

The Heroes are assumed to be apart of a collective, such as the Justice League. In a smaller game one could feasibly allocate the Faith and Base scores to each individual Hero.

The City has the following stats:
Base: how well equipped the Heroes base of operations is, the Score directly correlates to the amount of PP the base has.
Crime: The rampancy of the cities criminal elements.
Faith: Whether the general populace believes in the heroes ability to do good.
Infrastructure: How much of the city remains intact and in good order.
Well-being: General health of the average city-dweller.

The Villains have the following stats:
Note: the Second Fiddle does not have these stats, but instead enhances the Villain’s.
Base: the strength of the villain's secret home base, like with the heroes, the score directly reflects the PP available.
Control: How much of the criminal elements the villain has a hand in, or gets a cut off of.
Funds: How many resources are available to the villain, this includes henchmen etc.
Notoriety: How well known they are, and also how reviled their exploits are.
Secrecy: How hard the Villains base of operations is to find.

Seasonal activities:
Every season in which the Villain is not undertaking some other nefarious scheme, he is assumed to be doing small-time villainy either by himself or by proxy: the Funds of the Villain increases by 1, or 2 if they have a Second Fiddle, and the Cities Crime increases by 1.

During any given direct confrontation scene, such as a Heist or a Raid, the villain may field a number of Mercenaries equal to half his Funds Score, and up to twice his Funds Score
in Mooks, this subtracts a number of Fund Points equal to the number of Mercenaries fielded, plus half the Mooks.

Heists:
A Villain may instigate a heist during any season, explaining what she sets out to do, a number between 1 and 10 is assigned to the heist, reflecting the Grandiosity of the attempt, if successful she or he may allocate the number as points amongst her Control and Funds, as well as subtracting an equal number of points from between Faith and Well-being, any successful heist also increases Crime and by Notoriety of all participating Villains by half the Grandiosity.

DedWards
2013-10-10, 10:57 AM
Interesting. I play a lot of M&M (average once a week for ±5 hours). I'll help where can.

First I'd like to point out that 11 people is a large group, potentially too large and turns in combat will take VERY long. This may cause the player to become board and uninterested.

Second I'd like to point out that the Minion and Sidekick advantages simulate "The Second Fiddle", "Mercenary" and "Mook" very well. Will each be controlled by one player per character and will their "boss" need to spend the PP to acquire them?

Silverscale
2013-10-10, 11:32 AM
Haven't played M&M in a while and I'm not sure if/when I'd get a chance to get back into it, but I do have at least one question so far.

You have The Villain listed as PL X, and The Hero listed as PL X-1. Does this mean that the players are assumed to be 1 level lower than the main villain or that other hero's, not controlled by the players, are 1 level lower than both the PC's and the main villain?

Arcane_Snowman
2013-10-10, 06:11 PM
Second I'd like to point out that the Minion and Sidekick advantages simulate "The Second Fiddle", "Mercenary" and "Mook" very well. Will each be controlled by one player per character and will their "boss" need to spend the PP to acquire them? They are essentially free from a PP standpoint.

All of these Archetypes are there to allow for multiple things to happen in the City at the same time which requires the attention of the main heroes, without needing things to follow a totally linear adventure:

During any given Season there could be a natural disaster heading City way, preoccupying one Hero, meanwhile another Hero is following up on leads to track down the lair of one villain. Then there's the two other heroes who are simultaneously fighting a Villain with his entourage, the intent of this system is to make the results of the former two threats randomly generated as well as solved with minimum game time being spent, whilst simultaneously taking up as much in-world time as to tie up heroes and villains alike with something other than simply slugging it out face to face all the time.


You have The Villain listed as PL X, and The Hero listed as PL X-1. Does this mean that the players are assumed to be 1 level lower than the main villain or that other hero's, not controlled by the players, are 1 level lower than both the PC's and the main villain? All of the Archetypes are playable characters, and the equations are intended for inter-player balance only.

I've added some more stuff, hopefully some of your questions have been answered.

DedWards
2013-10-10, 11:44 PM
I'm assuming you're going to have generic builds for the Mercenaries and the Mooks. This will be needed for the hiests.

I like that you're keeping track (and rating) the city's crime rate, etc.

I realise I mite not be much help in this particular project, but if there's any character builds you want help with, feel free to ask me :)

Arcane_Snowman
2013-10-11, 03:19 AM
I'm assuming you're going to have generic builds for the Mercenaries and the Mooks. This will be needed for the hiests. this is the intention.


I like that you're keeping track (and rating) the city's crime rate, etc. it's there to keep track of


I realise I mite not be much help in this particular project, but if there's any character builds you want help with, feel free to ask me :) Well, given the fact that it's where it's headed inevitably, it's not something I'd scoff at by a long mile. I appreciate the offer :smallbiggrin: