How would you summarize M&M's basic traits as a starting point?

[SilverLeaf167]

Imagine that you're going to start running a new game of M&M (3E, if relevant) for a group unfamiliar with the system - you don't need to advertise or "sell" the system or convince the players, that much is already set. However, you don't have a specific story or even setting in mind, and actually want to highlight the possibilities of the system by cooperating with the players to decide what genre etc. they want to play... classic superheroes, street-level, high fantasy, urban fantasy, "small town monster-slaying", sci-fi, something. To help the discussion get started, you want to give them a nice sort of summary on the core traits of the system.

What specific strengths of M&M would you highlight, and why? Broadly what kinds of games would you say it's well suited for?
Examples, references to other media etc. are very much allowed.

Obviously the mechanics come with very little baggage in terms of flavor, and aren't explicitly tied to the superhero setting, so this hypothetical party is trying to expand its horizons. However, while you could run a slice-of-life or gritty detective drama or soap opera or whatever, you're not really playing to the system's strengths in that case, probably even leaving most of the rules unused. And yes, while I'm mostly looking for pros here, you can also list cons if you think that the group should be informed that the system is very poorly suited for certain things. If you think M&M can be easily adapted to a given genre with some minor tweaks, that works too.

So, here's some of my examples of how the system could be stripped to its bare essentials, feel free to argue. The group has a mostly D&D background, which may be relevant:

A lot of potential to represent different sorts of special powers with few hard limits on what "kinds" of powers are available. Barring things that the GM just considers a pain to deal with, no effects are inherently more "high-level" than others
Power levels can easily start from "civilian with one special power" and climb from there - or not climb - and still work just fine, or start from powerful and badass to begin with
People with very different skill sets and concepts, even powered and non-powered people, can be on relatively even footing balance-wise
Without houserules, combat tends to be somewhat swingy (the same two fighters can have a long slugfest or a near-instant knockout) but typically not lethal, and out-of-combat recovery is quick
Combat tends to consist of individual climactic battles rather than series of more minor encounters (YMMV on this?) like a D&D dungeon might, nameless mooks are generally trivial speed-bumps while significant NPCs get a lot more focus. Resource management and concepts like "adventuring days" are mostly irrelevant
The flow of the game is less rigidly tied to the mechanics than in something like D&D by giving the GM the explicit option to introduce Complications, allowing for more "cinematic" and "dramatic" twists when needed and also giving game-relevant meaning to characters' unique traits and weaknesses, while also rewarding the players for playing along. (Obviously this is a pretty optimistic way to put it, and reliant on the players trusting the GM not to constantly screw them over. I feel like this part can be a hard sell if everyone doesn't acknowledge it from the start)

I'd like to gather a list of relatively concise statements like this to give players an idea of what M&M is and what it can do. Obviously there'd be conversation thereafter, so any of them can be expanded upon then, but the list would be the starting point.

Thoughts? I feel like almost every thread I start these days is a half-baked "thought exercise" of some sort, but...

[Knaight]

I'd emphasize that it is a powers system first and foremost - yes, it has stats, and yes, it has skills, but the meat of the system is powers, and it works to play characters with powers. These can be superheroes with superpowers, they can be mecha with super robot powers, they can be mages and sufficiently exaggerated warriors with magic and wuxia style stunts, but they have a set of powers that are to some extent character definitional.

[DeanH]

Probably not what you're looking for, but M&M without powers could be used to play something like the tv show Leverage, where the characters abilities are a little more than realistic. I'd emphasize that the system has a cinematic rather than realistic feel.

[noob]

Then you get fun stuff such as an idiotic rocket engineer who know nothing of science out of rocket engineering.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

To me, the selling point is definitely that you can make pretty much any power you can think of because the system has so much flexibility.

[Knaight]

Probably not what you're looking for, but M&M without powers could be used to play something like the tv show Leverage, where the characters abilities are a little more than realistic. I'd emphasize that the system has a cinematic rather than realistic feel.

You could, but it would be a pretty bad system for it - better than trying to shoehorn it into D&D, but still not great.

[DeanH]

I don't know if anyone would want to play a Leverage style campaign, but I think M&M at PL 2-4 without powers would work well. The show had a somewhat comic-booky feel which various advantages and skills would approximate fairly well.

[Grod_The_Giant]

M&M's single biggest strength, I'd argue, is character variety. It absolutely shines at crazy kitchen sink hodgepodge settings, where you can have a suit of magically animated armor from the middle ages, a superscientist, a man with an alien parasite giving him telekinetic powers, and a man with the power to summon dinosaurs all in the same party and contributing at a similar level. The more varied you want your party to be in terms of what they can do, the better M&M works out.


I don't know if anyone would want to play a Leverage style campaign, but I think M&M at PL 2-4 without powers would work well. The show had a somewhat comic-booky feel which various advantages and skills would approximate fairly well.
I mean, if you want to ignore 95% of the system, I guess you could run it as a bland d20 game. But it would be like running Exalted without charms, or a D&D game that never passes level 1-- sure, you technically could, but there are other options that do the same thing way more effectively.

[Beleriphon]

Imagine that you're going to start running a new game of M&M (3E, if relevant) for a group unfamiliar with the system - you don't need to advertise or "sell" the system or convince the players, that much is already set. However, you don't have a specific story or even setting in mind, and actually want to highlight the possibilities of the system by cooperating with the players to decide what genre etc. they want to play... classic superheroes, street-level, high fantasy, urban fantasy, "small town monster-slaying", sci-fi, something. To help the discussion get started, you want to give them a nice sort of summary on the core traits of the system.

What specific strengths of M&M would you highlight, and why? Broadly what kinds of games would you say it's well suited for?
Examples, references to other media etc. are very much allowed.

M&M excels at heroic character, or action movie characters. At its lowest end you have James Bond and John McClane. At the highest end your heroes are punching demon lords and Galactus in the nose. M&Ms sweet spot really is the PL10 150PP paradigm, at least for me. Its because it gives enough points and limits to make a character feel powerful but not overwhelmingly so, and there are enough point to build a rough analogue of any superhero.

Even the PL6/7 level works for a smaller more specialized group. You can play Conan the Barbarian, the Howling Commandos, a bunch of MI6 agents, or the crew of Serenity.

All that being said, the game thrives on action movie and comic book clichés. So it works on action movie abilities, not necessarily anything approaching real world limits. The human limit on strength lets a character live 800 pounds over her head and walk around like that. The limit on stamina lets characters shrug off hand gun rounds as a common practice. So, the result is always filtered through the lens of a comic book, or if you prefer an action movie. For movies in the same series: it works well for the marines in Aliens, but not the crew in Alien.

[Tailorpress]

M&M is a great system to use for a comic book style superhero game, and initially was written for that. But the rules are generic enough that you can modify it to any genre. Speaking of rules, the rules are easy to understand and learn because all things require one basic mechanic. There is no multiple dice or a lot of modifiers to add, nor confusion over stats versus modifiers when it comes to abilities. Green Ronin also provides great support for the game as far as sourcebooks as well as a great forum for the game.

[evangaline]

you don't need to advertise or "sell" the system or convince the players, that much is already set. However, you don't have a specific story or even setting in mind, and actually want to highlight the possibilities of the system by cooperating with the players to decide what genre etc. they want to play... To help the discussion get started, you want to give them a nice sort of summary on the core traits of the system.

What specific strengths of M&M would you highlight, and why? Broadly what kinds of games would you say it's well suited for?

Short answer: You can tell any story you like. Pick any movie, a game or a book. You can play M&M in that setting with any of those characters. You can do all stories. The way powers are done in M&M means combat is not required to have a fun session.* M&M is awesome like that. I hate DM-ming M&M. M&M is awesome for "new" players. "new" meaning players who've only played dnd.

*if there is no combat in a session your players might not like it, due to their DND history. Be warned.

Long answer:
I've introduced two people into TRPG's (which are not DND) using m&m and it really works wonders for new people. It's like a swiss knife. I think it's main strength is that its usable on any fictional setting. My personal advice regarding genre or character they want to play in, is discussing their preferred media (games, movies, books, etc.).

We started my campain by first making the characters based on their favorite game characters (Sora from kingdom hearts and Jack from that playstation game with mutations). After that we discussed the kind of settings they enjoyed (sci-fi, fantasy, urban, steampunk, etc.). Once again we referred to their preferred media. We picked the steampunky city of Zhaun (from league of legends, which is awesome as there is almost no lore on anything). Finally we were discussing the kind of story they wanted to play. There was quite a debate here. We ended up with a mix between mad scientist + heroes without masks +bureaucratic semi-corrupt and mostly evil city (TM).

It was the best capain i've ever ran. It lasted for two years. We did transition to another system (Mage the ascension) after 15 or so M&M sessions. MTA has a supercool interesting and moderately complex - not noob friendly magic system which was more MAD SCIENCE friendly.

The main reason for the transition was me "the dm" not liking the way combat is done in M&M. That system is so incredibly in favour of the PC's. Players flying about 500-10.000km/hours and having enough strength to level flats made terrain completely irrelevant. This made designing combat encounters very boring. It also made some plot things very hard to do (recurring villains for example). Also the way numbers are done makes combat swingy like you described. I dislike M&M tremendously as a DM. I think it's pretty awesome for new players though.

Damn... You can do some cool **** with M&M though. The way the numbers work means the scale of actions is really big. whenever they'd attack i'd always narrate shockwaves and terrain being levelled. I'd really play up the effects of everything they did. I had them fight a dragon, a dude in power armour and a musketeer. Good times.

EDIT
I think the coolest thing about M&M from the perspective of someone who has played DND is the amount of options they get. In DND you can "hit" something with magic or a sword. In M&M you can level the base he is standing in, mindcontrol all of his minions, make a bunch of random devices which counter his ultimate plan and go on. You can do all of this stuff at level 1 (assuming you start at pl 8 or 10). This is awesome.

[Draz74]

Probably not what you're looking for, but M&M without powers could be used to play something like the tv show Leverage, where the characters abilities are a little more than realistic. I'd emphasize that the system has a cinematic rather than realistic feel.


I don't know if anyone would want to play a Leverage style campaign, but I think M&M at PL 2-4 without powers would work well. The show had a somewhat comic-booky feel which various advantages and skills would approximate fairly well.

I made the main characters here (http://www.echoesofthemultiverse.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=983). IMO they're PL 6, not 2 or 4, and they all have Powers to limited degrees.

[Knaight]

There's a definite point there on powers. Neurolinguistic programming especially is a soft superpower that just sort of lives in the show. The hacking, fistfights, and catburgalary are all just very genre but NLP stands out. Not least because it gets mentioned pretty often.

[Friv]

I don't know if anyone would want to play a Leverage style campaign, but I think M&M at PL 2-4 without powers would work well. The show had a somewhat comic-booky feel which various advantages and skills would approximate fairly well.

I mean, to be perfectly honest, if I were going to play a Leverage-style campaign, I wouldn't use Mutants and Masterminds because I would just use Leverage (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/85727/Leverage-Roleplaying-Game).

M&M can adapt to any genre, as long as that genre is some form of heroic action game. You could do a low-power James Bond game with it pretty well. You could do the later Fast and the Furious movies very well as a low-to-mid power M&M game. You'd probably want to have some understanding that players can take low-level super powers, and you model those as just character traits rather than literal super powers.

[JustIgnoreMe]

I think the coolest thing about M&M from the perspective of someone who has played DND is the amount of options they get. In DND you can "hit" something with magic or a sword. In M&M you can level the base he is standing in, mindcontrol all of his minions, make a bunch of random devices which counter his ultimate plan and go on. You can do all of this stuff at level 1 (assuming you start at pl 8 or 10). This is awesome.

... by “level 1” you mean “at the start of the game”, right? Because a PL8 M&M character is not equivalent to a level 1 D&D character. It’s more like, well... a level 8 D&D character.

[Beleriphon]

... by “level 1” you mean “at the start of the game”, right? Because a PL8 M&M character is not equivalent to a level 1 D&D character. It’s more like, well... a level 8 D&D character.

And a PL1 character in M&M is more like a 1/4 CR NPC scrub in D&D. A first level D&D Character can easily be PL5 or PL6. The power levels in Mutants and Masterminds are descriptive, not proscriptive. In essence a character with a +10 to hit on a Damage 10 power is PL10, unless they have other traits that make it higher for some reason (skill levels for example).

A regular Police Officer is PL5. The typical thematically appropriate minion is PL4. The biggest thing to remember with M&M is that it differentiates between Minions and Heroic characters. A Heroic character follows all of the rules for effects like Damage and Affliction and getting hit and avoiding those effects. Minions always take the worst possible result of the effect without rolling, and attacks again them can be done as routine checks (assuming a role of 10 on the d20).

[Friv]

Just for the hell of it, I decided to figure out what PL a Level 1 Human Fighter or Rogue would be in M&M. Wizards seem like too much work. This is assuming M&M 2E, since it has the same Attributes, and a 3.5 character on 28-pt buy.

The fighter:
Attributes (14): Strength 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8
Traits (4): Base Attack +1, Fortitude +2, Reflex +0, Will +0
Skills (4): Four skills at 4 ranks each
Feats (3): Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Initiative

Approximations:
Toughness (2) - represents the fighter's higher HP.
Device (3) - Sword and Armor, +2 damage, +3 AC, drawback

Total: 30 Hero Points, PL 2, minimum power level for Attack/Armor is 4.
The rogue:
Attributes (14): Strength 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 12
Traits (2): Base Attack +0, Fortitude +0, Reflex +2, Will +0
Skills (11): Eleven skills at 4 ranks
Feats (5): Dodge, Mobility, Sneak Attack +2, Trapfinding

Approximations:
Device (3) - Sword and Armor, +2 damage, +2 AC

Total: 35 Hero Points, PL 2, minimum power level for Attack/Armor is 4.

Conclusion: They're about PL 2, although when you calculate a +4 attack bonus or AC 14 that's a minimum of PL 4 under M&M rules and the rogue is on the way to PL 3. Also, M&M rates feats and attack bonuses much lower than D&D, unsurprisingly.

[Beleriphon]

Just for the hell of it, I decided to figure out what PL a Level 1 Human Fighter or Rogue would be in M&M. Wizards seem like too much work. This is assuming M&M 2E, since it has the same Attributes, and a 3.5 character on 28-pt buy.

The fighter:
Attributes (14): Strength 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 8
Traits (4): Base Attack +1, Fortitude +2, Reflex +0, Will +0
Skills (4): Four skills at 4 ranks each
Feats (3): Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Initiative

Approximations:
Toughness (2) - represents the fighter's higher HP.
Device (3) - Sword and Armor, +2 damage, +3 AC, drawback

Total: 30 Hero Points, PL 2, minimum power level for Attack/Armor is 4.
The rogue:
Attributes (14): Strength 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 12
Traits (2): Base Attack +0, Fortitude +0, Reflex +2, Will +0
Skills (11): Eleven skills at 4 ranks
Feats (5): Dodge, Mobility, Sneak Attack +2, Trapfinding

Approximations:
Device (3) - Sword and Armor, +2 damage, +2 AC

Total: 35 Hero Points, PL 2, minimum power level for Attack/Armor is 4.

Conclusion: They're about PL 2, although when you calculate a +4 attack bonus or AC 14 that's a minimum of PL 4 under M&M rules and the rogue is on the way to PL 3. Also, M&M rates feats and attack bonuses much lower than D&D, unsurprisingly.

Keep in mind that Strength doesn't add to the Attack bonus like D&D. So if you wanted to emulate a D&D fighter with a +4 to hit at level 1, then a level 1 Human Fighter is actually PL5, with rounding. That's assuming I've remembered correctly that the sword does 2 damage.

[Knaight]

Keep in mind that Strength doesn't add to the Attack bonus like D&D. So if you wanted to emulate a D&D fighter with a +4 to hit at level 1, then a level 1 Human Fighter is actually PL5, with rounding. That's assuming I've remembered correctly that the sword does 2 damage.

This assumes that the proper way to emulate a character and their capabilities is to make sure you get all the numbers exactly the same, in a system which doesn't use the same numerical scale. That assumption is pretty questionable.

[Beleriphon]

This assumes that the proper way to emulate a character and their capabilities is to make sure you get all the numbers exactly the same, in a system which doesn't use the same numerical scale. That assumption is pretty questionable.

Yeah, but the actual numbers do mostly match, the way you get there is different though. And scaling isn't that different, if you consider a character with a sword, a strength of 16 (or 3 M&M 3E), using a generic sword, which is strength based damage. So using strength 3, and a sword leaves us with a damage +6, or a Damage resistance check of 23. Even a +1 to hit PL 4, but I rather think a character being even remotely competent with a weapon requires better than a +1 to hit, even goon minions are +3 to hit.

A +1 to hit regardless of damage is pretty pathetic. In context: attacking a minion as a routine check with only a +1 to hit would mean that the fighter can effectively auto-hit only a Parry score of 11 or lower. So if you think the average orc should have a defense of 11, then by all means. But a character with just a shield (effectively the normal D&D shield, not the +1 to Dodge and Parry "small" shield, or buckler type) and no other traits has a Dodge and Parry of 12 in M&M.