M&M2e- can you play a villain?

[TopRamen]

I just ordered M&M2e (just the base book for now) and want to at least think up a storyline before it gets here. My group has expressed interest in being villains- is there support for playing as villains in the base book?

[Shades of Gray]

Well, I think it's like D&D, it's more geared toward Heroes, but the same rules can be used for villains. A blast is a blast, it doesn't matter if the hero is shooting light and the villain is shooting dead kitties, with the power customization system you can pretty much make whatever you want.

[Sebastian]

AFAIR in M&M 2e there were not hero specific mechanics, maybe something with hero points, but it easy enough to change them in villain points, it is not like the old Marvel FASERIP system when you losed Karma (I.e. exp) if you acted evil.
So, I'm not sure what youmean with suport but the game don't make mechanical distinction between heroes and villain, as long as they are PCs, of.

The problem could be that a party of heroes have a greater rationale than a party of villains, there is a lot of reasons for a group of good guys to work together, a lot less for a group of evildoers, in the best of cases there will be a lot of backstabbing (both real and metaphorical), if you have a long period collaboration.

[TopRamen]

Oh, good. Yeah I tried the Karma thing with the MSH and was having troubles. At first it was like, "reverse the Karma from hero's" and they were like "oh, goodie, bonus Karma for killing everyone!" Then I was like "No! No! Plus your popularity will go down!" They were like "No, everyone will be afraid of us, it'll be great!" facepalm

They ended up burning down the bank they were supposed to rob in their first mission. I gave them some pity Karma for vandalism. Luckily they went at night and no one was around.

[Myshlaevsky]

Can I ask what the Mastermind's Handbook is about, if any of you have experience with it?

[Burley]

Masterminds...Handbook? I'm not sure if you're talking about the same thing as everybody else... If you are, sorry for my own ignorance.

As far as villains, yeah. They're totally legit. The RP reasons for a villain group are your own, but it'd be really easy to just have a group of villains working for an over-villain known only as "The GM."
That's the glorious thing about MM2e: Pretty much anything goes. I couldn't think up a single character concept that my friend and I couldn't build. I was about to add "within reason" but we came up with some ridiculous stuff... like a tree that could throw exploding apples.

[Myshlaevsky]

Masterminds...Handbook? I'm not sure if you're talking about the same thing as everybody else... If you are, sorry for my own ignorance.

I thought I heard it mentioned as an M&M2 supplement, and was just curious as to what it was. I thought it might be a villain-themed thing. I've quite possibly got the name wrong.

[PnP Fan]

Villains? Heroes? Makes no difference in MnM 2e. Powerz is powerz. Though you might have to rework hero points a bit, as someone else said.

the Mastermind's Manual is a supplement for the GM. It's sort of like the DMG, but instead of "standard" rules, it gives you optional rules that allow you to reflect different styles of setting in the mechanics of the game. For example, standard MnM is good for most comic book settings, four color, iron age, whatever. But if you wanted to do something like the old White Wolf game Aberrant, where powers slowly mutated the characters, well, there's nothing like that in standard MnM. You either have to homebrew a solution, or you whip out the Taint rules in the Mastermind's Manual. Lots of other stuff on how to modify hero points, etc. . .
If you are going to run the game, it's a must

[Myshlaevsky]

Villains? Heroes? Makes no difference in MnM 2e. Powerz is powerz. Though you might have to rework hero points a bit, as someone else said.

the Mastermind's Manual is a supplement for the GM. It's sort of like the DMG, but instead of "standard" rules, it gives you optional rules that allow you to reflect different styles of setting in the mechanics of the game. For example, standard MnM is good for most comic book settings, four color, iron age, whatever. But if you wanted to do something like the old White Wolf game Aberrant, where powers slowly mutated the characters, well, there's nothing like that in standard MnM. You either have to homebrew a solution, or you whip out the Taint rules in the Mastermind's Manual. Lots of other stuff on how to modify hero points, etc. . .
If you are going to run the game, it's a must

Ah-hah. Thanks very much for the reply, and sorry to hijack this thread, TopRamen.

[batsofchaos]

Mutants and Masterminds is very, very versatile. The tree that throws exploding apples? Yeah, that's fairly standard fare. Any character you can imagine can be created within the rules, and the system is simplistic enough in terms of mechanics that it can be adapted to any setting with very little effort. Since the flavor is entirely up to the player and DM to decide on, you could build a character that has a device that is easily lost with corrosion as a built in power, buff up the super strength and super constitution, dump in a bunch of feats, and maybe pack on a couple of other powers like heal along with drawbacks that make all the powers go away without the device and you have He-Man and the power sword. It's that adaptable.

It's not universally workable; if you want to run a game like Call of Cthulhu or a low-level d20 Modern, where the characters are average shlubs it's not the right system to go with. But if you're looking for a game where the main characters are "super," regardless of the specific genre, it's a great option.

[Tengu_temp]

M&M is wonderfully flexible - the only thing it cannot represent is a standard DND-style fantasy game, where you get loot and use it to buy better and better magic items (but book/movie style-fantasy is perfectly fine). I'm running a Mahou Shojo campaign in M&M! You won't even drop a sweat making the game function for villains.

As for groups - villains sometimes operate in groups too, just as some heroes are lone wolves. X-Men have several such groups, don't they? And there's also the League of Evil from Dr Horrible.

[Myshlaevsky]

Given the sterling reviews, I've an urge to get this and try Steampunk heroism with it.

[PnP Fan]

M&M is wonderfully flexible - the only thing it cannot represent is a standard DND-style fantasy game, where you get loot and use it to buy better and better magic items (but book/movie style-fantasy is perfectly fine). I'm running a Mahou Shojo campaign in M&M! You won't even drop a sweat making the game function for villains.

As for groups - villains sometimes operate in groups too, just as some heroes are lone wolves. X-Men have several such groups, don't they? And there's also the League of Evil from Dr Horrible.

I'm tempted to write up Dr. Venture and The Guild of Calamitous Intent!
Just for kicks.

[Tsotha-lanti]

What kind of support can you need? They use all the same rules.

[Beleriphon]

What kind of support can you need? They use all the same rules.

Support material, like say setting book full of idea. Freedom City is good for this since it gives you all kinds of fun stats, and adventure ideas. Its admittedly written from the perspective of the characters being heroes, but its not a big deal to make them work for SHADOW or The Labyrinth, or anything else.

You may also want to check out Instant Superheroes. Its just a whole whack load of premade characters that cover several dozen different archetypes, with each offering three variations of the same archetype. This is very useful for the GM to just whip out characters, and equally useful for players to be able to find something they like and tweak it around to taste.

[Waspinator]

I don't have much experience with the system, but if the powers and abilities system is balanced for heroes, there's no reason why it shouldn't work for villains. A mutant with laser-beam eyes doesn't have different lasers if he's evil.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Support material, like say setting book full of idea.

Those are called "comic books." (Or "superhero movies.")

[Waspinator]

The choice of movies may be important depending on what kind of setting you want. It would be very funny though to play the Shoveler.

[Lochar]

<snip>
I was about to add "within reason" but we came up with some ridiculous stuff... like a tree that could throw exploding apples.

I'm seeing Kirby and that stupid tree...

[Knaight]

You can make kirby too. Mimic, with a limitation of having to grab and pin his opponents. So if you really wanted to you could play Kirby with mutants and masterminds. So that stupid tree actually has a use.

[Irreverent Fool]

I challenge you.

Create "Captain Obvious".

[Knaight]

What does he do and how good is he at it?

[TopRamen]

I wasn't thinking the abilities so much as rewards or experience and all that. To me, MSH really made it difficult to play a villain. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, just that I had to make up all my own rules for popularity and karma and stuff.

[Tengu_temp]

I challenge you.

Create "Captain Obvious".

Emiya Shirou?

I wasn't thinking the abilities so much as rewards or experience and all that. To me, MSH really made it difficult to play a villain. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, just that I had to make up all my own rules for popularity and karma and stuff.

There are two types of rewards in M&M - experience points, which work equally well for all concepts, and hero points, which heroes get both when stuff works against them, and when they perform very brave and heroic acts. Replace the second instance with "acts of villainy" and you're good to go.