Despite being a fan of the superhero genre, Mutants & Masterminds I somehow managed to carry out without knowledge that it existed until I found an old copy of the 2nd Ed. sourcebook yesterday. With that in mind, I’m wondering how experienced tabletop players have found the system? It seems to focus more on roleplay than on strategy, which is a perfectly valid angle, but the wargamer in my both winces at the lack of tactical depth and shudders at the thought of how unmanageable the game could’ve become if an attempt at a more number-crunchy system was made and blundered.
In any event, I like it: the simplistic dice system seems to fulfill the stated purposes of making gameplay faster, and it comes with a nice list of powers and a sufficiently open-ended creation system to essentially make innovating new powers into a plug & play proposition.
I understand that some pretty extensive campaign worlds are covered in other books, so I won’t touch on how the lack of a persistent, ‘default’ world seemed to weaken the overall presentation, but I do want to mention how disappointing the equipment section was: I understand that GMs are going to add depth in the areas they and their parties like to draw from, but the whole chapter looked like someone had just cut and pasted the relevant tables from the DMG. I mean, it was nice of them to have hashed out a basic taxonomy for modern vehicles and weapons, and to have offered some statistics to demonstrate how both were intended to balance within the system as a whole, but it would’ve been nice to see some minimum effort towards a repetitive naming task that every single GM who faces an equipment-happy group will have to trudge through.
But all in all, if the equipment is the biggest thing I found to complain about, I suspect that it’s a pretty decent system.
I’ve only played it once, and I wasn’t that happy with the game. But my all-time favorite GM (Piratecat from ENWorld, if anyone’s familiar) loves it and runs games of it at game days pretty often.
It’s 19/20ths as good as Champions, and 1/10th the hassle. (1e was 9/10ths, 2e is better)
I like it very much.
Also, Pkitty and KidC are awesome.
Edit the second: The Freedom City universe isn’t bad… but the best thing is that the best module for the system, Time of Crisis, (coming out for 2e soon) is about staging a multiversal crisis for fun and entertainment value, and transitioning from their universe to yours, at the end, if you feel like it.
Though you fight nazis, evil duplicates, and a world of apes, first.
I like it a lot. It’s a very free chargen system, for a start, and with the amount of flexibility you get it’s still pretty simple. I did consider having a go at running a game here, but I didn’t think there’d be that many people interested/avec sourcebooks.
Well I’d definitely be interested, 'specially since the minimalist dice system seems like it’d make online play pretty straightforward. Dunno how many people we’d be able to wrastle up, though.
Btw, I don’t mind that there’s very little setting info in the book and I have little need for any additional setting sourcebooks. It’s a superhero game! I use it to play in the setting of my favorite comic books. I don’t need official stats either. Deciding on the proper way to make, for instance, Gorilla Grodd is half the fun. For me, at least.
I’m impressed with it. You can do pretty much any kind of character you could have with GURPS Supers, only with far less math. Even at that, the one time we actually played people seemed perfectly content to just assign personas to the pre-gen archetypes.
Hmm. I’m liking the powers more and more as I read through them, but I’m wondering if I could ask experienced M&M players for a few quick clarifications. By default (e.g., if the GM doesn’t decide against the manual):
a) Do Alternate Forms add, or change your power set? In other words, if I split my points between a Solid form and an offensive power like Blast, can I still attack with Blast while I’m Solid?
b) The powers that add Incorporeal to your character seem like a nightmare for your opponents… are there any tried and true ways of dealing with incorporeal enemies?
c) Assuming the GM is kind enough to not ban it entirely, how precise can Transform be at high levels? Because it seems as if creative players could, as the manual mentions, mock up a large majority of offensive powers.
Well I think that I agree on both counts, but I’m giving it points for being simple and straightforward without any (really big) flaws: if someone says “Hey, let’s make some superhero characters and blow some shit up,” I could easily see using M&M to set up a game in 10-20 minutes.
It depends on how you pay for them. The Alternate Forms power is really just several cheaper powers bundled together to streamline certain concepts. So yes, if you purchase Alternate Form (Solid) and Blast separately, and pay full price for each, you can use (aspects of) both at the same time.
If you get fancier and use blast as part of an Alternate Powers or Dynamic Alternate Powers set, you can’t use both (at full power in the case of Dynamic powers) at the same time.
You’ve got three options:
The insubstantial power, even at its highest rank, still must include a “reasonably common effect that works on you while incorporeal”. Find the Achilles’ heel and whack 'em.
Insubstantial does not affect mental attacks.
“Affects Incorporeal” is a power feat, and only costs one extra power point. While that’s still not worth it for most character concepts, an Inventor, Artificer, or Ritual Magician can whip up something relatively cheaply. Or spend a Hero Point to get the feat for a turn and whack 'em.
Also keep in mind that the ability to be incorporeal and effectively physically attack while incorporeal is hellaciously expensive.
Very precise. It’s an expensive power, and should be quite effective. Note that you can’t make a character *more *powerful, only the same or less. It’s essentially the “Shapeshift” power usable on others. The only extras limitation I have is to note that if you transform someone into a corpse, they’ll revive when you stop using the power.
Oh, and lesser ranks of insubstantial are even easier to affect. Many of the powers that include Insubstantial (such as Alternate Form) give you one of the lesser ranks.
If you’re wanting a 10 minute pickup game, there are better. MM works for the winpy 6-8 game stretch. Longer and you want Champions. Sort and I’d go with one of the Marvel series. I certainly can’t make a good MM character in 10 minutes.
Fair enough, but for the moment I really don’t have time to investigate in detail. I’m generally lucky if I find enough time to play two or three sessions over two months, and M&M fulfilled all of my critical criteria: it wasn’t critically flawed, it was easy to learn and implement, and it looks (more or less) fun. ^^
After possible interest, would anyone be interested in an SDMB M&M2e game? I can promise pretty simple (well, in RPG terms) game mechanics for you and me, and i’m happy to tailor up a scenario for any general story frames.
Not critically flawed but also no strong points. It’s not a bad game, but I don’t really see the need for another C+ game. Mostly, I just hate the fact that it uses levels at all. It was neither necessary nor useful.
