Mutants & Masterminds

[Zebediah Magus]

You know, as good as the Mastermind's Manual is, I wouldn't mind seeing a thread/wiki working out ways to adapt the system to non-supers gaming. Is there one kicking around, or should I fire it up?

Well, the core M&M handles other genres fine enough, IMO. Even low fantasy can be emulated if you manage to tune down the power level without crippling the characters.

If you're aiming for something more realistic, though, I believe there are systems better fit than M&M.

 

[Kurashu]

Quick Question. M&M is a stand alone system, correct? I'm pretty sure it is, but my friend doubts me. Besides, it's not my fault he didn't know Gamma World needed d20 Modern.

 

[Zebediah Magus]

Quick answer. Yes.

 

[Kurashu]

Long answer?

I just need to know for sure we only need to buy M&M to get the M&M experience. Not M&M and True20, or some other combination (outside of supplements for M&M).

 

[jezter6]

M&M is fully complete in the core book. Nothing else needed.

 

[Ranger REG]

Quick Question. M&M is a stand alone system, correct? I'm pretty sure it is, but my friend doubts me.

For MnM, you only need that one rulebook and one die (plus your standard gear: pen and paper).

Besides, it's not my fault he didn't know Gamma World needed d20 Modern.

Hijack: What's wrong with that? You need D&D to play Eberron. You need GURPS to play most of their worldbooks. You need the HERO System rulebook to play Star HERO.

 

[Krolik]

Long answer?

I just need to know for sure we only need to buy M&M to get the M&M experience. Not M&M and True20, or some other combination (outside of supplements for M&M).

To play the game all you will need is M&M 2E. If you would like to you can pick up a copy of the M&M Beginner's Guide to help you over the learning bumps. It has a solo adventure that helps you understand how the game works; and best of all it's not too expensive.

The only other book I'd recommend would be Freedom City 2E. It gives you a 4-color campaign setting full of heroes and villains that might help you understand the overall scope of the game a little better. Freedom City has nearly 100 villains in it so it can help you get started quickly.

Once you get a real feel for the system you might want to look at Ultimate Power. It greatly expands chapter 5 of the core book, showing you how to build powers from the ground up.

 

[Kurashu]

So, Freedom City would be a good first supplement then. My group is pretty adept at picking up on rules, and any trouble we have I'm sure we can find an answer for online, so the beginner's guide is probably not worth it (unless you highly reccomend it). However, if it has a small adventure, I'll consider it.

 

[Zebediah Magus]

I don't believe you should bother with supplements if you're starting, since the core rulebook is very complete. Once you and your gaming group are confortable enough with the rules you can try to customize with books like Ultimate Power or Mastermind's Manual.

I just need to know for sure we only need to buy M&M to get the M&M experience. Not M&M and True20, or some other combination (outside of supplements for M&M).

True20 is a quite different animal, even if also d20-based.

 

[Krolik]

So, Freedom City would be a good first supplement then. My group is pretty adept at picking up on rules, and any trouble we have I'm sure we can find an answer for online, so the beginner's guide is probably not worth it (unless you highly reccomend it). However, if it has a small adventure, I'll consider it.

The Beginner's Guide isn't necessary. The adventure is a single-player set-up designed to walk an individual through the basic of how to play the game by himself. I found it interesting but I'd already been playing the game a year when it came out.

The characters in Freedom City are useful if you're like me and want to learn the game and get right to playing. Character creation is the hardest part of the game so having around 130 finished characters at your fingertips to use as adversaries allows you to jump right in.

The only thing I'd suggest you download is the M&M 2E FAQ and Errata from the Atomic Think Tank website. Reading through that will really help you with some of the more challenging powers. Super-speed, for example, seems to be a power that no one understands until the read the FAQ.