Check Out The Mutants & Masterminds 4E Playtest

Released last week at Gen Con, the 4th Edition of the venerable superhero TTRPG Mutants & Masterminds is here--at least in playtest form! This 240-page book, which you can grab right now on DriveThruRPG as a PDF for $14.99 or in print for $44.99 from Green Ronin's website, includes the complete game from character creation to the core game rules.

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For more than twenty years, the Mutants & Masterminds superhero roleplaying game has empowered the imaginations of countless players. Now you can help determine the future of the World’s Greatest Superhero RPG with the Mutants & Masterminds Origin Edition playtest!

This Origin Edition contains a complete playtest version of the upcoming Fourth Edition of the game. Contained in its pages is all you need to create heroic characters, play out epic super-battles, thwart the schemes of the vilest villains, and save the world—all with just a single twenty-sided die!

Try out refined power creation effects, updated hero archetypes, an adjusted rank scale, new advantage and action options, and more, all with the same fast-playing system M&M is known for. Then share your experiences and feedback with us to determine the final form of the next edition of the game.

The world needs heroes like you to help save it! The game needs you to make it even better! So create your heroes and determine the future of superhero roleplaying with the Mutants & Masterminds Origin Edition.

 

[Rabulias]

What was this? Wholly unfamiliar, and a Googlin' didn't help.

I believe @Prof_Dogg may be obliquely referring to The Lost Citadel (D&D 5E (2014) - The Lost Citadel: a new apocalyptic 5E setting from Green Ronin ).

 

[dbolack]

I believe @Prof_Dogg may be obliquely referring to The Lost Citadel (D&D 5E (2014) - The Lost Citadel: a new apocalyptic 5E setting from Green Ronin ).

If so, I imagine it was a victim? of their general meandering away from 5e.

edit:

correction. This was a licensed setting and the license has ended.

 

[Jadeite]

CA Suleiman worked on Last Citadel, so it got some backlash for that as well.

 

[Jeffzilla]

They're not Hasbro after all.

Bazinga.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

I've run and played a lot of Supers RPG's over the past 40+ years including M&M and I do have the playtest rules. Some thoughts:

1. M&M 4th is a point-buy creation fairly detailed system on the "simulation" end of the spectrum - the opposite end from things like Marvel Heroic, Sentinels of the Multiverse, FATE-based systems, and PBTA systems. There is some wiggle room but your character is this fast and can lift this much. It's on the "Champions" end of things. 4E is an evolution of 3E, not a revolution.
   • If you tried and disliked 3E or even 2E, I'd say you may not like 4E either because it makes a lot of the same assumptions and works pretty much the same way.
   • If you did like earlier versions then it's mainly looking over details on what changed and deciding whether you like them.
   
   
2. M&M uses Power Levels as a limiting factor on what a character can do. These aren't D&D-style levels but a cap on how strong your powers and abilities can be. The goal in a game like this isn't to level up like a D&D character and there is no set number of Power Points per Power Level. There is a recommendation that a Power Level X character should have around X number of points - particularly for making a new character at that PL - but it's not a hard number like a D&D game. You could have a 300 point character at PL10 and a 175 point character at PL14 depending on the needs of the campaign and what the GM and PC's want the game to be. They are two different axes of power - PL determines power, the points determine versatility.
   
   
3. I'm not a fan of paying for playtests but they are hardly the first company to do it and given their circumstances I can understand it. If you are not then the full new edition is supposed to be out next GenCon so it's not that far away. There have already been some clarifications on the Atomic Think Tank so it is definitely an active project for them and I would expect updates on it for months to come.

As for adventures, if you want a starting tryout scenario then take the Powerhouse archetype, add some minion thugs with a 0 in all stats but give them some guns, and have "Ogre" and his crew robbing a bank. Throw in some bank customers and employees as hostages and you have a classic superhero situation. You need a rough map, an idea of how strong the walls are (there is a material strength table in M&M) and let your players loose. If you have more players add a second powerhouse and you have the blue guys from Invincible (for a visual) robbing the bank. PC's with a secret ID could start inside as a bank customer, others could be on patrol outside when they hear the alarm.

I think it's a great system and while I'm not completely thrilled about having 15 years of books left behind on some level 15 years is a pretty good run for one edition of an RPG. If you like the game the playtest is worth a look.

 

[Prof_Dogg]

I believe @Prof_Dogg may be obliquely referring to The Lost Citadel (D&D 5E (2014) - The Lost Citadel: a new apocalyptic 5E setting from Green Ronin ).

I obliquely was...

 

[overgeeked]

I’m curious about the license they’ll use. All prior editions were under the OGL. It would be hard to argue that suddenly they’re no longer bound by it considering all the works cited. But stranger things have happened. Considering how wildly open they’ve been previously I could see them releasing 4E under the CC-BY or similar.

 

[Muh]

Never got to play 3rd edition of this, though I did buy the book. The system seems pretty cool, but I believe it would probably be better if they made it less fiddly? I don't think, for example, that the system with feats (advantages) is a good idea at all.

For me it would be an improvement if they simplified that part of the system away.

The large number of conditions is also tricky to keep track of.

 

[overgeeked]

As for adventures, if you want a starting tryout scenario then take the Powerhouse archetype, add some minion thugs with a 0 in all stats but give them some guns, and have "Ogre" and his crew robbing a bank. Throw in some bank customers and employees as hostages and you have a classic superhero situation. You need a rough map, an idea of how strong the walls are (there is a material strength table in M&M) and let your players loose. If you have more players add a second powerhouse and you have the blue guys from Invincible (for a visual) robbing the bank. PC's with a secret ID could start inside as a bank customer, others could be on patrol outside when they hear the alarm.

There's a lot of basic adventures you can throw together with the playtest PDF. The best bit of advice I could give is don't get bogged down in the character creation and power math. Just use what's in the archetypes and skip the rest.

The section on challenges is a great place to start when making an adventure. Each one could function as an adventure starter or a climax. Avert a Disaster. Chases and Races. Escaping a Trap. Preventing a Crash or Collision. Technical Fix. And so many variations with each.

Any of the 15 included archetypes can be turned into a villain. Once your players have picked their archetypes either do dark reflections of them as their nemesis or use as many of the overlooked archetypes as you need to make an equal but opposite supervillain team.

There's also a section on installations, i.e. bases. Make a base and either have it as the PC's home or the villain's. Have the PCs either defend or assault that base. Grab a map and go.

The GM isn't limited by power points, so you can take an archetype, say the paragon, battlesuit, or mentalist, and kick it up to power level 12-14. Just increase the relevant stats and powers to the new level limits and go. That should be a decent solo vs team fight.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Never got to play 3rd edition of this, though I did buy the book. The system seems pretty cool, but I believe it would probably be better if they made it less fiddly? I don't think, for example, that the system with feats (advantages) is a good idea at all.

For me it would be an improvement if they simplified that part of the system away.

The large number of conditions is also tricky to keep track of.

I feel like that kind of simplicity makes it a different kind of superhero game mechanically, and I like the kind of game it is. I'm really against new editions of the same game making philosophy changes like that. You want to do things that differently? For me, that means make another game.