Dragonball & MnM

[teitan]

A couple of my players and I have been discussing the idea of playing a Dragonball style game using Mutants & Masterminds. I absolutely hate Fuzion and BESM just doesn't have the power levels to pull it off. Does anyone else think it could be done with MnM? I have tried other systems on a character creating process but only MEGS seems to hold up to such high power levels and SAS just fell apart when it seemed to get over 20 scores for characters, they never seemed to be able to fail or hit each other except on extremely unlucky rolls. Do you think MnM could scale that well?

Jason

 

[Alzrius]

I just wanted to say I'm eager to see the results of this thread, since I'm a big Dragonball fan. The Dragonball Z game from R. Talsorian Games just isn't cutting it for me in terms of mechanics. I haven't given M&M a glance so far, but with the comic-characet-stat thread its been catching my eye, and now if it can pull of Dragonball...well, I'd just have to get it then.

On a side note, do you mean Dragonball as being different from Dragonball Z? In the original manga, the entire series (from when we meet Goku to the end of the Buu saga) was named Dragonball, with the DB/DBZ distinction being added in the anime. I ask because the main distinction between the two is power levels. While DB, like DBZ, has a rising slope of power as time goes on, its a relatively low slope in DB, while in DBZ it rises sharply, with quite a few sheer jumps straight upward.

 

[Drakmar]

You could EASILY used M&M for this. The powers definately cover it. and there are rules for creating powers that aren't covered.. ie Fusion (that would be a special)

and as for power scaling.. very simple.. heck you could even go above 20th with almost no change to the current rules.

 

[Alzrius]

and as for power scaling.. very simple.. heck you could even go above 20th with almost no change to the current rules.

I think thats sort of the concern though. I mean, you could just as easily (well, almost as easily) make DB/DBZ characters with the Four Color to Fantasy rules, but it bears little use and a lot of work if they're all level 500, to say nothing of its hard to earn experience to go up even one level at that point, let alone the huge leaps in power the characters seem to take. Can M&M cover this aspect?

 

[Drakmar]

yup.

simple.. there are a couple of ways to handle xp.. but the way that would work is by awarding Power Points at the end of every session.

to gain a Power Level, you need 15 Power Points. (there is a table in the book for this 1st is 15, 2nd is 30 and so on)

and you can't have a rank in anything higher than your Power Level

O.. and you can save them up to spend later.

Works out really well.

 

[Drakmar]

And.. lets say, you as the DM might decide that to Go above say.. 5th Level in Force Field, you have to be 10th Level.. so they have to save until that level.. and there you go.. there is your Power Leap.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Change the scale.

Most humans are 1st level, with the best human in the world being 5th level.

The average Saiyan (or other super-alien) is about 10th level, with the best going up to 20th level.

Geoff.

 

[TedJMill]

To cover things like the Spirit Bomb, how about some sort of rule that allows a power's rank to go beyond the character's PL if it has Flaws beyond what's needed to reduce the cost to 1/rank? If you're PL 10, your normal attacks are limited to 10 ranks, but an attack with several levels of Slow and requiring Heroic Effort and usable once a day can be bought to 20 ranks or whatever.

 

[teitan]

Wow thanks to all who replied so far. What I was thinking myself was to cover the whole saga of Dragonball, all the way up. I just thought that saying Dragonball Z would be too limiting. The idea was to start the characters at PL10 as kids and then have a series of adventures with just above standard pp bonuses, maybe 3x the standard to ensure quick, DB like advancement and then at the end of the kid campaign have their power levels increased by their left over pps to represent training in the off time. If they spent them all then they remain the same PL and this would reflect off time when they weren't really training.

Now the increases in power levels at this point is where I am rying to figure it out. What I was thinking was everytime a player describes a really cool maneuver etc they would get a power point and every time they get a critical hit they get a power point, whether it succeeds or not, of course if they fail they would be fatigued for one round and take an attack of oppurtunity, which should be re-integrated into the system.

Now to simulate the fast paced action I thought that a defense roll would help a good bit as opposed to static defense like Armor class. As MnM is so fast it wouldn't really slow it down all that much, especially if they rolled all their dice at once with a different color signifying attacks, defense etc. I think it would also keep things from getting into the never be hit reality of BESM or SAS.

Skills are not a big emphasis in DB-Z that I can tell and a lot of players will not spend a lot of points on skills so what I suggest is elminating skills all together and have it all emulated through super-abilities because people seem to be highly skilled in DB-Z-GT if they are main characters and idiots otherwise.

Any other thoughts?

Jason

 

[teitan]

To cover things like the Spirit Bomb, how about some sort of rule that allows a power's rank to go beyond the character's PL if it has Flaws beyond what's needed to reduce the cost to 1/rank? If you're PL 10, your normal attacks are limited to 10 ranks, but an attack with several levels of Slow and requiring Heroic Effort and usable once a day can be bought to 20 ranks or whatever.

Actually, just raise the power level caps on max power ranks or create the flaw/extra of last ditch effort which would double the power level of an attack like the Kamehameha or you could just house rule that any powers purchased over your power level cost twice the amount of pp per rank after that level, or ditch the power caps for just ONE POWER.

Jason