First time playing Mutants & Masterminds

[pawsplay]

Well, one of our players was MIA from our D&D game last night, and with him being the tank and the players contemplating taking on a very tough opponent, I suggested we might do something else. I whipped out Mutants & Masterminds and ran a quick game.

It was a lot of fun, and it's definitely one of the easier games I've used as far as improving something quickly. The players just used the archetypes in the book, and I used a very sketchy outline for my villain.

The Good

Easy. Fast. Fun.

The Bad

My players really had no idea what to do with Hero Points. I know from past experience they tend to be "Force point hoarders" in the first place, but they really just could not get into the somewhat improvisational nature of them, or even just burn them when they want to hit the bad guy hard.

A lot of power constructs are not quite as simple as it might first appear. The Costumed Adventurer has some grenades which, it turns out, aren't build with an area effect or anything like that, making them somewhat primitive. I wanted the bad guy to do an Evard's Tentacle type effect, but I couldn't quite make it work. So instead, I just gave him Snare, an attack, Suffocate, and TK (with area and damaging) and narrated it as tentacles. There was no grabbing and crushing, however, except for one attack.

Some damages are strangely low. For instance, the Costumed Adventurer's boomerage has a +2 modifier. Whoop de doo. And no Str bonus.

Actions are a lot more nebulous in M&M. I got into a "make something up" mindset and ran with it, but I found myself adjudicating some very strange things. Can the Speedster run up the wall with a heavy load?

The Weird

The Costumed Adventurer and the Speedster both get winged by thugs with submachine guns. I don't know if it was just wild luck or if that's kind of how it plays at PL 10, but it was sort of weird.

With the speedster's speed and the Paragon's flight, I didn't even bother with a map. But I had to constantly adjudicate the Costumed Adventurer's position and distance. Oh, and the Costumed Adventurer has no vehicle or movement power. Weird.

The Fast Overrun feat allows you to add your movement rate to a trip attempt, but the charge and trip option in the combat section doesn't. I allowed it anyway.

Even at PL 10, the characters were extraordinarily powerful, definitely more Avengers or Justice League than X-Men. The speedster can travel at 10,000 MPH, the Paragon can lift 90 tons or something like that, and the Costumed Adventurer could hit a thug even on a natural 2.

 

[Ginnel]

Well, one of our players was MIA from our D&D game last night, and with him being the tank and the players contemplating taking on a very tough opponent, I suggested we might do something else. I whipped out Mutants & Masterminds and ran a quick game.

It was a lot of fun, and it's definitely one of the easier games I've used as far as improving something quickly. The players just used the archetypes in the book, and I used a very sketchy outline for my villain.

The Good

Easy. Fast. Fun.

The Bad

My players really had no idea what to do with Hero Points. I know from past experience they tend to be "Force point hoarders" in the first place, but they really just could not get into the somewhat improvisational nature of them, or even just burn them when they want to hit the bad guy hard.

A lot of power constructs are not quite as simple as it might first appear. The Costumed Adventurer has some grenades which, it turns out, aren't build with an area effect or anything like that, making them somewhat primitive. I wanted the bad guy to do an Evard's Tentacle type effect, but I couldn't quite make it work. So instead, I just gave him Snare, an attack, Suffocate, and TK (with area and damaging) and narrated it as tentacles. There was no grabbing and crushing, however, except for one attack.

Some damages are strangely low. For instance, the Costumed Adventurer's boomerage has a +2 modifier. Whoop de doo. And no Str bonus.

Actions are a lot more nebulous in M&M. I got into a "make something up" mindset and ran with it, but I found myself adjudicating some very strange things. Can the Speedster run up the wall with a heavy load?

The Weird

The Costumed Adventurer and the Speedster both get winged by thugs with submachine guns. I don't know if it was just wild luck or if that's kind of how it plays at PL 10, but it was sort of weird.

With the speedster's speed and the Paragon's flight, I didn't even bother with a map. But I had to constantly adjudicate the Costumed Adventurer's position and distance. Oh, and the Costumed Adventurer has no vehicle or movement power. Weird.

The Fast Overrun feat allows you to add your movement rate to a trip attempt, but the charge and trip option in the combat section doesn't. I allowed it anyway.

Even at PL 10, the characters were extraordinarily powerful, definitely more Avengers or Justice League than X-Men. The speedster can travel at 10,000 MPH, the Paragon can lift 90 tons or something like that, and the Costumed Adventurer could hit a thug even on a natural 2.

M&M is a very rewarding game to play in my experience, I've played a homebrewed lowish power game PL6 I think we ended up and I've also ran cowboy bebop with it.

I feel the most rewarding thing about it is making up the powers at the start to get exactly what you want, the character I was playing wanted TK and touch sense within a 5 foot sphere around him, which was fine but needed some working out to do, I think I took normal TK then downgraded it to touch then upgraded that to a whip range or something.

Still if I was going to run superheroes it'd probably be that card based Marvel game, very fast and very fun, but then again maybe that was just because I've had a series of excellent GM's

Ah that M&M game a evil science base in Morecombe bay which among other things was experimenting with putting minds into computers/machines, we had a Forklift truck with the number 3 on it help us with getting kit together, and only figured out half way through it had a dogs mind inside it, saying stuff like "Truck 3 is waiting to serve master" "Truck 3 is a good truck"

 

[Kichwas]

Some of the sample characters are well known for their poor design and/or art. Flames about this on the Green Ronins boards got so bad at the launch of MnM 2e that one mod made it a bannable offense to mention certain things, like the art of the Martial Artist. That said I don't recall flames over the specific ones you mentioned, but maybe I just mentioned them.

Hero points take time to get used to. If you want to encourage their use, award more of them than your players can manage to use. In 1E villains got them too, and this helped to get players using them by seeing them used by the opposition.

And to note: 1E MnM is a lot more simple and internally consistent. I personally think it makes for a better game, in part because it lacks some of the play balance 2E has. It favors genre over balance. But I'm in a minority on this opinion.

The combat maneuvers in the game are pretty much the same list as in anything d20, and it just takes time for people to realize they can use them.

As a last point, if you read the forums, I'd say a lot of people find PL10 to be too low to simulate X-Men. I disagree with that, I think the X-Men are a perfect example -of- PL10. But opinions vary pretty widely on this.

Those forums btw, are a great place to go if you want to see a lot of examples of characters and other aspects of the game that can get you more comfortable with it.

Personally, I think the version of Marvel that used stones was the best super RPG, but MnM is a very good other choice.

 

[pawsplay]

Personally, I think the version of Marvel that used stones was the best super RPG,

*backs slowly away*

 

[beeflv30]

MnM great superhero game as was Marvel super heroes adventure game (The one with the saga game rules).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've had some experiences with M&M. The DM (or whatever that role is called) had a playstyle that didn't mesh with ours, however.

We didn't find combat to be fast.

Some damages are strangely low. For instance, the Costumed Adventurer's boomerage has a +2 modifier. Whoop de doo. And no Str bonus.

Yeah, I felt the same thing about the Martial Artist.

A lot of the archetypes and even some PDF characters (eg Bullseye) are poorly designed from an optimization point of view. I see no reason why the boomerang (or anything Bullseye throws) couldn't be treated as a Blast attack, doing physical damage (which is allowed in the rules). As for the Martial Artist, any reason they can't use the Strike power (with the Mighty add-on)? To this day I still don't know how Mighty Strike works

The Costumed Adventurer and the Speedster both get winged by thugs with submachine guns. I don't know if it was just wild luck or if that's kind of how it plays at PL 10, but it was sort of weird.

How did that happen?

IME (limited) all the PCs had something to boost their Toughness, so the typical 7 damage from a gun wouldn't hurt them without a crit. (My character was a psychic, specializing in telepathy, and had a telekinetic forcefield. Some characters were just naturally tough, like our flying brick. Etc.)

With the speedster's speed and the Paragon's flight, I didn't even bother with a map. But I had to constantly adjudicate the Costumed Adventurer's position and distance. Oh, and the Costumed Adventurer has no vehicle or movement power. Weird.

Reminds me of how much the vehicle rules in d20 Modern suck. Vehicles do not interact with grounded PCs well at all.

Even at PL 10, the characters were extraordinarily powerful, definitely more Avengers or Justice League than X-Men. The speedster can travel at 10,000 MPH, the Paragon can lift 90 tons or something like that, and the Costumed Adventurer could hit a thug even on a natural 2.

I disagree to some extent. Colossus can lift 70 tons; that's not far from 90 tons. Any website that lists how powerful a character is in Marvel usually shows them at their "best", however.

What PL are thugs? I don't think they're good threats against a PL 10 character with an essentially maxed out to hit bonus.

 

[pawsplay]

How did that happen?

The Costumed Adventurer got hit with Snare. The following turn, one of the thugs used his automatic weapon to spray the heroes, and hit the CA, who was basically down to her Con and her costume for Toughness.

The Speedster got hit with a 20.

I disagree to some extent. Colossus can lift 70 tons; that's not far from 90 tons. Any website that lists how powerful a character is in Marvel usually shows them at their "best", however.

So Colossus, who is about the strongest guy on that tier, can't lift 90 tons. That's good enough for me to say "More powerful than classic X-Men." There certainly isn't anyone stronger I know of. Wolverine's regeneration is kind of insane, but in M&M terms, he doesn't actually need a high PL for that.

What PL are thugs? I don't think they're good threats against a PL 10 character with an essentially maxed out to hit bonus.

PL 2. I used a PL 10 villain in the game.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The Costumed Adventurer got hit with Snare. The following turn, one of the thugs used his automatic weapon to spray the heroes, and hit the CA, who was basically down to her Con and her costume for Toughness.

Did she have any other source of Toughness at the beginning? Was that all she had?

PL 2. I used a PL 10 villain in the game.

Maybe that was the problem. A PL 2 villain is simply going to be easy to hit.

My group never faced thugs. Were they easily smacked down?

 

[Rystil Arden]

So Colossus, who is about the strongest guy on that tier, can't lift 90 tons. That's good enough for me to say "More powerful than classic X-Men." There certainly isn't anyone stronger I know of. Wolverine's regeneration is kind of insane, but in M&M terms, he doesn't actually need a high PL for that.

As far as "how much can they lift at absolute maximum?" that really isn't a PL limit in M&M, since it is often augmented by Telekinesis and Super-Strength to allow the character to life far more than their Strength would otherwise allow (this is true with the Paragon). I had a character with Telekinesis that could lift the Great Pyramid of Giza (which weighs multiple millions of tons), and she was still PL 10 (had nowhere else to put the extra points in that particular Alternate Power, so I gave her the ability to lift very heavy things).

If you don't take the Super-Strength power to specifically go over the PL limits, you will not be able to lift more than a single digit number of tons before hitting the cap for Strength at your PL (frex, the Paragon, with 34 Strength, would have a Max Load below 3 tons without his Super Strength power, and he's about as high as you get).

So I would say the Colossus thing is not a good indicator--I could make a PL 1 character who can lift 3200 tons as his maximum load. A PL 2 character could lift in the 100 millions. But either of those characters could do nothing else useful.

 

[pawsplay]

Did she have any other source of Toughness at the beginning? Was that all she had?

The Costumed Adventurer has Defensive Roll.