Initial thoughts

[Walking Dad]

IMHO, you need to be used to FATE, or your group will quickly 'forget' the FATE-like parts of the game.

The point-buy costs are very unbalanced (as are the powers to each other). Clinging & swinging are not as good as Flying in most cases and cost each the same.

 

[Relique du Madde]

For some reason it seemed almost as if Steve Kenson purposely left huge glaring holes in the ICONS for fear of creating M&M Light on the eve of MM3e's release.

 

[pawsplay]

For some reason it seemed almost as if Steve Kenson purposely left huge glaring holes in the ICONS for fear of creating M&M Light on the eve of MM3e's release.

... Or that GMS rushed a project to market before fully dealing with all of the wrinkles of a new game system he found appealling.

Hmmm....

 

[Greg K]

Or, maybe, like MSH, they were not concerned with the creation of a group of balanced characters so you coud end up with a character like the Wasp hanging out with a deity like Thor.

Actually, GMS has stated on the yahoo list that the game goes with an old school approach in which the creation of balanced characters is not the concern

 

[pawsplay]

Or, maybe, like MSH, they were not concerned with the creation of a group of balanced characters so you coud end up with a character like the Wasp hanging out with a deity like Thor.

Actually, GMS has stated on the yahoo list that the game goes with an old school approach in which the creation of balanced characters is not the concern

I'm fine with that. I don't actually have a problem with Claws costing the same as Cosmic Power, or whatever. Or characters being in very different power levels in terms of their capabilities.

The problem I see is that there is a dividing line between "balance really isn't a concern" and "balance is a favorite food of Martians." They included a (basic) system for non-random characters, and if you want to create an expert at X, you are self-nerfing versus the guys who is good at everything. It's dissatisfying. Thor doesn't have to balance against the Wasp, but two Thor clones should roughly balance against each other. That is not at all a concern of random generation, but it is a concern of planned character creation.

The concern of random generation is that you end up with rolls that say, "Hm, this guy could be a good archer, his abilities are perfect... uh, wait, no, owning a bow is a Power in this game."

It's kind of ironic they didn't include a brief section on Mother-May-I character generation, a la MSH. I mean, if you're going to dispense with balance, just do it, man! GMs aren't the only ones who can dream up characters whole-cloth.