M&M Subplots

[teitan]

One of the things I have noticed and loved yet had the hardest difficulty with is the speed of play that M&M presents us with. I would go out on a limb and say that M&M is the FASTEST playing RPG I have ever seen. The notes I would make for a single D&D session of 6 hours would take up a third of that time in M&M! I have been debating on ways of adding more to each session without making each and every one a sort of Crisis of INfinite Secret War Identities Gauntlet in Multiple Houses of Earth!

Well, then the obvious hit me... subplots. Now the problem is that MOST players have a hard time playing out things like visiting their dear sweet aunt or night clubbing to establish new subplots etc, preferring the bash the villains week in and week out. I was thinking of a reward system for it of each session they get a PP but that is too much considering how much a PP actually means in M&M. I thought of awarding a Hero Point but that MIGHT unbalance the system unless you use the alternate rules in the Annual so there has to be some way to award the player for playing out subplots cause I know in other games they got bonus experience points. Any ideas out there cause the simple joy of roleplaying the experience isn't always enough for everyone's players! LOL

Jason

 

[Razz0putin]

excellent idea teitan. I'm not sure if this would work but I'd look at the annual like you said and give a bonus hero point or two for working the subplot into the story. I don't believe it will be to unbalancing since this is similar to what was done back in the old torg game.

 

[arwink]

Easy - only award points for the subplots, and ease back on awarding hero points for beating up bad guys. If you really want to slow progression down, only reward points for completed subplots or sessions where a character advances a subplot in some significant way.

Good comic books are more about the angst than the voilence anyway, so rewarding players for matching the feel seems to make sense in this situation.

 

[SWBaxter]

Well, then the obvious hit me... subplots. Now the problem is that MOST players have a hard time playing out things like visiting their dear sweet aunt or night clubbing to establish new subplots etc, preferring the bash the villains week in and week out. I was thinking of a reward system for it of each session they get a PP but that is too much considering how much a PP actually means in M&M.

On the mechanics side, I tend to have a standard award for a successful session, pretty much regardless of what went down that session. On the gameplay side, I've never been a fan of the carrot-and-stick approach to enforcing a particular style of gameplay; if the players aren't interested in roleplaying (which is essentially what subplots represent), then I don't try to bang them over the head with it. In general, though, I find that most players who are comic book fans warm to the idea of dealing with the various soap opera-ish problems that plague Peter Parker, Clark Kent, and so on.

One technique I can recommend is "blue-booking", which I first read about way back in Aaron Allston's excellent Strike Force supplement for Champions. He had a group that was kinda split on whether they wanted to play out subplots/romances/etc., so what he did was hand out blue notebooks similar to what grade schoolers use. Subplot-type stuff was often handled via note-writing back and forth, leaving game session time for the action. Fairly quickly, even the action junkies got into blue-booking, and his campaign started to develop crazy inter-relationships and entwined subplots that would make a Chris Claremont-era X-Man fan proud. Nowadays, email and blogs are probably the best way to go, but the concept remains.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Slight hijack here-

I'm getting a PC together for an online M&M game, so I haven't actually played the system yet. I've seen a couple of other people mention that the game seems to move faster, and I'm curious as to why this is. Is it just that combat moves faster? I could see that, based on what I've read, but that would only apply to combat-heavy sessions.

Or is it just that there's a standard sort of mission, a basic "get danger alert, find and stop bad guy" scenario that's generally run? How complex have people been getting with plots?

 

[threshel]

Well, the nice thing about MnM is that it lets you have plots and still get the action in. If your game isn't plot heavy, and you're basically just going from fight-to-fight, or even rescue missions, natural disasters or what have you, it moves really fast. The resolution mechanic is really fast, and the rounds go by quickly. If you're not into the big subplot thing, here's a few things you can try:

Slow down the fights by being more descriptive. Instead of "<roll>...Defense 20" "<roll>...Ok, he's stunned," how about "I say 'Your reign of terror ends here, Kalak!' Then I bring an uppercut from the floor, aiming for the point of his chin... <roll> ...Defense 20" "<roll>...The force of your blow nearly knocks him off his feet, and he stumbles, his knees going weak. He's stunned."

Complicate the fights. The villains nearly always get to pick the when and the where, so the smart ones will always pick a setting to their advantage. Lots of innocents nearby is a genre staple. Regardless, very few fights should just be simply trading hits.

As for the subplots, if your players aren't the type for immersive roleplay, then how about playing to their egos. Make them celebrities. I don't know anyone who can resist a microphone in their face. Once you get them used to talking (in combat, and/or on camera), they'll be more open to other types of roleplaying. If you bring them along slow enough, you may not even need the reward system.

Hope this helps,

J

 

[SWBaxter]

I'm getting a PC together for an online M&M game, so I haven't actually played the system yet. I've seen a couple of other people mention that the game seems to move faster, and I'm curious as to why this is. Is it just that combat moves faster? I could see that, based on what I've read, but that would only apply to combat-heavy sessions.

Combat is mostly what people mean, and it does move very quickly. This is because it's usually possible for an even fight to end on any attack, depending on hero point expenditures and the whim of the dice. I suspect combat-heavy sessions are the majority, at least among gamers new to superhero RPGs.