Mutants and Masterminds, edition differences

[Aus_Snow]

Thanks for another very illuminating post.

I know I probably could've (and maybe should've) figured some of that out myself, but I'm still very green to M&M, and haven't run it, so far.* I really, really want to though - and now more than ever.

Actually, this has me quite psyched. If it's a viable alternative to well uh, near anything, then - given that I love most of what I do know about the system - this might be The One. That would be awesome.


* Er, or even read the entire thing.

 

[Jackelope King]

Hm. . . What do you need to do to or with M&M 2e, to make it that? A 'full-on genre-neutral toolbox' I mean. Any other sourcebooks needed, for example? Or just some tinkering / reimagining / rewording?

I've heard this kind of thing quite a bit, and am exceedingly curious as to how it's done, and how easy it is to do. M&M is awesome, without doubt, but if it can do all that too. . .

Well then, I might end up stepping sideways, systems-wise.

Out of the box, ValhallaGM has it about right: you can use M&M to run just about anything, so long as you're good at divorcing flavor from mechanics. I've seen high fantasy, swords & sorcery, Star Wars, zombie survival games, and secret agent games all run without an issue. That said, M&M lends itself best to a four-color superheroes game.

My own toolbox game that I'm finally-almost-nearly-just-about-kinda-sorta-practically finished uses M&M as the base for character creation, where it is probably the most flexible in the d20-verse. I've heavily modified some aspects of it (especially skills, which have gotten a massive overhaul to be a little less fiddly and a lot broader), and in the combat area I've borrowed liberally from the good parts of other systems (a lot of the nuts and bolts of combat is informed by Spycraft, I've used zones from Iron Heroes, a heavily modified system inspired by Book of Iron Might for combat maneuvers, saves-as-defenses from Star Wars: Saga Edition). These modifications have mostly been in the name of simplification and truly getting down to the base effects that M&M presents (using something akin to SWSE's condition track coupled with a more generic power called "Inflict (Condition)" rather than trying to memorize Nauseate AND Paralyze AND Snare AND Fatigue AND Emotion Control...), and addressing a few very minor balance issues.

For most players, going through and changing the names of powers will be enough (changing "Super-Senses" to "Enhanced Senses", for example).

Bottom line: if you're comfortable with ripping the mechanical guts out of a system and disregarding its flavor, M&M can do a lot. There are still a few issues (such as the system for Knockback not fitting non-supers games very well, the Time & Value Progression chart taking a decidedly silver-age path once you start reaching higher levels, and the weapons presented in the equipment chapter being painfully weak), but these are really very minor. If you don't mind creating your own weapons (a very easy task, actually), you can use M&M for a lot. You don't have to go overboard like I tend to.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Out of the box, ValhallaGM has it about right

Thank you for the compliment. Though note, that's not my correct pseudonym.

There are still a few issues (such as the system for Knockback not fitting non-supers games very well, the Time & Value Progression chart taking a decidedly silver-age path once you start reaching higher levels, and the weapons presented in the equipment chapter being painfully weak), but these are really very minor.

I agree, those issues are pretty danged minor.

1) Knockback actually works in any quasi-cinematic game. It's dependent upon the difference between the damage and your toughness bonus (modified by impervious, size, and powers); if someone doesn't hit hard enough then you don't move. We've all seen fantasy, science fiction, and modern action movies where a guy takes a sword/blaster/shotgun to the face and flies back a foot or five (or fifty in the case of some giant fantasy monsters ala D&D) before falling down badly hurt. Even games where it usually doesn't come up, it's good to have for those times when it should come up.
My personal house rule for especially realistic games is that only really big monsters (or super-weapons) cause knockback, but even that's not generally necessary.

2) The Time and Value Progression chart does get pretty wonky at those high values, but if you're playing at a PL higher than 7, why are you looking for realism? Eight is the PL where people can (without hurting their concept) be as tough as a tank. PL 7 allows warriors of fame and heroism, that can turn an entire battle by simply being that good. PL 8 is entering into the realms of legend, such as Achilles, Hector, Ajax, Odysseus, and others. PL 10 is the point where you can shake a nation, single-handed. PL 12, you can take a nation single-handed, and shake the world. PL 15 you can take, or destroy, entire worlds (it only takes +52 damage to destroy the Earth as a full-round action). At PL 20, you are a force that can affect the entire cosmos, no matter how many planes there are.

3) The weapons themselves are, I've found, pretty representative of real world equipment. A 9mm handgun will, on average, seriously injure a normal person (10 con, no armor) for two shots, disable him on the third, make him dying on the fourth, and (if he's still alive) kill him on the fifth. On average, a blast of buck shot will drop an average person to disabled on the first blast, dying on the second, and dead on the third, if he doesn't bleed to death before you blow his head off. If you treat most people as minions (as you probably should) then they go immediately to Dead with the first shot, 85% to 95% of the time.
For really scary folks, Favored Opponent and Sneak Attack allows them to kill even well armored folks the vast majority of the time.
Critical hits are like having a death ray in your hands. Improved Critical means that death ray works a lot.
Melee weapons are at least as bad as guns, depending upon the wielder's strength. And don't get me started on the Bow.
As long as you remember that most folks are in the PL 0 to 6 range (and PL 6 is rare, like SWAT), the weapons are very satisfactory, in my experience.

All that said, I actually agree with Jackalope King.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Brilliant, thanks again (both of you, that is.)

Bottom line: if you're comfortable with ripping the mechanical guts out of a system and disregarding its flavor, M&M can do a lot.

Very comfortable. It's familiar territory, even.

Is there any way I could check out those house rules - on a site somewhere, say? I like a lot of the same subsystems, it seems, so it might be very interesting indeed to see them 'M&Md'. And, um, it might end up saving me a bit of future work.

Would that be possible?

 

[Jackelope King]

Brilliant, thanks again (both of you, that is.)

Very comfortable. It's familiar territory, even.

Is there any way I could check out those house rules - on a site somewhere, say? I like a lot of the same subsystems, it seems, so it might be very interesting indeed to see them 'M&Md'. And, um, it might end up saving me a bit of future work.

Would that be possible?

Surely, Aus. The work-in-progress rules wiki is here. I've been working on cleaning it up and making all the references consistent with one another.

 

[Dr. Confoundo]

Here's another vote for the versatility of M&M2E. While it eventually morphed into a Golden Age Supers campaign, I started my campaign as a straight up WWII GI combat type game. The PCs were PL 4, and we could easily have gone awhile like that, but I had different plans for them.

 

[Supaida]

One more vote for Mutants and Masterminds 2E being awesome, and rather versatile. I'm using it to run a fantasy game that, although it has people with special powers, doesn't resemble a typical superhero game very much, and it works great. My only real complaints are that Improved Evasion seems underpriced, and that melee weapons and bows seem a bit too powerful compared to guns, but M&M is probably the easiest system to modify I've played with, too.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Cheers, JK. And kudos for what looks like a great project (d20 Advanced.)

 

[Jackelope King]

Cheers, JK. And kudos for what looks like a great project (d20 Advanced.)

Thankya kindly, Aus.