Mutants and Masterminds... fantasy?

[NotZenon]

anyone here ever run a traditional fantasy setting using the mutants and materminds ruleset?

I have the newest edition and am not totally familiar with the rules yet, but am strongly considering doing this.

as gamers we want to stick to a d20 style game for now (until numenera comes out) but are looking forward to the different flavour a new ruleset brings, and a new style of "magic".

basically, i'm looking for, hints, ideas, suggestions, sage advice from the other board members. Any help is appreciated.

the only house rule we will be using is a "death flag" rule

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I haven't looked at M&M3Ed, but 2Ed had 2 products to help you run fantasy in the system: The Book of Magic and Warriors & Warlocks. Coupled with the basic sourcebooks, they would let you run a pretty decent fantasy camapign.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I have played in, but not run, three fantasy games using M&M 2e. All three were very successful.

A couple of things that I would probably do if I were to run such a game...

Limit alternate form characters to no more than two alternate forms. This actually came from a character that I played, based on changing in to elemental forms (wood, earth, metal, water, and fire). Too many alternate forms just makes the characters waaay too versatile, leaving other characters sometimes with not much to do...

Limit magic to a smallish number of thematically linked powers. Similar to the alternate form problem above, magic-using characters can be extremely versatile, leaving other characters out of the action in some instances.

Other than that, most of the 'problems' of Mutants and Masterminds are pretty well addressed in the Mutants and Masterminds books (watch out for Duplication, Summon, and etc...)

Also, don't forget to give out Hero Points!

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

I was just thinking of using MnM3e for a more low powered sci-fi western idea of mine, which is like just a fantasy with aliens instead of fantasy races and having rules for guns and stuff.

I'm thinking of how to tweak the 3e ruleset to have the damage mechanics be more gritty.

 

[NotZenon]

Hey thanks for the replies folks.

to silverbane: ok perfect that was just the kind of advice i was looking for, wanting to avoid any balance issues.

I was thinking about a number of things during the week, one was to run a fantasy campaign with a magic system based off of the game "magic" not actually based of the game but rather have the magic powers divided into themes based around the five colours, and have magic users of those colours get bonus's in there appropriate land type. other than that it wouldn't be based on the game at all or take place in the "magic" world.

The other thing i was thinking i might do is play an alternate history earth, were the major alteration to history is that magic works (duh), and that some of the pantheons (specifically greek and viking) are real. Although these "gods" are actually very powerfull wizards/super hero's/advanced aliens/warlords. The other planets in the system have been colonized by the "gods" (system lords) and their followers or slaves. All of these planets are interconnected by a series of gateways and worm holes, which can be found throughout the different planets. The wormholes/gates were built by an even older race of aliens that was wiped out by the greek pantheon (ie titans).

i was also thinking i could mix the two ideas together. The only problem is right now i have too many ideas and no time for game prep.

any thoughts/idea's folks?

 

[Stacie GmrGrl]

Both of those ideas are cool, and you saying 5 colors reminded me of Magic... so what if time...

What if one form of magic came from within the land and the different kinds of lands, and each land also brings with it an affinity towards certain kind of magic powers. Maybe the first Affinity has normal costs to magic and powers, but if someone wanted to have an Affinity with a second then those powers could cost more... and a third Affinity could cost even more, etc... it's one way to let people have versatility but it would cost them.

Maybe also people who are devoted to certain 'Gods' like the Norse or Greek, could game powers based on their God's Domains.

Just brainstorming ideas there...

For your five colors what colors are you thinking and how would you work the powers within the framework?

I wish I had the GM book.

 

[NotZenon]

Both of those ideas are cool, and you saying 5 colors reminded me of Magic... so what if time...

What if one form of magic came from within the land and the different kinds of lands, and each land also brings with it an affinity towards certain kind of magic powers. Maybe the first Affinity has normal costs to magic and powers, but if someone wanted to have an Affinity with a second then those powers could cost more... and a third Affinity could cost even more, etc... it's one way to let people have versatility but it would cost them.

Maybe also people who are devoted to certain 'Gods' like the Norse or Greek, could game powers based on their God's Domains.

Just brainstorming ideas there...

For your five colors what colors are you thinking and how would you work the powers within the framework?

I wish I had the GM book.

Yeah thats pretty much what i was thinking on the first part! i just haven't really organized my thoughts yet.

as for the gods i'm going to skip the "domain" powers because I want the "gods" to essentially be level 14-20 characters. i don't want them to be able to do anything players can't. There powers will be limited by the same rules as the players but they will just be higher level.

as you can tell by the flavour, it won't be like many campaign worlds (forgotten realms or wow) were every town mayor is a 20th level fighter. the majority of people will be character class-less peasants like in old dnd. Player characters will be 1 in a million (give or take a few numbers).

just off the top of my head (as I remember the magic the gathering colours):

black - necromancy, death, disease, mind control,
minor - earth/ water.

red - fire, lightning, earth, metal
minor - air, mind control

green - nature, earth, strength, life
minor - water, air

blue - water, meta magic, air
minor- earth, life

white - air, fire, life, protection
minor - earth, nature.

Characters would also be limited by a class archtype, ie

Figther
Sneak
controller
artillery

all three would be magic or technology users though,
or maybe instead they are already limited enough by theme?


I want to limit the player characters to create uniqueness and themes and roles within the party... but not to the point of handicapping there ability to make a cool class, or the character they want to play.

 

[NotZenon]

and right now i'm thinking maybe i shouldn't limit the players so much and just stick with my original idea of fantasy era superhero's.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Mutants and Masterminds can really work well for a fantasy setting. After all, the system is largely favor neutral; using the "blast" power could be an arrow, magic missile, or just a big rock. The system is flexible enough to build almost any concept you can think of!

The system is sooo flexible, you can make a whole party of Codzillas and Batman Wizards! If you're the type of person who has no problem with that, good for you! Otherwise, you'll need to be ready for PCs who are vastly different in power even with the same point buy.