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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SuperZero" data-source="post: 6068783" data-attributes="member: 6690219">Mutants & Masterminds by Green Ronin is always my favorite.It's a superhero game currently on its 3rd edition. DC Adventures is the same game.It uses the basic core mechanic of the d20 system, but uses point buy for character generation rather than class or levels.It also has no hit points, using a condition-based damage system.It's versatile. Superheroes have incredibly diverse abilities, so a game meant to model them has a lot of variety. You can build pretty much any character using the MnM rules. Some people say that means it's a strong general system that can be used for any genre, but I'm not sure I agree with that, at least out of the box. I would say it can be used outside of superheroes, but I'd still put some specifics on there. You want a genre with a decent amount of combat but low lethality or lingering injuries, fairly powerful characters, and considerable diversity between them. If you have all of those MnM can probably work pretty well. It is designed for a particular genre, though, and wasn't intended to be universal.It's d20. A lot of potential players are already familiar with the basics here. Of course, some of them already don't like it. And some of the ones that do might be confused by the differences. Ability scores work a bit differently, and the scale's not the same. Defenses are different, especially the damage system which has no similarities at all to DnD's.Character Creation. I like it. You can make anything with it, and once you understand it you can make simpler characters without looking at the book. At the same time, mastering character creation is probably a lot harder than with DnD. You have both Power Points and Power Level to worry about... it can seem complicated.Instead of having a set of blocks, like levels or feats, to build with, you build your character up to a particular level. You want certain traits, like Attack and Damage bonuses, to average your Power Level. This doesn't mean that all characters look the same--you can have a PL 10 martial artist with +15 Attack and +5 Damage and a PL 10 powerhouse with +5 Attack and +15 Damage who look quite different. And that's two characters who fight by punching stuff, so they're more similar to each other than two different heroes have to be.Balance can be kind of an issue. The game includes a wide variety of powers, which does include some troublesome ones like Precognition and Summon (which allows you to have more than one character--always potentially problematic). The designers actually call most of these out right in the book, though. There's a big side bar next to Summon, for example, pointing out some potential pitfalls and giving GMs advice.It can be kind of abstract, and there's low granularity. The average bonus for a bystander is +0. The average bonus for a superhero is +10. There really isn't that much of a difference between those two numbers. I don't think that's necessarily a feature or a bug--I think that's a matter of taste.</blockquote>

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