Preparing to start a M&M campaign...

[Kaffis]

What should I know?

I remember playing a one-shot at an Ohio Game Day with pre-gens back when the first edition was new, but that was a bunch of years ago and my memory's gone hazy.

What powers get out of hand if I don't keep an eye on my players during creation?

What are some good/fun villainous construction tricks?

What's a satisfying starting power level?

For those who run games/play, what is your favorite meme of the setting in which you play, and why?

 

[Brutorz Bill]

What should I know?

I remember playing a one-shot at an Ohio Game Day with pre-gens back when the first edition was new, but that was a bunch of years ago and my memory's gone hazy.

What powers get out of hand if I don't keep an eye on my players during creation?

What are some good/fun villainous construction tricks?

What's a satisfying starting power level?

For those who run games/play, what is your favorite meme of the setting in which you play, and why?

It's an awesome game!
Our group has been playing for awhile now and we love it.
We found letting players use character archtypes rather than starting a character from scratch worked best for us. We are just now having some folks work on building their characters from scratch.
I heartily recommend the Instant Superheroes book, it's great for pregen heroes and villians, just tweak a few abilities change the look and name and you've got an easily recycled npc, hero, villian etc. If you get some of the books in pdf, it's a snap to print our the particular character you want and your ready to game!
We started at PL 10 because we wanted to do characters that emulated our favorite comic book heroes.
Check out the official M&M forums, they are some great folks, you'll find all kinds of conversions of your favorite comic heros and villians, some great art and awesome advice!
Main thing is to have fun! It's not D&D, after a friend of mine joined the game who had never played a Supers RPG before (an old school fantasy D&Der) he looked at me and said, "I don't think I can go back to D&D after playing this! " His character had just thrown a semi truck at a group of bad guys!
Also Hero Points rock!!!
Happy gaming!!

 

[ValhallaGH]

Internet ate my first post. This will be less energetically written.

What should I know?

The system can do anything you want to, though you may not see how for a while.

What powers get out of hand if I don't keep an eye on my players during creation?

First, the standard plot killers.
Standards: Incorporeality, total invisibility, mind reading, mind control, mind-attacking damage, immunity to damage, precognition, postcognition, and excessive actions (too generous super-speed, duplication, summoned minions). Drains combined with powers resisted by the drained stat.

Super-specific problems: limited damage immunity (Impervious extra), some super-senses (situational), high-rank Snare / Stun / Fatigue / Paralyze powers, Perception-range Area attacks.

What's a satisfying starting power level?

All of them. I've played in games from PL 8 to PL 14 and had good and bad times with all of them. The key was if the GM could give me the type of role play experiences I was seeking, not the PL.

For a guideline of what PLs can mean, see this post.

Good Luck!

 

[Kaffis]

Main thing is to have fun! It's not D&D, after a friend of mine joined the game who had never played a Supers RPG before (an old school fantasy D&Der) he looked at me and said, "I don't think I can go back to D&D after playing this! " His character had just thrown a semi truck at a group of bad guys!

Yeah, I'm pitching this as a chance to try something different and unique as a break from our D&D game, in a genre and system that encourages improvisation and more environmental interaction just like that. It's also a good chance for me to flex some creativity and pull out some memes and plot devices that are dear to my heart (as a comic fan) but not always necessarily appropriate or easy to work into a straight-fantasy setting like D&D...

I'll look at the official forums, and take a peek at the Instant Superheroes book, too, but I have a feeling that my players will be more psyched about creating their own.

On that note, ValhallaGH, thanks for the advice. The list of gamebreakers and plot killers is exactly what I was looking for, and caught a few that I might not have noticed/mentally flagged otherwise. Likewise, that PL post you linked to was very informative and has given me the perspective I was looking for.


I'd still be happy to hear from more people's experiences, and I'm particularly keen on what aspects of comic settings M&M has enabled you or your group to explore that has been the most unique (hard to do elsewhere) and fun for you!

 

[Michael Silverbane]

General Advice...

Hero Points. You should be handing out hero points like candy. The more you hand out the hero points, the more your players will use them, and the more out of the ordinary stuff will happen.

This can make a huge difference in how your games run. I've played in games under two different game masters (as well as running myself), and the difference in how often they give out hero points is gigantic. The game with fewer hero points has actions like, "I blast him with my power." Whereas the game with more frequent hero points often has things like, "I burn a hero point and alternate power my water blast to nullify the bad guy's fire blast before it fries the bystanders."

Problem Powers. There have only been a couple of powers that I've seen as problem powers (and I've seen a large variety of powers). Those are... Duplication, Disintegrate (or, really, any trait drain combined with something else), Mental Blast with ESP (or, really, any Perception Range attack combined with a supersensory power), Time Travel (or Dimensional Travel or the temporal senses) depending on the campaign.

To some extent Teleport, at the really high ranks can get out of hand.

Powers that are configurable (i.e. Variable Powers) or that have a lot of Alternate Powers can be problematic, especially if you have someone who takes a long time in decision-making anyway. In general, I'd probably limit any one power to having four alternate powers (for a total of five abilities out of a single pool of power points). And this is just to keep the decision time down for those players that hem and haw about things a lot.

Also, moving powers to smaller action types should be discouraged. Anything that would normally be considered an attack should always be a Standard action or greater. Anything that would normally grant movement should be a Move action or greater, and so on. Also, changing forms should probably not be allowed as a Reaction.

As for PL. I generally like to start at PL 8 or 9, and use a higher power point total. But I've played in Games from PL 6 to PL 12, and they were all pretty smooth.

Edit: Oh... And some advice for your players, too... When you are making your characters, make sure that you fill out your caps on attack and damage, defense and toughness, and your saves (in some cases, it could help the flavor of the campaign if every character had one non-optimal save). if you are not filling out your caps, or coming at least close to doing so, you are going to have a difficult time during play.

 

[TheWyrd]

Because M&M can be a little fiddly, a number of GMs I know use a grace period over the first 3 games or so where the PCs have the option to re-write their character's stats if they find out that something they thought would be cool isn't working out the way they thought it would.

Hero Points are your best tool for making the plot run the way you want it to. Most players are willing to take a little bit of suck time if they're getting bought off with hero points and they know those will be useful for the big finale.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the Variable Powers (Shapeshift, Mimic, etc) that let you grab just about any power. They're balanced fine, they just slow the game down.

Some concepts will seem to demand a lot of little powers. While this seems cool on paper, in practice you're going to want players to have a single big power, worth at least PLx2 points. If they don't it will be frustrating for them trying to use hero points with their powers.

 

[Elric]

M&M is a great game. There's lots of useful stuff at The Atomic Think Tank, the official forums.

My Roll Call thread there has two detailed character creation examples, which should be helpful in learning the character creation system: Minotaur, a powerhouse, and the Martial Artist archetype.

I also have three fights written from the perspective of the players and GM, so they're designed to help people understand the rules (Fights 1 and 2 in particular have a lot of explanation):
Fight #1: X-Men vs. Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
Fight #2: Avengers vs. White Knight
Fight #3: Avengers vs. Overshadow

If you're looking for comic book conversions to use, the gold standard is Taliesin's Roll Call thread (he has lots of non-comic book conversions as well).

For game balance issues that can arise, you can't do better than to read the (very long) first two posts of Paragon’s thread on the limits of the PL system. As a warning, M&M is not meant to be a GM-hands off system. M&M strives for flexibility and ease of play, rather than strict game-balance. So don't hesitate to act to keep things fun for everyone.

As a starting game, I'd do PL 10, 150 pp. At that PL characters feel like "major heroes", but not quite world-beaters. You can do very good builds of the X-Men at PL 10, 150 pp, for example.

For books, Instant Superheroes is quite good. Freedom City offers a lot of characters and a great, detailed setting. Ultimate Power is a much clearer exposition of the game's power system, offers inspiration for builds, and has some changes to powers that, if you want to use them, are generally improvements. I'd stay away from the Mastermind's Manual; it's mainly about rules tinkering, but the suggestions there clearly weren't as well thought out on average as the rules in the core book.

 

[coyote6]

Ultimate Power is a much clearer exposition of the game's power system, offers inspiration for builds, and has some changes to powers that, if you want to use them, are generally improvements.

Except for Shrinking (Normal Toughness and Normal Movement in particular; the former should be a ranked power feat & the latter a single power feat at most, rather than Extras).

Be aware that Ultimate Power is currently out of print as a book; the PDF is available, of course, but hardcopies are listed at ridiculous prices in various places. GR has announced plans for a Pocket Ultimate Power, which will be a smaller (length & width) B&W softcover version for less money.

Sometime later, they've said they will reprint the full color hardback UP, but color hardbacks are expensive to print and they've got a whole bunch of higher-end products to print in the meantime (Song of Ice and Fire setting book, Dragon Age boxed sets, etc).

I'd stay away from the Mastermind's Manual; it's mainly about rules tinkering, but the suggestions there clearly weren't as well thought out on average as the rules in the core book.

A lot of MaMa stuff comes from, or is inspired by, other d20 books, and thus isn't necessarily a smooth fit. It does have some useful options, though I'd agree it's not needed; but if you decide you want attacks of opportunity or more detailed skill rules or whatever, it's a good place for a GM to start.

 

[Storminator]

In my best experience with MnM, I picked the genre first, and everything else flowed from there. So I suggest making sure your players know what kind of comic books they are writing, and build PCs and adventures from there. If your players are working with you to emulate the genre, you don't have to get heavy handed about the powers because they'll do it themselves.

I picked Golden Age (based on the sourcebook) and it has been the best campaign I've ever been a part of. One player said "not one session has even dropped to the level of mediocre."

As has been said, hand out hero points like candy on halloween. I stop combat and have my PCs listen to villain monologues, then give out a round of hero points. Also, GM Fiat is a great rule. I don't have to build villain with insane defenses, because I know I can grant them a save whenever I want. My villains never go down on the first punch.

In true Golden Age fashion, I let the players rewrite their characters whenever they feel like it. This has been awesome. People love to try new powers (and MnM has sooooo many!) and no one feels like they might get stuck with a bad choice. There are better ways to do some things, and once people get their MnM legs under them it feels good to rework your PC and end up just as good as you were before, only with 10 extra power points to spend.

I also treat each session like a separate issue, so at the end of the night the issue is closed. If a player doesn't make a session, it doesn't matter... they just aren't in that issue.

Awesome, awesome game. Have fun!

PS

 

[WizarDru]

M&M is four-color fun and a great system. It seems a bit intimidating at first, until you learn to let go a little (at least that was our experience). You're not trying to level up nearly so much as enjoy the plot, generally speaking, and the enjoyment comes from being superheroes.

The mention of Hero Points should not be under-emphasized. Give them out and suggest players spend them. They aren't meant to be hoarded. I was in a M&M game run by Piratecat at the last Gencon, and it was my favorite part of the convention. I'll tag him to drop by the thread, so he can offer advice.

One technique that PC used to move things along that I thought was BRILLIANT was to frame the entire adventure AS IF IT WAS AN ISSUE OF A COMIC BOOK. By that, I mean he described the cover page to us (complete with Silver-Agey blurbs and text baloons) and then led us right into the adventure. He'd bridge scenes with stuff like "Meanwhile, Downtown at the First National Bank..." or "Later, at Professor Impossible's Lab..." and so on. He even did a Hostess Fruit Pie ad in the middle of the game, and we pitched in. IT WAS GREAT.

You can do a very serious M&M game too, of course. I do know what we found the system worked best when we didn't get TOO detailed about combat and rules...and when we did lots of things like Extra Effort, spending Hero Points and being creative about power use. As a DM, giving Hero Points for, effectively, cheating or screwing a character (to advance the plot) is a nice gimmick. It sets the character up for the chance to redeem themselves later on and is hella-fun.