Questions about M&M?

[Elric]

I just want to chime in as a D&D player to say that from what I have seen of the M&M rules so far, it is a great game. I have played the two short one-shot adventures (Heist and Major League). The very first time we played it took less than 45 minutes to learn the basics of the game, choose characters, and run a combat.

Also, as someone who has no background reading comics, watching superhero shows or anything, the game is just a ton of fun to play. You have few expendable resources but the ones you have (hero points, extra effort) allow for an incredible variety of options, making the game quick and easy while maintaining variation. Obviously, as is the case with any simple point buy game (think 2e skills and powers), some power combination will be too powerful, but my group is really good about coming to a group consensus about how to fix things.

M&M also is such a flexible system that you can make just about any character. Of anyone remembers the description of Erekose from Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series and could post it, I’d really appreciate it. I’m modeling my next M&M character on him, but can’t find the book to figure out what he looks like. I've borrowed the book of another guy in my group for now and character creation is getting really easy. I'm definitely buying a copy for myself when the updated book comes out.

 

[Caspian Moon Prince]

I checked through the The Eternal Champion and did not really find a decent description to list for you. I've also tried google to find a sufficient page that could have a description, but there isn't much. Here is the best I could find for a good description off of this web page: http://www.elric.org.uk/erekose.html

-Erekose's banner is a silver sword on a black field. Those are among his favorite colors for dress too. At almost all times Erekose has his sword, Kanajana, at his side. He also wears a ring of gold, pearl, and rose-colored diamonds on his right ring-finger. It was a token of love given to him by Iolinda when he began his war against the Eldren.

The armor of Erekose is black lacquered platemail that literally shines. It has special grooves to help deflect blows, and is light but strong. Its sole ornament is a crimson plume made from horsehair, positioned in the middle of the helm.

 

[Funksaw]

1) Mutants and Masterminds works well for high power levels - I'm a little bit worried that it doesn't work for *low* power levels because of it's d20 system core, which tends to rely more on luck than on ability for success.

I *highly* suggest that if you want to run a more grim and gritty game, watchmen-esque, that you lower the points but allow the 3skill ranks/1point optional rule - otherwise you'll end up with not grit, but slapshtick.

2) I actually find M&M character creation to be moderately speedy - about the same as GURPS, honestly... Now, GURPS is more complex but I don't think it's more speedy - the two main problems I have are that A) Alot of the system has to do with derived - not bought - attributes, like saves and defense, to which alot of factors can come into play. And B) Synergy bonuses seem like a good idea, but they make sure you read the description on every skill every time you make a character (unlike most games, where buying one skill doesn't really affect others)

To speed things up, I suggest houseruling away synergy bonuses. You can more than make up for it by giving characters a free skill rank per power level.

I highly suggest the Devil's Workshop "Power Corrupted" PDF on RPGnow if you're interested in more varied powers. Mutants and Masterminds really set out to do one thing well and succeeded, but I'm afraid it's going to have to be up to the Superlink products to expand that.

 

[Ranger REG]

Mutants and Masterminds really set out to do one thing well and succeeded, but I'm afraid it's going to have to be up to the Superlink products to expand that.

To expand upon the rules system, or upon the superhero game?

 

[Thanee]

M&M = HERO/Champions light ?

Ah, good to know about the 2nd printing... I'll wait then until I buy my own book.

M&M looks like it works pretty quick (well, I'm used to HERO, so that doesn't say much, really ).

If you know the HERO system, M&M seems obviously based on that ruleset to me (pretty much everything that sets it apart from d20 is simplified HERO mechanics). IMHO HERO/Champions is the reference class for any superhero RPG (I do not know DC, tho).

Essentially, the d20 logo (metaphoric ^^) on M&M is not right... it should have a HERO logo, as M&M is surely more based on HERO/Champions than on d20 (j/k about the logo, of course).

M&M is Champions light (light is not meant in a bad way, BTW).

Anyways, the designers did a great job at the simplifying, the unwieldy advantage/disadvantage power system has been toned down into extras and flaws listed specifically for every power and with a universal cost system (+/- 1 is basically the only calculation needed there, compared to the *1.75 /2.25 stuff from HERO). It lacks the enormous flexibility, but retains enough of it to allow modeling almost all powers you might need. And if not, you can always invent more powers/extras/flaws.

Also the extremely flexible HERO character point system is in use (the points are just named differently and costs are somewhat different). I feel it's wrong, that the physical attributes cost the same as the mental ones before going into superpowers, tho. They just seem a lot more useful. The same 'problem' exists with the extras and flaws, since they all cost the same, some are better, some are worse. But that's not too bad, overall I think the simplification is worth more than this lil discrepancy.

Levels somewhat exist in M&M, but not even close to the extent of D&D, as levels put a lot less limits on the character's individual abilities, while mostly setting an overall limit, how much stuff a character can do, but not in what way. You can decide for yourself how much you spend on attributes, skills, feats, powers, and so on.

What I especially like is the damage. No hit points. Havn't really tried it yet, but it sounds like a very good damage system for comic book action. Simple and effective.

Not sure about the general combat system. From a quick look it looks pretty much like d20, but I'm not entirely sure about that. If so, I probably like the HERO system phases better, since they split combat actions into smaller bits, I always liked their initiative system, but only time can tell how these two compare.

What I also like with M&M is the combination of the HERO style power toolkit (altho there are some differences, since M&M powers are all organized in ranks/levels, whereas HERO has a more dynamic scale, but both have the general base-advantage-disadvantage idea) with the d20 skill system (which is by far better than the HERO one, I never really liked the HERO skills, altho otherwise the system is totally genius).

Overall, judging from the HERO perspective, M&M seems to be a positive development.
Definitely worth picking up!

Good job!

Bye
Thanee

P.S. @Kenson: I have one random question about something I've read in the M&M book... the Incorporeal power has this extra, where you can partially materialize to deal damage from inside your opponent... did you read the Ghost comics from darkhorse, or did this come from another source?

 

[Thanee]

About the first question. I would expect M&M to work well at higher power levels, tho, naturally the GM has to watch closely, since at these levels things can easily go out of hand, literally. They are in some way expected to do so.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Kenson]

P.S. @Kenson: I have one random question about something I've read in the M&M book... the Incorporeal power has this extra, where you can partially materialize to deal damage from inside your opponent... did you read the Ghost comics from darkhorse, or did this come from another source?

Well, I think it would be fair to say the Vision was doing that trick in Avengers long before the Ghost was around...

Glad you're enjoying the game!

 

[Thanee]

Well, I don't really know that one, that's why I'm asking.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Elric]

I checked through the The Eternal Champion and did not really find a decent description to list for you. I've also tried google to find a sufficient page that could have a description, but there isn't much. Here is the best I could find for a good description off of this web page: http://www.elric.org.uk/erekose.html

Thanks. I can describe his sword as he kills all of my DM's villains. Isn't that what really counts? It seems like everyone has had a really good experience with M&M- hope you enjoy it just as much!

 

[nharwell]

<cut> Essentially, the d20 logo on M&M is not right... it should have a HERO logo, as M&M is surely more based on HERO/Champions than on d20 (j/k about the logo, of course).

M&M is Champions light (light is not meant in a bad way, BTW).
<cut>

While I see some similarities with HER0, it seems to me that M&M was more heavily influenced by DC Heroes, particularly in the way powers are constructed.