Who's Played "Mutants & Masterminds"?

[Epic Meepo]

I've been perusing the "Mutants & Masterminds" system from Green Ronin, but I haven't decided whether or not I want to invest in the sourcebook. Who here has played "Mutants & Masterminds" and what are your thoughts?

Specifically, are its points-based mechanics balanced enough to keep characters in a party from outshining one another? (That's my biggest concern with the system; after scanning through the rulebook only once, I've already noticed several areas where it seems possible to create unbalanced characters. And it makes me nervous seeing all those sidebars that say, essentially, "The GM may wish to limit this disgustingly unbalanced power because...")

[Elven Doritos]

I've been perusing the "Mutants & Masterminds" system from Green Ronin, but I haven't decided whether or not I want to invest in the sourcebook. Who here has played "Mutants & Masterminds" and what are your thoughts?

Specifically, are its points-based mechanics balanced enough to keep characters in a party from outshining one another? (That's my biggest concern with the system; after scanning through the rulebook only once, I've already noticed several areas where it seems possible to create unbalanced characters. And it makes me nervous seeing all those sidebars that say, essentially, "The GM may wish to limit this disgustingly unbalanced power because...")
[/quote]

The gameplay style and general atmosphere of M&M specifically encourage people not to base yourself entirely in stats-- the idea is to build a concept and character, not a set of statistics. The emphasis is on fun over rules-- in a game where you can potentially lift entire buildings or become a living bomb, player responsibility becomes a big part of the game. (What's that line by Spider-Man, hmm...)

I give this system a 8.5/10, and that's from practical use-- I really enjoyed my time GMing M&M, and my players seemed to enjoy it too.
-ElDo

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Any system can be abused.  At least, that's what everyone keeps telling me.  I've been playing a 1/week M&M game for a few weeks now, and I'd have to say that it's a perfectly fine system, where getting overshadowed happens when the GM focuses on a certain aspect of it (such as combat).  I recently retooled one of my characters to work better in combat, but that's because the GM designs the stuff that way.  A skill-focused character would shine in a skill-focused game.  There may be some powers that come out more powerful than others (my example is I use Emotion Control, and if the target fails their save then I can get them to stop fighting us).  However, this may not actually be a "bad" thing, more of a reflection that there is more than one way to do things.

M&M's greatest advantage is that you really get to decide everything about your character's stats.  My first M&M character was a housecat with magic powers, and because I could build everything with the same ponts I didn't have to worry about balancing size and senses on some LA scale.  Also the mechanics are really flavor-free when you strip away the outer layers, meaning that you can make your power "look" however you like.  And the greatest advnatage as seen from the point of view of a D&D player: no reliance on your items.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

It sounds kind of interesting, and I've heard several good things about it.

ElDo, do you think it is too specialized to be useful outside the genre?  Or could it be adapted to some other genre (like fantasy, sci fi, cyberpunk, or whatever) if the system itself is pretty good?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

There isn't anything in the system designed to keep people from choosing powers other than how many points they want to spend on other things.  But this doesn't mean you can't play low-powered stuff, just that the GM would have to place a limit on powers up front.  Other things, such as skills and feats, don't cost as much as they probably do in other settings, and there are no restricitons on getting them besides points to spend.

Phoenix Knight, you'd have to be more specific about what you're looking for:
Fantasy: M&M would have a hard time modeling versatile spellcasting.  Upside is you can play any magical beasty you want, and no limit on how often you can cast those spells.
Sci fi: Superheroes are pretty much sci-fi.  If you mean more realistic, M&M might not cut it because some of its assumptions rely on comic-book-type physics.
Cyberpunk: (How is this not some form of sci-fi?)
So long as you are willing to work with what it does and modify what you need, M&M should work for any game in which you don't mind a bit of a skew toward no "per-day" stuff.

[Elven Doritos]

Phoenix Knight, you'd have to be more specific about what you're looking for:
Fantasy: M&M would have a hard time modeling versatile spellcasting.  Upside is you can play any magical beasty you want, and no limit on how often you can cast those spells.

Ritualist feat is your friend. It gives you the "researched a magical effect and makin' it happen" feel.

Sci fi: Superheroes are pretty much sci-fi.  If you mean more realistic, M&M might not cut it because some of its assumptions rely on comic-book-type physics.

The book does however offer examples of changing to "real world" physics, and by lowering the PL, you can achieve more "realism".

-ElDo
Master of Madness

[Matt Larkin (author)]

I guess that kind of answers my questions, SCM.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular, it's just I've heard good things about the system but don't really have interest in comic books or superheroes.

Yeah, really everything is a form a sci fi, from fantasy, to superheroes.  I was just talking about more the cyberpunk subgenre (like SR), which I see as very different from, say Star Trek.  But you are correct.

And it sounds like it would be hard to go with anything real down to earth, so it might be better for high fantasy than my typical venue.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

â,¬Â¦it sounds like it would be hard to go with anything real down to earth, so it might be better for high fantasy than my typical venue.

I would agree with that, despite anything the book might say about making powers "more realistic".  I assume by "down to earth" you mean something a real human could achieve, or achieve with a bit of GM fiat (but not Holliwood fiat).  Because M&M doesn't put too much effort into equipment and especially obtaining equipment (but enough, in my estimation) it requires a desire to eliminate that pesky middleman (though the book does present a d20 Modern-style wealth score).  Skills and feats are really easy to obtain (but I like it this way because you can deside how much of a skill you want right at the beginning, plus many of the feats make certain skills much more interesting that they otherwise would).  It's not going to give you d20 Modern's level of control, but it will give you a feeling of flexibility.  It's not for ultra-realism, or maybe even close.

[Epic Meepo]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the limit on maximum rank only applies to skills, right? There's no limit on feat ranks or power ranks?

That's where my main problem with the rules comes in:

Without even trying to break the rules, I said: "It would be cool to have a hero who's like Aladdin." To do that at power level 10, you could spend 50 power points making your hero roguish, then dump your remaining 100 power points into Summon Minion (so you can have a genie). When you do that, you get a minion with 750 power points. That's five times more than you started with. (For that matter, if you just use the Minion feat, you can get a minion with 1,500 power points!)

Not wanting to break the rules, I ditched that idea and moved on to the next concept I came up with: twin sisters, Harmony and Melody, who grow more powerful when they are together. To do this, I figured that each would have a bunch of different powers, and then they can mimmic one another with the Mimmic power. But just like Summon Minion, ranks in the Mimmic power, when used as part of a tag team, lead to characters effectively having more power points than they had before they purchased that power.

So the first two character concepts I came up with both break the rules by effectively getting back more power points than they spend!

(On the plus side, upon contemplating a third concept, I was very amused to find the M&M system lets you very easily create Voltron. Just use equipment rules and the Fusion power. Ta-dah! Voltron!)

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Quoted from the Summon power:
"Summoned minions are subject to the normal power level limits".
Same for the minion feat.

Also, minions have some restrictions:
They cannot score critical hits against non-minions (which would include villains).
Non-minions can take 10 on attack roles against minions.
If a minion fails their Toughness save they are automatically either unconcious or dying.

I suppose if you have enough points you can make your minion technically immune to attacks (Defense 10 (20 pp), Impervious Protection 10 (20 pp), still 730 left).  You do raise a valid point.  I suppose that most people wouldn't want to play a backseat to their own minion.  I will ask around the M&M boards about this.

Your second example is also valid: You do gain two people with the same powers.  But let me clue you in on an even easier way to do that:
Mimic (all powers) costs 4 points per rank.
Duplication (rank 10 at 150 pp total character) costs 2 points per rank, add +1 point per rank so that your duplicates are subject to the minion rules, and now you have your combo at 1 power points less per rank!

You have identified the flaws in parts of the system, but this is the part where the immortal refrain "the GM's call" comes in.  But you're tired of hearing that, so I won't say it.

No system is perfect.  I hate d20's "you have to play this combination of things at these specific points, or figure out how to design your own" approach.  If I'm going to design my own, I want my game to give me that.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

So far its been determined on the M&M boards that the twin example really isn't any better than having an extra member on the superhero team.  Plus if a villain can catch them when they can't touch they are more vulnerable then if it was only one person who had all those powers (they are anything they mimic must still conform to the PL limits, plus if they make up one player they can only have as many points spent on them as on one character).

Jury is still out on huge minion.

[Xeviat]

For anyone who's played M&Mm before, where are the alternate HP rules?

I'm currently making a character for the system, and I was curious about this, as I'm going to take many of the ideas from the book and apply them to my D&D games (like knockback, throwing objects/creatures, and all that).

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Masterminds Manual, a completely seperate book.

[Xeviat]

Blast!

[Epic Meepo]

Does anyone know what material from the core rulebook was dropped to create the "Pocket Player's Guide"? I've been able to find and flip through a core rulebook, but I've haven't been able to find out exactly what is included in the elusive "Pocket" version of the rules.