Does anyone play M+M?

[cplmac]

Actually I prefer the peanut ones over the plain.

Seriously, no I don't play it. Can't justify spending a ton of money to be able to have the books and other materials that go with all the different game systems out there.

[kipling]

I do spend some money--one of the nice things about M&M is that you need only the core book, though the others are nice.

But if the genre doesn't interest you or you're not interested in the mechanics, you shouldn't own it.

Unlike some other people, I don't see it as an excellent generic system. It does superheroes very well, but while you can build a hero at lower points in Hero (not as low as before, now that Steve Long has his way), below PL 5 M&M is a bit of a pig. You might be able to do it, but the characters feel to me quite similar.

On the other hand, I don't play D&D, which means that (a) I might not have the proper appreciation for the original system at low levels and (b) I don't have the same appreciation for crunchy bits. (Heh. This from a guy who used to play Hero!)

[Webhead]

Hi, folks. Like Kipling, I'm another gamer who comes from the Mutants & Masterminds forums. Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents on the game for those who are curious about it.

It is a very flexible, point-buy game engine of medium-high complexity that was designed for supers but serves as a fairly robust workshop for potentially any genre with a bent toward slightly more "cinematic" style action. It retains the mechanic at the "core" of the d20 system, but shows that it is not a slave to d20 by nicely doing away with classes, experience levels, hit points and attacks of opportunity which turns it into its own, distinct game engine.

In my experience, I would say it is much simpler than HERO System and even simpler than GURPS mostly due to a unified scale for ability costs and simpler combat rules. Anyone familiar with d20 will have a shorter learning curve because M&M shares a number of conventions with other d20 games. For those not familiar with d20, the very open-ended scope and number of considerations of character creation can be a little intimidating, but actual game play is much easier than character creation might suggest. Also, by its nature as a supers game, players are given a huge assortment of abilities to choose from which leaves the possibility for potential imbalance. So M&M game masters should be aware of that and steer players away from builds that would be inappropriate or disruptive for the campaign.

By the nature of its "effects-based" engine for powers, it provides this genre flexibility due to the fact that the rules tell you what the power "does", but leave the description of what the power "is" up to the players. (Example: the "Blast" power is simply any ranged attack that deals damage. This could be Superman's heat vision, but it could also be a Star Trek phaser, a harpoon gun, a revolver, etc.)

It is a very good game for people looking for a fairly "granular" rules set to build from. I say "granular" because the system gets detailed enough that it allows you, within the rules, to adjust elements of each power such as range, duration, if/how it is resisted, action required to use it, and more. It is, in my opinion, the most inspired and solidly built game to come out of the d20 system. Whether you use it for supers or not, it provides an incredible range of possibilities while remaining streamlined and intuitive enough to encourage fast-flowing dice resolution.

[joshuadunlow]

I was just curious if anyone play's Mutants and masterminds here? There doesn't seem to be a large community. I guess if it doesn't say wizards d20 it doesn't deserve a chance LOL. Thats trully a shame for such a great system.

For those who do some how draw your selves from the norm and do play M+M. Tell me about your campaign, what are your characters like, what you like about the system, and tell me what you don't like. Lets face it not everyone agrees even in democracy. So give me your rants and raves

Im a big time Mutants & Masterminds fan. Majorly, i think it's the best system out there. Besides doing a standard four color, super hero setting. I like to use MnM for fantasy conversions.

Here is a link to my thread on the official MnM forums.

What do i like about it? Flexibility to make what i want. What i don't like it ? I don't think there's anything i don't really like about it. Its fast, easy, and quick paced once you get used to the system.

[Cortosis]

When I was on vacation to New York, I bought Mutants and Masterminds I'm still a newbie in it (have played D&D and SWSE a lot though), in my first adventure I was the GM and the two players were on a train station. Suddenly a train came in at high speed and it was about to crash into another train if one of the heroes didn't telekineticly stop it.

Soon after that a mysterious cloaked man stepped out of the damaged front of the train and tries to escape. He is stopped by the other hero just outside of the train station and reveils himself to be "The Troll", some sort of Hulk-ish villain. He is a very disgusting man who picks his nose and beats everything up that moves as The Troll when he is angry. Otherwise he is a very intelligent and friendly man.

The telekinetic hero commands The Troll with his psychic powers and asks him about why he sabotaged the train. He speaks of some mysterious guy by the name of Dr.X. Then the team meets up with another NPC who saw it all happen. He is also trying to deal with this so called Dr.X and asks if the players would like to help him. He is a superhero who can transform in a giant insect.

During the plot they are going to discover that the insect-man is actually the real villain and that Dr.X is the one who tries to stop him before he takes over the world with ancient artifacts (one of them was in the sabotaged train) At this moment i'm also starting up a play-by-post campaign on another forum that is going to involve aliens of the taking-over-the-world kind.

What I like about M&M
- It is very open, I can do everything I want with it to create my character the way I want him to be. And I am not limited to classes or a spell list, or only a few skill points and feats.
- Being a superhero or portraying the supervillains
- It is very simple to play with only 1d20
- Powers can be customized with flaws and powerfeats etc.

What I don't like about M&M
- combat is too complex (lethal and nonlethal, staggered? stunned?!) at least if you're not used to it yet.
- I want to roll my other dice to
- powergaming is waaaay too easy
- It is not very inviting, it appears way too difficult to understand if you first see it. It also doesn't explain clearly to newbies like me where I should begin.

[Webhead]

...What I don't like about M&M
- combat is too complex (lethal and nonlethal, staggered? stunned?!) at least if you're not used to it yet...

Because it is so different from more common "hit point" systems, it does take a little while for some folks to get used to. Once you're familiar with it however, it is very good (and one of my favorite "damage" systems). Plus, there's rules for converting to Hit Points if you really want to, but why would you go and mess up M&M by doing something like that?

- I want to roll my other dice to

I like being able to roll only a single d20 for everything...quick and easy. But to each his own.

- powergaming is waaaay too easy

Virtually all supers RPGs (and indeed, most point-based character gen systems) have this problem. With the nearly unlimited options comes nearly unlimited opportunity to min/max. That's where the GM needs to step in.

M&M does take a step in the right direction though, by introducing "Power Level Limits" so that characters are reasonably balanced against one another and can't dump all of their points into one power to make it uber bad.

- It is not very inviting, it appears way too difficult to understand if you first see it. It also doesn't explain clearly to newbies like me where I should begin.

Because it's a supers RPG, there are not really any established boundaries, which can be intimidating for some. You can play it anywhere from the Silver Surfer to the Watchmen and you just set the Power Levels, expectations, limits and themes accordingly. The game doesn't really focus on a lot of advice on "how" to play, it just gives you the sandbox and says "here, build what you want".

That said, there are many, many good sourcebooks that Green Ronin publishes that go into specific detail on different genres and themes for your M&M games. Check them out if you are so inclined. Most of them are very good. I own most of them, so if you are in need of opinions on a particular book, please let me know.

If you can't tell, I like M&M a lot because it is full of possibilities and options, but it is less complex than some similar alternatives like GURPS or HERO.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Never played Mutants and Masterminds myself, but after reading throught this thread, i'm taking a more serious look. I am aware of a game that goes on not to far from my location and have already sent an email asking for a seat in their game. I'll get back to you all on my experiences. Game on!

Thoth-Amon

[Webhead]

Never played Mutants and Masterminds myself, but after reading throught this thread, i'm taking a more serious look. I am aware of a game that goes on not to far from my location and have already sent an email asking for a seat in their game. I'll get back to you all on my experiences. Game on!

Thoth-Amon

Very cool and I hope your experiences are good ones. If you should have any questions about M&M, feel free to ask as I'd be happy to offer assistance.

If you are going to end up picking up a copy of the corebook, I suggest making sure that the copy is the 3rd or 4th printing. Those printings have been updated with all the current corrections and errata. You can tell by checking the inside pages at the front near where the contributors and playtesters are listed.

[Arch Lich Thoth-Amon]

Thanks for the suggestions, i will pick up a later printing of the book, as per your recommendations.

Thoth-Amon

[Webhead]

Thanks for the suggestions, i will pick up a later printing of the book, as per your recommendations.

Thoth-Amon

As soon as I can locate one, I'm going to be picking up a copy of the 4th printing of the book to replace the 1st printing (and slightly chewed) copy that I currently have. I don't like having to carry errata sheets around with me if at all possible...even if it is relatively small compared to some other errata documents that I've known...

[protonboy]

... Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents on the game for those who are curious about it. ... By the nature of its "effects-based" engine for powers, it provides this genre flexibility due to the fact that the rules tell you what the power "does", but leave the description of what the power "is" up to the players. (Example: the "Blast" power is simply any ranged attack that deals damage. This could be Superman's heat vision, but it could also be a Star Trek phaser, a harpoon gun, a revolver, etc.) ....
.....It is, in my opinion, the most inspired and solidly built game to come out of the d20 system. Whether you use it for supers or not, it provides an incredible range of possibilities while remaining streamlined and intuitive enough to encourage fast-flowing dice resolution.

WoW
That is the best summary of why M&M is a great super game i've ever read.

The only thing missing from the core rule book is more guideance for the GM. What kind of call's to make about how to pull off the type of super game you want to run.

This is no reason to ditch this system. - its strong enough that even without this aid, it allows for mistakes to happen and get corrected with little fuss. Though this might just be the trial an error sort of system.

The stronger your concept of the type of supersystem ur running the easier it is to see what aspects need to be reinged in.

just my ramblings - overall - this is a great system.

Personaly, Extra effort, and Hero Points (nothing like action points) make this the most super-heroric system i've seen. You can push your powers like in comic books to pull off stunts ur hero doesn't do every day. where in other systems, if its not on ur character sheet, ur out of luck.

[Webhead]

Thank you.

Yes, I have much love for M&M which is made so tragic by the fact that I almost never get to play it. I have only run two short-lived campaigns (6 sessions or less) and a handful of one-shots since I picked up the game when it was first released back in 2002.

Back at that time, I was really on the lookout for a solid, fun, quality supers game and spent several months looking around. I considered Champions, GURPS Supers, Aberrant, Deeds Not Words, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, DC Universe and a host of ill-conceived d20 supers games during the "third party d20" craze. I happened across M&M by accident as I was browsing a local bookseller. I cracked it open and was instantly intrigued by what I saw, both in the book's fantastic art and design quality and the wonderfully straightforward, yet tweakable rules. The release of 2nd Edition in 2005 made an already great game even better. It remains, to this day, one of my favorite game systems ever.

[Webhead]

Well, I finally did it. I found a copy of the 4th printing of the core book and I decided to pick it up. Anal-retentive as I am, I compared it side-by-side with the current errata sheet to make sure all the changes were reflected in the new book. 99% of them were. There was only one significant correction on the errata that didn't make it into the book and that was on the powers table (page 72, I think) where the incorrect duration was still printed for the "Gestalt" power. The power's actual listing later on in the chapter was corrected, just not the listing on the master table. The only other changes that got skipped over were two or three of the minion stat blocks where a point was raised or lowered here or there.

Everything else being fixed means you can throw out that errata sheet and feel confident that the RAW is all you need to run an accurate representation of the game. I hate errata sheets, so this is big news for me. Now I just have to figure out the best way to recoup a little cash from my 1st printing copy.

[Webhead]

...Personaly, Extra effort, and Hero Points (nothing like action points) make this the most super-heroric system i've seen. You can push your powers like in comic books to pull off stunts ur hero doesn't do every day. where in other systems, if its not on ur character sheet, ur out of luck.

I too, really love the elements of Extra Effort and Hero Points. As you mentioned, they give a mechanic for characters to pull off the kinds of cool stunts that you always see heroes do in the comic books that wouldn't normally be a part of their "everyday" power use.

Ultimately, they encourage players to get creative with their powers and not fall into cookie-cutter types of roles. How cool is it to think that your character, who normally can't fly, might, in a pinch, be able to aim his "Blast" power at the ground beneath him and rocket into the air (using Extra Effort to gain the "Leaping" or "Flight" power)? Or a speedster use his Super-Speed to create a tornado? Heroes in the comics use their powers in creative and unexpected ways all the time. It's great that M&M allows players to do the same pretty painlessly.

[Guardian]

I too, love Mutants and Masterminds. I've always wanted to have a supers system to run. My first experiment was Blood of Heroes.....ugh......

You want to talk about complicated? That system was complicated! OV/RV, AV/EV.....my players were killing things just trying to subdue the villains! And if you didn't have powers in that system....then there was almost no point in playing (please note, this is just from my personal experience; I'm sure others that might have played this system have seen otherwise). The skills were also nightmarish, as were the way damage was calculated. Your body score...that's how much you could take before you went down (the average joe schmoe was 2's across the board).

After finding M&M, I couldn't believe how....simple it was! I loved it! The only gripe one of my players had was how he simply preferred hit points in any RPG he played, but no one else seemed to mind the system. Is powergaming simple? Yeah, but again, it's up to the GM to set power level limits for the players. But I do love how any hero - powered or non, can be useful in combat against villains.