Timewaster's Guide Archive
Games => Role-Playing Games => Topic started by: Mr_Pleasington on November 13, 2003, 12:37:04 AM
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Ever since I first played Marvel Superheroes in the early nineties I've been looking for the perfect supers system. I've tried many and until recently the one that best fit was Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat version) and a friend's homebrew.
After reading a ton of amazing reviews I decided to give Mutants and Masterminds a go, despite the fact it was a d20 system game (beh! d20!).
I'm about as amazed as I can be. They did things with d20 that make it actually make sense. They've adapted it to supers better than I could have hoped. No classes, no alignment, optional levels, no hit points, and absolutely no dice needed except for one d20. It emulates comic combat suprisingly well and has some of the best rules for power creations I've seen.
I had to pick up it's "Crooks!" supplement it was so good.
Oh, and all the art is done by artists who work on comics now, so its pretty stellar.
Great stuff. If you like supers, you owe it to yourself to pick this up.
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I have also heard great reviews about this book. I probably would have picked it up already myself, but I can only remember playing one superhero rpg in my life, so my only hesitation is I'm not quite sure how much use I would get out of it.
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argh. One more for the list. I hate you Mr. P
*shakes fist*
Tell me mroe about it though. After our supers d20 discussion, I want to know how they applied it.
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Well, the basics are:
1) Power Level. Though this can be removed easily, I find it one of the best features. Point bases Supers games are notoriously hard to balance because its so easy to twink out a character if you want to. Power Level solves that. It basically restricts your attack and power bonuses until you raise that power level. So it's easy to quickly gauge what kind of theat a player can handle. Unlike D&D though, these power levels are EASILY removed if you don't like them.
2) Point Buy Creation: Depending on Power Level you have a certain number of points to use on your character. These points can be spent on stats, skills, feats, and super powers. Divide as you wish.
There are also new super-feats that let heroes have stuff like 360 vision, a headquarters, and the like.
3) Genre flexibility. Anything from gritty street to cosmic saga can be run with the core book. And run well. Gritty games will have a low Power Level, Cosmic High. The system scales incredibly well.
4) Power Flexibility: The most flexible and intuitive power creation set I've yet seen. If its been in a comic, they have it, and they have the ability to customize it. Also, very good rules for creating your own powers. It passes my flexibility test: I was able to make Iron Man, Thor, Dr. Strange, Batman, and Speedball all without problem.
5) Combat: No more hit points. Each character has must save against the damage done of be stunned, knocked out, or killed. Oh, and there's a new type of save: damage. So The Thing clocks The Hulk with an attack that does +8 damage. The Thing rolls a d20 and adds 8. The Hulk has a damage save of +12. He rolls a d20 +12 and if he beats Thing's attack roll no damage is dealt. If he fails by 5 or less he is stunned and gets a -1 to all futher damage saves that battles. If he fails by more than 5 there are worse consequences.
This system does a marvelous job at emulating the comics. Bunch of attacks wear down the opponent until finally one levels him. There are optional rules for hit points, but the damage system is so simple and evocative I don't see who would want to do such a thing.
6) HQ construction rules. Need I say more.
7) Amazing art. Possibly the most beautiful RPG book ever designed (though the LOTR core book and Buffy the Vampire Slayer core book are close behind it).
8) Great stock characters. While I have my own supers setting, I'll be using some of the villains. They're just too good. Many, like the Atomic Brain, remind me so much of the comics I read as a kid. Great stuff.
Go get this book. You won't regret it.
Read reviews of it at ENworld.org and rpg.net. They go into more depth than me here.
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Wow, that does sound really good. SE, see if you can get one...you know...for free.
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ok, you convinced me. I have to run to the library during lunch to drop off books, so I'll visit Game Parlour on my way back and possibly drop some dollars. Darn you Mr. P. Darn you to heck!
You haven't gotten me on Exalted yet. Go over there and convince me.
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Mr. P is the Gaming Satan.
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But i am the Warhammer satan. Did i not convince Mr P to get =I=? Did i not convince a friend of mine who had sworn off warhammer to get back into it ? I am so good i have got myself back in. There goes my money :(
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looks like I'm going to go with Fell's plan. I tried to justify spending money so I'd have it NOW. But I couldn't. I just couldn't. So... phone call to the publisher it is!
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Hooray for Public Relations departments!
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Man, you guys have it good.
If I started writing more reviews could I get sweet deals like that? ;)
lol
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I also neglected to mention the Superlink.
Superlink is a program Green Ronin has that, much like the OGL, allows third parties to write material for M&M.
There's already a handful of PDFs available for cheap at RPGnow including adventures, sourcebooks, and books of new powers. Several campaign sourcebooks are being produced for it.
The most interesting pdf is one that expands on running a cosmic scale campaign. Very interesting indeed.
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yay!
Green Ronin just wrote me.
Free copy! woot!
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Mr. P, your review really convinced me that I need to try this game. Grumble grumble grumble.
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I need to quit talking about games I like. It tends to convince my friends to buy things...
Also, Fell, my name is actually spelled LUCIAS, not LUCIUS, as it is on the main page.
Thanks!
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Please don't you have great taste in games.... !
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I'm just thinking it's going to be awkward if Green Ronin sees that we've already published a review and they haven't sent my copy yet...
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Well, we could...I don't know. I thought they already sent you one. Just make sure you do some kind of follow-up review, or a character-building guide, or something along those lines to show that we support the game.
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Sorry Saint,
I hesitated before submitting it, but by the time you mentioned you had a review copy I already had over half of it written and I really didn't want that work to go to waste.
Besides, your copy is probably in the mail already, nothing to worry about :)
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We just tell them that a fan reviewed it, not the RPG editor.... I think you'll be ok.
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well, they SAID they were sending one. But I haven't seen it yet. I'll be sure to write soemthing on it. With Mr P's extensive review, it's going to be hard to say something new on the RULES though. Maybe Mr. P and I can take turns printing stats for some of our favorite comic book characters.
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That sounds great--Mr. P could show us his 5 "test" characters, and you could do the Super Friends or something. Or Captain America--I love Captain America.
Speaking of which, SE, I saw a graphic novel in the bookstore a while back that showed all the JLA members on the cover as zombies and a cool-looking Batman-ghost. Any idea which one I'm taking about? If so, could you shed any light on it?
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I haven't seen it. Give me a title and I might have heard something, but since I only subscribe to two titles anymore, and I don't get Wizard anymore, I miss a lot of the cool TPBs.
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I'll poke around and see what I can find. Of course, if I go that far, I may as well do my own research.
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well, that problem's solved. they sent not just M&M, but Crooks!, Freedom City, Time of Crisis, and the Game master screen. I'm all aglee. They also sent a card game: Torches and Pitchforks. I may pass that off to Jeffe to reduce my workload.
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Great, another card game,...
I dislike card games
Whats it supposed to be about?
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I dislike card games
Says the man who excitedly introduced me to Fluxx, told me about Nanofictionary, and was happy about his purchase of Mad Scientist. All card games.
BUt hey, you don't HAVE to take it, I just thought you'd like an unexpected free game.
it is "The Card Game of Monster Movie Mayhem!" and has such cards as Vlad the Inhaler, Irvingstein's Monster, Heidi: Town Trollup, Frederick the Lesser, and the Creature from the Tide Flats.
apparently you try to form a mob that can rid the moors of the monsters and at the same time stop the other mobs from doing it first.
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I finally read it, it goes pretty quick, even though it's one of the few d20 games you DON'T need the PHB for.
I am well pleased.
I may adapt this instead of doing the Flex20 system I was always working on. This one almost has exactly what I was trying to do anyway, though with a slightly different progression concept. It's very nice.
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So I just got Mutants and Masterminds. It's very well made and has great comic book kitsch artwork. I like the simplicity of the rules overall, though I am a little frustrated at how difficult it is to make low-powered normal people. I just haven't figured out how to make Louise Lane, yet. Well, I'll probably spend a lot of today playing around with this book. I give it my recomendation to those of you who don't have it yet.
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you just don't give them super powers.
Lois Lane actually has some pretty high skills and possibly even a nice variety of feats. I'd make her power level 4 or 5 for that at least. Give her skills like contacts, profession (reporter), and even a few Martial arts skills (she's fought her way out of a hostage situation before, though she got lucky). She's s tough broad.
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Exactly what Saint said. Just choose a low point total to make them with since you won't need to buy them any super powers. M&M scales better than any other supers game I've seen, once you figure out how to use it.