Mutants and Masterminds
| Mutants and Masterminds | ||
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| RPG published by Green Ronin |
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| Rule System | D20 Custom | |
| Authors | Seth Johnson, Christopher McGlothlin et al | |
| First Publication | 2013 | |
| Essential Books | Deluxe Hero's Handbook | |
Mutants and Masterminds is a D20(ish) system published by Green Ronin. Unlike a lot of other d20 games, this one only uses twenty-sided dice. Players make their own superheroes (or supervillains; there's no alignment in this game) and slug it out with each other or NPC characters.
The game revolves around power levels (M&M's version of character levels or challenge ratings). The standard PL for a player character is 10; this is about the equivalent of a normal comic-book superhero. PL 5 characters are more "street-level", PL 15 characters are more akin to Superman or other heavyweights. Power levels don't necessarily correspond to actual superpowers - a PL 10 Batman-type character could have a lot of gadgets and other "realistic" skills that puts her on the same level as someone who can fly unaided and shoot rocket dongs from his hands. Every Power Level grants 15 Power Points, which form both the character creation points and your experience points. The points you earn at the end of a session are used to upgrade your powers, and unless you have some really potent stuff you can upgrade something at least once every session. It's also a good measurement of your Power Level as you improve, since every 15 additional points kicks you up one Power Level. Power Level also limits how high certain things can be leveled: your Abilities, your Skill Modifier (Ability + Skill Rank + Advantages) are limited to PL+10, and the sums of Toughness and Dodge, Toughness and Parry and Fortitude and Will cannot be more than twice the PL.
There aren't any hit points in M&M; all attacks are either rated as lethal or not. When you get hit, you roll to see how much it affects you based on degrees of success/failure (every 5 above or below the DC), and depending on what hit you, you either get stunned, knocked out or killed. You can also get knocked away some 27000 ft. by a fucking Hulk rip-off drug addict and spend special Hero Points to get up video game style, which are then replaced when you do a very heroic thing (such as stabpunching clear across a hockey stadium some fucking Kraven rip-off who just shot you).
Aside from skill ranks and feats, characters can spend points on various powers. M&M appears to have a rather narrow list of powers at first, until you realize that the list in the book is not powers, but rather effects. The game does not dicern between a regular punch, a fire punch, hitting someone with a tree or a hammer: all are attacks made at close range and can knock people out. Powers can be customized even more by adding extra modifiers or flaws: a teleportation effect might be able to carry passengers or move around without a BAMF effect, or an energy blast might not affect things that are yellow and/or made out of wood.
This system has been both praised for its flexibility and criticized as it can often lead to mechanically overpowered or simply bizarre characters. For example, with a cheap increase of +1 per rank and a limit on potential damage, the basic ranged attack power can never miss and has a range of, literally, as far as the eye can see. Never miss. Ever. As long as the character can see their target, the target is automatically hit. The system does however have many hard counters to abilities: being able to shoot anyone you can see matters very little when you fight in the dark or against a guy made out of a swarm of bees and is immune to your attacks. The GM is also free to have you fight equally overpowered supervilians.
Powers
Because of its immense flexibility, M&M has to provide only 40 power effects. With some thinking you can make these powers do just about anything. When desiging a power you pick what effect you want, how powerful you want it, any Modifiers (increased range, an area of effect, armor penetrating and more) and Flaws (power has a slow activation, is tiring to use, requires constant concentration). After that you apply Descriptors, aka how the powers work for you. It's kind of how magic works in Mage: The Ascension except it's functional. For example, Superman and the Flash can both run very fast, but Superman has this power because of the sun while Flash has his link to the Speed Force. Powers all have Origins (how did you get them), Sources (how do they work), Mediums (how the desired effect is applied) and Results (exactly what the powers do: fire and ice blast might be identical on paper but are different in presentation). The game also encourages creative use of powers and the GM allowing this to make the game more fun.
Most powers are purchased by taking the cost per rank and multiplying that by the number of ranks, calculating in modifiers imposed by Modifiers and Flaws followed by any flat modifiers you might have. Then there are those who grant an ability for a fixed cost that can't be improved. Immunity for example can render you immune to te vacuum of space, poison or the need for sleep for only 1 point, while 5 point can grant you five of such effects or immunity to having your form changed, bullets (and specifically bullets, so no arrows) or effects altering the senses. Sometimes these costs can get very high: the aforementioned Immunity can also grant immunity to all effects granting a Will roll (aka most psychic powers and illusions) for 30 points and a whopping 80 will make you immune to all effects resisted by Toughness, aka most conventional damage. It is possible to move the cost of a power below 1: instead of becoming the powers become fractional. This means that if a 1 cost power is reduce by one, you can get two ranks for only 1 point. This continues on with going two, three and four below 1, and 5 is listed as the limit to avoid intense munchkinnery.