Mutants and Masterminds

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Revision as of 21:22, 15 July 2015 by 68.202.59.244 (talk) (Everyone forgets the PL caps)
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Superheroes. Most of them look kinda like this.

Mutants and Masterminds is a d20(ish) system published by Green Ronin (I guess they did a weeaboo game too). 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.

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, 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 has a very large catalogue of powers ranging from basic damaging strikes to flight to mind control, allowing players to create almost any character. In addition, players may also add various feats, extras, flaws, and drawbacks to their character and/or their powers for further customization.

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.