This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

[Actual Play] Mutants and Masterminds - Spiritkeeper

Started by Abyssal Maw, September 03, 2007, 02:04:31 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Abyssal Maw

I've been working on making characters for Mutants and Masterminds, and determined a few things. My son and I decided to try it out again.

Lessons Learned:
Character Design: you should probably max out attack and defense, then do the tradeoffs if you want to. But leaving them lower than max intentionally tends to be a problem if you ever want to battle anything beyond street-level criminals.

Another thing- the real gameplay in M&M is all tied up in use of hero-points. When setbacks and other complications occur drives the hero-point economy.  

My son made another character (we lost the character sheet for Pure Energy, which we would have been re-designing anyhow, probably). The new guy is called 'Spiritkeeper'

This character was inspired by his 'Shaman King' manga, which I haven't read.

But the basic deal is- his guy is a magic using teenager. He can summon an undead samurai spirit who has pretty good attacks and stuff (and because he is undead, he's hard to stop).

He also has the Magic power at +5, with the following 'spells' as power feats:
an astral travel power, a magic blast, a dimensional pocket/prison, and a nullify (countering only magic powers).

He has magical awareness senses.

Then to finish it off he wears a magical amulet that gives him a forcefield power, provides a bonus to mental saves, and grants immunity to fire.

It's a cool character and we worked on the design together.

Ok, AP report up next:
Download Secret Santicore! (10MB). I painted the cover :)

Abyssal Maw

So we just finished the game about 10 minutes ago: here's how it went.

My son's idea was that his character (Ted Rocksworth) was actually from a magical dimension, and he was visiting earth in disguise, and only pretending to be a student. So we started him out at school.

Right away he developed a rivalry with the local bully ("Buddy Knox"), who was going around intimidating students. Spiritkeeper (in his civilian guise of Ted Rocksworth) secretly used a minimal charge magical blast (and bluff) to sting the bully when his back was turned. He got away with it.

The bully instead turned on local nerd Dexter Holbridge, and threatened him for his lunch money.

Later we find out Dexter gave up his money. Ted challenges the bully to a fight after class, and secretly summons his samurai zombie guy. So when the fight occurs, the samurai steps out and frightens everyone. Buddy the bully is especially terrified.

This takes care of the fight. Ted unsummons his guardian, goes home, and hears that there is a robbery in progress. So for his first adventure, he transforms into his costume and heads to the bank to help out.

This is when we first figured out that Ted had no good movement powers. Astral Travel was basicly only good for invisibly spying on people. So he runs to the bank to help out.

Once there, we had the scene where the cops are keeping everyone at bay, and there are masked ninjas holding several hostages in the bank. At first they try to stop Spiritkeeper from going in, but he summons his undead guardian. They let him in.

Once inside this uses the standard M&M combat system. Spiritkeeper was able to defeat all 4 ninjas in just a few rounds of battle, suffering only a minor wound from a shuriken (he forgot to activate the forcefield on his dragon amulet upon first entering the building).

When the last ninja fell, the civilians made an escape, and someone pointed out a bomb was in the building. Spiritkeeper didn't have a good way to disarm it, but used his dimensional pocket to absorb the bomb just before it went off.

So that's the end of that issue. Spiritkeeper unsummons his guardian and goes home.

The next day, the teacher is collecting homework, and since Spiritkeeper was very specific about bandaging his wounds and just going to bed the night before, we decided he hadn't done his homework. He had to stay after school! Setback= hero point.

So Spiritkeeper has to stay after class and gets lectured by the teacher.

During this time, he also notices that Buddy has stolen Dexter's homework, and erased Dexter's name. He is determined to do something about it.

However, he finds out that somehow his summon power has been nullified. Secretly, Buddy has made a deal with a local sorcerer and "borrowed" a nullifying device that shuts down magical summoning powers in a radius.

Spiritkeeper figures this out by waiting until recess, then using his astral travel power to spy on his enemy. He then hatches a plan to sneak up and pickpocket him to get the stone.

Later he successfully steals the nullification object, which he takes home and decides to study. He determines it is from the same home dimension ("Maginaria") as he is from.

He decides to leave it in his pocket dimension for safekeeping. That night he spends a power point and a few hours of study to learn a new spell- teleport. For the 1 pt power feat he can get it added to his magic array at Teleport:5.

Thats not very far. He also studies the nullification stone.

The next day, he remebers he didn't do his homework again. This second time, he tries to do it secretly, before the teacher gets to his row, but he failed the check. This time he has to stay after school. Buddy has to stay after school too.

After school they are sent to do some work- I think theyre supposed to be doing janitorial work. But buddy and Spiritkeeper get in a fight. Spiritkeeper totally wins, without using his powers, but they get caught again, and in more trouble. Another hero point!

The next day, neither Buddy nor Dexter show up at school, and this time Spiritkeeper has his homework done.

(there's more...)
Download Secret Santicore! (10MB). I painted the cover :)

Abyssal Maw

Ok, the day is uneventful until lunchtime, when suddenly a monster attacks the school. It's a gargoyle!

I had everyone running around screaming, while Spiritkeeper used his teleport powers to run into a bathroom, change into hsi costume, and then teleport outside to confront the monster.

He battled it back and forth for a few rounds, but this was a lot tougher than the ninjas were. For some reason Spiritkeeper avoided using his summoning power at first, and tried to rely on his magic blast. Eventually he did summon the samurai, though.

Once the Gargoyle was hit pretty hard, it decided to fly off. There was no way to follow, so it escaped.

Around this time, it was pointed out that several students were missing, including Ted Rocksworth. "I think I saw him running into the bathroom.." says Spiritkeeper. He then teleported into the bathroom to greet the search party of teachers as Ted. Then he helped search out all the missing students, who were all fine.

At this point, Ted goes home, and decides he's going to investigate the missing Dexter and Buddy. He finds Dexter's house has been totally wrecked and everyone is missing (the gargoyle captured him). Buddy's house is fine, but Buddy is missing as well.

He decides to investigate this mystery.

(more later).
Download Secret Santicore! (10MB). I painted the cover :)

Abyssal Maw

Ok, so here was the ending of the session:

He investigates Dexter's place first, using his teleport spell to jump into the house. Inside, he discovers that the house is abandoned and there's a huge hole in the roof, which looks as if something (the gargoyle) broke in.

He then moves on to investigate the home of Buddy Knox. Buddy's house is kind of a shambles, but there's no evidence of wrongdoing.

(GM Note: Buddy volunteered to help out the bad guys, while Dexter was captured involuntarily).

He also finds a clue- a book from the evil sorcerer Puppetmaster. This is who had given Buddy the nullifying stone earlier.

Spiritkeeper used a hero-point to improvise a tracking spell that would lead him to the book's owner. He finally managed to track Puppetmaster (and Dexter and Buddy) to a jewlery store where a heist was going on.

(more later).
Download Secret Santicore! (10MB). I painted the cover :)

Abyssal Maw

I keep saying I am going to get the ending and keep missing it...

Ok, the heist: at the jewelry store, Spiritkeeper runs in and discovers that the thieves are.. the gargoyle, Dexter, and Buddy! They've been mind-controlled!

As they turn their guns on Spiritkeeper, a shadowy figure (the supervillain called Puppetmaster) steps out of the shadows.

"I'll give you one chance to join me, Spiritkeeper. You have no reason to remain loyal to the people of this mundane world."

Spiritkeeper responds with a magic blast, but is quickly seized. Puppetmaster uses his mind control power on him... and Spiritkeeper fails his save.

"Willingly or unwillingly, you will serve the Puppetmaster! Bwa haha!"

Spiritkeeper then gets a hero point for this setback.

Puppetmaster sends SK off to rob the bank, because he needs gold bullion to create his 'secret mind control weapon'. SK must obey.. so off he goes, although I assured the player that he would get a second chance to save against the mind control when he was out of range and just before he was going to steal anything.

So Puppetmaster goes back to his lair, and Spiritkeeper heads to the bank. Just before he's about to rob the place he makes his save (and he spends his final hero point, the one he just got). He snaps out of it.

However, he's not sure what to do. I think I chalk this next one up to the player being nine:

Spiritkeeper decides he wants to 'borrow' the gold from the bank so he can fool Puppetmaster. He asks the bank if he can do that, and they say no. He reasons with them, but it just seems unlikely.. there's just no way he's going to be allowed to do that. Right?

So he teleports behind the guards and steals it anyway! Hah!

I made sure this came with a fun consequence- he was photographed stealing the gold and ends up in the papers as "Spiritkeeper! Threat or Menace?"

Which is also worth a hero point!

He heads back to Puppetmaster with the stolen gold.

"Excellent! Now you can be witness to my greatest invention.. the mind control satellite! As soon as I finish these calculations, we will do away with these mundane earthlings and find ourselves a way to launch the satellite.."

Spiritkeeper looks over and notices the gargoyle there, and Buddy and Dexter are tied to a pole next to a bomb. He decides to act just as Puppetmaster is going through the big sacks of gold.

"What will happen to them?" asks SK.

"I'm going to blow them up, and thus we shall cover our tracks!"

SK turns around and summons the Guardian. "I can't let that happen, Puppetmaster.."

So the final battle happened at this point. Puppetmaster set him up the bomb with a 2 minute timer. The gargoyle and the guardian locked in a super-grapple. Spiritkeeper used his dimensional prison to swallow up both of the kids (which took 1 round each. He couldn't get the bomb this time).

After rescuing the second kid, and the guardian broke the gargoyle's grapple and knocked him down, SK decided to escape the building. Puppetmaster was  unable to rescue his device, but SK did grab the stolen gold.

The building blows up and Puppetmaster escapes, although his machine is destroyed. That was worth a new hero point.

SK frees the kids, and then heads back to return the gold. At first the bank is pretty upset and wants to arrest him, but he got by with a quick explanation and then teleporting away.

And that was the real end of the session.
Download Secret Santicore! (10MB). I painted the cover :)

ancientgamer

I haven't played Mutants and Masterminds so I might be asking some basic questions.  Were you able to play with the rules "as is" or was there any fudging involved?  I only ask this because you said your son was nine (at least I thought you did) and I am trying to get a fix on how easy or hard the game is.  Follow up question:  Is there an certain amount of players that are best?  For instance, 3.0 edition D@D kinda assumes you need four players and one GM based on challenge ratings.

I had some other ones but the hour grows late...
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

Aristotle

http://agesgaming.bravehost.com

Divinity - an RPG where players become Gods and have to actually worry about pleasing their followers.

If you want to look at another journal, go here.

Aos

That was pretty rocking. Good on you for playing with your kid.
You are posting in a troll thread.

Metal Earth

Cosmic Tales- Webcomic

Abyssal Maw

We played again this weekend so I'll update in a while.

Anyhow, this game was run with the M&M rules as-is, and just one player, one GM. But I was running this in a very Silver-Age style. Spirit-Keeper fought street-level criminals (power level 2) and ninjas (PL 3): he's actually power level 10. This is actually hugely biased towards the player winning battles, but that's ok.

Two things I found helpful:

When you put the attack down for anything on the character sheet, just write what the damage DC is. So for Spiritkeeper's punch, it's a DC 16, but if he uses his magic blast it's a DC 20.

Thats the save you roll the toughness against.

Another thing that is helpful is to go ahead and add up the Defense total ahead of time. It is usually expressed as a number you are supposed to add to 10. (So a defense of +10 is actually a 20. ) This is kinda the equivalent of an AC in D&D.

For the second question: nope, it's not biased in favor of 4-player parties, but it's tricky once you start getting close to a 1:1 hero vs villain power level. The book says something about how 4 PL 10 heroes can probably handle a PL 12 super villain without a problem as a baseline, so I divided that into 4 and came up with PL 3 and PL 4 as my baseline.

The first battle of Spirit-keeper against Puppetmaster himself that we ran-- Puppetmaster is PL 10--was technically a loss for Spirit-Keeper, but not a catastrophic loss. (He was mind controlled, but we made that into part of the plotline). He's an example villain in the book. In the second one, Spirit-keeper managed to summon his guardian and that made it a lot more even. Puppet-master ends up escaping.
Download Secret Santicore! (10MB). I painted the cover :)