After visiting the last, frankly decadent local game store (where I mistook a cardboard box of stuff that had to be salvaged from a backroom storage flood caused by faulty plumbing, for a "bargain bin") for the first time in the better part of a year, I had the opportunity to thumb through a copy of Mutants & Mastermind, 3rd edition.

I was never a huge fan of M&M because it felt too, well, d20-ish, though admittedly 2e was a huge improvement. But to be honest, I never even got around to playing it.

But 3e piqued my interest because (perhaps deliberately, given that it's the system behind the new DC comics official RPG) it does look a bit like ye olde DC Heroes RPG, the Mayfair version, which was my first supers RPG. I didn't quite get a ton of mileage out of it but I loved it, and still cherish the rare occasions I got to play it.

I'm still looking for a supers RPG. Something that's "rules-medium", i.e. has a bit more crunch than BASH or ICONS, but that it's not overwhelming like Champions/Hero. Wild Talents checks most of these boxes for me but it doesn't really support four-color play. Is anyone here playing it? What can you tell me about it?

I've had it since it first came out, haven't had a chance to play it yet, although I have 2e.  Just from reading through the rulebook it looks more or less just like 2e but the plethora of stats are consolidated, and cost more points to create a character.

It's good on one hand (and if I were to play again I'd probably use 3e over 2e) because character creation is simpler and the mechanics are a bit tighter, but on the other using the base 150 point buy results in characters that are both slightly less powerful and are more prone to being archetypal 4-color heroes, like the Flying Brick.  It seems easier and faster to make superheroes that focus heavily around a single tightly themed power like the Flash or Superman but harder to make a character like Batman (or Ironman, or Doctor Strange) that is multitalented and loaded with gadgets.  They were always a challenge to craft with the point-buy system, but now you have to work harder for it.  Perhaps that will change in time with supplements though, but who knows.

This was somewhat of a problem in 2e as well as the system is biased on having maxed out combat stats, so that a maxed out character is balanced as opposed to being overpowered, although I suppose you could tweak that on the GM side of the equation.  This problem seems to only have been excacerbated in 3e because of the inflated cost of abilities.

It's definitely playable, and while I'm only passingly familiar with HERO it seems a lot more streamlined for specifically superhero play than that.

If I recall (the book is at home, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere on a train - don't worry, I'm not driving it at the moment ) I felt somewhat confused because characters have Agility and Dexterity AND Fighting. Coming from (and currently GMing) DC Heroes I can see how that makes sense though. You split up what would be covered by DEX in DC Heroes into three stats so that you might have Spiderman, superb at Dodging, better than average fighter and excellent shot with his webs as well as good with his hands at manual dexterity. In DC Heroes, he'd have 11 Dex or something along those lines. That's not right (he's not a better fighter than Batman) so you'd give him say, 7Dex, and fudge it so that his Opposing Value is 11 (or higher when he dodges).

M&M 3e does this by splitting Dex into 3 stats (I don't know how much they were influenced by the DC Heroes game what with Ray Winninger being involved, but I think I really need to take a closer look at M&M 3e and give it a fair crack at the whip) to more accurately portray characters. Thor, for example, would be reasonably acrobatic, a nigh on unmatchable Fighter and I can't remember him ever missing with the hammer, but that might be as much due to the hammer as Thor's accuracy (in the old FASERIP game he had Excellent Agility which was ok, but not great). In the old DC Heroes game he'd have high Weaponry and probably around the 7 Dex level. In M&M he'd have 13+ Fighting, 4+ Agility and 3+ Dex, with ranks of skill for when he's using Mjolnir.

Dammit. I really do need to get the 3e book and give it a serious read now. It's not even a bulletstopper. I bought it because that's what I do (just... buy superhero rpgs... then chuck em on a shelf) but I think I'm doing it an injustice.

If it ditched the D20 for 2D10 the nostalgia factor/pull would be too strong for me to resist (I love DC Heroes RPG and own everything ever published for it) but I don't know how well 3e is supported, or if it's compatible with previous versions (without lots of work).

Also, I recall the character creation process of 1e and 2e (2e particularly) being quite painful. I was used to point buy games but I could never get my head round all the effects and extra bits and pieces you could apply to each power without constantly referring to the book, so it took ages. The GM's kit for 3rd edition is said to have a decent random character generator. Roll a bunch of D20, record the results and play. Seen it's gotten good reviews (for example on youtube) so that would be a decent way of getting into a game with a new group after running through the basics of the rules.

Nnngh. Now I'm gonna have to hunt that down on Amazon. Damn you, little voice in head, stop overriding my wallet control...

M&M 2e was seen as an improvement (by most) over 1e at the cost of simplicity. 3e filed off more of the d20 system and simplified it a bit, but it's still pretty dense in character creation. I think 2e still has the most fans of any edition. I don't the best edition would have been a cross between 1e and 2e.

In my mind, DCH and MSH are the gold standards for middle-ground complexity in supers gaming. Can't go wrong with either one. M&M2e/3e are in the next bracket above, but not as high as HERO.

Quote from: Endless Flight;623610In my mind, DCH and MSH are the gold standards for middle-ground complexity in supers gaming. Can't go wrong with either one. M&M2e/3e are in the next bracket above, but not as high as HERO.

Yeah, pretty much. I feel like these games left a huge void. ICONS feels like MSH sometimes but it's simpler/lighter. M&M 3e looks like DCH at first glance but it's quite a bit more complex. I kind of hope to find a mid-term between these two in terms of crunch; BASH fell flat with us and Wild Talents is a great system for a certain sort of game (I'd love to run a Hellboy/BPRD type game with it) but doesn't really do justice to four-color supers because combat will fuck you up.

Of all systems out there, Savage Worlds with the Super Powers Companion, is still the closest to this middle-ground that I've found. The very reasons that made me write off SW for pulp men's adventure, make it almost ideal for a Silver Age four-color supers game.

I've always felt that M&M was "a simplified d20 version of HERO".

Whether that's good or bad, is up to individual tastes.

Quote from: Novastar;623624I've always felt that M&M was "a simplified d20 version of HERO".

Whether that's good or bad, is up to individual tastes.

Pretty much how I feel. On one hand, I liked 1E. D20 warts and all, because it was at its core relatively functional and simple. 2E make things entirely too complex for my tastes. 3E? I hear good things about but after 2E, I'm not really all that interested.

As an aside: The Butcher, how much "swiney" stuff can you stand? Hearts & Souls 2E is needing playtesting, and while I don't consider myself swiney, H&S might look that way to some people. (It is simple, but hopefully more robust than Icons, which I enjoy.)

Theoretically, when the ICONS sourcebook "With Great Power" comes out it should add a lot of meat to the ICONS power descriptions for those who feel they need it. Kenson recently said it's still on track for release end of February/early March, but of after the delays with the "Team-Up" one is cautious about ICONS release dates too seriously.

I vastly prefer ICONS. To any other supers game, really.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;624039I vastly prefer ICONS. To any other supers game, really.

Well, we can't all be perfect.

I feel as if they improved the emulation of hero archetypes by splitting strength and dexterity. They also made many powers much more playable by sorting then into "staged" effects.

Downside, they changed a bunch of terminology for no good reason.

I still prefer DC Heroes myself. I have been having some fun with ICONS with the kids, but for adult game tables, I find it too overly simplifies with powers that are too vaguely defined.

Quote from: Silverlion;623666As an aside: The Butcher, how much "swiney" stuff can you stand? Hearts & Souls 2E is needing playtesting, and while I don't consider myself swiney, H&S might look that way to some people. (It is simple, but hopefully more robust than Icons, which I enjoy.)

Since Pundit uses "Swine" as offhand for "stuff I don't like in the game for reasons I can't articulate", it's anyone's guess. What's "swiney" about it?

Quote from: The Butcher;624575Since Pundit uses "Swine" as offhand for "stuff I don't like in the game for reasons I can't articulate", it's anyone's guess. What's "swiney" about it?

It uses "Stress" as a mechanic, it uses monologues and banter to empower characters to succeed rather than point systems like M&M/FATE. It has a vague hand-wavey ability to manipulate some events (mostly through in character actions) for example the Triumphant moment rule, where a hero can ignore stress to smack down the bad guy at the last minute but suffers more for it.

Silverlion, would you say you made it "swinier" than the previous edition?

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