Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 08, 2021, 09:40:29 AM
That to me is why M&M beat out HERO system.  Sure you -can- turn everything in HERO into a VPP (as they called it in 5th), but it just seems against the spirit of the system.

To be fair to the HERO System, VPP's were a later addition to its core rules (which, unlike D&D has not had its system practically rebuilt from the ground up with each edition) and so would never have been as integrated as a system where alternate powers were built in from the start.

Also, the core of M&M's flexibility, it's alternate powers, are more akin to the HERO System's Multipower framework (specifically the "Ultra" variant) than the full on Variable Power Pools (the variable powers in M&M have much better cost balance relative to their effectiveness vs. HERO VPP's, but even they work a lot smoother if the player pre-designs some of their more common uses for the power and/or for things that don't fall into the heat of battle).

Honestly, even for things where a full variable power would make sense (ex. being able to turn into any animal) my groups have generally found it easier to build it as several alternate powers that cover broad bases (ex. "Giant Grappler" "Tiny Infiltrator" etc.) and use variable fluff/appearance and just not turn some attached powers on (ex. Tiny Infiltrator has flight, but they want to shift into a rat so they just don't use the flight and say they look like a rat) than to actually USE the full variable powers in play.