Mutants and Mastermind: Hacking it so I can play it

Philippe – Always use your powers for Good.  Steve Kenson Gen Con 2008

That’s what’s written in the inner cover of my copy of Mutants and Masterminds 2nd ED. I bought it at the Green Ronin booth on the last day at Gen Con last summer and when I saw that the author was behind the cash machine, I rushed to get him to sign it.

Geekout!

For most of the rest of summer and fall, the book rested on my ‘to read’ pile, along other books I obtained since then.  Since I spent a lot of time and effort reading adventures and getting in the D&D 4e groove for our fall gaming season, that book was left mostly ignored.

A few weeks ago, needing some RPG distraction from our current game, I picked the M&M book up and started reading it. I’m not yet done reading it, having reached the Gamemastering section.

Up to that point in the book, I was having mixed feelings.

First of, I was really impressed of what had been achieved with the d20 rules.  I would not have expected an apparently balanced point-buy system to be feasible within the framework of the that game engine.  Yet it was done.

Secondly, the book is well written, has great art, and offers pretty much all the options one would expect from a Supers RPG.  It feels like a Supers game whenever you pick the book and peer at a random page.

In fact, when you factor in all the options, feats and limitations that can affect each power there are a lot more packed in these pages than it appears.  The combat section has all the options you would expect from a Supers game while at the same time having dropped Attacks of Opportunity and encouraging playing without a battlemap.  Still there’s a lot of rules in there!

So much so that this is where the book kinda loses me.  This is a late design d20 3.5 game with its complete toolbox approach to character creation and task resolution.  While I was reading the section on combat I could imagine just how much I would have to go back to the rules and check powers, feats and special combat moves time and again.

I don’t currently want that in a game. I moved away from D&D 3.5 for a reason and reading M&M, while awesome in itself, reminds me why I moved away.

I’m a cyclic gamer (some would say I a weather vane) and while I’ve highly enjoyed playing d20 by the time 2008 rolled up, I was ready for something else.

However, what saved the game for me was how the first part of the GM’s chapter is crystal clear: “We’ve put all the crunchy bits of d20 because we had them around and you might enjoy them, but feel free to play with only these 4 rules… (all centered around the core d20 mechanic of ‘roll high against a target number).

So given that I’m still somewhat comfortable with the d20 system, I could totally see myself play a few one-shot adventures of M&M by ignoring preety much every thing I don’t like about the rules.

To that effect I’d play it thus:

• Premade characters, fluffed up by the players
• I’d use only premade guys from the Core Rules and the Campaign Setting (I also purchased Freedom City 2E a few weeks ago), I would not design bad guys.
• I’d ignore most feats on the bad guys unless I could ‘get’ them easily enough without lengthy page flipping.
• I’d use the 4 basic task resolution rules along with Hero Points and the combat Knockback rules (those are cool).
• The rest I’d probably make up on the spot!

You guys have any other tips to give me should I want to tackle this promising yet oh so crunchy game?

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