Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The world's greatest super hero RPG, 28 Feb 2008
The first edition of Mutants and Masterminds was a cracking game but in some ways was crippled by its rigid power level system. The designers and authors of the second edition plainly sat down and decided to keep the elements that had worked in the previous edition while choosing to improve on many other parts of the game.
Essentially Mutants and Masterminds is a game based on the D20 system, stripped bare and rebuilt for superhero gaming using the Open Gaming License. There are no character classes in this game and the "levels" come in the form of Power Levels which place certain caps on traits to manage character creation and assist the GM in building appropriate challenges. The opening chapters introduce the character creation system through example "archetypes" built to the default Power Level of a starting game and then breaks down the character creation structure in full. The rules are clear and well explained, and areas such as Power Level trade-offs, which opens up plenty of flexibility in character building, are given plenty of space and detail.
Chapter eight is titled "Combat" but actually contains the meat of the non character specific rules. It is a stripped down version of the system made most famous in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, although it dispenses with some of the more complex elements of combat (such as Attacks of Opportunity) to help in-game battles be more like comic book slugfests. The later chapters are aimed at the GM and give advice on world building, creating NPCs (subject to slightly less strict rules as regards points totals and power levels than player characters), sample villain archetypes and stats for animals, monsters, and people. These chapters are as well written as the first part of the book.
In terms of appearance, M&M is bold, brash, and colourful. Cracking artwork by people who really seem to "get" the super hero concept and bright pages make it a visual feast. The tables included within are all easy to read making it suitable for most people. The difficulty of the rules set is at the lower-mid range. Its a very simplified version of D20 and is a far easier system to get your head around than games like HERO and GURPS Supers. Conversely there are simpler hero games out there, like any iteration of Marvel's official licence, but few of these offer the flexibility of Mutants and Masterminds. The game bills itself as "the World's Greatest Super Hero RPG" and I certainly wouldn't argue about that. I can think of very little about this game I don't like, and ultimately it's that rarest of beast- an RPG core rulebook that is the only book you'd need to play the game. First class.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great system, solid rules, poor support., 20 April 2006
The game is a class A+ product, very streamlined, fast and efficent, able to give a "real" Super Hero feeling to any combat, chase or exploration you could endeavour to have in your adventure... the problem is the actual adventures. Yes, in an ideal world we can always have time spare to create adventures for the players in our group but time just isn't always on your side. This is why the original d20 systems were so successful, they had a wide ranging module support and at this time of writing actual modules for M&M are few and far between, in fact I think only Times of Crisis is the ONLY published adventure-module for want of a better term that exists and that is frankly a very poor showing in terms of system support, especially when the system itself deserves so much more!
The actual game systems is extremely easy to pick up and relatively well balanced although GM intervention will be needed as it is to easy to tweak a character to be unbeatable (check out the power "Duplication" and use the extra-perks that mean as long as one duplicate survives your character still exists, hey presto, keep one duplicate at home to watch TV). Apart from that however the system is supberb, lots of examples of different Hero types and a fully published campaign setting, "Freedom City" that has a lot of good, and most importantly relevant, detail without going overboard. Now if only they could publish more actual adventures...
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
fairly diverse superhero action, 16 Mar 2006
Having played this game as both a player and gamesmaster, I can safely say that while it is very much a fun game to play, it isn't so good to run a game.
Based on the d20 system established by dungeons and dragons, this super hero game is streamlined, and has some excellent variations on the system. However it is a little bit limited in places, an experianced gm can easily wing it and get around the gaps though.
So while flawed it is still the best (only) superhero role playing game I have played.
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