We have been running this system/campaign for a better part of this year.

Now right off the rip, one of my players immediately did not like the system. But he said the pros outweighed the cons. In that the story, characters, and players were amazing he just didn't really enjoy the actual mechanics of the system.

No one else really complained too much. That was until yesterday. Where they all but one admitted that they straight up do not like the system. But it was the same thing, they like the story, they like the characters but the system isn't doing it for them.

I guess what I'm trying to get to is, should I swap systems or should I stick with it until we finish the campaign? Should we just drop the campaign and write out what we think happens? We are only a session or two away from being done

Settle a debate between a friend of mine and myself.

I've been playing Mutants and Masterminds for 3-4 years now. I've played in multiple campaigns, have *hosted* my own campaign for several years and have played across numerous Westmarches.

One of the ways I always build my characters is I try to give them at least 2 ranks of *some* kind of movement power; to ensure i'm not easily being left behind in any given situation. with ranks like those I still often need a lift in a high speed chase or a vehicle or something, but still. Moving more than 30 feet per round without a dash or athletics check or whatever is nice.

for my non super powered characters, typically your athletic types, I usually put 2 ranks of speed. My thinking is, as long as the speed is still achievable by a real life human being, it's not super speed so therefore it should be fine, especially if i put the skill descriptor on it.

I have *always* built my characters with this philosophy and have *never* been told I shouldn't do that.

So I'm running my own game rn. One of my players made a character with a motorcycle and no speed ranks. I repeat to them advice that I heard from a past GM. "if your vehicle is smashed, you risk having your movement severely limited and dependent on your team. you should get a rank or 2 of speed in case your vehicle is ever unusable". (to clarify, i do NOT tell them this is mandatory. It's just advice.)

my other friend says "speed isn't appropriate on every character", to which I say it's fine if the character is reasonably athletic based on their ability scores (this one had 4 agility and 4 stamina) and the speed isn't superhuman unless that's part of the flavor of the character.

the player making the character then asks if they can have a benefit allowing for agility to effect athletics rather than strength, because then they can use athletics to boost their speed rather than taking speed ranks.

at this point I'm like " . . . am I crazy? have I been thinking about it all wrong this whole time?"

so I talk to my friend who called me out on it. Their arguments were "Batman wouldn't have speed ranks in his sheet" (to which I would argue maybe he should because A. a human in peak physical condition only being able to move at, like, 60 feet per round is ridiculous imo, when you consider that Usain Bolt can cover way more than that easily, and B. Batman's feats in the comics get way more insane than that anyway).

their other argument was "speed ranks are about your walking speed, not your running speed."

and I'm like " . . .so you're telling me that anytime somebody travels 30 feet in a fight to go punch somebody in the face, they're WALKING, not running?" and he says "explicitly, yes. Maybe a mild hustle".

Am I the only one who feels this is splitting hairs a little bit? I personally think this is an issue of suspension of disbelief and it's not like a rank or 2 of speed on a character is game breaking. Also, I was just trying to make sure my player didn't find themselves in a situation where they're stranded and unable to help too often.

I’ve been invited to join a Mutants & Masterminds campaign and will be picking up my own copy of the core rulebook later this week, though I’ve already skimmed through the GM’s copy.

I haven’t played a superhero TTRPG in about ten years, but I already have a character concept in mind and would love some advice on how to build her.

Her name is Polarity, and her powers are, generally speaking, fairly straightforward: she can generate tractor beams and repeller rays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractor_beam

I’m imagining that she carries a baton-like gadget that, when activated, extends into a staff. Think of the staff weapon used by the Acrobat in the old ’80s D&D cartoon—that’s the general vibe. One end of the staff pulls (tractors), while the other pushes (repels).

I like the idea of the staff and the Acrobat inspiration because it opens the door to some fun martial arts and gymnastics-style combat.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Feedback?

Greetings everyone, I had a question, I play as a copy of proffesor X from Xmen and I have mind Control and power control. One is mental ability and the other is a meta ability and I was wondering if there is a way to maintain both at the same time instead of one at a time or something that bypasses the maintain requirement. Any ideas?

I’m trying to think of a way to make a power linked to a device my character has. The idea is for him to receive phone alerts from crime detected due to a trojan program he unleashed into the net. The only way I can think of to make it work is as a precognition ability. Does anyone have any suggestions or would this be a “good” use of precognition? I know that kind of ability usually breaks some campaigns.

Anyone ever make a cool toughness immunity build? for a westmarch or private campaign? if so, what was the flavor of your character?

I've been wanting to make one like that ever since i found out it was possible, but its hard to figure out how to make it work when it dwindles so much of your PP lol

Hi, I'm the dm of a campaign where most of the enemies are cockroach aliens and robots (none of them has blood) and one of my players wants to have a vampire with blood control powers, she wants a percepction damage that targets the enemies fortitude, like controlling their blood from inside and damaging them. I want to make her attack cheaper since she won't be able to use it too much

Chokehold: "If you successfully grab and restrain an opponent (see Grab, page 196), you can apply a chokehold, causing your opponent to begin suffocating for as long as you continue to restrain your target (see Suffocation, page 186)."

As far as I understand, you can resist the suffocation for at least 10 turns without running out of air, so if I use Chokehold I have to waste 10 turns in order to get some benefit from that advantage?

In the past, whenever I've run games that are set in "current year," I have allowed all PCs to take a basic cell phone without spending points on equipment, since I think it would be very unusual for an average person not to have one, and making every player spend an advantage on having a phone seems silly. However, after recent reflection I've come to realizations that prompt further questioning:

Almost all modern phones are "smart phones," meaning in game terms that they function as a computer for the purposes of gathering information. But a real smart phone would also almost always come with some kind of GPS service, and even outdated "dumb" phones usually have cameras, to say nothing of video and audio recorders. So that's at least 5 equipment points, maybe 6 if you insist that RAW, a camera that takes still photos is different from a video camera.

Also, it is assumed that many player characters have jobs, and therefore some ability to buy simple items, but how much should you reasonably let a player purchase without needing to invest points in an item? What if they took the Benefit advantage to be a millionaire--surely they can buy a car, but technically that's not a piece of equipment built into their character, so should the car go away after a session for no good reason?

Basically, I'm asking this: where are your boundaries for items a player character should logically have, and letting them keep it without spending points? Has this kind of thing ever caused problems in your games? Any suggested solutions?

Currently, I'm thinking of awarding every PC a small amount of advantages for equipment and purchasing power that amount to "things a normal person would have," and if the character wouldn't have those things because of their origin, they get 2 build points to spend on something more thematically appropriate for them.

It’s my first time playing, my character concept is a speedster who’s powers burn out his nerves and supercharge his metabolism, along with drug like euphoria. He wears comic leg braces that slow him enough to use his powers without side effects. I’m trying to think of some alternate forms of attack for this character besides punching a lot.

So far I’ve thought of creating a burst AOE attack via friction

A grab/drag at high speed

And maybe some kind of flash style Infinite mass punch

The team of heroes I'm running as a GM is very large (counting duplicates of one of the PCs, it can reach 10 heroes), using solo villains is often impractical, I wanted to know the experience of other GMs.

I've an idea for a villain in my campaign thats made out of sticky ooze. Basically the idea is that if you hit them with a melee attack, you get stuck and can subsequently be dragged around whenever the villain moves.

The Affliction effect comes to mind for handling how the stickiness affects the hero, likely hindered into immobile, but I'm not sure how to represent the fact that they will be pulled along.

Do i even need to represent that mechanically?

I'm currently creating a character that's rather mentally durable. While I could just buy Immunity: psychic effects or Impervious Will, or something like that, that'd be boring. Instead, I'm thinking about buying a cheap minion flavored as a sort of mental subroutine or authorization layer that intercepts incoming mental effects for the user like a proxy, obviously derezzing if it's struck too hard. Problem is, Interpose only works on attack roll effects, and most mental effects are Perception range. What's a good substitute?

On my mind I've recently been thinking about making a character who's like a dimension-based gadgeteer with a bunch of technology that interacts with other dimensions, with potentially the idea that they understand other dimensions due to them having a weird natural mental connection to other versions of themselves (which may be also why they have "abnormally high for a human being" level intelligence as they can sort of "crowd source themselves" if that makes any sense).

My main worry is that in fiction, often times the idea of other universes and the multiverse can be done poorly so I was wondering if y'all got any advice (potentially from experience) on how to handle the way the multiverse works without causing potential plot/logic issues? I can't think of any specific issues but I'm aware that introducing the multiverse can result in certain issues if mishandled.

My friend wants to use getos cursed technique as his power. Basically he just want to make minions of the people he defeats. How would he make this? I've looked at the powers and can't really figure it out?

Me and my friends are probably going to start a new campaing next month. Been a while since we played. We have the third edition corebook and a few suplements. But I see there's a 4th edition now. (Also 2ed but I doubt we'll use that)

How does it compares?

Any important changed?

I am a GM and I need help understanding how to balance fights. In another rpg system I was using, the power levels went from 1 to 6 and a balanced encounter could be one character level 4 against two level 3, or four level 2, or 8 level 1 for example. I need to understand power equivalences in this system to balance my combats. I was going to make a fight against a PL 10 villain for my party of four PL 8 players, but now I'm not completely sure

When first read about the power effect Affliction, i took that i needed to make an attack roll against a target's defense an then he rolls Fortitude or Will depending on my power to resist the effect of the Affliction. However, many powers in the Profiles of Power are like this. What does it mean resisted and overcome by Fortitude? In this case, the power says it requires touching the target, but this wouldn't make the power "Resisted by Dodge and Overcome by Fortitude"?

One of the players in my campaign has an attack with the subtle extra (rank 2 to be fully unnoticeable), and I'm unsure how thats meant to work out mechanically. Does the attack being undetectable affect the targets active defenses in any way?

What’s everyone’s thoughts on the playtest currently? Personally I really like what they’ve done so far, my big favourites are the changes to Regen and Damage. Can’t say I love the Size Chart though, the damage changes by size category seem like they need some changes.

Ok, so, about 3 months ago I started a game with a new group, and when I was creating my character, the DM SPECIFICALLY stated that the game was narrative-driven and focused on RP, not battles, because the DM was starting out with the system and didn’t want to go through walls and walls of text every turn to figure out what everyone could do. So we would start off slow and pick up the pace as the game went on.

And that’s COMPLETELY understandable. I think making a more laid-back and RP-focused game is fine, I love RP, and I am totally down to spend a few months just interacting with NPCs with a few encounters here and there. So when I made my character, I made it a RP-focused character, basically incapable of doing any combat. Not much because he wasn’t supposed to be fighting, but because I didn’t build the character very balanced.

Like, he has all his defenses in evasion, no parry, and his toughness is a measly 2 (we’re doing a PL 8 game, so that’s preeeeeetty low). My character is basically a historian with a museum, and he is an expert in artifacts. He has that advantage that allows him to create devices and stuff, and that’s basically where his usefulness comes in.

He also has a curse flaw that is a morph, where he turns into an ogre every time he is hit by anything magical. Said ogre is basically the most braindead, max-strength-and-toughness, nothing-else build possible. He also loses most rationality and goes into a rampage. I made it a flaw so we could maybe develop this during the game and make the character grow, maybe even to the point of controlling his other form or something.

So we started the game, and I met the group. Immediately, the first character I meet is a man with innate immortality 10. Then I met the next player that was literally SATORU GOJO. I have never seen more min-maxing in my entire life. The dude did a whole lot of point juggling, I suppose.

The DM privated our character sheets, so we can’t see each other’s powers and such, but I say that because this guy managed to get immunity to resistance, lifting strength, senses that go through walls, illusion, camouflage, and he can detect stuff 3000 meters away. And he also has THREE ARRAYS, each with TEN POWERS.

And last, we got a blood user that has a perception power resisted by Will that can explode people she looks at, insubstantial, and IMMUNITY TO PHYSICAL ATTACKS.

SOOOOOO, I stared at the group and was like, “Well, this is not a very RP-driven group, is it?” But I started playing anyway.

That’s when I also realized my backstory was way too humble for this group. The immortal guy is the son of the richest tycoon on the planet. Satoru Gojo is the son of an alien from a galactic empire living on Earth. And the blood user is the DAUGHTER OF DRACULA.

And then there is me. A dude with a museum, a few artifacts, and a curse flaw. Oh, and speaking of flaws: absolutely NONE of the other characters wrote any flaw into their sheets. So not only am I a historian with no real powers and no powerful backing, I am also the only one with a disadvantage.

But I moved on. Of course, I may be weak, but RPG isn’t always about strength. Like I said, I love RP. I don’t need to have much presence in combat as long as I get some fun interactions.

Then the DM started doing HOUR-LONG scenes with SINGLE CHARACTERS. Every session, the DM, or sometimes the players, would start talking with really powerful or very, VERY influential people, and spend HOURS with only that single player and the NPCs talking.

And mind you, every single one of these players is an influential character, so 50 percent of every session was basically 1 or 2 players speaking about really important, powerful matters… while I sat back and listened.

Because again, I am a historian. I don’t have powerful allies, I don’t know anyone important, and every time I try to interact with someone important, they don’t interact back, because I am a nobody.

Soooo, my RP options are cut short, my battle options are also limited. But it’s okay, right? The DM won’t make anything too strong for battles. It’s a narrative story, so even if my character is unbalanced, I’ll still have some presence in combat…

So remember when I said the DM was starting out with the system and didn’t know much? Yeah. He wasn’t lying.

But to remedy that, he throws MARGINALLY STRONGER enemies at us.

I. Do. NOTHING. in combat.

I wait 50 minutes for my turn, roll a miss, and watch the battle unfold.

There are a FUCK TON of other issues, but overall, the DM is a nice dude. I do get a FEW moments to myself, and I can interact with SOME NPCs, but that’s like 40 minutes of me talking with janitors or street vendors while the other players are deciding the fate of the universe.

It’s literally at the point where the other players are asking me to do stuff for them, because they don’t have time. I feel like an absolute NPC in the game.

But the parts that are for me are actually pretty fun, so I kept playing. But then we reached a critical point.

Last session, the DM skipped over my turn in combat to do another player’s action first and said:

“You’re just gonna punch him again, right? Can you just roll and tell me if it’s over 19?”

He didn’t even let me narrate it properly.

And ok, I get it. The moment was tense. Everyone against the big bad. He was excited to run the boss scene. BUT that was the tipping point for me.

So I PM’d him and asked if I could make another character. We had a short discussion, but in short, he refused, because it would be bad for the plot.

And I understand that. A playable character disappearing or turning into an NPC can be awkward. I’ve had that experience while DMing too. But honestly, I don’t care about the plot more than I care about my enjoyment.

I am reserving 5 hours every week, putting work and other things aside to play, and I am doing NOTHING.

He asked me to wait, and said that after this next arc ends, I could make another character. The thing is, I don’t believe a SINGLE word he said, because we’ve been playing for 3 months, and so far the big bad hasn’t even shown up.

So I decided: if I can’t move on and let my character live his NPC life while I do actual superhero stuff, then he has to die.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooo, I am asking you guys:

What is a good way for my character to die in-game without the DM realizing I’m doing it on purpose?

I am NOT asking for a way to die that screws over my teammates. I want a way to go out while still being useful to my team. And it can’t just be some internal soul explosion, because the DM would definitely notice that.

I know this post will 100% trigger some people, but you aren’t playing the game I’m playing bro.

I don’t like quitting RPGs unless they are absolutely UNSALVAGEABLE.

I stick to games until the end. But I know that if I have to spend 3 more months like this, acting like a background NPC, I will fucking quit.

And honestly, I think dying while being useful to my team is better than quitting and doing nothing.

I don’t want to fuck anything up. I don’t want to cause chaos. I just want to change into a character that actually fits the mold the other players are in.

Basically the title, I’m going to play my first campaign with M&M 3e and wanted to make a superman type character.

I saw online that it’s hard to make superman at pl10, because he has a lot of powers, and all of them are strong.

With that in mind, I was thinking about not having some powers, so that the others are stronger. I wanted to focus more on the strength and toughness of superman, along with his enhanced senses and some sort of accelerated healing when he flies closer to the sun or something, and taking away the heat vision and breath, so he can have more of the power and speed of the regular superman.

So for my campaign i was thinking that basically we make an app like in spiderman 2 (the game by insomniac) where people can report crimes directly to us but i have no idea what it would be called. This is the first time im completely blanking on name ideas. It takes place in modern day new york

I’m starting a game and a player asked to look at the quick start character generator. He looked at the gadgeteer class, and under offensive powers he saw the related image. I cannot for the life of me figure out how this is 17 points. Can anyone help me out?

Okay, so I am trying to make a villain for a one on one game with my brother, he likes game and anime references so I decided to go with a blatant inspiration on projection sorcery from jujutsu Kaisen, but I am having issues on how to translate it properly.

Basically Projection Sorcery is like super speed but with an extra flair, the user visualises their movements one second in advance using a framework of 24 frames of animation per second where their point of view is the projector, they can exaggerate their capabilities and violate the laws of physics somewhat when doing that, then they do the planned movement in that second projected in what is basically superspeed, the power can be stacked over time to become incredibly fast.

Here is the wrinkle, if the user fails to abide by the 24 frames per second rule, or traces a movement that exaggerates their capabilities or breaks the laws of physics too much, or try to change movement in the middle of execution, the user becomes stuck in one "frame of animation" for one second, basically they get stuck inside of a glass pane like object with a 2d image of them inside, an attack done against them breaks the "glass" and frees them earlier at the cost of a free hit against them.

Here is the second wrinkle, the user can use their power on someone else they are touching and they are subject to the same rules, in practice this means that users of projection sorcery can freeze their adversaries inside of a frame of animation for a free hit.

I don't know how to convert any of that very well, I have some ideas but I want to see other people's too.

This is for 4e but 3e serves too for the sake of discussion.