@Runescryer
I headwizzed an OC comic book MU running M&M 3e for a little over three years (Project Prometheus). By the end of our run, some of us were still quite happy with 3e, while others absolutely wished to chuck the whole fucking thing into the ocean. 3e honestly feels like it's meant for a particular TYPE of comic book style of play. It's all explosions and zero tension, unlike the far more interesting (IMO) 2e, which at least gives a GM room to challenge his players. Unlike 3e, the PCs can lose in 2e.

Your chief problem tends to be the Hero Point/Villain Point system, which creates an asymmetric environment where one side gets a large number of 'do-overs' and general invitation to step outside of the rules as needed. If it's done correctly, heroes will generate HPs throughout the combat because they should be nailing their complications. They spend them as desired and get to do all sorts of heroic things. Villain Points are supposed to be the GM's response to HPs, but they just don't work very well because spending a VP against a PC gives that character a HP as a consolation.

It sounds good on paper. In practice, it's obnoxious and terrible for any sense of tension.

• Hero attacks villain and misses. Hero spends a HP for a reroll with advantage. Almost certainly hits.

• Hero attacks villain and misses. Hero spends a HP for a reroll with advantage. Almost certainly hits. GM spends a VP to mitigate the damage, and awards the hero an HP. Hero... spends an HP and attacks again.

• Villain attacks hero and misses. GM spends a VP for a reroll with advantage, immediately awarding player with an HP. Villain hits, hero immediately spends an HP to mitigate the damage (gosh. Who could've seen that coming?)

• GM decides he wants to create an area attack where there wasn't one before. GM is an idiot. This one action means every PC in the blast earns a HP. For fuck's sake. No. Stop it.

It rapidly becomes apparent that either the GM has to accept that villain points are just for show, or the GM has to be very, very careful about when he or she spends a point.

It's even stacked from the beginning. In any given game, there are a lot more HPs on the table than VPs. I forget the formula, but most PCs will have 2-3 HP and the GM will probably have something like 4-5 VP. In a 4 PC game, that's 12 HP and 5 VP at the start. This wouldn't be so bad (the heroes should usually win, so what's the harm of helping them out?) if it weren't for the reflexive nature of spending a VP and that the heroes are going to get more. It can easily get out of hand.

At the very least, you really should regress to the 2e HP system. I haven't even touched on the fact that due to this absurdly asymmetrical reroll mechanic, all the luck powers ONLY WORK PROPERLY with heroes (and are utterly broken as fuck).

Then you'll find all sorts of other weird and wonderful idio(syncra)cies in the combat feats. I forget the names of the combat feat and can't be assed to look for a book or pdf, but there's some feat that allows you to make an additional attack if you drop a minion. This has been with M&M since the beginning. The difference is that in 2e, it had a melee requirement. In 3e, they don't care how you do it. Melee, ranged, area, it's all the same.

In practice, this means the last place on earth any villain ever wants to stand is ANYWHERE NEAR HIS MINIONS. Seriously. Stay the fuck away from me, man. You drop an area burst right on that villain and hit like 10 minions, too. Villain makes a damage save along with 10 minions. Let's say he loses 3 minions. OK... so, that feat says you get to do it again! Now the villain and his 7 minions make another round of damage saves. Drop 3 more minions, right? You see where this is going. Not only is this stupid as hell, but the entire thing is completely asymmetrical.

In 3 years of GMing 3rd ed, I don't believe I ever had a team of PCs lose a combat. It never even came close. The only way I could challenge players was by facing them with unfair PL/PP totals, and that's just bullshit. We errata'd a bunch of things, but I feel we should've gone way the fuck overboard.

3e looks good, but it's not really much better than traits. That said, it's actually a great system if you want to go with some sort of edgy 'if you lose, you are dead' setup. It looks scary to the players, but they can't possibly lose. 2e is a gem and I highly recommend you look it over. I'd use that over 3e. Just my two cents.

@Runescryer

You aren't actually writing a comic book; you're running a game. The narrative is similar but the goal is not.

Man, ain't that the truth.

I've staffed OC comic book games (all running the M&M ruleset) for probably something like 10 years. There's a pretty reliable pattern to how the 'tropes' thing has played out in my personal experience. I expect your NPCs to adhere to the proper tropes, while the PCs are... well, players ultimately want their characters to succeed. In the absence of source material to function as an appeal to authority, PCs are somewhat free to do whatever is most efficient for them.

Note this goes beyond killing characters. That's a worst case scenario and is easily dealt with: Remind them of the specific style of comic book you're going for, lay out some ground-rules, be stern but fair with individuals who will inevitably attempt to be special by behaving as if they exist under a different set of comic book sensibilities.

But no. Your real problem is likely to be more along the lines of players not wanting to do the illogical stuff that make comic books worlds function as intended. There's no real way to combat this without taking control away from players (a terrible idea). The best you can do is make certain that you are absolutely, 100 percent crystal clear what TYPE of comic book world you are doing. That means you cannot rely on era titles (especially not four color, which appears to mean something different to everyone who hears it). Your setting and feel is absolutely vital. Communicate it clearly and consistently, or you're going to have dead villains, lawsuits, and so on. Voltron WILL fire his ultimate weapon first.

God forbid you allow villainous PCs. Comic books simply do not work unless the villain is shackled by tropes.

Just something to be aware of. Might not happen to you, but it was an issue for me. I had to be very meticulous on my last game to prevent it from causing issues.

@Arkandel said in New Superhero Game Looking for Staff/Feedback:

Is telenuke a thing for M&M?

Unless you refuse to approve it, pretty much anything is a thing in M&M. Spitballing off the top of my head (so this won't be perfect)...

INDIRECT (FLAT 1-4 POINTS)
A ranged effect with this modifier can originate from a point other than the user, ignoring cover between the user and the target, such as walls and other intervening barriers, so long as they do not provide cover between the effect’s origin point and the target. An Indirect effect normally originates from a fixed point directed away from you. In some cases, an Indirect effect may count as a surprise attack (see Surprise Attack).

Indirect 1: the effect originates from a fixed point away from you.
Indirect 2: the effect can come from any point away from you or a fixed point in a fixed direction (not away from you).
Indirect 3: The effect can come from any point in a fixed direction (not away from you) or a fixed point in any direction.
Indirect 4: The effect can originate from any point and aim in any direction, including towards you (hitting a target in front of you from behind, for example).

Telenuke: Attack X, Range: Perception, Indirect 4 (3pp/rank + 4)

Perception: The effect works on any target you can perceive with an accurate sense, without any need for an attack check. If you cannot accurately perceive the target, you cannot affect it.

Now add a sensory power to the character that lets the character perceive radio waves, see through cover, see through cellphones, whatever. Buy 2 or 4 ranks of Accurate. For extra fun, apply a flaw to it: "Flaw: Only works with Telenuke" Take that sensory power from 1pp/rank to 0.5pp/rank.

Quite legal. You'd be insane or incompetent to approve it.

EDIT: Added indirect.

@ThatGuyThere
Yep. It gets used as an appeal to nostalgia, and a lazy one at that. Four Color is supposed to mean 'classic superheroes' half the time it's used. OP is using the term, too. I really think he needs to be a lot more specific, or that will bite him on the ass, later. Maybe pick a particular superhero, or team, or at least a publisher, and specify an era, with examples. Something like, "A 1950s Superman feel." or "In the spirit of 1960s Avengers" or whatever.

Otherwise, they're going to get the kitchen sink. And since players always trend towards wanting their characters to stand out, they will begin to outweird one another. 'Four Color' games invariably seem to degenerate into some kind of LSD Supertrip with flying dragons and anthropomorphic nazi penguin cyborgs. It just takes time for the players to slowly push the boundaries.

@Runescryer , be specific.

@ThatGuyThere said in For Want of a Stat System:

@n0q
If you are looking for crunch have you thought about ShadowRun?
It has plenty of crunch in all four of those areas, and runs a bit faster than most heavy crunch systems.

I remember Shadowrun being one of the first systems which came to mind, but I'd concluded it would be an absolute fuck to tear the Shadowrun out of that system, with the way money, race, cyberware, and magical aptitude was worked into chargen (balance purposes). Similarly, 'good' martial arts was locked behind magic, as well. In retrospect, maybe this was just super lazy of me. I'll take another look at it with an eye towards revising chargen to fit my needs.

@Ganymede @Bobotron @WTFE

I'll investigate those systems. Thanks!

@Misadventure said in For Want of a Stat System:

I ask this often: what do you want the players to focus on? Cover and round counts? Outguessing their foes? Describing the awesome? The detailed way that a given weapon or martial arts style affects the flow of combat?

Awesome questions. I'd answered a lot of these for myself, but you still gave me a few things to think about.

This will go a lot easier if I explain what I'm doing:

This game takes place in a dreamstate. Someone (known as the Dreamer, the Creator, or God) is likely in a coma and having a warped lucid dream where he is oblivious, but some characters in the dream have become lucid, instead. These PCs and all NPCs of note are called Hypnagogues, and have formed factions within the dreamscape. They fight for philosophical reasons which have serious ramifications for the dream world and possibly the dreamer.

Because Hypnagogues are far faster, stronger, and more durable than regular dream people (called Figments), they lend themselves to larger than life conflict. That expresses itself by combat playing out like some sort of 80s action flick half the time with Figments acting as general cannon fodder, while Hypnagogues from opposing factions are a much more serious and meaningful threat. Car chases in fast sports cars (don't worry about where they came from). Crazy gun battles, martial arts duels, and even magic (in the form of 'dream logic' or 'lucid dream control').

It's a setting I've been developing on and off for several years, but it's finally fleshed out enough to take a legitimate, serious stab at a 'real' play session. It's taken a lot of thought and research (reading, plus 'field research' via lucid dreaming). To put it another way, "This is a game about lucid dreaming, quantum physics, existentialism, kung fu, consciousness, magic, fast cars, philosophy, assault rifles, Buddhism, and explosions."

That's the hyper abridged version. Just go with it. If things work out well enough in tabletop, I might even turn it into a small MU one day.

what do you want the players to focus on? Cover and round counts? Outguessing their foes? Describing the awesome? The detailed way that a given weapon or martial arts style affects the flow of combat? None of those are the same, nor mutually exclusive. You have to think about how you want your players spending their time, and what sort of decisions are they making.

It's really the first three. Details about individual types of weapons or actions are needed to differentiate one action from another. In a dream world, a lot of details can be added, removed, or modified on the fly. If the combat system is 'floaty', then we start running out of anchors and things rapidly deteriorate into chaos (or at least arbitrariness). I need a system that allows a 'let the dice fall where they may' approach. I've done some statless testing with friends, and things worked out really well when I told players to pretend we had an actual combat system. Without stipulating some restraint, it got silly.

Here's the level of detail I'm looking for: Firearm types (handgun, smg, rifle, etc) handle distinctly, enabling some additional types of actions based on their type, but we go no further. Every smg is the same. Every handgun is the same. Maybe you need to reload your weapon, but we're not going to worry about how much ammo you're carrying. I want enough detail that a player is making a meaningful choice in combat beyond simply providing window dressing for a 'standard attack roll with circumstantial modifiers'.

Basically, I do want your chosen weapons to matter. I do want it to matter if you used a flying kick, a series of punches, or a leg sweep. I want it to matter if you side-swiped the other car while your mate fires a SMG out from the passenger side window, or if you straight-up rammed a car from behind. Reality's a little difficult to pin down in a dream, so your actions need mechanical consequences which aren't super-arbitrary, or else everything becomes arbitrary.

Are there published games that are close to what you want? The two you named tell me nothing. Systems can be light and yet focus on shot by shot to what location, or wild action, or whatever.

I've never found anything that matches what I'm looking for. Flow would feel closer to The Matrix (which has no RPG system worth a fuck). Any system I use will need me to alter or add systems. There's even a lovecraftian horror aspect to this setting I've left out.

Do you want the players to be daring, or biting their nails wondering if they will survive?

80/20. Hypnagogues can take a lot of punishment before they die. In many cases, dying doesn't even kill them, but there's often the possibility they really will be gone forever. I'm aiming for "Players are encouraged to be daring, but know they are putting themselves at risk. Sooner or later, failure will mean death."

Do you want beliefs and relationships to have mechanical advantages?

Based on what I've described, you'll be completely unsurprised to know I was counting on it.

I'm planning out a tabletop campaign in an original setting, though the feel is closest to The Matrix. I'm having trouble finding a system that meets my needs, however. It should support:

• Firearms
• Martial Arts
• Melee Combat
• Vehicular Combat

I'm explicitly not looking for a traits system. It should have enough crunch that things aren't arbitrary, but not bog things down to wargaming speed. I'll be adding a custom magic system to whatever I use, so I'm not too concerned with magic, though it'll be there. The system shouldn't be mega-lethal, but death should be a possibility.

It seems to me that most systems fall down when it coms to vehicular combat. I'd like to be able to run combat on a freeway without the entire thing feeling handwaved or abstracted into arbitrariness. Martial arts tend to be a problem, too.

Current contenders:

• Savage Worlds: Seems to do most of what I want, but perhaps I can do better.
• Unisystem: Can technically do anything I want, but it's kind of crazy having to pull in several games just to mug them for systems.

Feng Shui seems like an obvious choice, but the system is too light. I seriously dislike trait systems, and FS is pretty damned light. I haven't looked at 2e, but reviews suggest it's not much different.

Hopefully fielding suggestions from better clued individuals than I. So far, Savage Worlds is my first choice.

@ThatGuyThere
Yep. It gets used as an appeal to nostalgia, and a lazy one at that. Four Color is supposed to mean 'classic superheroes' half the time it's used. OP is using the term, too. I really think he needs to be a lot more specific, or that will bite him on the ass, later. Maybe pick a particular superhero, or team, or at least a publisher, and specify an era, with examples. Something like, "A 1950s Superman feel." or "In the spirit of 1960s Avengers" or whatever.

Otherwise, they're going to get the kitchen sink. And since players always trend towards wanting their characters to stand out, they will begin to outweird one another. 'Four Color' games invariably seem to degenerate into some kind of LSD Supertrip with flying dragons and anthropomorphic nazi penguin cyborgs. It just takes time for the players to slowly push the boundaries.

@Runescryer , be specific.

@ThatGuyThere

This is why 'four color' is a horrible way to describe a game. Superman was four color. So was Plasticman. The only thing worse than a term that doesn't mean anything is a term that means everything.

@Arkandel said in New Superhero Game Looking for Staff/Feedback:

Is telenuke a thing for M&M?

Unless you refuse to approve it, pretty much anything is a thing in M&M. Spitballing off the top of my head (so this won't be perfect)...

INDIRECT (FLAT 1-4 POINTS)
A ranged effect with this modifier can originate from a point other than the user, ignoring cover between the user and the target, such as walls and other intervening barriers, so long as they do not provide cover between the effect’s origin point and the target. An Indirect effect normally originates from a fixed point directed away from you. In some cases, an Indirect effect may count as a surprise attack (see Surprise Attack).

Indirect 1: the effect originates from a fixed point away from you.
Indirect 2: the effect can come from any point away from you or a fixed point in a fixed direction (not away from you).
Indirect 3: The effect can come from any point in a fixed direction (not away from you) or a fixed point in any direction.
Indirect 4: The effect can originate from any point and aim in any direction, including towards you (hitting a target in front of you from behind, for example).

Telenuke: Attack X, Range: Perception, Indirect 4 (3pp/rank + 4)

Perception: The effect works on any target you can perceive with an accurate sense, without any need for an attack check. If you cannot accurately perceive the target, you cannot affect it.

Now add a sensory power to the character that lets the character perceive radio waves, see through cover, see through cellphones, whatever. Buy 2 or 4 ranks of Accurate. For extra fun, apply a flaw to it: "Flaw: Only works with Telenuke" Take that sensory power from 1pp/rank to 0.5pp/rank.

Quite legal. You'd be insane or incompetent to approve it.

EDIT: Added indirect.

@Runescryer

That could work, but the only solution I can think of which prevents your setup from needing even more 'plot armor' involves direct PC conflict (which you might or might not want): What prevents your gritty 'iron age' heroes from walking over to your 'four color' area and stopping crime forever? The only thing I can think of is that the 'four color' heroes see the iron age guys as villains, themselves.

Unless you're going to force characters into staying in their intended cities, you will deal with stranger in a strange land incidents any way you slice it. I swear this stuff is candy to a player. They want to stand out in some way. Why not play a gritty anti-hero who refuses to play by the rules in a city where everybody else pulls their punches?

If you keep both cities split off from one another, then why have them both at all? It starts to sound like you've got two games on one server. If you stick to one style, then you can focus all your energy on a single place, not have your playerbase split across two grids, get by with less plot armor, and also allow your players to be more certain of what sort of world they're playing in. It's like I said earlier. You don't have actual source material to rely upon, so you have to be concise and consistent. Your weaker players will strain the cohesion of your setting until it's just kind of a mess. Your stronger players will be unsure of what they should be doing and will need to ask you all the time if this or that is okay.

Regarding M&M stats, one thing which has never changed across 1e, 2e, and 3e is that M&M actually requires an especially critical eye on a PC's proposed stat block. There are a zillion things the game technically allows you to do which is stoopid broken OP or in no way, shape, or form fits in any sort of comic book world. Sometimes the problem is subtle, but is a one-way ticket to WTFsville. I don't just mean hella-broken power/advantage/skill combos, either (of which there are unlimited amounts. I wish I could remember some of the imaginative and completely fucked stuff we saw at Crucible City). With some imagination, you can squeeze an absurd amount of fuckery into a small amount of power points.

If there's any advice I can give you, it's this: Before you open, get really, really, really good with Mutants and Masterminds. I mean seriously, mega-fucking good. Then start trying to make the most powerful characters you can within the confines of whatever rules you're going to apply to your playerbase. I mean it. Break that shit and break it good. Then revise your rules and do it again. Eventually you'll reach a state where your rules will generally guide a player into making a fair character, and you'll be skilled enough to spot problems on a statblock even when they follow all of your rules. M&M is not one of those systems where chargen spits out characters who are even roughly matched in power and utility. It's easy to make a broken character, and I've seen plenty of M&M games fail because they approved any legal statblock.

@Runescryer

You aren't actually writing a comic book; you're running a game. The narrative is similar but the goal is not.

Man, ain't that the truth.

I've staffed OC comic book games (all running the M&M ruleset) for probably something like 10 years. There's a pretty reliable pattern to how the 'tropes' thing has played out in my personal experience. I expect your NPCs to adhere to the proper tropes, while the PCs are... well, players ultimately want their characters to succeed. In the absence of source material to function as an appeal to authority, PCs are somewhat free to do whatever is most efficient for them.

Note this goes beyond killing characters. That's a worst case scenario and is easily dealt with: Remind them of the specific style of comic book you're going for, lay out some ground-rules, be stern but fair with individuals who will inevitably attempt to be special by behaving as if they exist under a different set of comic book sensibilities.

But no. Your real problem is likely to be more along the lines of players not wanting to do the illogical stuff that make comic books worlds function as intended. There's no real way to combat this without taking control away from players (a terrible idea). The best you can do is make certain that you are absolutely, 100 percent crystal clear what TYPE of comic book world you are doing. That means you cannot rely on era titles (especially not four color, which appears to mean something different to everyone who hears it). Your setting and feel is absolutely vital. Communicate it clearly and consistently, or you're going to have dead villains, lawsuits, and so on. Voltron WILL fire his ultimate weapon first.

God forbid you allow villainous PCs. Comic books simply do not work unless the villain is shackled by tropes.

Just something to be aware of. Might not happen to you, but it was an issue for me. I had to be very meticulous on my last game to prevent it from causing issues.

@Runescryer
I headwizzed an OC comic book MU running M&M 3e for a little over three years (Project Prometheus). By the end of our run, some of us were still quite happy with 3e, while others absolutely wished to chuck the whole fucking thing into the ocean. 3e honestly feels like it's meant for a particular TYPE of comic book style of play. It's all explosions and zero tension, unlike the far more interesting (IMO) 2e, which at least gives a GM room to challenge his players. Unlike 3e, the PCs can lose in 2e.

Your chief problem tends to be the Hero Point/Villain Point system, which creates an asymmetric environment where one side gets a large number of 'do-overs' and general invitation to step outside of the rules as needed. If it's done correctly, heroes will generate HPs throughout the combat because they should be nailing their complications. They spend them as desired and get to do all sorts of heroic things. Villain Points are supposed to be the GM's response to HPs, but they just don't work very well because spending a VP against a PC gives that character a HP as a consolation.

It sounds good on paper. In practice, it's obnoxious and terrible for any sense of tension.

• Hero attacks villain and misses. Hero spends a HP for a reroll with advantage. Almost certainly hits.

• Hero attacks villain and misses. Hero spends a HP for a reroll with advantage. Almost certainly hits. GM spends a VP to mitigate the damage, and awards the hero an HP. Hero... spends an HP and attacks again.

• Villain attacks hero and misses. GM spends a VP for a reroll with advantage, immediately awarding player with an HP. Villain hits, hero immediately spends an HP to mitigate the damage (gosh. Who could've seen that coming?)

• GM decides he wants to create an area attack where there wasn't one before. GM is an idiot. This one action means every PC in the blast earns a HP. For fuck's sake. No. Stop it.

It rapidly becomes apparent that either the GM has to accept that villain points are just for show, or the GM has to be very, very careful about when he or she spends a point.

It's even stacked from the beginning. In any given game, there are a lot more HPs on the table than VPs. I forget the formula, but most PCs will have 2-3 HP and the GM will probably have something like 4-5 VP. In a 4 PC game, that's 12 HP and 5 VP at the start. This wouldn't be so bad (the heroes should usually win, so what's the harm of helping them out?) if it weren't for the reflexive nature of spending a VP and that the heroes are going to get more. It can easily get out of hand.

At the very least, you really should regress to the 2e HP system. I haven't even touched on the fact that due to this absurdly asymmetrical reroll mechanic, all the luck powers ONLY WORK PROPERLY with heroes (and are utterly broken as fuck).

Then you'll find all sorts of other weird and wonderful idio(syncra)cies in the combat feats. I forget the names of the combat feat and can't be assed to look for a book or pdf, but there's some feat that allows you to make an additional attack if you drop a minion. This has been with M&M since the beginning. The difference is that in 2e, it had a melee requirement. In 3e, they don't care how you do it. Melee, ranged, area, it's all the same.

In practice, this means the last place on earth any villain ever wants to stand is ANYWHERE NEAR HIS MINIONS. Seriously. Stay the fuck away from me, man. You drop an area burst right on that villain and hit like 10 minions, too. Villain makes a damage save along with 10 minions. Let's say he loses 3 minions. OK... so, that feat says you get to do it again! Now the villain and his 7 minions make another round of damage saves. Drop 3 more minions, right? You see where this is going. Not only is this stupid as hell, but the entire thing is completely asymmetrical.

In 3 years of GMing 3rd ed, I don't believe I ever had a team of PCs lose a combat. It never even came close. The only way I could challenge players was by facing them with unfair PL/PP totals, and that's just bullshit. We errata'd a bunch of things, but I feel we should've gone way the fuck overboard.

3e looks good, but it's not really much better than traits. That said, it's actually a great system if you want to go with some sort of edgy 'if you lose, you are dead' setup. It looks scary to the players, but they can't possibly lose. 2e is a gem and I highly recommend you look it over. I'd use that over 3e. Just my two cents.