Super Bard uses magical music to fight crime and help others. Most of his powers focus on the latter. His oratorical powers inspire others to greater success, and his soothing songs heal injuries and boost willpower. When he needs to fight, his magical sonic scream serves as a ranged attack, while in close combat he relies on his fencing skills. Super Bard is multilingual, skilled in English, French, and Italian.
Over the past few days, I’ve tooled about a bit more with Green Ronin Publishing’s Mutants & Masterminds (M&M), which has a robust character creation system that so far has never failed to emulate whatever character concept I’ve come up with. (Caveat: Some character concepts, however, become problematic operating within a specific power point budget. If I’m like the government and just pretend budgets don’t matter, then even the sky’s not a limit.)
For example, I created Major Challenger, a Power Level 10 hero, who is an interdimensional astronaut who explored subatomic universes until his diminution device malfunctioned, trapping him on Earth as a 30-foot tall giant. Via the remaining functions of the diminution device, he can shrink down to one-sixth his normal size. Major Challenger is a “street legal” PL 10 character built with the standard budget of 150 power points. If you’d like to take a gander at Major Challenger, click here.
M&M can also be used to create specific effects that model a movie hero’s special abilities. Who can forget that time when Batman used his hypnotic dance skills to get the drop on King Tut and his goons? Don’t you wish your hero could do the Batusi? Of course you do.
The Batusi Effect: Perception-Ranged, Concentration-Duration, Cumulative Affliction; Limited to Two Degrees with Instant Recovery. Cost:2 points per rank.
You perform a stunning series of improvised but fascinating dance moves. Those able to see you get a Dodge resistance check. If successful, they suffer no effects from your dance (although that also means they can’t see you). Targets who see your dance must make a Will resistance check against your effect DC. One degree of failure renders a target entranced by your performance. Two degrees of failure makes the target helpless. In subsequent turns, if you take a standard action to continue dancing, targets who can see you must make new resistance checks. Those who watch your dance long enough likely end up defenseless due to the cumulative effects of your sweet moves. Affected targets recover at the end of the turn you stop dancing (no resistance check required).
Some games I at least think I’d enjoy playing more than I’d enjoy GMing. One of these games is Green Ronin Publishing’s Mutants & Masterminds (M&M). It has all the makings of a great game: a relatively simple system, a unified dice mechanic, point-based character creation, and (if you’re into that kind of thing) an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink core setting that clearly respects the genre. I love M&M more in theory than in practice, however.
Hero creation is M&M is a bit laborious (although pales in comparison to Champions and GURPS Supers). If one plays with folks that are either a bit spotty on their basic math skills and/or think superhero games are about building the do-it-all but never-gets-hurt character, then M&M can be frustrating. The frustration appears with players who don’t respect (or know) the genre and/or the parameters of the GM’s campaign. I’ve run into the latter more than once.
Years and years ago with people whom I no longer game with, I tried running an urban, four-color hero game. The hero’s were expected to be heroic. I thought I’d made this clear, but that didn’t stop one player from showing up with a murderous speedster who acquired and maintained his powers by stealing crack cocaine from the drug dealers that he killed. Another player showed with a teen-angst loner that frequently insisted on being a team of one.
Ug.
M&M’s first edition was a bit wonky, and much of this wonkiness was fixed with the second edition. M&M’s third edition, however, is even better. It retains the vestiges of its d20 System roots, even going so far as to change the standard six ability scores (STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, and CHA) to eight ability scores (Strength, Agility, Fighting, Awareness, Stamina, Dexterity, Intellect, and Presence). Green Ronin also tips their hat to TSR’s iconic Marvel Super Heroes (MSH) with color-coded Damage Resistance Matrix that evokes nicely MSH’s Universal Table.
Since it’s been a while since I made up a M&M villain, here’s a new one inspired by Boris Karloff. I used the Crime Lord from the M&M Gamemaster’s Guide as the base for the Monster.
Francis Stein, also known as the Monster, claims to have been created by the Doctor Victor Von Frankenstein in Ingolstadt, Bavaria. Abused and neglected for years, Stein escaped his evil creator and lived as a fugitive either in the wilderness or on the outskirts of society. Over the decades, Stein accumulated a remarkable education and impressive skills. Stein leveraged his education and skills, along with his superhuman physical abilities, into a career as a mob enforcer, rising through the ranks by a combination of cunning, violence, and longevity. Today, Stein dominates a criminal empire involved in extortion, gambling, and smuggling.
Francis Nathan Stein aka The Monster Power Level 8
Later this month at my new school, I’m almost certainly going to revive Ludi Fabularum, the after-school story game club that I’ve facilitated before. I’m leaning heavily toward starting participants out with M&M‘s third edition. (Nota Bene: That’s an affiliate link.) If I do, I’m likely to use some variation on the Marvel Universe. I figure most if not all of the participants will have seen the MCU movies at a minimum.
The Horn of Valhalla’s echoing note opens a portal to Asgard and calls forth up to four average Asgardians. It is rumored that more powerful Horns of Valhalla summon Asgardian warriors, Valkyries, fire giants, and so forth. The most powerful Horn of Valhalla, held by Heimdall, reportedly summons an entire army of Asgardians.
Horn of Valhalla:Summon 5 (Extras: Active, Horde, Multiple Minions 2 [4 Average Asgardians]; Flaw: Easily Removable) [Cost: 8/rank, 29 points]
A bit more than six years ago, I presented Shaolin Beaver, illustrated by the phenomenal Darren Calvert, as a hero for the second edition of Mutants & Masterminds. You check him out at this link. Here’s the short version: Edward is a humanoid beaver with remarkable kung fu skills. He’s not sure if he’s the last of his people, and so he travels the land, doing good deeds and searching for others of his kind, all the while trying to avoid the xenocollectors.
Here’s Shaolin Beaver for M&M‘s third edition. (Nota Bene: That’s an affiliate link.)
