Mutants and Masterminds Impressions

Hey everybody!
So I am thinking of setting up an in-person RPG day with my friends (either one-shot or only a few sessions), and I have gotten interested in M&M, but I have never played it myself before. A friend of mine told me about it and some of the stuff he did back in 2e, but I was hoping any and all people who had played it before might give me there impressions and opinion on the game. As much insight as I can get!

I love super hero games. M&M is a good one as long as you and your players don't mind some book keeping. Not that M&M has an over abundance of it, but it is higher up on the scale in my opinion. If you are familiar with D&D and/or other d20 systems, it won't be that strenuous.

My two big Pro and Cons follow:

Pro: Once your character is set, play flows easily. The rules have that classic d20 crunchiness with plenty of options to use to make stellar comic-style heroes.

Con: The leveling system often leaves me wanting more. Low-level characters really feel LOW-level. Imagine being told you were going to be a super-hero and you got to join the Avengers or The Justice League. You show up all excited to see what kind of powers you get and they hand you a bow and arrow and the power to talk to fish. Oh and your team mate can fly to the Sun and back and punch gods in the face. Eventually, you gain the super cool powers. You will be able to shoot that bow and take the wings off a fly from around the corner a mile away, and your fish friends will mutate into Godzilla monsters to do your bidding, but it's a long campaign before that happens.

I guess what I'm saying is you have to manage expectations. Make sure your players understand the power level you are starting at and where they potentially are going over the course of the game. 1st level characters aren't going to save the world, maybe the rec. center, possibly their neighborhood.

...I just had to quote this with a "I appreciated this comment." It made me chuckle. :)

I'm really interested in getting a super hero game, but I don't know much about them. M&M is the obvious one, but what others are out there? Which one would you consider "the best" or maybe "the most fun"?

Honestly I have now gotten Mutants and Masterminds 3e, and it is out-of-this-world good. I want to use it as a conversion for every game I play now. It is freaking awesome. There are rules to make almost anything out of it. I'm not totally sure what Maskot was saying about the slow progression either, it doesn't really have levels and my players are doing crazy cool stuff. Not only that, but we are using rules for slightly weaker heroes and they still pull off great feats and fun sessions.

Hell when I get some time, I am hoping to run a game on GP if there is interest.

Yeah, never played M&M, but by what I've heard, 1st and 2nd edition were using some version of D20, and 3rd edition used a completely different system.

Personally, for the super hero genre, I've only tried 2 versions of Marvel Super Heroes and GURPS. Although, I've also heard a lot of good about Champions/Hero.

I'd love to give Mutants and Masterminds a go. Haven't tried a decent superhero game yet.

I'd definitely be interested! I don't have any of the M&M materials though...

3rd edition is entirely on a D20.


There would certainly have to be a solid period of character creation as it is, materials or not, and I love helping people make characters.
This semester is something of a doozy for me unfortunately, I'll probably look into it once I see how the pace of my classes will be. Worst-to-worst it wont be until May when classes finish. Maybe I'll get lucky and I can move towards it sooner.
Anyway, if I made any steps I would post in the tavern as well as here. So keep an eye out!