M&M: Cinematic House Rules
Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:31 am
Howdy all. Longtime lurker from the official GR boards.
For the past couple years I've been--extremely intermittently--tinkering with the M&M rules as a tool for playing games set in the MCU and other cinematic (vs. 4-color) superhero settings. This is a thread all about that. I figured this is as good a place as any to start laying out the ideas in more systematic form. Hopefully this will be of interest to others. I'm going to try to post 3-4 times a week, including some character builds, rather than dumping all of this here at once.
These are very much in flux and I love tinkering, so any and all feedback would be appreciated. You all seem like thoughtful folk.
My basic design goals were:
One example of the second goal is to incorporate the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic from D&D 5e as a replacement for large (+4 or +5) circumstance modifiers. Players, in my experience, find this rule very fun, and it has the added benefit of 'respecting' PL limits more than circumstance modifiers do. That seems appropriate for a cinematic superhero universe, where powers more frequently act as trumps.
Obviously this raises the question of how Advantage and Disadvantage relate to Hero Points. Here's how I phrased it on a player handout for a one-shot:
For the past couple years I've been--extremely intermittently--tinkering with the M&M rules as a tool for playing games set in the MCU and other cinematic (vs. 4-color) superhero settings. This is a thread all about that. I figured this is as good a place as any to start laying out the ideas in more systematic form. Hopefully this will be of interest to others. I'm going to try to post 3-4 times a week, including some character builds, rather than dumping all of this here at once.
These are very much in flux and I love tinkering, so any and all feedback would be appreciated. You all seem like thoughtful folk.
My basic design goals were:
- Rationalize power point costs. 3e made skill-based characters very expensive.
- Integrate good design ideas from D&D 4e, 5e, etc.
- Streamline character creation, at least somewhat.
- Make play feel more cinematic and less 4-color.
- Make character stats close enough to M&M 3e that existing stat blocks can be used with minimal on-the-fly conversion.
One example of the second goal is to incorporate the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic from D&D 5e as a replacement for large (+4 or +5) circumstance modifiers. Players, in my experience, find this rule very fun, and it has the added benefit of 'respecting' PL limits more than circumstance modifiers do. That seems appropriate for a cinematic superhero universe, where powers more frequently act as trumps.
Obviously this raises the question of how Advantage and Disadvantage relate to Hero Points. Here's how I phrased it on a player handout for a one-shot:
My next post will be about the biggest change, which is to attributes and skills.Rolls
All rolls use a d20. Rolls can be at several levels, from lowest to highest:Advantage and Disadvantage cancel, no matter how many sources of Advantage or Disadvantage.
- At a Disadvantage: Roll 2 dice, take lowest.
- Normal: Roll 1 die.
- At an Advantage: Roll 2 dice, take highest.
- Heroic: Roll 2 dice. Any number ≤ 10 is treated as if the die showed 10 higher (e.g., 8 becomes 18). Take the highest.
‘Improve one step’ means go to the next best level.
Spending a Hero Point improves your roll by two steps. You can always spend a Hero Point after the initial roll. If you had Disadvantage, you keep the same two die rolls but pick the higher rather than the lower result.