The Black Campbell

In an earlier post I mentioned I’ve been planning a co-GMed superheroes campaign and have been looking at various system to run it. A few were quickly tossed to the side, even though they’re perfectly serviceable, due to a number of reasons. The old DC Heroes from Mayfair was my leading contender because it’s easy to play and cheap to find on eBay, as it’s been out of print for over a decade. Marvel Superheroes is also quite workable, but I always found it a bit too abstract for things like distance, time, and other issues. Heroes and Champions, which favorites of many, are staggeringly complex (in my opinion) for character creation. The flexibility of these systems is due to rules overload (once again, opinion based on experience with former iterations), kind of like GURPS…I like systems where you can build a character quickly and get moving.

Eventually it was down to Icons and Mutants & Masterminds (I’m reviewing the DC Adventures rebadged game here, but all the mechanical stuff will be the same…) Funnily enough, both are written and designed by Steve Kenson, and it shows. Where Icons is a stripped down supers system with a different dice mechanic, the layout of the chapters, the basic list of powers, etc. is similar. Think of M&M as the loaded mid-szie car to the stripped-down Icons platform; Escorts and Aspires, so to speak.

In the end, I think we’re going with the new M&M, which has ditched much of the early d20 garbage for a much more sleek die mechanic.

First, the product design itself. I’ve got this in .pdf and borrowed the physical book for the review from a friend. The “Hero’s Handbook” is beautifully produced: hardcover with art by Alex Ross. The interior is gloss, heavy-stock paper, full color, with lots of high-quality comic book art done by a multitude of professional comic artists. The binding is very solid. It looks good, it feels good. Which means it is commensurately priced at $40. The electronic format is half that at $20, and is a well-done proof of the book. It resolves quickly on the iPad (my measure for whether an e-book is good or bad), unlike some of the other graphic intensive layouts (like Smallville and Leverage from Margaret Weis, which are CPU hogs and need to be optimized for e-readers.)

The core mechanic is simple: take your ability (like Fighting), power (say, Fire Control), or Skill (Investigation), and any other modifiers, add a d20 roll, beat a target number or opposing roll by the bad guys. Ranks in abilities and powers — as with the old DC Heroes roughly equate to time, weight, information amount, etc. — and are roughly exponential, with each rank being double the power, weight, whatever of the previous rank. It’s open ended but the tables go up to 30, the equivalent of 25k ktons, 4 million mile, 200 years, a billion cubic feet. Above that we’re getting into astronomic proportions. Mostly likely, your campaign will be a bit more modest to start out with.

Character creation is point based and the power level of the campaign ca  be tweaked from masked avengers levels, where the characters are more suprahuman than super, superheros, “Big Leagues” like Batman, or World Protectors like the Green Lantern or Superman. Abilities and powers are bought at a simple x points/rank, and equipment is purchased this way, as well — if you’re a gadget-based hero. There’s also hero points gained through play and used to alter scenes, activate some features of powers, better rolls, cut damage, etc. Pretty standard stuff now, but it was still newfangled when DC Heroes did it in the 1980s.

The big plus: gadgets aren’t a complete kludged mess in M&M like they were in DC Heroes. (If you get the impression DCH was my go-to supers system in the ’80s/early ’90s, you’d be right.)

Combat is straightforward, save for “damage” which is conditional…no hit points. You can be compelled or controlled by powers, dazed or incapacitated by damage, fatigued or impaired by environmental conditions, just to nake a few. they can combine and stack to work against you. If it sounds confusing, on first pass, it is. Mostly this is an attempt to give GMs a bit more wiggle room in describing injuries or power effects, but until I play the system, I can’t comment on how well it will work. (This seems to be a popular new way of handling damage or “stresses”, as it’s called in Smallville. I like the idea, but the execution could be off-putting to new role players, is my gut feeling.)

The DC-branded campaign elements are handled well, without getting too involved. In Chapter 10, it gives a glossed over review of the DC Universe (Multiverse?) history, the campaign specific cities, locales, planets, etc. There’s coverage of multi-dimensional travel and the various “Earths” of the DC comics. Chapter 11 gives a run down on the various heroes and villains of the universe.

Overall, there’s a boatload of style to the book’s look, the way they handle powers and their effects and flaws: 5 out of 5. Substance: there’s enough crunch to satisfy all but the spreadsheets for characters crowd, but it’s not too heavy handed. The DC background is good enough to run, but might seem a bit slim for DC comics fans (in which case you have the background material…it’s called your comics collection.) Substance: 5 out of 5.

Is it worth $40? In comparison to similarly priced games? Yup. Is it worth $20 for the e-book? Definitely.