RPG Review: Mutants and Masterminds

Pen and Paper Role Playing Games are great excuses to get together with friends for an evening and have some creative fun. At their best, they are dynamic and full of intriguing atmosphere. But not all RPG's are created equal. They all have their ups and downs, their strong points and their room for improvement. So, what actually makes a good RPG and is Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds one of them?

The qualities of a "good" RPG are subjective, but not impossible to determine. In the end, it's all about player preference. Some people like a crunchier, rules-centered game with stats and systems that can be optimized only with meticulous attention to detail. Other people enjoy a more loose experience that favors the story aspect of the game, preferring to leave the mechanics as little more than scaffolding.

Mutants and Masterminds would be much better for those who fall into the latter category, especially those who are willing to eschew the rules. While many of the innovations in M&M are elegant and nicely thought out, others basically come down to hindrances.

So, let's talk about the good first. M&M employs an extremely stripped-down version of the d20 system developed by Wizards of the Coast, the current owners of the seminal RPG Dungeons and Dragons. The version found in M&M is as simple as it gets. All rolls, no matter what, involve only a single, 20-sided die. Players simply add the relevant numbers from their character sheets to the roll to determine a success or failure. So far, this is the cleanest system I've ever seen, far outstripping the complicated, multi-die methods of other games.

Mutants and Masterminds is also open-ended enough to allow players to make whatever kind of story they want. There is no meta-plot, no stereotypical game races or rigid class system. For the experienced Game Master who likes building worlds from the ground up, this setting is ideal.

My first major qualm with M&M is the counter-intuitive damage system. While most RPG's adopt some form of the Hit Point system, M&M has a "damage condition" system that makes gameplay needlessly complicated and often gets in the way of actually letting players do, well, anything. Some damage conditions temporarily lower a character's vital stats, others render him or her incapable of taking actions, or even penalize actions with further damage conditions. The Hit Point system may not be very realistic, but at least it keeps the action moving instead of grinding everything to a halt.

But my biggest problem with Mutants and Masterminds is just how easy it is to break the game. Because there is no class system, any character can take on any super power listed in the book. It takes a tremendous amount of willpower to not simply take any ability that is convenient at the time, no matter how nonsensical it is. While in theory it's great to be able to make a character who can fly, read minds and control fire, in practice it makes for an increasingly absurd atmosphere. The abilities themselves range from the comically useless, like "Trip", to the utterly overpowered, like "Minions". In the case of a super hero classic, "Flight", it's all too easy to make a character who can go fast enough to reach any point in the world instantly. M&M just isn't demanding enough of players to make getting impressive abilities seem like anything but a throwaway.

Ultimately, Mutants and Masterminds is a fun concept for comic book fans and anyone who ever imagined shooting lasers from their eyes, but it's also troubled by flawed mechanics masquerading as innovations. With some retooling, Mutants and Masterminds could be one of the best games on the market.