GMing my first M&M game...help!

[7Samurai]

I come to this vast repository of knowledge for help for a new GM to M&M.

I've GM'd Spycraft in the past and found it to be fairly easy to do and making story's wasn't a big problem. Actually, i'm taking my Spycraft story (which got prematurly ended) and making the characters into superheros. That way I can use my old story which they still have no idea about and just go with it. It was going to become much more comic bookish anyway in the second arch.

My issue is, the players would like to start at power level 5 since they will just be getting their powers and want to roleplay learning them and dealing with them. That's all well and good, but I've read many things here about it being hard to use the core rules for characters under PL10 since that's what the book bases everything off. I've heard of alternate rules and whatnot, do these apply for a PL5 character? Or should i just take the points and have them build?

Any helpful hints or guidence would be greatly appreciated by myself and i'm sure others who are just starting M&M.

Thank you.

 

[dcollins]

I just got done playing 2 weeks with PL5 heroes and it worked out fine, didn't really occur to any of us that there might be a problem with it. The only thing I could imagine is if someone trotted out a party of PL10 villains from the book (our GM makes all his own villains, along with extensive backstories and art resources, etc.)

Now that I think of it, I guess I'll link to his site (formerly using Heroes Unlimited rules): http://www.bigfella.com/base.dir/BASE.html

 

[WayneLigon]

It sounds cool, esp if they are rank beginners or you really want to play up the 'grim and gritty' street-level action. Just make sure they know that guns at PL 5 are deadly things, even to someone who is suppossed to be 'invulnerable' or has a force-field. Your normal gun is a Weapon with Lethal damage at +5, which means their DC on a Damage Save is going to be 20. Protection at their full PL will take 5 off that. A Force Field at +5 will add 5 to their damage save. For someone with a Con of 16, that gives FF-Guy a +8 on his damage save to resist a 20.

 

[billd91]

It shouldn't be hard to play with PL5 in M&M. Just keep in mind that PL5 characters aren't really superheroes in the typical sense. They may be people with very limited powers, one true-superpower, or highly skilled agents. You won't see an Iron Man or Wolverine at PL5. The characters just don't have the points for that much power and still be well-rounded.
You certainly won't be able to trot out a lot of PL10 villains as dcollins points out. You might want to take a good hard look at Crooks for many varying-level mook examples. Take a couple of PL5-8 mooks from that list and treat them as the main villains rather than mooks and you probably have a good set of appropriate opponents.
PL5 might make for a good James Bond or Sax Rohmer-Fu Manchu style campaign where the character is clearly better than your average man on the street but not truly superhuman. In the case of a James Bond game, I might consider lifting the PL limits on skill ranks and reduce their cost so that you get 3 ranks for each point spent.
If you're really set on having fledgling superheroes, suggest that the PCs start at a higher PL like 8 (which I think helps buy up some good powers) or have them buy a base power without a lot of extras (if any) or supporting powers and then have them expand that power as they gain experience and graduate to new PLs.

 

[Emiricol]

I've done PL5. It was interesting, but wasn't too difficult to pull off. Also, most normal handguns are PL3 not PL5 (up through 9mm) so a PC with full protection or a full Force Field is going to have a 50% chance of taking a Hit with any shot that hits them. cover is vital - give the PCs lots of it and the enemies less of it.

Also, heroes have HP and mooks don't so the PCs should be able to survive just about anything PL5-8 that you throw at them. I too recommend using mooks, not real villains, except possibly as the BBEG if done carefully.

One thing - do NOT give your mooks/villains Penetrating Attack. It'll be tempting, but the danger of combat goes WAY up if you use it at those PLs. PL5 is very, very highly trained human or very, very low-level superheroes, basically. Use foes appropriate to that and you'll do great.

 

[7Samurai]

These are great suggestions, thank you all very much!

This new damage system scares me a bit since it seems to be very lethal. I'm going to keep the thugs, just thugs and try to raise their power levels briskly. The way many of you are describing it as a James Bond type power level, i think that will fit well since this will still be a Spy-like game though it will get much more fantastic. Is raising power levels quickly a bad thing? I'd really like to be as comfortable as my players with this game and say no if i can. Bringing them up to 10 in quick manner (7+ sessions) can't be all bad, as long as my thugs and villians raise accordingly.

So my thugs should generally be PL5 or below and carry 9mm pistols for easing in, got it.

 

[d4]

This new damage system scares me a bit since it seems to be very lethal.

no, it's not lethal at all. in fact, it's very hard to kill someone in M&M without using optional rules. it is easy to knock someone unconscious if they don't have good defenses, however. even with that, though, the PCs have their Hero Points to protect them.

a good Defense score (from BDB, Super-Dex, or Super-Speed) can protect you from getting hit in the first place. or Armor, Protection, or Force Field can protect you from taking damage (and "bounce" most bullets and other mundane weapons). Hero Points can allow re-rolls for damage saves, improve your Defense by +5 for a round, eliminate 5 Stun hits, recover from being stunned, knocked unconscious, or disabled, and escape from death. Remind the players to use Hero Points if they complain about combats being too rough!

So my thugs should generally be PL5 or below and carry 9mm pistols for easing in, got it.

if your PCs are PL5, you probably don't want your "thugs" to be PL5. your mooks and thugs should be PL2 or 3, with PL5 reserved for the villains who can easily give your players a run for their money. a PL8-10 villain will most likely mop the floor with a PL5 party.

 

[Von Ether]

The gritty of a PL 5 game is mostly how you envision the game world and the "front loaded" powers in MnM.

If you envison a game world where there aren't any high-tech force fields and a player takes Incorpreal, be prepared to ad-lib.

Running a PL 5 game can be fun, but you should put some forethought into it. Is the game never going to reach PL 10? You might want to make skill cheaper. If you allow Incorpreal or Invisibilty and Explosives, you'll want some high-tech gadgets with See Invisible or Force Feild.

Be prepared to see a lot of feats since they are cheap. (I stopped my game when I saw that most of players had the same 9 feats that let them have 4 attacks around and mow down mooks endlessly).

Last, but not least. If you are nervous about a combo, tell the player no.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Feats in M&M

What if you upped the price of feats to say 5 points? Would that decrease the feat happiness of the game? Or is 5 too high?

 

[d4]

What if you upped the price of feats to say 5 points? Would that decrease the feat happiness of the game? Or is 5 too high?

i think that'd be too high. feats are priced appropriately at 2pp, IMO. like Von Ether says, a M&M GM must learn the power of "NO."