M&M vs. HERO 5th ed.

[Mitchell]

Hm...I just realized the Martial Arts problem could hurt Gold Digger, actually...

Any suggestions?

[Paragon]

Powers built on several powers actually feel like one power in M&M, which they never did in Hero.

Out of curiousity, does that still seem to be the same to you as of the changes in 2e?

[Michael Tree]

There are four aspects of M&M which I prefer over Hero.
1) It's much much quicker in play.

2) M&M mechanics emulate comic books better. Part of this is quickness in play, but the hero points system and the ability to use extra effort to do power stunts / get alternative powers fits the fast and loose nature of comic book superpowers.

2) There's a heck of a lot less bookeeping. Between two different kinds of damage, endurance, recovery, action phases, activation rolls, and so on, Hero has a lot of things to keep track of. M&M has hero points and the number of hits your character has taken, and that's pretty much it. And for minions, GMs don't even have to keep track of that.

3) The game mechanics fade into the background more, both at character creation and during play. Hero characters always felt more like complicated engineering designs, in which the system is an entity in and of itself. In comparison, M&M mechanics feel more like a simple descriptions of what the character can do. In play, there are so many different mechanics in Hero that it takes me out of the play experience. Playing Hero sometimes felt more like an exercise in applied game mechanics than roleplaying a superhero, while M&M's system is so simple and unified that it fades into the background.

[Rene]

The way I see it, superhero RPGs face a big dilemma.

To properly reflect the genre, a superhero RPG must allow for fast-paced action, agile and smooth combat and task resolution, and the spur-of-the-moments developments and power improvisation you so often see in comics.

BUT...

A superhero RPG also must allow for the huge variety of character types and power combinations you see in comics, so it must be pretty complete and inclusive and full of options, and all these options must be reasonably balanced against each other too.

Sometimes these goals seem mutually exclusive.

HERO pass the second test with flying colors, but is pretty bad at the first one. I felt HERO 5e made it even less agile and more cumbersome, with Power Frameworks more complex, and the Power Skill mentioned in this thread is, IMO, still a very timid mechanic to deal with the insane amount of power improvisation you see in comics. HERO is, and probably always will be, too "structured" for it's own good.

The first edition of M&M, IMO, passed the first test, but failed on the second. I know lots of people disagree with me and love M&M 1e dearly, but I still feel the game had some big, glaring flaws, cost imbalances, muddled, confusing, and vague rules, arbitrary divides between power feats and powers themselves, ability scores and super-abilities, etc. etc. etc. It COULD be made to work but seemed to involved a lot of "winging" it and house ruling by the GM, more than I'm comfortable with.

But lo and behold! Now there is a second edition that seems to keep M&M as fast-paced and comic-booky as ever (probably even more so with the power stunt rules) but seems to be much more consistent, rational, logical, and uniform than the first edition. It also seems a lot more complete and I pray this will reduce drasticaly the "faking it" factor.

I can barely wait to buy it and see for myself. Will this one finally be the first superhero RPG ever to pass both tests with flying colors?

[JonathanC]

I've been with M&M since first ed., and I've tried several times to get into the HERO system...in fact, I'm about to be a player in another game, assuming I can muster the strength to finish char gen. I don't mind the complexity of character gen in HERO though, as much as I dislike the combat resolution. Put simply, I've found that Champions combat tends to spend more time figuring out the results of an action than actually...y'know, taking action. M&M combats aren't typically that much faster (at least not in 1.0), because the damage save system and infinite use of one's powers (no END) means that you can duke it out for a very, very long time with two tough combatants (which is as it should be; Hulk vs. Juggernaut is going to take a while to resolve itself)

[Bretbo]

This is a problem I found with the Hero System as well. I like Hero, I really do, but the bookkeeping and slow combat in a superhero Hero game just doesn't fit with me.

Notice I wrote "superhero Hero game." The reason is that I played in a Fantasy Hero game that was a lot of fun and the combats were about as fast as a MnM combat. I believe this was due to the fact that combat is all lethal and everyone had Normal Human (or Elf, Dwarf, ect.) Characteristics. I always said about Hero that its’ how you play the game, not the game your playing.

[Black Mamba]

I've been with M&M since first ed., and I've tried several times to get into the HERO system...in fact, I'm about to be a player in another game, assuming I can muster the strength to finish char gen. I don't mind the complexity of character gen in HERO though, as much as I dislike the combat resolution. Put simply, I've found that Champions combat tends to spend more time figuring out the results of an action than actually...y'know, taking action. M&M combats aren't typically that much faster (at least not in 1.0), because the damage save system and infinite use of one's powers (no END) means that you can duke it out for a very, very long time with two tough combatants (which is as it should be; Hulk vs. Juggernaut is going to take a while to resolve itself)

I take it you never believed in the advantage Reduced END then.

[Michael Tree]

I take it you never believed in the advantage Reduced END then.

Not when it costs a lot of points and reduces the overall effectiveness of the power because of active point limits. One shouldn't have to accept a significantly weaker character just to reduce bookkeeping and speed up gameplay.

[Black Mamba]

I take it you never believed in the advantage Reduced END then.

Not when it costs a lot of points and reduces the overall effectiveness of the power because of active point limits. One shouldn't have to accept a significantly weaker character just to reduce bookkeeping and speed up gameplay.

Active point limits are a GM constuct more then a game constuct. 5E states that a character can have up to 80 AP in powers. How many GM's allow that to include Reduced END? Do not blame the system for a GM issue. And there are also optiona rules to drop Endurance entirely if you do not want to use it.

[Karl Greeny]

The last time I ran a HERO game was my Century City Pulp Heroes game about two or three years ago. I dumped the Speed Chart and END, allowing characters to 'push' powers by using STUN. I also had the Limitations that you could take that instead of using END used STUN.

It went ok, but MAN was there still a lot of book-keeping and in the end I just got bored with that. I still do like parts of HERO but overall it just does not fit my tastes any more. Back when it first came out it was all of 89 pages long. It has grown ALLOT over the years... I worry a bit that M&M is going this way as 2nd ed has a number of additional pages. We will see...

[Black Mamba]

I worry a bit that M&M is going this way as 2nd ed has a number of additional pages. We will see...

When you thrown in all the options from all the Superlink publishers and the various M&M books with rules like the Annual and Gimmicks you can easily see that the game was growing even in 1.0. It will continue to grow just as D&D has. Get used to that.

[Rene]

It went ok, but MAN was there still a lot of book-keeping and in the end I just got bored with that. I still do like parts of HERO but overall it just does not fit my tastes any more. Back when it first came out it was all of 89 pages long. It has grown ALLOT over the years... I worry a bit that M&M is going this way as 2nd ed has a number of additional pages. We will see...

Number of pages don't necessarily correlate with a game system's speed of play. You could summarize HERO's basic combat rules in two or three pages, and it would still take forever to play out a combat. Actually, HERO's combat chapter isn't bigger than most RPG's, if you take in consideration number of pages only.

What makes a RPG slow or fast is the basic rules engine. HERO's is slow, M&M's is fast. Even if you doubled M&M's number of pages and halved HERO's, the games would probably stay the same, as long as the pages added/subtracted concerned only setting details, power options or other systems that are only invocked in specific situations.

[Black Mamba]

What makes a RPG slow or fast is the basic rules engine. HERO's is slow, M&M's is fast.

You are correct in that pages in the book have no bearing on how fast combat is.

The real difference between M&M and HERO is rolling damage dice. Both games:

1 Roll to hit: 3d6 in HERO, 1d20 in M&M. Same basic amount of time.
2 Subract damage: Stun in HERO, CON check in M&M. Slight longer to subtract 22 from 50 in HERO then 1 in M&M, but not much longer.
3 Require Characters to decide what they are going to do: Same amount of time. Slow thinkers think slowly.
4 Have characters go out at about 3-4 hits: 66 stun in HERO, -3 check in M&M.

The difference is that in M&M the defender rolls 1d20 and consults a chart. In HERO the attacker must roll 12d6 and add them all up. If it takes one minute to add the dice and tell the GM, then a 6 hero/6 villain combat takes 12 minutes to complete 1 round of combat. If you use pre-rolled damage or a rolling program/machine that time difference is negated as well.

[Karl Greeny]

Well so long as MORE pages does NOT mean MORE rules then we are ok... so yes the BASIC HERO rules can be distilled down to two or three pages but when they try and cover 'lots of situations' it starts to get over-blow. That is a bit what I worry about with M&M... and why I don't use much if anything from the Annual or GGtG.

[Black Mamba]

Well so long as MORE pages does NOT mean MORE rules then we are ok... so yes the BASIC HERO rules can be distilled down to two or three pages but when they try and cover 'lots of situations' it starts to get over-blow. That is a bit what I worry about with M&M... and why I don't use much if anything from the Annual or GGtG.

Your best bet is to just stick with M&M 1.0. You will just be happier in the long run.