More Mutants More Masterminds

How I went about putting together a game for Mutants & Masterminds (which I have still yet to run)

We previously etablished that after years of playing around with the system, I had settled on a 2.5 Edition as a mix of 2e  d20 core and 3e versatility in powers and effects.  Part of the reason I settle on this was that I assumed most players would be coming from a D&D background.

Many of the following points will be familiar to my discussion of Star Wars.  Since it is an unfamiliar system, and not one designed around advancement, I opt for a "quick shot" of sessions. I assume players will want to play brand name heroes (or something very close). 

While DC is personally my jam, the Avengers/MCU and Netflix shows were the owners of the zeitgeist. The Avengers, being top tier heroes and the movies being interlocked feels too restrictive for how I want to run a licensed game.  So I settle for the nice street level Netflix "Defenders".  The bonus at the time was the shows were in purgatory with impending cancellation, freeing my up continuity-wise.

So first things was stating out the characters using my two-tier characters sheet (one tab to build/one tab to reference during play).  I wanted to make sure the characters were balanced against one another.  Jessica Jones and "Iron Fist" can damage Luke Cage.  Iron Fist is better 1v1 and Daredevil can sweep a room.  I also throw in Punisher, which was an interesting challenge, since his powers are Guns and Rage.  Its not too long before I have them dialed in at PL 8 and a good idea of what they can take on.  I also throw in Blade, because I want too.

So, what will be the threat?  I went back and forth on ideas, what is something that will be more interesting than a bunch of ninja's or special forces, but not TOO big for this group.  Thankfully the movies ended up delivering.  "The SNAP" gives the perfect opportunity, major heroes are gone, the worlds is in disarray, and our heroes need to step up.  And because of studio politics, there will never be any worries of continuity (so I should not have to worry about rewriting this if we don't play for awhile - which is proving to be the case)

 Generating content is easy, maps of NYC, quick stats for police, ninja, special forces, generic goons.  But I need a villain for them to face off in a climactic battle and the mastermind behind it all.  I think Tombstone is unaccounted for and would make a good fit.  Also he is obscure enough I can tweak his power level to be threatening to the whole party. Taking cues from other media, it looks like he is distributing drugs laced with terrigen to create inhumans in order to force a conflict between the populace and enforcement agencies.  Part of the details are purposely vague at this point to leave me room to adapt and "yes and..." the player's ideas.

The inhuman angle also allows me to throw more "supers" at the party, so I make some low level knock off X-men as baddies as well.  This will allow me to get some practice with battles before the game progresses too far.

One day we will see how it went....