How can I run a good Mutants and Masterminds campaing? What stuff should I read...

How can I run a good Mutants and Masterminds campaing? What stuff should I read? How can I make an engaging experience for my players?

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>How can I run a good Mutants and Masterminds campaing?
First discuss what kind of superhero stuff they want to do; Avengers and Justice League are different from Marvel Knights or Batman or Suicide Squad for example, and "superhero" is more of a character archetype then a proper genre at this point.
>What stuff should I read?
Classic comic books. From the pre-00's.
You can rip off so many stories and there is a close to 100% chance your players won't even recognize the references except in the most obvious and famous comic book storylines, sometimes not even then.
>How can I make an engaging experience for my players?
This is more of a general question rather then an M&M one. Do you usually have trouble engaging them?

>How can I make an engaging experience for my players
Well, you need time to figure out what your players like to do. Some are there to experience a great story, some are there to beat the world into submission, some are just along for the ride. There is no general answer, because it is very dependent on your particular players.

>First discuss what kind of superhero stuff they want to do
Yeah, can't really emphasize this one too much.
If you have a magical girl, a batman, and a space alien the tone gets kinda iffy pretty fast.

Unless that mix-matching is the goal, I guess.

find out what the players want to be, that will help you with the setting. Captain Tightpants vs the idiotic furry space pirates in their flying wooden ship is very different than Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

My group is now:
>magical girl
>girl that goes invisible
>edgy mercenary
>iron man ripoff

Basically

Be very clear from the beginning what sort of campaign and setting it is, so that your players can build appropriate characters.

Be sure to impress on the players that narrative is imporant and to build the character they want to play, not the character they "need" to play. An easy barometer towards character fidelity is to ask your players this question:
>Would you legitimately, unironically read a comic book or watch a Saturday morning cartoon about your character?
If the answer is "no," they need to start over.

If it's your typical kitchen sink supers, one thing you can try is to basically let each player narrate their own intro. Let them stop a small crisis of their own design, and let them showcase who they are and what their powers do and look like. Let them feel legitimately heroic on their own before you bring them into the fold of whatever story you're telling.

You can also have your players help flesh out the universe by letting them set up their own rogue's gallery, if any. They don't have to mechanically build them, but they can have one or two villains designed specifically for their character. This helps them establish themselves in the world, and it gives you material to work with.

If something breaks mechanically, change it. Don't let overpowered stuff linger, and don't try to get in an arms race with your players; it never ends well.

>don't try to get in an arms race with your players
explain that

Don't try to match a player's broken shit with your own broken shit. It is notoriously easy to break M&M, even by accident, and the game knows it. They ask you to be mature and place emphasis on the narrative instead of the mechanical where you can.

>Don't try to match a player's broken shit with your own broken shit. It is notoriously easy to break M&M, even by accident, and the game knows it. They ask you to be mature and place emphasis on the narrative instead of the mechanical where you can.

This. Learn to say no when it's clearly going to be gamebreaking.

Don't do this

Make sure one isn't expecting Sailor Moon, one isn't expecting Iron Man, and another isn't expecting to be be playing Call of Duty.

I am going to be continuing a game with a solo player after the first game I ran fizzled out due to lack of team chemistry. How well does this game handle solo play? She's a kaiju-shapechanger with Summon and a Healing cloud/damage hybrid AoE.

Might also run a street masks game set in a Bloodborne-esque survival horror modern day, any suggestions involving that would be nice.

As long as you're playing to the character's strengths, it should be fine.

I'll keep that in mind, last thing I want is to have is to put a PC against something they're completely useless against.

Also, for some reason, the group I ran it with in particular doesn't seem to like the system for some reason, mainly because of the "swingy" rolls or the fact that you mainly use an ability and wait for an opponent to make a save.

Pretty much this. Discuss tone and style of the campaign ahead of time.

Speaking of this game, is there a core book or something? What is it called? One of my players wants to but it for me.

shitty picture op

The only truly core book (if you're playing 3e) is the Hero's Handbook. Everything else is supplementary, although the Gamemaster's Guide provides a bunch of extra info and guidance on running games.

That said, as supplements go (apart from the GM's guide), honorable mention goes to the Power Profiles and Gadget Guides. These are quick-reference pamphlets, really, that provide inspirations and sample powers for a large raft of power sets and equipment types; this can help ease the process of building a cahracter greatly, as there's plenty of ready-made powers and sample material.

Also, major ups to the Gamemaster's Kit (posted here), which provides a very handy quickgen system that lets you roll up a fully statted PL10 character on the spot. Note that the Deluxe Hero's Handbook has the quickgen built in, but it's still nice to have.

There's other supplements out there, like the Threat Report (handy sample supervillain repository, closest thing to a "Monster Manual" the game has), the Supernatural Handbook (for running pseudo-eldritch and bump-in-the-night stuff like vampires and whatnot), and the Cosmic Handbook (for space adventures and cosmic-tier heroics).

Also, I lied. The Gamemaster's Guide has the closest thing to a proper Monster Manual, since it gives you villain styles, tactics and samples, as well as other things you can throw at your players like different types of crisis. The Threat Report is just a bunch of sample villains from the system's stock setting, though I'm sure there's stuff you can pull from there.

With all that out in the open, you can find all these books (and more) here:
mediafire.com/folder/026war1l4oo42/Mutants_and_Masterminds

>Solo games
I don't get how you do this without it being way too awkward man, how's it worked for you in the past?

I have done it twice and it's not that bad. If things get too complicated for one guy, just trhow a couple of NPCs to help him