Planescape in Mutants and Masterminds

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Surreal Personae's picture
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Joined: 2005-07-08
Planescape in Mutants and Masterminds

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted here.  Haven't takeen a look at Planescape at all until recently.  Since the release of Warriors and Warlocks (the fantasy supplement for Mutants and Masterminds), I have been pondering the prospects of Planescape in Mutants and Masterminds.  I did a search for previoius threads on the subject, and found that at least one person had run a Planescape game using M&M. 

 As I look over the past discussions, one of the main difficulties it seems was due to the bugaboo of simulating the D&D, Vancian magic.  Would the Magical Mastery power from Warriors and Warlocks address this, at least partially.  Basically, it's a Variable Power Structure that requires you to spend an hour preparing (via spellbooks, prayer, etc) to reallocate your power points into the various desired spell effects, subject to the restrictions of your descriptors. 

 On a more general level, I'd love to hear about others' experience with it and thoughts on it, as well as plots you've done or might think up that takes advantage of the system.  I have been tinkering with some archetypes and templates myself.

Clueless's picture
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Webmonkey
Joined: 2008-06-30
I'm not familiar with the

I'm not familiar with the new release - but would love to see a full conversion writeup for the system. It's one of my favoriate superhero systems. Let me know if you do a full conversion, we'll gladly host it! Smiling

Bob the Efreet's picture
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Joined: 2004-05-11
I don't feel that Vancian

I don't feel that Vancian magic is intrinsic to the Planescape experience at all.

Rather, I'd say it's a fun and interesting idea to have a bunch of different magical systems, seeing as how different folks from different planes are likely to approach wizardry in wildly varying manners.

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Eldan's picture
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The person running this

The person running this game would be me.

However, at the time, I only had the basic M&M book, so I can't comment on Warlocks&Warriors (still don't have it. I'll have to look around). 

Now, I really, really like one of the basic ideas of vancian magic: wizards prepare their spells ahead. Wizards need planning, strategy and insight to figure out what tools they will need in a given situation, long before the situation occurs.

M&M doesn't really work with that, of course, so I dropped the system, working more with innate magic and psionics.

My game collapsed before it even started, partially due to disinterested players, partially due to my own inexperience with the system (I had only ever once used it before, and that was as a player.)

Surreal Personae's picture
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Clueless wrote:I'm not

Clueless wrote:
I'm not familiar with the new release - but would love to see a full conversion writeup for the system. It's one of my favoriate superhero systems. Let me know if you do a full conversion, we'll gladly host it! Smiling

 While I doubt that my efforts at converting will ever be complete, I can post what I have in the Hall of Records.   

Eldan wrote:

The person running this game would be me.

However, at the time, I only had the basic M&M book, so I can't comment on Warlocks&Warriors (still don't have it. I'll have to look around). 

Now, I really, really like one of the basic ideas of vancian magic: wizards prepare their spells ahead. Wizards need planning, strategy and insight to figure out what tools they will need in a given situation, long before the situation occurs.

M&M doesn't really work with that, of course, so I dropped the system, working more with innate magic and psionics.

My game collapsed before it even started, partially due to disinterested players, partially due to my own inexperience with the system (I had only ever once used it before, and that was as a player.)

Variable Power is a power strructure introduced in the Mastermind's Manual and ultimate Power that allows you to configure 5 power points per rank in the Variable Power to different traits that fit your descriptors and what type of Variable Power you have.  Magical Mastery is simply a flawed version of Variablee Power that requires you to spend an hour beforehand preparing the configuration of spells.  So for example, a character with the Wizard descriptor might spend that hour pouring over arcane rule books; if he had two ranks in it he could spend 10 power points in whatever spells the DM and the player agreed he knew.  For example, she might spend 4 of those power points on a perception range blast for Magic Missile, with two-three points for alternate power spells, and maybe a few points in Super-senses for a Magical Awareness (representing Detect Magic) spell.

 As for availability, I've only got the PDF version;W&W is only out on PDF atm (it can be bought at the green ronin store as well as elsewhere).  It's available in print form later this month. 

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