Anyone got tips for playing Mutants and Masterminds 3?

>>51447988
Try not to have combats that are just straight slogfests, and don't be afraid to have some jobber enemies to insure that your players feel powerful as superheroes (if that's what you're running). even if you're not gonna do that, be careful how much toughness you give an enemy.

Be sure to have a secondary goal in mind (saving civilians, shutting down a volatile machine/bomb that will cause more harm than good if its destroyed the old fashion way). Play to a character's strengths, then their weaknesses, but give them opportunities to shine.

Also, big one for this system: Descriptors are important. They determine the nature of a power outside of its base effect.

Some powers might not work the best for a certain campaign concept.

>>51447988
The game is more fun when people go for a coherent character theme than a grab bag of the best powers and abilities available. Try to have your players describe their characters' abilities and how they all work before touching the mechanics.

Oversee the character creation process, and be fully aware of what each of the characters are capable of doing. This is more important than anything, because M&M lets players start off with abilities that can flat out invalidate problems you come up with. Find out what your party can do, and then build around that.

Building on the previous point, watch out for the Variable power or Alternate Effects that lets characters invest their PP on the fly; most GMs flat out ban it, but it's alright if it's used in moderation, like an elemental hero who gets a different movement-themed power based on what element he is.

Watch out for the Modifiers section that can add extra effects to existing powers, or anything that might let players cheese their way around the power level cap. I've seen characters use the Subtle modifier to convince their GM to let them always have surprise attacks in order to maximized their chance of hitting, or the Indirect modifier (mixed with a few other abilities) to attack any problem from anywhere in the world.

Finally, and generally just building on all of this, don't let your players bully you into saying 'yes'. Mutants and Masterminds isn't designed to be a perfectly balanced game, it's designed to be high-flying adventures that lets people make their superhero right out of the gate, which means your job of making sure everyone is balanced against each other is more important than ever.

>>51448268
Good call with the secondary goals. One player character has a really strong power (water control 20) with a built in weakness (water must be contiguous, electrocution). We'll see how often I need to abuse him and vice versa.

>>51447988

Usogui is so underrated.

>>51448307
Fortunately I am working hand-in-hand with the players, and we're basing it off an existing IP so everyone gets the flavor of the game and about how powerful they should be. What kind of abuses/invalidations have you seen? The one player who hasn't picked a character yet is a notorious min-maxer.

>>51449469
Don't let anyone with a physics/engineering degree/inclination out of your sight during chargen.
The system is really broken if you just go by the numbers. It's a great narrative system, so play a good story. Players who try and line up ten people with telekinesis need to be smacked.

>>51449469
M&M is pretty good about minmaxing, I'm sure you already know, since the PL limits everyone's bonuses. Don't let players trade out bonuses too much-- having a +20 Toughness in return for a +0 Dodge will make them nigh invulnerable, and vise versa. Mostly watch out for anything that would let a crafty player bypass the given power levels without using raw numbers.

Immunities are a big one, since if you play your cards right you can ignore most everything that can feasibly get thrown at you. There's also means for players to turn themselves ethereal/into energy (with the Insubstantial power) and hide where nobody could feasibly find them, yet still participate fully in combat or any other situation with Indirect/Subtle modifiers on their powers. Regeneration and Immortality aren't limited by the PL cap, which would let any player so inclined make their character untouchable by proxy of coming back to life a round after they're knocked out. Summoning is vulnerable for breakage, as there's nothing stopping a player from investing into building an army as a standard action, and doing it all again if any of them go down.

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but there's definitely more. Just don't make the mistake of outright banning anything because it has the potential to be broken-- talk with how your player intends to use it, and make decisions based on that.

>>51447988
Get a theme. Stick to it. Don't grab bag shit. And don't take your theme and throw it on it's ear until you have two years (24 sessions in comic-speak) of comic behind you. Also, think in arcs and if you can, foreshadow the next arc in the previous two.

Other then that, I've seen some good suggestions around here. Mooks, good. Oversee characters, check. Interesting combats, not just rollfests, mandatory.