One week, my roleplaying group and I were looking for a system to play as super heroes. My father suggested we avoid Champions, as he played it back in the 80s and said it was ridiculous. Granted, that was first edition, but we decided to heed his advice. My friend suggested Mutants and Masterminds, but our local gaming store didn't have it at the time. Then we spotted DC Adventures, which was published by the same people that publish Mutants and Masterminds, Green Ronin.
Creating a super hero is fairly complex, and this system is no exception. After reading over the book again and again, I was able to (I think) determine how the system worked. However, I found it extraordinarily difficult to teach over the course of rolling characters. Also, the world of DC Comics has some ludicrous powers that can be quite game breaking, like the ability to immune to all physical everything.
The pre-generated heroes and villains were interesting, as they already had a form of balance in the way that super heroes have silly weaknesses. Some heroes - looking at you, Superman - were definitely stronger than others. If you're looking to play as actual DC heroes, this system book series might be right for you.
One thing I really enjoyed about the DC Adventures system was how damage was done. If an attack hits, there is a set damage value, which becomes a Difficulty Check on a d20, where the receiver of the damage tests his Fortitude. Based on degrees of failure, the receiver gets dealt so much damage, but it wasn't in the form of hit points. Damage was dealt as a -1 penalty to Fortitude, thus making it harder for you to resist more damage. Eventually, when you fail by four degrees, you are defeated. It was much better than having hit points in a super hero setting, and it felt like we were playing super heroes and villains.
The problem I unavoidably had was that it became increasingly difficult to either (a) involve the entire group of players or (b) create a challenge for the entire group at once. For my campaign, I created one mega-villain to be the first sort of story arch, but in order to make him able to fight all the players at once, he was kind of outrageously powerful. With more experience and tweaking, I might be able to create a more reasonable villain, but if you have a team of super heroes, you kind of need one all-powerful badass smashing the town around.
Another problem I had was that this really is a system for metagamers. Unless the game master lays down some rules (which I did), it is really easy for some to create a super hero that is virtually unstoppable. Another problem is that if someone wants to make a very utility-based hero, such as the ability to turn invisible and teleport, but without any attack powers, they basically suck.
In the end, super hero systems are very complicated. This isn't a bad system, nor is it an outstanding system. It might be better suited to actually play within the world of DC, if you're in to it. If you pick this up and plan to run it, study the powers section thoroughly before putting characters to paper.
After reviewing this, SIFRPG, and Serenity RPG, I think I should be aware that if I pick up a system based on an existing world, I should be prepared to play within that world. Often times I am, but I often find that being prepared and actually doing it are two different things.
I might pick up Mutants and Masterminds sometime in the future and write a spotlight on it. We shall see.
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