Running With a Tangent

In addition to being a father, a technical writer, and GMing City of Destiny here for the Untold Stories Project, I am also a part of the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA). The Household I am a part of has an official motto that is about being of service. But our unofficial motto is “If you beat a dead horse long enough, it becomes funny again.”

And so it came to pass that I was watching the recap of Netherwar Episode 48: A Selection of Sacrifices and the jokes that arose surrounding the Ferroberg Four’s Kid-Kid, and all of the jokes that arose surrounding him, such as his pet, Dog-dog, his car, Car-car, and his mentor, Man-Man. What those of you watching the stream didn’t see was the calls in our private Discord Channel where my players in City of Destiny were asking to fight Man-Man.

Now, “Man-Man” is about as stupid of a superhero name as you can get. Following the conventions of superhero naming, it would be a man with the power of… a man? Not much of a power, really. But it set my brain to thinking…

Man-Man could be an “everyman” type hero. A man with the ability to be literally any human. Kind of the ultimate spy and infiltrator. But could that be an effective PC? I thought it could. And so, my brain went down several strange roads, ultimately landing on the following.

Man-Man aka John Dough

Man-Man (real name, John Dough) has 4s in all of his abilities. If you were to translate those 4s into the world’s most well-known RPG, that would translate to an 18, which is as good as a human normally gets, but isn’t superhuman. His defenses are bought up a little beyond that, giving him an 8 Fortitude and Will, and 10s in Dodge and Parry, with a Toughness of 8 including his Defensive Roll advantage.

As far as his powers go, Man-Man is a little light, with only 21 points spent on powers. And in this case, his powers allow him to change his body and face into that of any humanoid, and allows him to speak, read, and understand all languages.

It’s really in his advantages that Man-Man is made. Essential abilities for Man-Man include Beginner’s Luck, Eidetic Memory, and Jack of All Trades. Jack of All Trades allows him to make an attempt at using any skill in the game. With 4s in all of his abilities, that isn’t a huge bonus, but it’s more than enough to allow him to get by as an everyman. Eidetic Memory provides a +5 to remember things, including any and all Expertise skills, so Man-Man can get by with a +9 to most Expertise checks that would come up while impersonating someone. And his Beginner’s Luck advantage lets him spend a Hero Point to get a +5 to any skill for the duration of a scene (he doesn’t have more than 4 ranks in any of his skills) if he needs the boost. He also has Skill Mastery: Deception, letting him make a routine check for Deception under tense circumstances.

Rounding him out for combat, he has Improvised Weapons at Rank 5, Throwing Mastery at Rank 4, and both Close Combat, Ranged Combat, and Defensive Roll at Rank 4. This effectively gives him a +10 to attack checks at close range, a +12 at range, and an 8 rank damage effect as long as there is something close enough for him to grab to use as an improvised weapon.

That makes up the mechanical elements of “Man-Man”, but it doesn’t tell us who he is. In my experience, a character’s personality most often becomes revealed by their Complications. In the case of Man-Man, I thought that for a shapechanger who can be any person and knows a little bit about everything, it would be kind of interesting if he didn’t know who he really was. And so a background began to form. John Dough is an operative – I envisioned him as working for AEGIS, but it could be any group. His powers were granted to him by this organization, but they locked away his memories and his true identity, promising to restore them when he completes his work for the agency.

From a pure “game efficiency” point of view, Man-Man is a little underpowered both offensively and defensively for being PL10, but not so much so that he would be unplayable – and with a little experience, he could easily catch up. But Man-Man should also never be on the front line of a battle. He’s a spy, an infiltrator, and then has enough combat abilities to assist a team or get himself out of a scrape.

And of course, you could go a very different direction with the name. “Man-Man” could just as easily be the ultimate dudebro expression of toxic masculinity, full of stupid and muscles and beer.

It started as a joke, but the final character is one I would happily play in a “street-level” or vigilante campaign. I probably wouldn’t keep the name of “Man-Man,” but it was a fun place to start. All of which just goes to show that inspiration for a Mutants & Masterminds character can come from anywhere, even the stupidest of jokes. Your options are only limited by your imagination. Now, go out there and be heroes!