[Simple Man]

Originally Posted by WillyPete

I do have some serious problems with the game...

I can see where you're coming from, as I had many serious problems with the first edition. When it gets right down to it, the only major thing I like better about 1E is the artwork.

In some ways it's an improvement, but in a lot of ways, what they did made the game extraordinarily incompatible with First editon, for very little gain...

Well, it is a second edition, not a 1E reprint, and most games have a tendency to change rules between editions. I don't see an issue, because you can stat relatively the same character in both editions (as exemplified by the Hero Archetypes, which changed very little between editions)

Getting rid of Powers as an Extra makes it a lot harder to do (pardon the use of Champions terminology) 'Elemental Control' characters (Iceman, Silver Surfer, many others), while the 'Alternate Power' concept makes it a lot easier to make some very 'odd' Green Arrow types ("Now, where did I put that Power Cosmic Arrow?" "I think it's rigth next to your Hellfire Arrow, Ollie!"}

Don't see an issue here, Cold Control (page 78) is all about the Iceman (Actually, and I say this truthfully, it took me longer to figure out how to do Iceman with 1E, as I looked up Elemental Control first because Cold isn't mentioned on the big power chart).

One of the things I like about the new edition's Powers section is highlighted power names (I noticed as I was looking up the above). Much more flip-friendly.

Alternate Power is a good way to make (say) Iceman. Or even Spiderman's Webshooters (which can Snare and Create Objects, but aren't great at doing both at once).

I did think the segregating of the Blast powers was a bit redundant, though.

One that I'm very disappointed in is the idea that your 'Mystique' type characters (used to be Shapechange, now it's 'Morph') can no longer duplicate the DNA of whoever they're imitating...

If I were GMing, I'd call that a Power Feat. 1 PP please.

I wasn't impressed by the old Gadgets rules, but I'm not real impressed by the replacement, either... Some work on that might be appreciated. Does make me glad that I never bought Gimmick's Guide to Gadgets, though!

I can't really comment, because all I saw was improvement. The sections are far to large for me to speculate.

The old 'Minions' rules were a bit of a pain, especially for a highly-charaismatic character...
Not enough Minions to do a proper Villain Agency, but WAY too many for the GM to keep track of, especially since they were of many different levels...

But the new 'Minions'? Did anybody stop and take a look at these numbers before they went to press?
Do you really want your Player Characters to flood the streets of your Campaign City with 1000 Minions at a time? Or, worse yet, create 1000 'Heroic' (Non-Minion) Duplicates in a single round?

It's called GM arbitration, and neither set of minions rules works without it.

I still think that Second Edition is the Second-best Shperhero RPG out there (right behind first edition), and the rules are a lot clearer, and less ambiguous than in first...

Something for us to agree on: I also believe that M&M2e is the second best superhero RPG out there. Only my 1st place belongs to MEGS (and has for years).

but it is not an unqualified improvement!

True, but no new editions of any games are unqualified improvements. At least that, and all the above, has been in my experience.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic (and really hope I don't read that way). I'm just trying address the issues you saw with 2E.