Mutants and Magical Girls (Mutants and Masterminds sorta interest check)

[Angie]

So I have a wild itch to play Mutants and Masterminds, with the idea being that everyone is a "magical girl" type hero-the idea being transforming heroes with a secret double life. Gender isn't an object, we're just stealing the general concept. I'd prefer to play it a little more light hearted, closer to Sailor Moon in tone where the good guys win, barring major setbacks that get resolved in the next week's episode. Villains would be perverted, but it wouldn't go beyond non-consensual groping and heavy bondage like any good Magical Girl setting.

The problem is...I'm lacking in ideas. Settings? Relationship between characters? Time Period? Monsters? Secret History? Power themes?

So I call on you to not just voice interest, but give me ideas. Give me your favorite magical girl or super sentai inspired ideas, throw me cool settings you want to add a dash of magic too, favorite villains, let's make this a truly collaborative storytelling experience!

[Steir]

You could take some inspiration from Precure when it's magical girl, considering the metaseries is already 20 years old and going means there are lots of materials to use for inspiration. Just watching some scenes when the monster of the week catches the heroines was enough to inspire various related fanart online.

My major stumbling block when using series such as Sailor Moon or Precure for the setting is the need of some uniformity in the theme when the team is made. The Sailor Moon series is okay with big groups (or is it because they're technically a few groups of individuals working at their respective agendas?) while Precure usually goes to 5-person teams (some had 6 but that's rare). You can also consider the Puella Magi series as inspiration with each magical girl having a unique look that's different from the others (could do without the dying moments, or less doom and gloom moments).

In terms of setting it's usually modern day, technically going for a slice of life within the period of a year. Character relationships can be worked out once you know what the players decide to go with.

Power themes and monsters usually go hand in hand. In mainstream magical girl series it's usually everyday objects being turned into monsters (or other things), then the monsters usually possess common elements that make them look similar to one another in some ways. The villain group could be an ancient civilization bent on ruling the world, or a space gang looking for some fabled cosmic treasure. It could even be some megacorporation from the future bent on freezing time or phantom thieves.

Participation size would be the most challenging thing to figure. Overall it's up to how you want to run things and the game's pace. You'd definitely want to set some roles that the players can fill with their characters or else you end up having some very similar characters in the team.

[Muse]

   I'd love to play, please. I can share some of my ideas when I wake up, k?  Or... 

  Lol, okay, here's an idea I'm trying to run in a small group right now.  I don't think you'll want it as is, too hentai if nothing else, but maybe it's good for some inspiration: 

Hearts in the Night

The five girls woke slowly drifting in an ethereal starscape.  Alien languages and foreign experiences played in the backs of their memories.  Who were they?

    Oh, that was right...

    Each and every one of them was a champion of her planet and people.

When the perverted lords of Satsu Honotaru Empire had invaded their sector, they'd still been teenagers.

    The Ceramic Soldiers of Satsu Honotaru--artificial infantry created by perverted magic and profane science--were resistant to mundane weapons.  The metamorphic and often tentacled lords of Satsu Honotaru were almost immune to them.  Ancient arts were resurrected throughout the sector to give pure hearted girls the power to transform into magical warriors able to lead the charge against their foes.

It was doomed to fail.  The beautiful and pure of heart were natural prey to the perversions of Satsu Honotoru.  One by one the magic girls were defeated, violated, and turned against their people.

    These five...

    When their homes fell and the survivors fled into the far reaches of space, only these five maintained their virginity.  Only these five could receive the new magic.

    "These new spells will give you a second chance to destroy the lords of Satsu Honotaru if you fall prey to their perverted whiles.  There's a price, though whether you think it's a high price or not is something you must each judge for yourselves.  The spell will change you, giving you new powers and protections.  It will teleport you to one of the next targets of our enemy--a primitive planet called Earth.  It will teach you the language and some of the customs of Earth.  There you will be drawn to men chosen by fate to be your karmically bonded lovers.

    "That is the price of this power.  Your fate will be entwined with a strange man 'til the end of time.  It will be given to you to love him with all your heart, but if that love is twisted...  few have ever known such pain."

    The five girls could hear something now...  Their heart, beating.  Another heart, somewhere in the far distance, also beating.  Slowly--as a yellow star and a small marble of blue light drew nearer and nearer--the two heartbeats began to synchronize.

Some fun aspects of this concept: 
--A.  Star Crossed Lovers:  We got to have a romantic subplot for each girl.  I played a boyfriend for each.  While none of the boyfriends were really strong enough to participate in the fight, I managed to link them into the plot, and each one to be a distnitive character who provided for the emotional needs of his magic girl.  In a group game, you could totally make the guys PCs too with their own power sources.  One girl playing this game wanted her boyfriend to develop a super sentai belt that failed in amusing ways but eventually would work.  :)  Biggest problem with this is that games liek this tend to have a high turnover rate, so if you start with, say, five magic girls and five boyfriends, and then four players leave the game...  Well, you've got a mess. 

--B.  Alien Magic Girls: Another fun thing about this story is that--while all 5 girls are basically magic girls, they're also from incredibly diverse sci fi backgrounds--anthro dragon girl, jellyfish girl, elf girl, battle clone girl...  :) 

anyways, night! 

[Lux12]

I don't know if it helps, but I've had this idea built around the fact that a lot of monsters in magical girl shows are basically supernatural embodiments of poorly handled negative emotions....Of course being me, I took this a pretty grim direction with this one character idea for a somewhat jaded, but still generally compassionate magical boy who ended up having to deal with the supernatural fall out of things such as domestic violence, addiction, suppressed grief and other such things in addition to things such as ancient curses, and other abominations which could only be handled by armed force in the case of the creatures themselves or by trying to help the person who they drew their power from work through these issues in some way...Of course, the powers themselves were drawn from a mixture of innate aptitude and based somewhat around the personality of the magical person in question and occult knowledge. There were other entities in the universe beyond this, but as I'm talking about this it dawns on me that the world I imagined for this character concept was essentially Jujutsu Kaisen meets a more hopeful, if still very melancholy Madoka Magica, with a dash of boogie pop phantom with the violence dialed up...But this is how my brain operates.

[Muse]

:)  That's a noble-dark magic girl idea on par with Princess: The Hopeful. 

  If you're not familiar, Princess: The Hopeful is a seemingly really good fan made expansion for the New World of Darkness introducing Magic Girls to a world full of blood sucking goth punk vampires, berserker werewolves, hubristic mages, tortured ghosts, and escaped slaves of the True Fae. 

  Because who could possibly need Hope more desperately than a World of Darkness.  :) 

[ChaoticSky]

I was going to point out Princess too. Even if you dont use the system, the setting is well articulated and could be adopted for this purpose.

[Angie]

I am well aware of Princess, I wanted to use M&M for a more flexible character builder. And because I kinda dislike where the setting went with GMC...

[Steir]

There was a M&M magical girl game that’s supposed to run but fell apart because some participants couldn’t sit well with the theme.

Personally felt the concept was nice though.

You can have a look at it here.

[Krys]

I might be interested, but will need a good nights sleep to add my 2c worth on ideas. More tomorrow.

[Muse]

  To the best of my knowledge the only reason Sashay Masquerade fell apart was that the GM was having fairly serious health issues.  She pulled through but has to spend a lot more energy taking care of herself than before. 

[Steir]

  To the best of my knowledge the only reason Sashay Masquerade fell apart was that the GM was having fairly serious health issues.  She pulled through but has to spend a lot more energy taking care of herself than before.

Ah, that's right...

[Avernale]

I've had this idea for, well, less of a Magical Girl and more of a Sentai team.  It's basically inspired by the movie Innerspace, or at least the opening.  In the movie, a former Navy pilot is put into an experimental submersible that is shrunk to microscopic size and meant to be injected into a rabbit, but the lab is attacked and one of the scientists escapes and instead injects the the submersible into some random dude on the street.  In the case of the Sentai team, though, instead of a dude in a submarine its a set of morphers, possibly with collective sentience, that get distributed to five randos around town.  And they all get linked telepathically, which is how they find each other.

[Yurie]

Raises Hand
I'm up for Magical Girls and Mutants & Masterminds. Two great tastes that taste great together. I'll come up with some ideas later though, but I'm happy to plant an interest flag...

[Avernale]

Guy Fieri's Magical Girls, Mutants, and Masterminds.