Delta Green vs Mutants & Masterminds
Compare Delta Green and Mutants & Masterminds side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Delta Green | Mutants & Masterminds | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Modern, Superhero |
| Play Style | Investigation, Deadly, Roleplay-Heavy, Character-Driven, Gritty | Superhero, Heroic, Crunchy, Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Tactical, Cinematic |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d100 under your skill percentage to succeed. Matched doubles (11, 22, etc.) are critical successes or failures. Six stats (STR, CON, DEX, INT, POW, CHA) derived from percentile rolls. Bonds represent personal relationships and can be damaged as agents lose SAN. Sanity tracks Breaking Points — cross enough and you develop disorders. | Roll d20 + modifier against a Difficulty Class. Heroes are built from a Power Points budget capped by a series Power Level (usually 10), which limits paired trait totals — attack bonus + effect rank, dodge + toughness — to twice the level. Damage is resisted with Toughness checks that escalate conditions (bruised, staggered, incapacitated) instead of tracking hit points. Hero Points let players reroll, edit scenes, or recover from conditions; complications coming into play earn them back. |
| Dice | d100 | d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Community | Medium | High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | OGL |
| Cost | Free (Need to Know) / $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Arc Dream Publishing | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2016 | 2013 |
| Best For | Groups who want modern-day investigative horror where federal agents sacrifice everything — careers, relationships, sanity — to protect humanity from threats that should not exist. | Groups who want unlimited freedom to design any superhero concept — from masked vigilante to cosmic powerhouse — with a flexible point-buy build system and tactical combat that emphasizes power-level balance. |
| Highlights | Bonds and sanity mechanics create personal drama, Need to Know quickstart is free and complete, strong atmospheric design, profession-based characters feel grounded, well-regarded published scenarios | Modular power-construction system builds any superpower from effects, modifiers, and flaws; Power Level caps enforce balance even when individual traits vary widely; Hero Points reward roleplaying complications with mechanical benefits; conditions track damage progression instead of using a hit point pool |
| Considerations | Dense investigative scenarios require significant GM prep, limited character advancement between operations, bond deterioration can feel mechanically punishing, SAN loss mechanics can remove player agency | Character creation requires significant rules mastery to navigate the point-buy power construction; resolving an attack involves multiple checks per action — attack roll, Toughness resistance, condition tracking; Power Level caps can frustrate players who want to push paired-trait limits like attack and effect rank |