Book Description
Mutants & Masterminds has been called "the best, most exciting superhero RPG in years." It sets "new standards in design and presentation." It has won multiple ENnie and Pen & Paper Awards and it appeared on every critic's "best of" list for 2002. Now the World's Greatest Super-hero Roleplaying Game is even better! Mutants & Masterminds, Second Edition, takes the best of the original edition and supercharges it to make it the most complete, detailed, and fun super-hero game yet! In this 256-page hardcover with a stunning new cover by Ramon Perez, you'll find a complete roleplaying game that's a perfect starting point for your own comic book adventures. Mutants & Masterminds, Second Edition, has everything you need to create your own super-heroes and villains. It also offers more than a dozen ready-made super-hero archetypes and even more ready-to-use super-villain archetypes, plus two introductory adventures so you can start playing right away. Don't let your super-powers fall behind! Mutants & Masterminds, Second Edition, will take your game (and your heroes) to the next level!
Customer Reviews:
Excellent game system for superhero and contemporary fantasy gaming.......2007-07-12
If you want to run a superhero RPG, or simply something in a contemporary setting with fantasy elements, look no further. Mutants & Masterminds takes all the best elements from the core D20 system, and adds to that clear and balanced rules for character creation, combat, and superpowers (although the latter is handled even better in the Ultimate Power expansion book, which I personally think is a must-buy addition). There's a lot of inspiration in here for budding Game-masters too, and some handy lists of 'stock' NPC characters. The quality of the book itself is fine as well, and it features a lot of artwork that might not always be top-class, but it certainly suits the mood of the game. All in all, I'd recommend it to anyone.
Me like !!.......2007-05-13
Very good superheros rpg, rules aren't too complicated, art is beautifull.I prefer it at Aberrant or Champions. Good buy.
Mutants and Masterminds- 2nd edition.......2007-03-24
The product arrived quickly and in excellent condiditon. I will deffinetly look into buying fromt this seller in the future
THE Supers RPG, Period........2006-12-31
Ok, first, I want to say I've been in RPGs for over 25 years. Starting with AD&D. I've GMed Champions, Godlike, BESM and other RPGs. Played WAY too many over the years, too.
This is the game that "gets" Super Hero action. Fast combat, easy mechanics, well written rules.... I love it. The detail for character creation is just right, IMHO. The book itself, is well laid out, lots of terrific artwork supporting the "feel" of the genre.
The game is based on the "d20" system, but instead of using a bunch (d4, d8, etc) of different dice, you use ONLY the twenty sided die. Characters are created thru a point-buy system and not thru random rolls (something I perfer, but it's not everyone's cup-o-tea). The book itself is well laid out, starting with Hero Creation. Sample characters are provided.
The rest of the book breaks down/ explains skills, lists all the powers, combat, equipment...it's all here. A vast improvement over the 1st edition.
Better everytime.......2006-08-09
The system is perfect. Flexible be simple. Great book too. Arts a little lite, so buy for the game not for collection.
Book Description
Ultimate Power is the complete guide to super-powers for the award-winning Mutants & Masterminds Super-hero RPG, written by M&M designer Steve Kenson. Its pages are packed with detailed power descriptions, expanding the material from the M&M rulebook alongside new powers, power modifiers, power feats and applications. Also included are optional rules for more detailed applications of powers and creating your own powers. Ultimate Power makes creating any sort of super-powered hero or villain a breeze: all the work is done for you! Just choose the powers you want your characters to have.
Book Description
The Mastermind's Manual is the perfect companion to the award-winning Mutants & Masterminds Superhero Roleplaying Game. In its pages you will find endless ways to customize the M&M system to suit your game, along with helpful Gamemaster advice, and insight into how the game is designed and played. The Mastermind's Manual includes a vast array of optional and variant rules, complete guidelines for creating your own feats and super-powers, expanded systems for proficiency, combat, chases, skill use, and nearly every other aspect of the game. With the Mastermind's Manual, you open up infinite possibilities, infinite options, and the power to truly make the world yours. It's your master plan for taking the game to the next level... and what evil mastermind wouldn't want that?
Customer Reviews:
Rules Options Galore.......2007-02-23
At its heart, the Mastermind's Manual is a smorgasbord of new rules options for a 2nd Edition Mutants & Masterminds campaign. The Manual contains dozens of options for all aspects of the game, including character creation, feats, skills, powers and combat. In addition to the rules options there is gamemaster advice and expanded rule systems. The book also includes a FAQ about the game, as well as errata for the 2nd edition - a nice inclusion.
I liked some of the rules options better than others, but overall most seemed both well thought out and interesting. Some of them, like the rules for extra attacks, could easily have been included with the core rules. Others, like the optional level-based advancement rules or rules for using hit points could make significant changes to how the game is played.
What's missing? I would have really liked a chapter devoted to `plug ins' like a sample bank map, a template for a runaway robot, etc. that I could easily drop into my campaign. Maybe I'm just greedy, but these would be more useful to me than a discussion of tech levels or other general advice.
Supers Toolbox.......2006-11-04
The Mastermind's Manual is a book geared primarily towards the game master of the Mutants and Masterminds game. In it you will find suggestions, tips and tricks for running what can be one of the greatest superhero role playing games ever devised. Several more Martial Arts styles drawn from the real world are tallied up in terms of feats for ease of reference as well as revisiting ones in the second edition main book. This can be likened to the DMG of M&M. Anyone who is running or is thinking of running a Mutants and Masterminds campaign really should consider this book. Freedom City gives you a setting, the main book has all the basic rules for play. But the Mastermind's Manual is for the GM who wants a few extra cards up her figurative sleeve to tinker with the system when it gets to be somewhat contrary to his or her vision. Not exactly an essential book, but for the Mutants and Masterminds game, it does help the GM do his job a lot better.
Pure Genius..........2006-08-23
I have a few problems with Mutants & Masterminds 2E (M&M2E) at it's core. It's a good game, but it feels just a bit "blah" to me in play. I have issues with the linear d20 system, as well as a bit of a "bored now" feeling toward it's Toughness save in lieu of rolling gobs of damage dice against traditional Hit Points. I heard the Mastermind's Manual would have a few optional rules to help people like me customize M&M2E to what we saw as the exemplary superhero game, if M&M2E wasn't already there. I was mistaken. There are a few HUNDRED optional rules listed herein.
This means the Mastermind's Manual is geared more toward system (crunch) junkies, and setting (fluff) junkies will probably find the book lacking. I am both a system and setting junkie, and bought Freedom City 2nd at the same time as this book to sate both needs ;-).
What you have here is a 160 page tome of pure substance. If you pay for page count the price is terrible, but if you pay for content, the price is peanuts. Nearly every system of M&M2E is given an optional rules and replacement rules treatment, among which are my quest for a bell curved resolution system and hit points/damage system.
But there's so much more. Systems and tweeks that can change M&M2E into a different game. M&M2E at core is designed for closer to Four Color superhero play (like Justice League), but several options presented within the Mastermind's Manual can easily scale it down to gritty Street level play the likes of Punisher, Batman, and Daredevil. Also, some options exist to bring the game into the other direction, scaling the power level up to resemble something like Nobilis (godlings).
Now, I'm not saying you'll use (or even like) all 200 optional rules, because you probably won't. I don't even come close, I only like/use about 10 of them for my version of M&M2E. But having them all there to peruse is a real treat, as it shows exactly what the system can be customized to do, as well as how far the designer will go to help fans houserule the game into their perfect superhero RPG. Every rule seems to have been playtested to iron the kinks out, every question I came up with was clearly answered in the text. While I don't like and won't use many of the rules, it's good to see the breadth presented in an effort to make the book useful to anybody, not just those with a particular taste.
This book also shows how to create Powers from scratch (including breaking down the Powers from the core into their component parts), and handling Powers in different manners than just the core.
The main merit of this book (as in a merit to any group, even those that love core M&M2E with no changes), in my opinion, is the GM tips and tricks. For superpowers that tend to break the plot (you know - invisibility, mind control, esp, incorporeality, mind reading, precognition, etc), utilizing both the "real lives" and the "super lives" of the superhero characters, even different possibilities in the roles of superheroes vs. the society around them.
All this, and I've barely scratched the surface on the Mastermind's Manual, giving you what I would say is a weak selection of the sheer mass of options within. Let me just say that this book turned me around when it came to M&M2E's system. It took me from "blah" to "whoa!" in no time. I can't say as to whether it will do the same to others, but it seems likely to be a good addition to anyone's M&M2E library.
How do you make the best even better?.......2006-07-26
You don't. What you do is, you give people the tools so that they can can make things better in their own way.
The Mastermind's Manual was described by lead writer and gaming guru Steve Kenson as "Unearthed Arcana for Mutants and Masterminds". Unearthed Arcana, a Wizards of the Coast supplement for Dungeons and Dragons, was a compilation of dozens of optional rules for that game, so you know from the start that you're going to be getting a book of optional rules. Many of these were options included in the first edition of the game that had to be cut from the second edition's page count; quite a few of them are the status quo of the first edition, offered as options for those who don't like the way the second edition does things. And there are also some rules for gamers who aren't happy with the changes that Mutants and Masterminds introduces to the basic rules set. (Of this last category, the only ones that make me wince are slightly ham-handed attempts to reintroduce hit points and experience levels to the system.)
But there's more. There's a short section explaining how the various powers in the main rulebook are put together, and explaining how one can go about building new ones. There are sections offering advice about simulating natural hazards, and about world-building and different styles of games. It's obvious that the designers have put a lot of thought into their work, with many sidebars on "how and why you might (or might not) want to use this."
What has most contributed to the so-called D20 revolution is less the freedom to use the system offered by its creators to other publishers, then its recognition that most, if not all, gamers don't necessarily just use the game systems we're offered "out of the box". We tinker, we invent house rules. We say, I like this idea that I've come up with better than what the publishers came up with. This has never really been sanctioned before, and I say that it's about time. Kudos to Green Ronin for offering the tools to make their great system even better.
Book Description
Freedom City is back in the first deluxe sourcebook for the Second Edition of Mutants & Masterminds. This exciting campaign setting includes a detailed history of the city, an overview of the its diverse neighborhoods, scores of locations and backdrops, a cast of supporting characters, several complete hero teams, and dozens of villains, all ready to use! The original book has been updated to the Second Edition and revised and expanded throughout. Richly detailed and lavishly illustrated in full color, Freedom City is the ideal companion book to the Mutants & Masterminds Roleplaying Game.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent !!.......2007-05-13
Very good supplement for M&M. Complete city, with tons of locations, plots hooks and plenty of superheroes and bad guys to put in your campaign.
Perfect complement.......2007-01-21
This books is a good complement for the game, with a city completely designed and ready for play.
Hey look, there's the kitchen sink too!.......2006-05-25
To say that this book goes into detail on the inner workings of the largest setting in the game is an understatement of mammoth proportions. The book opens up with the history of Freedom City, with a detailed history of the city covering nearly 300 years, with information about the site going all the way back to prehistoric times.
In modern times, it details 19 seperate areas/neighborhoods of Freedom City, including the entire transit system break down for the city, from taxi cabs to airports to the ships at the piers. Day to day living within the city is complete with lists and descriptions of major retail chains, banks, schools, entertainment centers, hospitals, religious centers, right down to nightclubs and local sports teams. The level of detail here is breathtaking, and even a little overwhelming at times.
For those that are more intrested in mechanical aspects, there are full writeups and statblocks for each member of the Freedom League, along with other hero groups such as the Atom Family, Next-Gen, as well as a number of solo heroes. And of course, there are numerous villians and evil groups to oppose the heroes. There are a total of 10 seperate supervillian organizations presented, each with a number of individual villians making them up, all with complete stat blocks. Not to mention a list of free-lance villians for those one shot game needs.
And don't think that this book is limited to just this one city. There is an entire chapter devoted to nothing but world-wide groups and organizations, including a breakdown of each major continent and the prevalance of super powered individuals they host. It also includes all of the major "secret" locations of the Mutants & Masterminds universe, from Atlantis to Kaiju Island, to galactic locations such as Far City, and groups like the Star Knights and the Grue Unity. And beyond even that are locations such as Terminus, the Zero Zone, and multiple alternate-Earths detailing everything from Ani-Earth and the Furry League to Earths that never saw the fall of the Roman Empire, or where Germany won the second world war.
Not only is it the definative guidebook for anything and everything having to do with Freedom City, it is indespensible as a resource for the entire Mutants and Masterminds 2e universe.
Book Description
Bring four color action to your tabletop with the Mutants & Masterminds RPG! Brought to you by d20 system pioneers Green Ronin Publishing, Mutants & Masterminds has been designed from the ground up to be the definitive treatment of d20 superheroes. This full color, 192-page book contains everything you need to enter the world of comic book heroics. Mutants & Masterminds builds on the d20 base, optimizing the core rules for superhero play with point built characters and a modular powers system that lets you build exactly the character that you want to play. The game also includes an adventure that introduces Green Ronin¹s Freedom City setting and a selection of Hero Templates that let you jump right into the action. Featuring a stunning cover by Wildstorm/DC artist and Ninja Boy creator Ale Garza, Mutants & Masterminds blasts into retail stores this October. This is d20 supers done right!
Customer Reviews:
A little too simple..........2006-08-03
Indeed, this game can prove fun for people into the super-hero roleplaying world.
However, there are some key points that many skilled gamers need to realize about this book. I found many things which I found to be "over simplified" and instead of adding freedom to gameplay and design, it ultimately limited the variety and fun you experience while playing.
First off, the hit point thing gets most people down. Hit points arent realistic, but on the other hand, the system they implement in 2nd edition is WAY too simplified. If you have a party of Powerlevel 10 heroes, all of them pick a generic attack (usually a blast or superstrength) and they all do equal damage... no variation...nothing. It's always 15+ rank 10 (because 10 is the max, and why not go with the max for a damage character?).
So all you do for combat is roll to hit a relatively easy value (opponent's defense, which has nothing to do with dex even though dex is what is supposed to give your character mobility) and compare it to 25. Every turn. Same thing. It doesnt matter if you have a Rank 10 Fireblast, or a Bolt of water splash the target at rank 10, it all does the same exact damage value.
This is something I have a serious problem with. Not to mention, given the toughness values of a PL10 vs PL10 character, against +10 toughness, you can never really blast away an opponent to pieces in just a few hits. Maybe I want a character to be just as easy to damage, but has a more durable body structure (for roleplaying flavor) such as a relentles robot having chunks of it blown off as it advances. Yet, perhaps the boss, a giant super robot , i want to have the same damage resistance and mobility, but more durability than the smaller ones, yet keep it on the same level of damage output for weapons and whatnot.
When you get damaged, it's not something that you can't really describe accurately as a GM. If the target is hit, he just loses a toughness and keeps going. For a GM , this is so vague that you end up saying things like "um.. he looks a little damaged, but not bad" (or something similar) over and over because you never really know if the next hit will drop the character to dying status or if it'll be just another flesh wound.
Powers are diminished down to nothing but the same effects, but with different names, for the most part (for combative ones, anyway). The distribution of ranks of powers is also unbalanced. It costs only 2 points to be immune to critical hits but 12 points to be a large character (which is usually a bad thing, since your defense and attack drop). You can go completely invisible, whenever you want, as a free action, for only 8 points.
Im disappointed in the fact that Ive made 7 villains so far for my campaign to try to defeat, and yet they all seem to crank out the same damage. Players get bored just wittling down toughness modifiers. The names of the villains and their sub-powers vary, but the general combat just seems to be so generic and bland. Then there are moves like "Corrosion" which is just entirely broken as a power (aka overpowered).
At least with the old system of hit points, things like regeneration and healing could be represented in a numeral form so you can judge how effective your skill will be in that field. All it seems to do in 2nd edition is increase the probability to help a target regain toughness.
I know I'm ranting now about the same things over and over. But honestly, I'm not a fan of these static values for defense and toughness. They should implement something more along the lines of what GURPS has into M&M. That would make it a great game.
Also, lastly, i dont think they should limit powers as much. That's the GM's area of control. Much of the fun of playing D&D was learning how to get modifiers and whatnot to stack with eachother and create an effective character, while not being too over-powered.
Solid Superhero RPG.......2005-08-31
This RPG is still d20, but a little different. No hitpoints, with a new damage save system and wound conditions.
Art in the book is great, and gives a good feel for the comic book RPG style.
Great New Hero Game.......2005-07-10
When I first went to pick up Mutants & Masterminds, it had just gone into the Second Edition and had unexpectedly sold out - period. Green Ronin had to put out a second printing due to the success of the game. Needless to say, I managed to get a hold of a copy, and I have very much enjoyed the game.
What about the game have I enjoyed? First off, it is a d20 game, and as such, it has some familiarity of the d20 engine. However, it is very off from the rest of the d20 games like Dungeons & Dragons or d20 Modern. The game does not use hit points. It does not have classes or racial packages. Instead, you have 15 points per level to build your character with. The system is very flexible and is meant to be rather cinematic.
The game goes on to use the Feats system of the d20 system and expand upon them. Additionally, you have Powers, which can be adjusted with Extras & Limitations. There is a lot there, but once you have it all in front of you, it runs fairly smoothly.
The game is designed to be a superhero game, but it has a lot of flexibility. You can put together a four-color game, a western-style, suspense/horror or any number of things. Yeah, GURPS and Hero System did this a long time ago, but this version is not nearly as math intensive and allows for more cinematics, not letting the rules overpower the story.
On the other end of things, if you like a very visceral game, this is not the game for you. Yes, it can be violent, but it is not designed to be about killing orcs.
Overall, I really enjoy the game. I have both played and ran the system, and I plan to run more games in the future. Green Ronin produced a quality product that I would recommend to any gamer or comic-enthusiast looking at trying role-playing.
Four Color Fantasies.......2005-01-04
I've been having a blast with this game system, and I'm going to go over a few reasons why I think you might also.
1. No Hit Points
Hit Points have long been a sort of thorn in my side. I never could figure out what they represented. Why can Cure Light Wounds bring a first level mage back from the brink of death, but barely mends a paper cut on a high level fighter? Not a problem in M&M. Whenever you are damaged, you make a save. Fail, and your saves get a litte harder to make next time. Fail by a lot and you might be stunned or knocked out. Sounds harsh, but it isn't when you take into account point number 2
2. Hero Points
Randomness, doesn't it suck? You're all set up to do something cool, and here pops that 1. Now that's not so big a problem. Hero points let you control that die to a degree by allowing you to reroll any result you don't like. It also guarantees you at least an avarage result. If that isn't cool enough for you, you can use Hero Points for other things as well. Increasing your powers' effects, giving them new effects for a short while, reviving from knock out status, recover from stun...
3. Flexable character creation
Luck won't bamboozle you here, either. Everything is point driven, and everything is an option. Believe me, no matter how many points you get, you'll wish you had more. The game sets only what limits it must to preserve game balance. If there aren't enough options for you, there is a fairly decent power creation system explained.
4. Professional Help
No, I don't need a psychiatrist. What I mean here is that the mutants and masterminds website has a forum where you can ask the author to clear up your rule questions. He answers whatever is posted about once or twice a week. It's not like having him in a bottle at the gaming table, but it's better than I ever got from anyplace else.
5. Ease of Play.
For this game, all you gotta bring is one d20, a pencil, and your character sheet. Buy a copy of this book if you can't borrow one from time to time, but you won't need it often. For GMs, there's the "mook" rule to make your life easier. All those little minions hanging around the bad guy don't have HP. One hit and they're gone, freeing you up to concentrate on your real villans instead of keeping 15 HP totals straight. Quick and easy rules for battle keeps tension high, and keeps a single battle from eating up all your role play time. It's much easier to role play when your roll play goes smoothly and quickly. If rough and tumble is your game, hey, just fight more stuff in a night. ^^
5. Variety
We've built 12 characters out of our imaginations, and no two of them play the same. Fighters are fighters, clerics are clerics, mages are mages. Your role is decided when you picked which of those you wanted to be. In M&M, You're free to do what you want more often without rules getting in your way.
In closing, I know some people are put off by this system because it is different, but I think it deserves a chance to stand on its own as something new and exciting. Some people may never warm up to the changes, and that's just fine, but it would be worth your while to at least give this a try.
Point by Point, Why the Veterans Like M&M........2004-11-19
I've tried Marvel's FASERIP system, Palladium, Champions, GURPS, d20 as D&D, Modern, Star Wars, Cthulu, and M&M remains my favourite system to deal with superpowers.
Why?
Flexibility, and simplicity. Make the power you want. The book gives you a bunch of common powers, and you can easily add and subtract to get what you want. Want to personalize your energy blast? Is it pure force? Fire? A handful of ball-bearings? Whatever you want.
Want to use your powers in an unusual or clever way? You don't have to buy a whole new power. Hero Points and Extra Effort are simple game mechanics that allow you to play smart, or give 110% in those critical moments!
No hit points. Damage, from being hit by a granny with an umbrella, to getting a battleship dropped on your head, is the same system, using the same number of dice, just one. Combat don't take longer at higher levels. The collateral damage just increases ;).
Visuals. The book is beautiful with great art throughout. It give an excellent comic book feeling.
Options. The base rules make it pretty hard to kill someone accidentally. Don't agree with that? The plethora of sidebar options give you choices in lethality, power restrictions, even put hit points back in, if you want.
Support. The supplemants aren't necessary, but they are all good. The Annual gives a wealth of campaign and rule options. Freedom City is an excellent city sourcebook with heroes, villains, and important and interesting people and places. Crooks! contains a wealth of insane, diabolical, greedy, or just plain miscevous opponents for your players. And the forums are a great place to ask questions, put out ideas, and generally get a bunch of friendly useful feedback. We want to help you!
One important warning to players and GM's: CONCEPT. Don't try to squeeze the most damage and defense out of every last point. That leads to less fun. Make heroes. Don't make wacking machines.
My gaming circle, some nine people, started with one copy of this book. Within two years, over half had their own copy, and I own two! We've had three M&M campaigns since the book came out, and they've never fizzled. They ended, and people had a good time along the way.
M&M. Less math. More fun.
Book Description
Freedom City needs you! There are times when super-heroes like the Freedom League just aren't around - they're dealing with a disaster or off in space or another dimension - and that's where you come in. You're the first line of defense when a super-villain rampages through midtown or a clone army attacks. You hold the line and keep the city and the world safe, and you do it without super-powers or some fancy costume or code-name. Agents of Freedom details "agent" level characters and adventures for Mutants & Masterminds, featuring three heroic agencies for the Freedom City setting: the STAR Squad of the Freedom City Police Department; AEGIS (the American Elite Government Intervention Service), the U.S. government agency dealing with super-powered threats; and UNISON, the United Nations International Superhero Oversight Network, gathering information on threats to the world. It also includes details on the villainous SHADOW, the Secret Hierarchy of Agents for Domination Over the World! Written by award-winning author Scott Bennie (Testament), Agents of Freedom has everything you need to run your own super-agent adventures and campaigns. So suit-up, agent! Freedom City and the world need you!
Book Description
Teenaged super-heroes don't have it easy. After all, being a teenager is hard enough: school, work, parents, friends, dating and more without complicating matters by adding super-powers and a secret identity to the mix. Hero High is a genre book for the Mutants & Masterminds RPG that explores the world of teen heroes (and villains!). In it, you'll find all you need to run a teen heroes series of your own, with all the trials and tribulations that entails. Hero High also includes expanded material for the Claremont Academy in the Freedom City campaign setting: visit the private school where a new generation of heroes trains.
Book Description
The world needs heroes; but more importantly, your game needs super-heroes right now! Instant Superheroes provides a selection of super-hero archetypes for Mutants & Masterminds, each with detailed information on how to modify, customize and play these new heroes in the game. With Instant Superheroes, character creation has never been easier: all you need to do is pick an archetype and make a few simple modifications and you're ready to play. If you're looking for inspiration, this has it, with plenty of options for creating the hero you want to play. Gamemasters can use Instant Superheroes for both immediate supporting cast characters and ready-made villains, making it an indispensable resource for any Mutants & Masterminds game.
Book Description
More than 50 of the world's most dastardly supervillains, monsters, power-mad sorcerers, and would-be conquerors come alive in this lavishly illustrated catalog of criminals conceived, written, and art-directed by Super Unicorn design studio! Battle the maniacal Atomic Brain, conquer the demon within Johnny Reb, and maybe score a date with the Other Woman, mysterious maven of the Clique! Crooks! includes four complete villain headquarters, new powers, a host of villainous devices, and an introduction to the META-4 Universe, first seen in the Mutants & Masterminds core rulebook. You'll definitely want to catch these Crooks!
Customer Reviews:
Meh........2005-02-21
This book is alright. It has some really great villians in it, but most experienced GM's will want to make their own. It has good Mooks (minions), but not enough of them. It adds a few really neat feats, and some weaknesses. Not a bad book at all really. But at the price Green ronin is asking for it, it's a rip off. They are asking $28, but are only offering $15 worth of content in this slim offering.
In a word, uninspired.......2004-06-17
When I was a wee lad I played a game called Villians & Vigilantes. It was a superhero RPG supported by some excellent supervillian-related supplements. I expected "Crooks" to be as good, but was sorely disappointed.
My first peeve is that several of the villians contained in "Crooks" were reprinted from the M&M basic rule book. Apparently the authors were pressed for ideas, and assumed we would not mind paying for reprinted material. Second, several of the villians repeat themes. For example there are three, count 'em, three villians with a nazi/racist theme. This shows a lack of imagination, and frankly it takes more than being politically incorrect to be a decent villian. Third, the sad fact is that many of the villians herein are just plain lame. For example there is "Miss Martian" an alien/movie star/mind controller. Yeah, I'm shakin' in my cape and cowl.
This isn't to say that the book is worthless though. Several of the villians are quite intriguing. I personally was drawn to the "The Clique", a team of "fashionable femme felons" who were clearly inspired by anime. In addition, the book provides pages of mooks for heroes to wade through in battle. Not just various types of humans, ranging from thugs, to terrorists to ninja to cultists. It also contains zombies, stock demons, combots and other flavors of cannon fodder. There are also templates for designing werewolves and vampires. Finally, there are several new feats (mostly intended for villians, such as "diplomatic immunity") which promise to add fun to your game.
In conclusion, "Crooks" isn't a bad supplement, it just isn't a great one. I recommend trying to get it second hand at a discount.
They could do better.......2004-02-21
This book has a strange ambivalence about it. On the one hand, it strives to foster a Four Color/Silver Age light-hearted feeling with goofy characters like the Atomic Brain (complete with base on Volcano Island), or the themed-villain Player 2 (with his obsession with using video game memorabilia to commit crimes). On the other hand, it tries to cram these characters into a campaign world that is unusually cynical and bloodthirsty.
For example, EVERYTHING the US government does is heartless, mercenary, and cruel; ALL authority figures are engaged in conspiratorial, murderous schemes to further crass pursuits of power. Moreoever, the superheroes mentioned seem either spineless tools who are almost as bad, or complete sell-outs who are just as bad.
Mind you, these qualities do not in and of themselves make a bad premise for a role playing game, but they are a poor fit for the sought-for tone. It's like the publishers hired one group to come up with wacky, off the wall, over the top villains, and another to come up with hard-boiled seedy backgrounds for them, with the two groups never meeting.
The sections describing "Unitrol" are in poor taste. Unitrol is your basic villainous secret society trying to take over the world, but this books doesn't leave it at that: it has to actually claim that nations like Zimbabwe, Argentina, and Albania are run by megalomaniacal criminals, instead of leaving things unspecified, or even just inventing fake countries in the grand comic book tradition.
The worst part of this book, though, is an especially hateful reference to two real-life people. Drew Barrymore and Marilyn Manson are described as meeting a particularly gruesome and undignified death. Comic books, whether four-color or nitty-gritty, wisely utilize some restraint and invent people for this sort of thing. The Green Ronin staff, though, did not.
All in all, a sophomoric outing for what is otherwise a serviceable product line. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.
Not as Good as the PHB and Source Book.......2004-01-27
This book is somewhat of a let down compared to the Player's Handbook, and the Freedom City Source Book.
Many of the villian concepts are strained, while the artwork is inconsistant, with multiple artists and styles.
It lacks the consistency, development, and ingenuity of the characters in the previous two books.
Dr. Dungeon and Murder Boy are two examples of characters that pale in comparison to say the Atomic Brain, and Gepeto.
There are more plenty more that just aren't there, too.
It is not the same level as the other two books.
In retrospect, I would pay 10 bucks for it, but not the 20 plus shipping that I paid.
Great Concepts and Great Art.......2003-11-22
I agree with the previous reviewer, that a lot of villains in RPG's seem to be knock-offs or some boring concept that you could have easily done yourself. Not so with Crooks! I found the villains to be interesting, compelling, and in some cases, very different. Witness the variety in the femme fatales, the punk rock anarchist Choke Chain, the avatar of decay Carrion Queen, and the materialistic Clique, and the neo-Nazi supremacist Blitz. The art is great, full colour on every page, and the write ups are full of ideas, complex history and motivations, and good "Capers" to get them to loggerheads with your heroes.
The book also includes new feats, most more suited for villain, like "Human Shield" or "Diplomatic Immunity" or "Gang-Up", and guidelines for PC villains in a hero group.
Also, very interesting, is a Crisis chart, determining, roughly, what effects the heroes have on your work, depending on who they defeat, and what schemes they foil. This is an interesting mechanic allowing you to stat out your PC's "making a difference."
A good work!
Book Description
The Pocket Player's Guide contains all the OGL rules you need to create characters and play Mutants & Masterminds in an affordable and easy-to-carry format.
Customer Reviews:
Great for the player.......2007-06-08
I won't review this fully as there are lots of reviews of the Mutants and Masterminds main book. (As a GM I got tried of always fighting my players for my copy of the main book. So bought one of these.) It's basically the 1st half of the main manual. All you are missing is the GM sections which talk about running a campaign, and include some NPC stats. I highly recommend it for people who aren't running the game. The one thing to keep in mind is that it's a pocket guide, and the print is smaller than the main book. It's readable for anyone who can read a paper back novel. Other than that it's word for word the same as the main manual.
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Books Index
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General
| Puzzles & Games
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Mutants & Masterminds: Freedom City - 2nd Edition (Mutants & Masterminds)
Mutants & Masterminds: Mastermind's Manual 2nd Edition
Mutants & Masterminds: Ultimate Power Sourcebook
Mutants & Masterminds: Game Master's Screen 2nd Edition (Mutants & Masterminds)
Star Wars Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Saga Edition
