Jump to content

Mutants & Masterminds - [Review] Emerald City Knights Chapter 2


Recommended Posts

EmeraldCityKnightsLogo.png

428.jpgThis review covers Chapter 2 of 6. For my prior review of Chapters 0 and 1, go HERE. I'll be as spoiler free as possible since I may end up using this myself and others may get their own opportunity to play.

Emerald City Knights is an adventure path, a series of interconnected adventures, published online in PDF format by Green Ronin in support of Mutants and Masterminds Third Edition and the forthcoming Emerald City setting book. Chapter 0: The Silver Storm was released for free back in January, and Chapter 1: Life in the Aftermath was released in late March. Chapter 2 was released back in May but for various reasons I haven't had the time for a proper review until now.

[end_news_blurb]

426.jpg

Two Steps Forward

True to expectations there is a strong commitment to the layout, design, artwork, and general look of the product. The font is easily readable, being presented without annoying script fonts and generally overlaid on bare white or very washed out background. The artwork is generally top notch as well with a great deal of new work. The only repeats/reused art I saw were the character portraits for some of the characters. As a step forward they also included a handful of simple top-down maps for use with the three major combat scenes in the chapter. This is definitely a nice add-on, and something sorely missed from the first two.

Content-wise this is a 27 page PDF which is about the same size as Chapters 0 and 1 combined (providing further evidence that those two may have originally been written as a single product). Five scenes are presented with the first being a direct pick-up from the cliffhanger ending of Chapter 1. While I found the first scene to be interesting, and it may well prove to have clues to the larger meta-plot when I ran it with my small tabletop group they couldn't have chosen an action more contrary to that which the scene was predicated upon. I strongly suggest that anybody running this as a GM be prepared, it may not play out like the author apparently expected.

Scene 2 is a role playing heavy scene that suffers from having NPCs for the GM to use who are simply not fleshed out as thoroughly as they ought to be to be able to interact with the PCs. This was irritating for a couple of them, and downright frustrating for the last because this NPC got no new material in this chapter despite having his write-up copy/pasted.

Scene 3 likewise offers role playing but is presented is easier on the GM as the focus is very heavily on the PCs with the NPCs there mostly to ask questions and provide answers in return. While I felt that the NPCs here were adequately presented I felt that the organization A.E.G.I.S. really should have been fleshed out more. Not everybody will have an in depth knowledge of the group from the 2nd Edition of the game Freedom City setting and it was irritating that I couldn't even find a spelled out definition of the AEGIS acronym in the text ((American Elite Government Intervention Service, by the way).

Scenes 4 & 5 are both heavy on the combat, light on the role playing. Not that this is a bad thing. Both scenes are well assembled and the villain team from Scene 4 is very interesting, I hope they are fleshed out more in the future.

An Epilogue wraps up the chapter providing some hints about how GMs can continue during the wait for the next chapter.

EmeraldCityKnightsCover.jpgOne Step to the Side

Like the chess piece of the knight Emerald City Knights seems to move a little forward and a little to the side. Thankfully there is no backslide here. The production quality has remained, the absence of maps is addressed, and in general the product is very polished. On the good side the work is largely well written, the layout is clean, and the artwork is very good.

On the negative side aside the general lack of depth for the provided NPCs and NPC groups are detrimental to the product. While I could possibly already own the Freedom City materials to supplement my knowledge of certain NPCs and AEGIS, I feel that with a new edition the assumption should be there that new players and GMs may be at the table and may not have all this. Third edition stats for beloved characters from Freedom City are a nice selling point for long time fans, but players new to the game and/or setting probably deserve more detailed write-ups to be able to use them properly. Likewise the crucial assumption of player behavior for the first scene is a possible stumbling point as particularly different player actions can potentially derail the entire scene.

The biggest flaw of the product however is carried over from the first two segments: there are no answers given. There is clearly an intricate and developed meta-plot that ties much of the events of these stories together but aside from hints both obscure and overt there is no space reserved to talk to the GM about this plan. It really hampers the GM when they need to be flexible enough to accommodate their players but have to do so without knowing if a certain event, action, or bit of information needs to be relayed for the larger story's sake or is dispensable. Similarly some of the secrets within the events that are given may, or may not, be intended for the PCs to know. Without guidance given a GM has to choose and hope for the best, giving as much information as he or she has when a player rolls an Investigation check of 40 (Forty! That actually happened in my little TT group) for instance.

Closing Thoughts: The quality of Emerald City Knights remains high. The events and stories are interesting, the writing well executed, and the art and layout attractive without sacrificing readability. The down side is a product that doesn't answer even a fraction of the questions from the prior chapters, let alone those raised within itself. Likewise there is a stumble in using and providing NPCs and organizations from previous Freedom City universe books without adequately detailing them within the product. Not all players of M&M used Freedom City in 2nd Edition and not all players of 3rd Edition are going to have even been players of 2nd Ed. Once again this feels too much like a part of something larger (a complete ECK saga) and also it fumbles at being usable by itself as a stand alone product (almost requiring 2nd Edition's Freedom City for use).

Rating: 80%, Strong production design and well crafted scenarios are brought down by a lack of background data and answers/progress within the meta-plot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is no direct mention of "for more information about X see [insert book and page here]" For the NPCs from the Freedom City book they don't even provide full character write ups, just a character sheet and a 1 paragraph that details how that character has changed since the previous edition/publication.

Honestly I almost gave this product a 70% for those reasons but the rest of the product is solid enough that it got the rating it did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...