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Mutants & Masterminds - [Review] Due Vigilance #1: The Oktobermen


jameson (ST)

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Due Vigilance #1: The Oktobermen

Vitals: Published By Vigilance Press • 22 pages • $7.99 • full color PDF

The Oktobermen are a supernatural villain group that contains a half-man-half-demon, two women, a child, and a member who falls firmly into the “Other: [please explain]” category. The Oktobermen are presented as a sort of magical A-Team; available for hire if you have the right price and can find them. Let’s be clear, however, that these guys have no heart of gold, at best one of them may have a heart of slightly less than black, but the truth is that these are villains out for power and the means to get more.

The first thing you see, of course, is the cover which depicts the group. The cover art is repeated again within without the text. It’s good cover art, and without even going further you know that this isn’t a group of happy-go-lucky heroes that you would want entertaining your children. Particularly effective are the skull with a pentagram on its forehead and glowing eyes, and the one-eyed teddy bear hanging from a noose with its mouth stitched shut. People say not to judge a book by its cover, but I knew that this wasn’t going to be cuddly fun.

The title page gives us a second group shot of the Oktobermen. This time it’s a composite image of all their portraits from later in the book, it’s notable because it’s the only place that “Mr. Bear”, the minion of one of the members, is depicted other than the cover. I loved the look of the deranged bear costume with the autopsy style “Y” stitching on its torso.

The meat of the product starts on the third page with the group's background detailing their history, the team’s dynamic, brief breakdowns of the members, and their common tactics. This includes one of the nicest surprises I’ve found inside a product like this to date in the form of a “relationship chart.”

The Relationship Chart is a nice one-page info-graphic showing each member, with lines connecting them to each other accompanied by brief phrases explaining how they view the other members. White Wolf uses a similar concept in their products to show how different clans of vampires, tribes of werewolves, and the like see each other, but they have never done it as well as it is done here. Each member is shown and you can quickly see where the lines of fear, respect, lust, and other emotions are drawn, and all on one page. It’s a really nice addition that I hope Vigilance Press continues to use in future products.

Moving on from there are the full write-ups of the six Oktobermen. Each gets a written background, personality, and a description of their powers and abilities. This is in addition to a character portrait and full stats for M&M 3e. A few also have sidebars relevant to their use in game by the GM. Characters range from PL 9 to 12 with a variety of abilities all supernaturally themed. A quick rundown follows:

  • Bookbinder – A bombshell sorceress who uses book based magic to edit reality and capture enemies within the stories of her books.
  • The Floating Skull – A floating skull (duh!) inhabited by the spirit of the necromancer who called it home in life. A master of curse magic.
  • Hexenwulf – A psychopath who uses an enchanted wolf’s pelt to become a werewolf. One of the team’s front line fighters.
  • L’Enfant Terrible – A child of pure evil. This boy ain’t right. He is accompanied by Mr. Bear his sidekick in a bear costume.
  • Sister Sanguine – A fey empowered woman who uses blood magic. She’s a sociopath who does what she wants when she wants.
  • Springheel Jack – A half-demon born in the 19th century. He is the leader of the group, and is using them to try and become a full blood demon.

Each of the characters is given an interesting background, but the standouts to me are Bookbinder and Sister Sanguine, with Springheel Jack coming in a close third. The two female members of the group are given write-ups that deviate further from the stock standard than the others and are more interesting for it.

Looking at the builds of each of the characters there are many instances of unique or non-standard powers. Notably there are two different attack powers built on the Movement effect that are quite different, and a use of a Variable effect in a way that didn’t make me cringe. Even those with less unconventional builds see diverse use of Extras, Flaws, and effects to create a flavorful set of abilities and powers that will help bring the character to life in game.

Lastly there is a page with four possible story/adventure hooks and two more usable minor characters. This is followed at the end of the product by a page of printable full color standees. I’m not a player who uses grids and maps, but it is a nice touch to see them providing those tools to those who are.

The Good:

The cover artwork goes a long way to set the tone of the product before you even open it. The interior artwork works as well. The concept of the product is well thought out and well executed with strong write-ups, interesting motivations, and an especially well-done section discussing and showing how these six misanthropes get along (or not). The product is also strengthened by some unique and non-conventional effect and power builds that really set these characters apart from the standard archetypes.

The Bad:

The formatting of the characters’ powers could have been done better. It was difficult to tell which powers were Alternate Effects of other powers on some characters. Furthermore some of the independent effects that were gathered under the banner of a single power name were not clear; indenting all associated effects would have been nice.

The Ugly:

Unfortunately there are typos. This is par for the course in most RPG products, no matter the size of the company putting them out. Par for the course, but still a negative on the product; this could have used one more set of eyes for a careful re-read. Also, two of the characters didn’t have their PLs listed next to their names. This isn’t a big deal, as it is not much effort to calculate based on defense and offense, but it’s a miss that should have been caught as the headers are pretty pronounced and separate from the remaining text.

Closing Thoughts:

For $8 you get six characters who work as a dysfunctional team of evil mystical mercenaries. There’s some nice artwork, some great writing, and relatively few negative points to drag them down. If you are looking to add some dark supernatural aspects to a game this is a good start, with possible uses as recurring long term foes, and even the potential for Jack and his team to become a series’ “big bad”. When the biggest complaint about a product is a handful or typographical and formatting errors you know you have a good product on your hands.

Rating: 95% - Aside from some typos, and slightly imperfect formatting, this is a product that really meets the expectations of its price tag.

Update:

Vigilence Press has updated the Oktobermen PDF correcting the spelling and grammar issues as well are reformatting the stat blocks to be more easily readable & better organized. You gotta hand it to a company that acknowledges mistakes in their product and seeks to correct them.

Author's note: A review copy of the product was provided to me by the gentlemen at Vigilance Press for the purposes of this review.

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Update:

Vigilence Press has updated the Oktobermen PDF correcting the spelling and grammar issues as well are reformatting the stat blocks to be more easily readable & better organized. You gotta hand it to a company that acknowledges mistakes in their product and seeks to correct them.

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