Mutants & Masterminds - [Review] M&M 3rd Ed. Gamemaster's Guide

[jameson (ST)]

Mutants and Masterminds Third Edition: Gamemaster's Guide

Released just a spare few days ago the new (but not all-new) Gamemaster's Guide for the Third Edition of Mutants and Masterminds provides more than 200 pages of archetypes, minions, optional rules, and advice for experienced and inexperienced GM's alike. I picked up the PDF for $17.50, but a preorder of the dead-tree version will run you $32.95. As usual for Green Ronin, if you pre-order through them, or through one of the many FLGS that participate in the "pre-order plus" program you when you pre-order the dead-tree copy you get an offer at time of purchase for the PDF at an additional cost of $5. The book is full color, 222 pages, broken into 6 Chapters and one Appendix (and this one you won't want to leave at the hospital). This is a snapshot review, I haven't completely devoured this book yet, but I wanted to get my thoughts out while still fresh.

The Good:

There's a lot of solidly useful stuff in here. The Appendix stands out as something that I would have paid good money for as its own entity, even at a mere 20 pages long. It gives you nine statted and mapped villainous lairs. The maps are especially nice, full page and full color with a square grid for ease of use. The Options chapter is a mixed bag (as these things tend to be) but presents a number of alternate rules for things like Reputation/Renown, Wealth, the much asked for Knockback, and others. Even if you never use a single one in game just reading through them is nice and often gives you ideas and advice on how to handle such things in your game in your own way. The highlight for me is the tiny 2 paragraph long section on Hero Point Tradeoffs; basically a method of allowing players to call down complications on themselves for Hero Points on demand.

The Archetypes chapter provides 19 major villain archetypes, each with a fully statted write-up, suggestions for use, theme ideas, and suggestions for roleplay. Also included are 12 pages of minion archetypes ranging from low power zombies, to giant robots. Notably useful are the 22 animal write-ups for animal controllers, summoners, familiars, and low power games (like sword and sorcery genres).

The Adversaries chapter offers role-play advice as well as conceptual and planning help. A discussion on the types of villains, their tactics, role-play elements, and even villain team-ups are all present. A lot of this will be more useful to new GM's more than those with years under their belt, but its a well put together chapter that gets deeper into the villain as a concept aside from the rules.

Lastly the art. Green Ronin has, in my experience, always done a good job sourcing art. This book proves no exception with numerous full color pictures scattered throughout. Each villain archetype gets a large picture, and the ancillary art is all good. Various styles are also present, from flat, almost watercolor paintings, to more comic book inspired styles.

The Bad:

For better or worse there are some typos; generally less than I have seen in similar products, and hopefully to be corrected before this goes to the printer (GR is known to use errata found early on by fans to do last minute corrections before print). The Setting chapter contained a number of references to second edition terms no longer used. This is probably the result of copy-paste errors, and again, will hopefully be corrected prior to seeing print, but it is a bit distracting and will likely confuse newer players and GM's. The Options chapter, while nice, was a little lite, being only fifteen pages long. I'd have liked to have seen more here, not so much because I can't do my own rules mods, but because I like to see how the designers and developers mod their own games.

The Ugly:

There is an entire chapter on Challenges, running ten pages in length, that I feel really should have been included in the core rules. These aren't options, or even things that will only see play in a handful of games. Most GM's are going to want to know the effects of being buried under rubble, fighting underwater or other odd environs, how to use weather effects like precipitation, fog, and wind, and how to run traps. The chapter, despite its brevity, is well written, but it really should have been well written a year ago and included with the basic rules for the game.

Closing Thoughts:

I'm giving this a solid rating at this point. That may increase or decrease as I get a chance to more thoroughly review the entire product. Mostly I'm docking points for certain chapters being shorter than I would have preferred, some minor copy/paste errors and typos, and the fact that there's a chapter included here that should have been part of the core rule book. What is here is nearly all useful, and would likely be even more so to a new GM. The artwork and production values are all high and up to Green Ronin's usual standard. The good far outweighs the bad despite a few minor complaints.

Rating: 85%

[Forge]

Sounds like something I will be picking up.