Teflon Billy
Explorer
The M&M Superlink program is at it’s core an “Open Gaming License” which allows publishers to produce supplements for Green Ronin Publishing’s Mutants and Masterminds game in much the same fashion that the OGL allows product to be made for Dungeons and Dragons. It has allowed some stellar M&M products to reach the market (such as the Chris Aylott-penned adventure A Matter of Family).
Body Count Entertainment’s Metahumans is a Superlink product I was looking forward to with high expectations. I think that—more than any other game genre—one can never have enough NPC’s for a superhero game. It is too difficult to improvise something interesting and consistent… a superhero game provides far too many variables.
So Metahumans already had its foot in the door. And when it arrived, I was reasonably impressed by the cover art and somewhat shocked by the appearance of a character virtually identical to one I had posted in my Cascade City story hour (behold: Tephra). They call her Coal, we called her Tephra
From that point out—the cover— my impressions of the product went downhill.
The lack of a table of contents left this reader with little choice but to just begin reading. First up was the setting’s Big Time Superhero team, The Liberty Society. Consisting of …
There are others members, but I’m not going to keep at this. The problems with The Liberty Society as useful gaming material is that anyone could have whipped these characters up. There is so little that is unique about them, that they come across as not even archetypes…they are nothing more than very-simply designed character builds tacked onto overly-convoluted (The Gladiator) or nonsensical (Girl From Mars) backstories.
Add repetition of power sets onto the list of complaints and you’ll find that I am less than thrilled with this section of the book.
The second chapter in the book, Villains, continues the trend of very unimaginative character builds. First off is the villain team; The Anarchy Syndicate.
the next section, Solo Villains includes such luminaries as Hyperion (a villainous and simply constructed Superman homage), There’s a Batman knockoff tucked into the Vigilantes section (The Demon III), yet another girl speedster nearly indistinguishable from the last one (Fast Girl), A character drawn to look virtually identical to 1990’s-era Lobo (Howler)...
And Mothman. Mothman is an example of nearly everything wrong with this product.
Mothman is a “plot device”, that is there are no stats available (or necessary) for his use. He is an immensely powerful being who apparently defied the “Old Ones”(?) and may or may not be a god.
He heads an organization (SINISTER) that may or may not be proven to exist, and has undefined goals.
For reasons that remain unexplained, he wears a tuxedo and a gasmask.
His main way of interacting with the world is through his “Shock Troopers”, which remain entirely undefined.
He is capable of anything, and has no decisive actions described in his history.
He is Gentleman, Doesn’t joke, rambles, and may make no sense when he speaks.
In fact, come to think of it, there is no mention of why he is called Mothman!
What exactly is this is here for? I don’t seek out supplements for reams of poorly explained nonsense. An “inexplicable creature capable of anything” is a poor example of a plot device when compared to something akin to Freedom City’s Mr. Infamy…powerful beyond mortal comprehension, but with goals and motivations useable to a game master.
This product is a mess. The layout leaves us with character illustrations appearing sometimes pages before their stats and writeup, the lack of a table of contents (and the subsequent inclusion of a table of contents lablelled as an index) make for hard reading, and the concentration of the “New Rules” section on Vampires (leading me again to believe that this project was headed up by a Vampire: The Masquerade LARPer) leaves a great deal to be desired.
What saves it from a 1/5 rating is the sometimes passable artwork. The best of it is the too rare work of Bong Dazo with his drawings of King Koin and Legion. Damion Harris’s stuff is good at least as often as it isn’t, while the work of Joshua Masters shows such a poor grasp of proportion (even classic “Comic Book” proportion) that I wonder how it made the cut.
2/5
Body Count Entertainment’s Metahumans is a Superlink product I was looking forward to with high expectations. I think that—more than any other game genre—one can never have enough NPC’s for a superhero game. It is too difficult to improvise something interesting and consistent… a superhero game provides far too many variables.
So Metahumans already had its foot in the door. And when it arrived, I was reasonably impressed by the cover art and somewhat shocked by the appearance of a character virtually identical to one I had posted in my Cascade City story hour (behold: Tephra). They call her Coal, we called her Tephra
From that point out—the cover— my impressions of the product went downhill.
The lack of a table of contents left this reader with little choice but to just begin reading. First up was the setting’s Big Time Superhero team, The Liberty Society. Consisting of …
- The Gladiator: The spirit of an ancient Roman Gladiator in the damage resistant body of WWII-era hero. A very convoluted background full of the death of NPCs is a long way to go for such a simple “Fistfighter” set of stats. He is also described as a “great leader” despite lacking either the Leadership or Inspire feats, and having no more than a middling Charisma (12)
- Girl From Mars: A girl born in Egypt, circa 10,000BC who apparently is the daughter of a Martian Military Man from that era(?), who—with his Martian Legions—Defended Egypt from the depredation of a time traveler called The Clockman. Or something. I’ve read it over a few times, and there is precious little I can decipher regarding this background. Did Martians rule Egypt at some point in this setting? If so, Mars sent its Chief of Defense to Egypt. In any event, she has largely by-the-book Density Control, Telepathy and Penetrating Vision. It has something to do with Earth’s atmosphere being different from that of Mars.
- The Guardian: Superman (Super strength and Eyebeams)+ Healing Powers. A non-interesting background coupled with an uninteresting character build does not, to quote Red Dwarf, grip me.
- Herakles: Well, he’s Hercules. A decent “brick” character build, though not measurably different in execution than any other Brick we’ve seen (including Minotaur in the M&M Core Book). The flavor text makes reference to his “constantly-used Super Charisma” which appears nowhere in the powers list.
- Hyperia: Massive, giant breasts. I know it’s in genre to have exaggerated proportions in superheroes…but come on! Character-build wise, she is a second character present on the team with Flight, Super Strength and Eyebeams in her power set.
- Inertia: A by-the-book speedster—near indistinguishable from Marathon of the core rules— with a legacy origin (her father was the original owner of her Super Speed item).
There are others members, but I’m not going to keep at this. The problems with The Liberty Society as useful gaming material is that anyone could have whipped these characters up. There is so little that is unique about them, that they come across as not even archetypes…they are nothing more than very-simply designed character builds tacked onto overly-convoluted (The Gladiator) or nonsensical (Girl From Mars) backstories.
Add repetition of power sets onto the list of complaints and you’ll find that I am less than thrilled with this section of the book.
The second chapter in the book, Villains, continues the trend of very unimaginative character builds. First off is the villain team; The Anarchy Syndicate.
- Bullrush is a minotaur, with his powers geared towards charging and little else. He is yet another reasonably well-built brick.
- King Koin: A stage magician whose rival changed him into a sentient, albino gorilla. He later acquired Sorcerous powers. That is pretty much the entire description.
- Legion: Is a guy who either controls or is controlled by sentient maggots (the power list and the fluff text conflict concerning which). Also mentioned is his desire to “consume” the whole world, but the powerset shown leaves him without any permanent Mind Control (if that is what’s meant) or Disintegration or…who knows what?
- Pain and Pleasure: A brother-and-sister duo of perverted Goths. They seem to be based on someone’s Vampire LARP characters as their “New Power” (Charm) closely mimics the vampiric discipline Majesty from White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade. Though they are included in The Anarchy Syndicate section, I think this might be a editing gaffe, as—unlike the others— no mention is made of them interacting with the other members.
the next section, Solo Villains includes such luminaries as Hyperion (a villainous and simply constructed Superman homage), There’s a Batman knockoff tucked into the Vigilantes section (The Demon III), yet another girl speedster nearly indistinguishable from the last one (Fast Girl), A character drawn to look virtually identical to 1990’s-era Lobo (Howler)...
And Mothman. Mothman is an example of nearly everything wrong with this product.
Mothman is a “plot device”, that is there are no stats available (or necessary) for his use. He is an immensely powerful being who apparently defied the “Old Ones”(?) and may or may not be a god.
He heads an organization (SINISTER) that may or may not be proven to exist, and has undefined goals.
For reasons that remain unexplained, he wears a tuxedo and a gasmask.
His main way of interacting with the world is through his “Shock Troopers”, which remain entirely undefined.
He is capable of anything, and has no decisive actions described in his history.
He is Gentleman, Doesn’t joke, rambles, and may make no sense when he speaks.
In fact, come to think of it, there is no mention of why he is called Mothman!
What exactly is this is here for? I don’t seek out supplements for reams of poorly explained nonsense. An “inexplicable creature capable of anything” is a poor example of a plot device when compared to something akin to Freedom City’s Mr. Infamy…powerful beyond mortal comprehension, but with goals and motivations useable to a game master.
This product is a mess. The layout leaves us with character illustrations appearing sometimes pages before their stats and writeup, the lack of a table of contents (and the subsequent inclusion of a table of contents lablelled as an index) make for hard reading, and the concentration of the “New Rules” section on Vampires (leading me again to believe that this project was headed up by a Vampire: The Masquerade LARPer) leaves a great deal to be desired.
What saves it from a 1/5 rating is the sometimes passable artwork. The best of it is the too rare work of Bong Dazo with his drawings of King Koin and Legion. Damion Harris’s stuff is good at least as often as it isn’t, while the work of Joshua Masters shows such a poor grasp of proportion (even classic “Comic Book” proportion) that I wonder how it made the cut.
2/5
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