New Edition of Mutants & Masterminds Coming Soon, Playtest Launches at End of Month

Green Ronin Publishing is making a new edition of Mutants & Masterminds. Creator Steve Kenson announced the news over on BlueSky this evening, revealing that he's working on a fourth edition of the superhero-themed RPG. According to Kenson, an "Origin" playtest edition of the new edition will be releasing in PDF at the end of the month, with a limited print run coming to Gen Con.

Perhaps the most popular superhero RPG, Mutants & Masterminds is a D20-based game system meant to be used with any level of superhero story, ranging from street-level to cosmic powered heroes. The GM sets a power level at the outset of the campaign that dictates the overall power level of characters, but players can further customize their characters within that framework using power points. The game notably allows for a large variety of superhero skills and abilities, allowing players to build custom heroes with a large degree of variation.

In recent years, Marvel has gotten into the RPG business with their own Marvel Multiverse RPG that allows character creation and play as one of dozens of superheroes from the Marvel Universe. Greater Than Games published a Sentinel Comics RPG (based on Sentinels of the Multiverse) but that is on hiatus due to that company shuttering due to tariffs.

 

[overgeeked]

Announced today, sort of. Can't wait to see what they're going to do.

 

[overgeeked]

Hey, @Morrus

 

[humble minion]

I’m interested, because I lurves me some M&M, but wary, because it’s most likely based on the Valiant Adventures rules changes and I think they’re not really what the game needed. Seemed to be more aimed at making the system familiar to 5e players rather than fixing some of the long-term pain points that are legacies of its d&d ancestry.

 

[Libertad]

M&M is my favorite superhero system, and it's in a definite need of an update. The optimist in me wants it to be good and get a timely release. However, the Valiant Adventures KickStarter is way past due. Green Ronin has a lot of irons in the fire, so being split between so many projects slows them all down.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would need to see what sort of changes they're making. I don't want another 7th Sea second edition situation.

 

[humble minion]

I would need to see what sort of changes they're making. I don't want another 7th Sea second edition situation.

If we assume the Valiant Adventures rules is a bit of a dry run (like DC Adventures was for m&m 3e back in the day) the big change seems to be a sort of quasi-advantage/disadvantage mechanic, which sits on top of m&ms usual system of modifiers. Can’t say I was a huge fan, it felt a bit awkward.

There was also a subsystem to increase lethality, but I think that was a setting-specific change for Valiant, which is big into that sort of thing.

What I was really hoping for was a move away from the d20-legacy 5 foot squares to a more abstract range band system as used by games like FFG Star Wars, or Alien. Seems like a bit of a no-brainer when you have PCs with super speed and flight that can move hundreds of feet a round and make a mockery of grid-based movement systems. I don’t think Valiant looked like doing that though.

 

[overgeeked]

If we assume the Valiant Adventures rules is a bit of a dry run (like DC Adventures was for m&m 3e back in the day) the big change seems to be a sort of quasi-advantage/disadvantage mechanic, which sits on top of m&ms usual system of modifiers. Can’t say I was a huge fan, it felt a bit awkward.

There was also a subsystem to increase lethality, but I think that was a setting-specific change for Valiant, which is big into that sort of thing.

What I was really hoping for was a move away from the d20-legacy 5 foot squares to a more abstract range band system as used by games like FFG Star Wars, or Alien. Seems like a bit of a no-brainer when you have PCs with super speed and flight that can move hundreds of feet a round and make a mockery of grid-based movement systems. I don’t think Valiant looked like doing that though.

I’m honestly hoping they go much more rules light and abstract across the board. I doubt they will, but who knows. I just can’t go back to a dense and crunchy system at this point. Gimme something where I can write down “Green Lantern,” make a few picks, and be ready to play in 5-10 minutes instead of having a 2-3 hour paperwork and math homework session just to make a character.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If we assume the Valiant Adventures rules is a bit of a dry run (like DC Adventures was for m&m 3e back in the day) the big change seems to be a sort of quasi-advantage/disadvantage mechanic, which sits on top of m&ms usual system of modifiers. Can’t say I was a huge fan, it felt a bit awkward.

There was also a subsystem to increase lethality, but I think that was a setting-specific change for Valiant, which is big into that sort of thing.

What I was really hoping for was a move away from the d20-legacy 5 foot squares to a more abstract range band system as used by games like FFG Star Wars, or Alien. Seems like a bit of a no-brainer when you have PCs with super speed and flight that can move hundreds of feet a round and make a mockery of grid-based movement systems. I don’t think Valiant looked like doing that though.

I never played M&M with minis anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m honestly hoping they go much more rules light and abstract across the board. I doubt they will, but who knows. I just can’t go back to a dense and crunchy system at this point. Gimme something where I can write down “Green Lantern,” make a few picks, and be ready to play in 5-10 minutes instead of having a 2-3 hour paperwork and math homework session just to make a character.

I really, really hope they don't. Plenty of supers games do the rules light thing already. That's not M&M, and is in fact what I was thinking of when I said "7th Dea 2e situation". I suspect if they tried they would lose a good chunk of their existing base.