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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2011190" data-attributes="member: 172">Crooks!Crooks! is a villain resource book for Green Ronin's popular d20-spinoff supers game, Mutants & Masterminds. Design is credited to Erik Mona, Kyle Hunter, and Sean Glen.A First LookCrooks! is a 128 page hardbound book priced at $27.95. This seems a little slender compared to the 250 page books for $25 just two years ago, but the book is full color. Considering black-and-white softcovers of the same page count are pushing the $25 dollar mark, by more modern standards its not so bad.The cover is illustrated by Cully Hamner in a deliberately comic-like style. It depicts the Atomic Brain (a villain first introduced in the Mutants & Masterminds rulebook) wailing on a variety of heroes also introduced in the rulebook.The interior is lavishly illustrated in full color, including a 9-page introductory comic featuring a number of the villains featured herein. Most of the remains pictures lack a background, simply illustrating the featured character with a stylized name logo. The interior artists cited are Axel Ortiz, Andrew Hou, Arnold Tsang, Brian Stelfreeze, Corey "Rey" Lewis, Cully Hamner, Ed Tadem, Eric Canete, Heather Martin, Jake Parker, Jason Martin, Karl Waller, Kyle Hunter, Leonard Kirk, Ramón Pérez, Sean Chen, and Steve Scott.A Deeper LookThe first image you are greeted with when you start flipping through the Crooks book is the Meta-4 logo. You might recognize this logo from a few pics in the Mutants & Masterminds rulebook. Indeed, Meta 4 seems to be the name given to the prevailing home universe of most figures that appeared in the rulebook. Meta 4 is mentioned in the background mentioned on the Green Ronin webisite as an organization that researches super-powered beings.Meta 4, notably, is not the setting of the Freedom City universe. That said, a sidebar later in the book claims that by switching a few references, one can use the material in this book mostly intact. For the most part that is true, but you will probably come away either not using all of the history described or making a lot of adjustments and explanations to explain the differences between the history of the two.The first major section of the book is a seven-page comic, "Tears for Everyman", which describes a villainous plot of the Atomic Brain against several of the key heroes introduced in the M&M rulebook, and begins to shed a little light on some of the backstory that they lacked in the rulebook.The second chapter provides 7 pages of dense type (with a few pictures) describing the history behind the Meta-4 setting. As you might summize, you can't exactly describe the history only talking about the villains, so you will find a lot of interesting dirt on many major figures, including some you might have been playing as samples characters in the M&M book. Did you know, if you are playing Protonik, that your character was originally created in Russia and brainwashed by the KGB?The history of Meta-4, a bit like that of Freedom City, emulates that of the supers comics through the years, and pretty much assumes that most major historical events (like WWII, Vietnam, etc.) still occur, but extra fictional history is piggybacked on it, with elements like superhuman experimentation and alien visitations. A few things don't quite occur like you see in the comics of our world. For example, few comics touched on social issues in their early years, but in the Meta-4 history, some of these issues come up in years much earlier than the comics dared touch upon them.The third chapter details "Mooks", or relatively weak lackeys that usually face heroes in large numbers. Each page contains on or two mook "concepts" (like aliens, combots, military personel, and sky pirates) and each entry has two or more stat blocks. The different stat blocks represent either different ranks or different varieties/specialties. Depending on the "mook" in question, some won't seem like mooks. The base "demon" is PL 10.The fourth chapter is the largest in the book, and details the crooks themselves. Each entry takes one or more pages, and has a similar layout: A full-color picture (generally excellent; there were only a few that didn't appeal to me, e.g. wasphawk), a background, use notes, tactics, a stat block (sorry, no nicely laid out characters sheet style stat blocks like in the rulebook) and "capers" (plot ideas using the crook in question.) Each also has a graphical "summary block" which clearly calls out the PL, basic concept (like "amphibious water manipulator" and "mythic subterranean conqueror"), location, identity, group affiliation, and vital statistics.The concepts themselves are generally good, though often having the corny sensibilities of the comics from which they are drawn. Herein you find exaggerated theme villains, plays on words, power mad conquerors, and petty villains. As you might know from reading the introductory comic, there are some repeat appearances of villains that appeared in the rulebook like the Atomic Brain (Kalak also receives a new treatment here, and Damocles is also mentioned).Some other reviews have dwelled upon the concepts themselves; I think I will just point out this: though I find some of the concepts corny if nostalgic, one they all seem to have is utility. The capers give you immediate plot ideas, and the usage notes remind me of my favorite Green Ronin product, Legions of Hell in that every entry gives you ideas. For example, its not well enough that you know that the Nazi villain Iron Cross will plague spaceflight experiments, but the engaging backstory behind it could be the basis for an investigative campaign that could engage your supers group for some time. Not only that, if you don't like the backstory, they give you variants.The fifth chapter provides a brief miscellany of new rules. In addition to new character options (feats, powers, and devices), the chapter also introduces the d20 concept of templates to the M&M game (mostly to handle effects like vampirism), rules for crisis level (which allow the character's exploits to affect the state of the world), and a system for resolving the criminal justice system in a supers-ridden world.Finally, the book has a complete index and a convenient breakdown of the villains by power level.ConclusionsI have to admit that I found many of the entries a bit corny, and didn't see as many nostalgic notes here as in the rich Freedom City setting. However, one thing I did see was a lot of undeniable utility. This is more than just a "monster manual" for M&M; it's also a sourcebook providing the basis for many campaigns. That's the first book of this sort I could say that about since Legions of Hell.Overall Grade: A- -Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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