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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JoeGKushner" data-source="post: 2011293" data-attributes="member: 1129">I finally got a chance to start playing in a Mutants & Masterminds campaign. We’re using the default setting of Freedom City and the GM has been using all the books to add little bits of this and that (Meta-4 and Freedom City) to his game in addition to lots of Champions books and GURPS IST for background ideas and maps.Now that I’ve actually played some Mutants & Masterminds, I wanted to see how Green Ronin handled making the NPCs. For this, I break out my book Crooks. The book starts off with the standard stuff. Two pages detailing that helped design and write the book followed by a table of contents. Then it gets interesting with a mini-comic that is worthy of being on the newsstands before breaking off into the history of the Meta-4 Universe. For the most part it’s a similar history to the real world with a few nips and tucks here and there to showcase where the super powers have made a difference in the world. On thing I thought interesting is the banning of super heroes in wars. This quickly and neatly takes heroes out of major conflicts without making the history completely unrealistic.The next part of the book is one every GM will find useful as it details mooks. These are the foes that go down in droves. At first I wondered what type of variety could they have? After all, a mook is different than a standard enemy. They don’t suffer the different levels of health loss (hit, stun and disabled results), but rather, are either knocked out or killed. Great for those players who are trying to emulate the body counts of the Punisher or Wolverine.That didn’t stop the authors from coming up with a wide list of creatures including the following; aliens, antag agents, combots, cultists, demons, goblins, mechanauts, military personnel, ninjas, security agents, sky pirates, stellar guard, superspies, terrorists, thugs unitrol mediators, vampires, werewolves, and zombies. There are a wide variety of power levels represented here and many of the entries include multiple versions of the mook for greater variety. Take for example cultists. We have initiates, adepts, trusted siblings, highest among equals, and most holy. They range in power level from 1 to 6. These varieties allow the GM to mix up what he throws at the players.Now I don’t agree with all of these things being mooks. The mechanauts for example are a power level 10. It seems almost silly that a starting hero could knock one of these things out with one blow. I’d probably put some campaign note there about making the first couple the players encounter regular enemies until the GM feels that the players have gotten the hang of fighting them and then using them as mooks. After all, how many times have we seen the hero fight a new foe only to have great difficult with it until it’s revealed that that foe is only the first of a new strain of enemy? This is true even with robots of this power as in many X-Men comics, the heroes have problem with a new brand of Sentinel only to get the hang of fighting the first one just in time to fight a swarm of them.After detailing mooks, the book goes straight into the bad guys. Each character starts with name, power level, quote, character concept, non-mechanical information (name, identity, base, group affiliation, nationality, height, weight, eyes, age, hair), background, using, and capers. It all starts with an old favorite, the Atomic Brain. Here’s an epic foe for most campaigns, a Power Level 20 villain who has enough power to in essence kill a hero with one shot with a PL 18 radiation Energy Control ability. The nice thing about these listings though, isn’t just the game statistics. Those are only a small part of the character after all. The nice thing are the full color illustrations, the Caper or campaign ideas that are included. The little extras like tactics and ideas on how best to use the character. The fully fleshed out background and details. The little extras like special henchmen, in this case, Singularity. To further flesh things out, they’ve included a sample of one of his bases, Volcano Island. All in full color.There are a wide variety of opponents to chose from. These range from gold old fashioned Nazi who survived their time like Iron Cross, to modern Nazi wannabes like Blitz. For those who want to shred the Golden Age of comics and move into a more modern era, Murder Man & Butcher Boy, an aging criminal overlord and his heir apparent. The book mixes in a good deal of classic style elements ranging from deadly overlords from other planes, like the Carrion Queen and the Mountain King, to martial art masters like Rose Monk. It’s a good mix of power levels as well, perfect for new players or experienced characters.One of the nice things about the characters presented is that they can make for whole campaigns in and of themselves. Take for example Sovereign, an exiled alien prince with dreams of stellar conquest. His allies, Sulemain and Waymaker, assist him take over ‘backwater’ style planets like Earth. This allows the GM to slowly introduce the Broan empire and all of its minions and enemies, potentially giving the players more allies and potential allies than the GM knows what to do with. A lot of work, but something that could make a campaign well worth playing. Besides crooks, there are also new rules. Some of these take a campaign in a new direction like ideas on how players can portray villains for a change of pace with some new feats, powers, devices and weaknesses to simulate that aspect of the comics.  Some of these rules are perfect for villains who seem destined to never face justice via trial like Above the Law where they gain a +4 bonus to their trial modifiers while others like Body Language, where you send a message using the Innuendo skill to another who doesn’t have it, are good for any character, good or evil.For those who need more examples of weaknesses, we’ve got several including addiction, disabled, quirk, and susceptible. Of this, only addiction is a single weakness. The others have different types so you can have quirk braggart or quirk fanatical or disabled dull witted or disabled frail. These weaknesses allow the GM to introduce more variety into his characters in addition to acting as guidelines for creating his own weaknesses.In another vein, templates are added. These templates have a PL adjustment and information on how to leave the template and how to customize it for different campaigns and styles. For example, a vampire, despite new powers, has many weaknesses. This allows the GM to customize his villains through vampirism or other ‘catchy’ supernatural diseases including zombies and werewolves.There are numerous little tools to help the GM run a better game. These including a Crisis Level for your campaign that allows the players to use Victory Points to improve various levels of society. These range from personal, social and global conditions. The GM is advised that depending on the origin of the Victory Points, that they only be allowed to effect that level. For instance, defeating a group of local thugs wouldn’t net the heroes any Global Victory Points. Some may want to run through a trial for a super villain and there is a campaign option, The Legal System, that allows you to do just that. It includes details for crime severity, circumstances, and of course, the actual results.In terms of using the book, it includes an excellent two-page index with almost every subject checked. Want a specific villain? Check. Want a mook? Check. The only part where it falters is in game mechanic specifics like if you wanted to look up all Feats. Nothing under Feats or Superfeats for that matter.  The listing of villains by power level shows a wide range of opposition from PL 1 to PL 21. Ironically, the PL 21 is a mook. The book is designed by Super Unicorn and once again, they’ve set some high standards for an Enemy style book. The art is top notch. The readability is high. The variety in art styles is not jarring. In short, it’s a great looking book that’s easy to read, reference and use. Those looking for more opponents for their Mutants & Masterminds campaign should quickly pick up Crooks!</blockquote>

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