Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faerl'Elghinn" data-source="post: 2697144" data-attributes="member: 17810">If It Ain't Broke...Mutants & Masterminds is every bit as polished and professional in appearance as anything I have ever seen from Wizards of the Coast, with the added advantage of having such good content that it is truly a monumental task to find any real criticism.  Wizards of the Coast products, although always aesthetically excellent--albeit no more so than M & M--simply do not generally have the level of quality in game content that is evident throughout the M & M books.  Personally, I am not interested in replacing M & M with any other product--it's simply every bit as good as I could possibly want it to be, and I would expect the majority of people who have read the books or played the game to agree with me.Unfortunately, this means that WotC will be investing its considerable resources in a project which is very unlikely to be successful.  While the company seems intent on cramming an endless stream of core rulebooks, campaign settings, and "rules accessories" down our throats, it also seems unwilling to make any of these items as useful as it could by providing a steady flow of quality adventure material.  The (apparent) intended result of this overabundance of rules unaccompanied by the means to utilize them seems to be that gaming groups grow bored with each new offering quickly enough that they engage in a futile pursuit of something which might restore fun to the game.  Because very few of the company's releases represent this ideal, this quest can be expected to continue indefinitely.  Heaven forbid that the company should endeavor to make the game more enjoyable to those who have invested countless dollars in it.  While my group and I are capable of creating a great deal of home-brewed fun, I sincerely miss the days of Dragon Mountain, Ruins of the Undermountain, and Return to the Tomb of Horrors.  The player hand-outs, vivid descriptions, unique magic items, creative obstacles, innovative encounters, and professional artwork from epic adventures such as these were responsible for the development of our most cherished characters.  In fact, the characters from our Dragon Mountain campaign have yet to retire.  Over the last thirteen years or so, they have made the transition from second to third editions, and occasionally continue to adventure on a cosmic scale, most recently in a modified Spelljammer campaign involving the pursuit of deific status on Faerun (and other fun stuff, such as Persistent Time Stop and +30 strength bonuses).The point is that, although all of these new game concepts, prestige classes, and settings are all well and good, and many of them are quite inspiring and creative, what we really need is a decent library of things to do with them.  I am so very weary of reading about what kinds of characters I can make and what kinds of things they could do if only there were enough good adventure material for them to get to the level at which they might have the option to do them.  As a DM, I find the creation of adventure material, especially fully-statted major NPCs and antagonists, to be extremely tedious under the new rules.  In fact, I am beginning to feel that the new rules are so meticulous that they detract from the other aspects of the game.  I would much rather drop my hard-earned cash for some material which would keep my players engaged for an extended period of time without my having to spend hours on end generating this material.  As a player, I am tired of watching the DM advance monsters for half of the session, and I am tired of playing through half-baked scenarios.  If this is the new face of D & D, then perhaps I am tired of D & D itself (*sigh*).I own M & M.  I walked into the store, opened it up, and even despite all of the glowing reviews I had read, I was absolutely amazed.  I was compelled to purchase it--it was simply one of the coolest things I had ever seen in my entire long gaming career, and my friends all agreed.  We don't need anything else.  Mutants & Masterminds is the ultimate superhero game, and WotC is kidding itself if it thinks it can do better.  In fact, maybe it would be better served by producing some good Superlink material--in my opinion, the quality of M & M is such that Green Ronin has marginalized even the malevolent overlord of the RPG industry to the point that acting as a third party publisher might be the only way that it can credibly enter the market in the superhero genre.</blockquote>

Verification