M&M and True20 -- What should I buy?

[Ghostwind]

For M&M besides the core book, I strongly recommend Masterminds and Ultimate Power. This will give you everything you need to create memorable characters. I haven't gotten to take a good look at it yet, but Book of Magic is also supposed to be great if you're planning on creating characters like Doctor Strange.

For True20, beside the core book it would be nice to include the Expert's Handbook and the Adept's Handbook. They will give you more options.

 

[Vigilance]

Does anyone know if RPGObjects is planning to create a True20 version of Terror of the Twisted Earth?

Right now we have no plans for that, sorry.

 

[Brutorz Bill]

Right now we have no plans for that, sorry.

*sigh* Oh well. Your putting so much cool stuff out these days, guess I'll just have to wait and see what coolness your coming out with next.
Thanks

 

[Elric]

For M&M besides the core book, I strongly recommend Masterminds and Ultimate Power. This will give you everything you need to create memorable characters. I haven't gotten to take a good look at it yet, but Book of Magic is also supposed to be great if you're planning on creating characters like Doctor Strange.

If you're an M&M player, I'd definitely recommend Ultimate Power (though it's quite hard to find a print copy at the moment and will be until GR reprints the book).

I wouldn't recommend the Mastermind's Manual as an initial book to get as a player, though. Even if you're a GM who is looking to tinker with the rules (the best audience for the Mastermind's Manual), I'd still be a little wary. It has some very good parts (its section on skills, for example) but a lot of the book just isn't that useful and much of the new character-creation material is quite unbalanced.

I've heard good things about Instant Superheroes but don't own the book.
That said, the original poster specified

What I want are the books that will be most useful to me in creating characters and designing scenarios for one-shot or short-term games (for conventions, for instance). I want books that are fully compatible with the latest version of the rulebook, so I can use them without knowing the respective systems inside-and-out.

I'd recommend Freedom City as it gives you a great city to set things in and a bunch of pre-built characters and organizations.

Freedom's Most Wanted isn't out yet, but it looks like a useful book for GMs: Super-Vision: Freedom's Most Wanted Design Journal #1

Ultimate Power helps with ideas for creating characters (since it lists a lot of "associated effects" and alternate powers for various powers). If you want everything to be compatible with the most recent version of the rule book, you won't watch to switch to using the UP powers section (since it has updated the powers rules in a number of places) instead of the core book's powers section, and the other big drawback is that you might not want to include items from Ultimate Power that aren't in the core book (some of the expanded super-senses, for example). In this case UP gets quite a bit less useful.

 

[Knightfall]

Right now we have no plans for that, sorry.

Bummer.

 

[Colonelpuddinhead]

Jeff... if you haven't picked up the M&M 2nd ed book yet, I'd get the pocket book edition. Its half the price and has none of the artwork in it, but other is the same book - only smaller and easier to use. My friend loaned me his, and its great (easier access to index, COT - thus easier to find the pages, and its softcover). I'm definitely going to be getting one.

CP

 

[Atlatl Jones]

Jeff... if you haven't picked up the M&M 2nd ed book yet, I'd get the pocket book edition. Its half the price and has none of the artwork in it, but other is the same book - only smaller and easier to use. My friend loaned me his, and its great (easier access to index, COT - thus easier to find the pages, and its softcover). I'm definitely going to be getting one.

The pocket player's guide doesn't have any of the GM chapters in it, so the hardcover is a much better buy for someone planning on running the game.

For the OP's question, I would recommend just the M&M core rulebook and Freedom City. Freedom City has tons of characters in it, most of whom are villains, as well as great story ideas and a fun supers setting.

Aside from those two, Instant Superheroes would probably be my third choice. It has lots of generic character builds, so if you want to quickly put in some of your own villains, or port over marvel and DC characters, chances are there's a build in Instant Superheroes that's close to what you want.

 

[Bialaska]

For M&M there I'd say the two most important books (other than the Core rulebook) are Freedom City and Ultimate Power.

Freedom City contains a full campaign setting and has lots of premade characters. Alternatively you can buy Hero High if you're planning on running things more like the X-Men, as a group of youngsters, since HH contains several characters and a full school that is defaulted to Freedom City, but could really be placed anywhere.

Ultimate Power is the book that contains a lot powers and suggestions for how to put powers together, both for alternate powers and which powers usually are suitable with the chosen power. Definutely a must-buy.

Instant Superheroes which has been suggested by several isn't really a book that I feel the GM should buy, unless he or she wants to offer more archetypes to the players. Sure they can all be adapted by the GM to be NPCs, but honestly I feel the other two are far more useful tools for the GM.

 

[Colonelpuddinhead]

The pocket player's guide doesn't have any of the GM chapters in it, so the hardcover is a much better buy for someone planning on running the game.

Actually it does... I was reading through them last night. As you mentioned, the artwork isn't there - so much of the diagrams and what-not aren't there... but there's a whole chapter on "Running the Game"

CP

 

[Set]

I have a few supplements for True20, but am not really familiar enough to offer any real recommendations.

For M&M2e, on the other hand, I'd recommend Instant Heroes, the Freedom City campaign setting and Ultimate Power. Each depends on what you plan on doing.

The FC setting is a plug-n-play setting, with plenty of NPCs and adversaries statted up, most of them extremely reminiscent of famous Marvel and DC characters, to create a very nostalgic feel, which can help to make the setting familiar, or distracting, depending on your tastes. If you don't have a specific setting in mind, it's a well-designed city, with a bit of a Boston feel to it (with dashes of NYC, as it, like most of the characters in it, is a collage of multiple sources).

Ultimate Power is a toolkit for do-it-yourself character building. If you aren't really into plunging hands-first into the guts of a system and getting grease on your overalls, you won't really need this. If you love that sort of thing, it's the bees knees. It's also horribly out-of-print. So out-of-print that the backup copy I ordered from Green Ronin almost two years ago still hasn't arrived. Pray for a reprint.

Instant Heroes has several dozen characters, following each of the various 'themes' like 'armored hero' or 'mystic master' or 'martial artist,' and then presenting at least *three* different variations on that character. And there's an appendix at the back that offers one of each of these archetypes at PL 6, for lower-powered games, or supervillain 'mooks' or whatever. If you've got your own campaign setting in mind, and Freedom City wouldn't be needed, I would rate this as number one.