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Mutants & Masterminds Patreon: An Interview With Green Ronin Publishing
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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8202005" data-attributes="member: 5948"><p>I'm a big fan of the Mutants and Masterminds system and I've promoted it to many people, but I'm getting more and more irritated with the way GR treat the line, to be honest.</p><p></p><p>Pretty much all their other lines - all the licences like Expanse, Dragon Age, ASOIAF, plus Blue Rose, get big hardcopy releases, while M&M gets a trickle of e-content that is extremely expensive by comparison, content per content. And this isn't a new thing and it's been very corrosive to the quality of the M&M3e line as a whole. When 3rd edition was first released, GR started releasing the Power Profiles, Gadget Guides, Atlas of Earth-Prime, and Threat Report mini-pdfs for a couple of bucks each and then eventually consolidated them into books. Unfortunately, the books read like bunch of mini-pdfs thrown together, rather than coherent sourcebooks. M&M3e was crying out for a book similar to the 2e Ultimate Power, with help on building powers (clarifying how certain Limited Afflictions work would be GREAT, as would fixing Shrinking, some attempt at a 3e implementation of the 2e Independent and Slow Fade, build options for Weaken to make it less all-or-nothing, and so on and so on). The Power Profiles compiled book (when it finally appeared, much much later) didn't even attempt to address these issues, which were well-known in the community at the time, it simply bundled the pdfs. Similarly, the big Atlas of Earth-Prime sourcebook was hamstrung because its chapters had been broken up in such a way as to make convenient pfd-saleable packets rather than by what would enable a more functional and sensible description of the setting. You can see the footprints of this approach in the book now. It's broken up into 11-page chunks describing individual geographic areas. So you get 11 pages on the Caribbean and 11 pages on Mexico - but also 11 pages on all of 'East Asia' including China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines etc. It just makes for a disjointed book that's less-functional as a world setting - and a big part of the reason why is the mandate that everything fitted in nice neat 11-page packets to feed the mini-pdf production model.</p><p></p><p>It seems like the mini-pdf release model has shaped the entire line, and not in a good way - and I can't help be pessimistic that the patreon will only continue that trend.</p><p></p><p>I recently signed up to the GR patreon, at the lowest level (A$4.50ish/month). They seem to mostly be doing villain writeups there, and that is a content type that DOES work well with lots of small releases, so I'm fine with that. Frankly, i suspect I won't last long though. The patreon doesn't make it clear that this is the case, but at the lowest level you get a weekly stat block and nothing else. To get the villain's descriptive text, you need to go with the next level up. I'm perfectly willing to accept that this is just a matter of imprecise writing of the patreon tiers rather than anything nefarious, but still, I was fairly cheesed off when i found this out (and to be fair, the descriptions I do have access to seem to be copy-pasted from 2e material I already own, but this may not always be the case in future). To get 4 full villain writeups a month, I'd need to pay A$11. The PDF of the Rogue's Gallery sourcebook (which claims to contain over 150 villains, of which maybe 70-80ish have full writeups and art) is something in the order of A$28 on the Green Ronin online store, while I can get an actual hardcover from a local game shop for A$57. Sure on the patreon you get HeroLab files etc ... but really? The comparative value for money is very, very low here.</p><p></p><p>So .. I'll give the patreon a while longer, but I'm skeptical. M&M really seems like an afterthought to GR as an organisation these days. The licenced properties seem to be getting all the love instead - none of THEM seem to have to put up with loads of expensive tiny pdf-only releases before maybe getting a hardcopy compilation a couple of years down the track. And that's probably just a reflection of the commercial realities that GR lives in, but it does tend to disgruntle one...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8202005, member: 5948"] I'm a big fan of the Mutants and Masterminds system and I've promoted it to many people, but I'm getting more and more irritated with the way GR treat the line, to be honest. Pretty much all their other lines - all the licences like Expanse, Dragon Age, ASOIAF, plus Blue Rose, get big hardcopy releases, while M&M gets a trickle of e-content that is extremely expensive by comparison, content per content. And this isn't a new thing and it's been very corrosive to the quality of the M&M3e line as a whole. When 3rd edition was first released, GR started releasing the Power Profiles, Gadget Guides, Atlas of Earth-Prime, and Threat Report mini-pdfs for a couple of bucks each and then eventually consolidated them into books. Unfortunately, the books read like bunch of mini-pdfs thrown together, rather than coherent sourcebooks. M&M3e was crying out for a book similar to the 2e Ultimate Power, with help on building powers (clarifying how certain Limited Afflictions work would be GREAT, as would fixing Shrinking, some attempt at a 3e implementation of the 2e Independent and Slow Fade, build options for Weaken to make it less all-or-nothing, and so on and so on). The Power Profiles compiled book (when it finally appeared, much much later) didn't even attempt to address these issues, which were well-known in the community at the time, it simply bundled the pdfs. Similarly, the big Atlas of Earth-Prime sourcebook was hamstrung because its chapters had been broken up in such a way as to make convenient pfd-saleable packets rather than by what would enable a more functional and sensible description of the setting. You can see the footprints of this approach in the book now. It's broken up into 11-page chunks describing individual geographic areas. So you get 11 pages on the Caribbean and 11 pages on Mexico - but also 11 pages on all of 'East Asia' including China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines etc. It just makes for a disjointed book that's less-functional as a world setting - and a big part of the reason why is the mandate that everything fitted in nice neat 11-page packets to feed the mini-pdf production model. It seems like the mini-pdf release model has shaped the entire line, and not in a good way - and I can't help be pessimistic that the patreon will only continue that trend. I recently signed up to the GR patreon, at the lowest level (A$4.50ish/month). They seem to mostly be doing villain writeups there, and that is a content type that DOES work well with lots of small releases, so I'm fine with that. Frankly, i suspect I won't last long though. The patreon doesn't make it clear that this is the case, but at the lowest level you get a weekly stat block and nothing else. To get the villain's descriptive text, you need to go with the next level up. I'm perfectly willing to accept that this is just a matter of imprecise writing of the patreon tiers rather than anything nefarious, but still, I was fairly cheesed off when i found this out (and to be fair, the descriptions I do have access to seem to be copy-pasted from 2e material I already own, but this may not always be the case in future). To get 4 full villain writeups a month, I'd need to pay A$11. The PDF of the Rogue's Gallery sourcebook (which claims to contain over 150 villains, of which maybe 70-80ish have full writeups and art) is something in the order of A$28 on the Green Ronin online store, while I can get an actual hardcover from a local game shop for A$57. Sure on the patreon you get HeroLab files etc ... but really? The comparative value for money is very, very low here. So .. I'll give the patreon a while longer, but I'm skeptical. M&M really seems like an afterthought to GR as an organisation these days. The licenced properties seem to be getting all the love instead - none of THEM seem to have to put up with loads of expensive tiny pdf-only releases before maybe getting a hardcopy compilation a couple of years down the track. And that's probably just a reflection of the commercial realities that GR lives in, but it does tend to disgruntle one... [/QUOTE]
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