|
Captain Cutlass
Belgium
Leuven
-
Mutants & Masterminds: Warriors & Warlocks (Mutants & Masterminds Sourcebook)
By Dale Donovan, Matthew E. Kaiser, Steve Kenson & Aaron Sullivan.
Publisher: Green Ronin
Softcover
Warriors & Warlocks is an expansion on Mutants & Masterminds. This very curious sourcebook deals with gaming in the Sword & Sorcery genre. I say curious because when you think of it Mutants and Masterminds is a Superhero RPG based on DnD’s D20 rules. So, a fantasy expansion module for a superhero game based on a fantasy game.
But when you look closer to this book you’ll notice that it’s not a reversal to DnD but rather a seperate system, taking the best of M&M and applying it to the fantasy gerne. Still, the concept is a bit daft in my opinion.
The introduction of this book talks about the role of the fantasy genre in comic books and suddenly it becomes clear. This is in fact a game that is seperate from the “canon” fantasy RPG, it is meant to be played as a light, puply comic book or animation series.
You’re not limited to the fantasy gerne, as in many comics a crossover between superheroes and fantasy can provide an interesting break of pace. We can easily see guys like Dr. Strange hopping to an alternate-fantasy dimension or Conan stepping trough a portal into our modern world.
The first chapter looks in depth at the Sword and Sorcery gerne of comic books, the things that intrigue us about it and its history, including later movie and TV-series adaptations.
The second chapter features the different rules needed to create a hero for the game. It features new feats, skills and several archetypes that can be used as templates or inspiration.
The third chapters handles GM information, including ways to run the game, villains & monsters, magic rules and adventure frameworks.
The final chapter provides three game settings: Green Ronin’s Freeport, Freedom’s reach from World of Freedom and the Savage Lost World from the Freedom City setting.
With its 142 pages you can imagine the information in this book is not in-depth, in fact it’s quite shallow.
The unneccesary introduction is a short atricle that lists main writers, comic books, animation series and movies throughout it’s short history but fails to capture the reader’s interest because there’s is no info related to the game you are about to play or how to incorporate certain factors into your games. It’s just a list of facts that, frankly, is not very interesting nor thourough to read. You’ll find better information on this topic on the web or in your local library.
The steel & spell section explains the various power levels as they are used in any M&M game and continues to list and describe all the stats & skills as they are used in a fantasy setting. The skills & feats do get additional options and effetcs but frankly most of these should already be available in the M&M basic rules. A small number of new feats are also included but once more; there is no additional merit in their descriptions. For example, Dirty Fighting, Precise strike or Veteran fighter are a small selection of feats that work just as well in any other M&M setting. The powers in Warriors & Warlocks represent racial abilities, arcane spells and extraordinary talents. This is the first part of the rules that actally differs from your regular M&M game since your heroes are not supers any more. There is also a small equipment list that delivers, just as can be expected, a dim and restrictive view on the fantasy armory. Most of the weapons are identical with no or very limited extra rules on using them. The weapons have only a damage bonus, a critical range of 19-20, a cost and a size. Their descriptions are mediocre at best. Also, there are only 10 types of armour, helmets and shields are non-existent.
The chapter ends with racial and professional templates plus some archetypes. Once again these archetypes are very basic and insufficient to give players a wide range of options.
The next chapter is for the gamesmaster and is even worse than the player chapter. It starts with 7 villain archetypes, presented in the same way as the player archetypes and includes some very cliché adventure idea’s. The mosters & minions section gives you stats and two lines of description for 24 enemies, followed by 13 templates. By far way too little as any fantasy player can tell you. Apart from this there are also statistics on 7 NPC’s.
The following three pages detail how to use Magical items in your game, two of these pages are item descriptions so you can imagine the depth of the magic item rules. The last part of this chapter gives you very basic mass combat rules and an uninspiring section on how to create and run adventures.
The only good part of this book is its end where three settings are laid out, settings that have been written by others and that have proven their merit allready. Frankly, these are also a waste of your time as you will feel much more satisfaction in obtaining and using their original books.
Design: It looks good, the layout is actually the best of this book, the illustrations are great and its in full colour. Statblock on the other hand aren’t that good. Still an 8.
Content: What content? 1
Rules: Totally insufficient 2
Score: I wouldn’t pick it up if it was for free 3/10 
-
|
|
|
