The latest release for Mutants & Masterminds 3e is an updated Freedom City Campaign Setting. (US$44.95 book, or $19.95 PDF) Even though my group is playing on the other side of the (Earth-Prime’s) USA in Emerald City, I decided to pick up a copy. Unlike my reviews of previous sourcebooks in the line, I can also tell you how this one compares to the second edition, since I have read both. (I refer to them as FC3e and FC2e here.) If you’re a player in this setting, my review is spoiler-free.
First off, FC3e is bigger; almost 60 more pages. Understandably, given the existence of Hero High and Cosmic Handbook sourcebooks, there is relatively little on Claremont Academy and space stuff. The book is also organized differently–many things have been moved around, and some information that was in FC2e sidebars is incorporated into the main text. (The DNAscent Process is an example of the latter.) There is some repetition of material, mostly city history and backstories of characters and organizations–but there is more new in these areas than I expected.
A lot of the new history and backstory material comes from extending the Earth-Prime timeline, which ended in 2005 in FC2e, up through 2015–but not all of it! While FC2e provided only the barest details of much pre-Colonial history, FC3e delves much deeper. The Colonial to 2004 time period is where there is the most repetition, but the writers still provide some new material, as opposed to retconning.
One formatting “tradition” continued in FC 3e is starting off with a Visitor’s Guidebook, as done in FC2e and the Player’s Guide to Emerald City 3e. I enjoyed those previous guidebooks but this one is the best, due largely to the several snarky comments written on this “draft copy” by the current Mayor (whose identity I won’t spoil). They reminded me a little of the Dresden Files RPG’s trope of having “sticky notes” from various characters scattered through the text.
Like most M&M sourcebooks, FC3e includes a lot of NPC stats. Many of these, of course, will be “old friends (or enemies!)” with their stats updated to 3e mechanics–as well as backstories brought up to date. Some supers have changed, in powers and/or outlook. Just like our PCs! But, adding to the sense of history, others are new, including legacy characters. Some familiar faces no longer have stats, however. The villain Psion clan barely gets a mention in the Atom Family section, in fact. (No great loss to me, as I never found the Psions or their nemeses the Atom Family that interesting.)
Captain Thunder (my favorite of the Freedom City heroes) still gets some press in the book, but I was surprised there were no 3e stats for him, seeing as just about every other retired/inactive/deceased super has stats. Even some supers that were historical figures as far back as FC2e still got 3e stats, if only to serve as examples for similar PCs.
On the other hand, FC3e does include sidebars with templates meant to be used to make characters with certain backgrounds. Some of these are for aliens (the shapeshifting Grue, or perhaps humans “infected” with Grue DNA, for example.) Several other templates are presented for players who want their PC to be a Legacy Hero to a retired/deceased superhero such as Beacon or The Scarab.
Another thing that impressed me was the artwork, in varying comic book styles. Some of the pictures are from FC2e, such as the classic Centurian vs. Omega fight. Others are new. My favorites are Daedalus trying to save Icarus (heartbreaking) and the WWII era Liberty League, which was done to look like a comic panel printed on a 1940s press. I loved the latter so much, I used it as the featured image above.
Overall, FC3e is rated Must-Have by me. There is plenty of useful material for GMs and players. (For example, don’t skip the complications in the statblocks. They are some of the best, if you need ideas.) But the material wasn’t just useful–it was a fun book to read! At least as entertaining as the Emerald City book. I had a good time reading it, and that’s important too.
Linda Whitson
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What kind of system is it? d20, Narrative Dice?
M&M 3e is a D20 system with many changes to reflect the genre