This Mutants & Masterminds supplement offers Gamemasters a total of ten new villainous archetypes to challenge heroes with. Each villainous archetype features suggestions for variations of the archetype as well as a trio of capers appropriate for the villain.

The included archetypes are:

• Beast Lord: thinks humanity are the real animals
• Disdainful Psionic: capable of some very dangerous thinking
• Extraterrestrial Biker: alien dude with a bad ‘tude
• Manipulative Vamp: beauty really is only skin deep
• Mindbender: taking you on a trip
• Obsessed Genius: a different kind of mad scientist
• Parasitic Demon: your misery is her pleasure
• Power Leech: draining your powers and using them against you
• Second-Rate Villain: powerful but completely out of his depth
• Supreme Commander: military genius

Most of the villainous archetypes make use of the Attack/Defense trade-off rule to adjust their maximum attack, defense, damage, and Toughness save bonuses. Skills are listed with the number of ranks after the skill name and the total skill bonus listed in parenthesis. For example: Bluff 5 (+8) means the character has 5 ranks of Bluff and a total bonus of +8 when making Bluff checks.

All of the villainous archetypes are designed to present a certain level of challenge for a power level 10 game.If the game operates at a higher or lower power level the Gamemaster may wish to increase or decrease the villainous archetypes’ power levels on a one-for-one basis.

Some of the villains make use of power modifiers found in Ultimate Power; these have been referenced and included in Appendix A for your convenience.

Villainous Archetypes 3 (PDF)

mancerbear, Atomic Think Tank

mancerbear has created some character standees for his game. The file is quite large (2.8 megs) but is hosted on ECORE Central for your enjoyment (with mancerbear’s permission of course). Now you can have extra standees for you game as well!

Download PDF of Standups

Silverback, Atomic Think Tank

This M&M gaming aid has been playtested over a couple of sessions by Silverback and it seems to work really well! In order to use it you’ll need the correct colored poker chips, or at least a close approximation.

Download 800 x 566 JPG
Download PDF
Download Version 2.0 PDF

enrious on the Atomic Think Tank thread suggests a cheaper alternative: Take common chips (white, blue, or red) available anywhere and paint them the appropriate color. Box of 100 chips: $1; Can of Paint: $.88 per color. He also used colors for other effects, like gold chips for those under leadership effects and so on.

Dr. Confoundo suggests another use for different colored poker chips. Use them to track Hero Points. Hand a few out before the game starts, and then when the player is eligible for another one, toss them another one.

Leave your comments at the Atomic Think Tank

bblackmoor, Atomic Think Tank and Westguard.org

An OpenOffice spreadsheet intended to facilitate creation of Mutants & Masterminds characters.

Latest Updates:

Update 2.04

* Added “Treat drawbacks as” option;
* made StandardSheet automatically detect if Drawbacks are treated as Complications;
* added Space Travel to movement tab and StandardSheet;
* made movement values work up to progression level 25 (and beyond, but the values cap at 25);
* improved how movement override values are displayed.

Still to do:

* create a sample character that uses AltFormSheet
* redesign MiniSheet
* redesign WoundTrackerSheet
* figure out how to handle ranked feats that can do more than one
thing (e.g., Rage)

Downloads:

Mutants & Masterminds OpenOffice Character Builder - v2.04
Screenshots in Acrobat format - v2.00
Engebrechtre font (required for Standard Sheet)
Simple text character sheet

Sites to Visit:

Westguard.org - Official wiki site of M&M OpenOffice Character Builder Spreadsheet
OpenOffice - The FREE alternative Office Suite for Mac and PC
Atomic Think Tank Discussion Thread

Arbor Productions, May 21, 2007
Arbor Productions’ own Michael Kuhn recently sat down with Lee F. Szczepanik, Jr., the division’s Publisher and CEO of the parent company, to talk about what’s on the horizon for Arbor Productions, plans for the new novel division, the Autumn Arbor sanctioned-play network, and families who game together.

For the full interview, be sure to visit Arbor Productions

Description: An illegal alien who defends her adopted nation with zeal unsurpassed by many natives. Bandita fights petty criminals with her flashing sword, cracking whip, and rapier wit.

History: Rosa was born to Mexican nationals who were crossing the American border illegally. They had hoped she would be born in America, but she was premature. Rosa’s mother died defore reaching the border. She was buried in the desert by Rosa’s father.

Rosa was raised in the United States by her father, Juan. Throughout her life, Rosa has thought of herself as an American. That belief was shattered when her father was deported several years ago. Rosa only discovered then that neither she, nor her father were legal citizens of the country she grew up in.

Rosa is an immigration activist during the day, and the masked avenger Bandita at night. She fights the good fight whether on the picket line, over the phone, or from the rooftops.

Download Demo PDF
Buy PDF at Paizo!

Thank goodness for raineym’s anal-retentiveness and eye for aesthetics, he has created a MS Excel stats block workbook that looks like the M&M-style stat blocks from the Core Rules book. There are 5 sheets in all, each in a different color theme: Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow, and Purple. It looks better than the standard character sheet in the back of the book and because it is built in MS Excel, you can fill in and adjust the fields as necessary.

Version 1.0 (5/17/07): Initial Release.
Version 1.1 (5/22/07): Added standard Toughness Saving Throw table to the Damage Roll table from Mastermind’s Manual. You can delete the rows on the Excel sheet of the table you are not using.

Download v1.1 Now!
Comment at the Atomic Think Tank

Here is a new resource for comic book and action/adventure writers. It’s simply an alphabetical listing of “key” words that may be helpful in creating acronyms for storyline organizations, entities and technology. Sure, the end result may not mean much, but then again what really was the significance of “United Network Command for Law Enforcement” other than the fact that it spelled out “UNCLE”?

Looking to come up with a spiffy little acronym for that clandestine society of villains in your comic book? Then just pick the word you want to turn into an acronym and start mixing and matching words in the listing with the corresponding letters. There’s even a little on-screen notepad to jot down your acronymic creations. (One tip: try to avoid words which contain the letters J, K, X, Y and Z.) It’s easy to do and only takes a few minutes to come up with some snazzy sounding stuff.

Go to Website

MutantsandMasterminds.com, May 21, 2007
As Hero High nears completion to head off to print, we’ve got a Super-Vision look at some of the great art in the book, along with two of the newest characters in Freedom City: Changeling and Whoop-Ant of the AlterniTeens!

Hero High Design Journal #9

New Releases:

Tomorrow Publishing - Seven Cities: Heroes and Villains, Volume One

Not all heroes live in New York City or some fictitious equivalent of it, some of them actually like sunshine. This book marks the first in a series of works detailing a West Coast superhero-ridden city known as Seven Cities, CA. This first installment will give you a brief lowdown on the seven former cities that comprise Seven Cities.

In addition to your first introductory glimpse at Seven Cities itself, this book contains 10 original characters from the Seven Cities setting (all of which are PL10 150 characters so they can be usable as either NPCs or even PCs!) and whose histories further expand upon the background of Seven Cities. These characters are:

Heroes:

* Atomic Girl – A nerdy nuclear physicist becomes a super-babe.
* Blaze – A villainous progeny proves too hot to handle.
* El Garra – A legacy hero has a lot of learning ahead of him.
* Sheathe – A young boy comes into possession of one of the most advanced weapons ever designed.
* Zero-G – A former fighter pilot is exposed to experimental g-force tolerance drugs.

Villains:

* Antagonist – A mild mannered inventor turns into a vengeful supervillain.
* Crosswind - A Native American terrorist can control of the winds.
* Meanstreak – A ruthless meta-human mercenary has slick powers.
* Spectra – A meta-human Goth obtains a powerful mystical amulet.
* V, the Virtual Man – A crazed game designer recklessly plays hero with the ultimate avatar.

Buy PDF: DriveThru RPG

Cracked Mirror - Growing Up Super — Part Five: Titanic Teens

In his fifth article in the series, preeminent physician Dr. Viktor Archeville continues his ground-breaking study into the lifecycle of metahumans and the effects they have on our society.

Specifically, Titanic Teens discusses the difficulties associated with puberty, late adolescence, and teen culture when dealing with young metahumans.

Buy PDF: RPG Now

Blackwyrm Games - The Algernon Files

The Algernon Files is now available in print in full color! You can buy a copy from the Blackwrym website. This is an exclusive online offer.

Buy Print: Blackwyrm Website

Plain Brown Wrapper Games - Bedlam in Bedlam (Adventure)

Things were bad enough in the decaying city of Bedlam before the psychopathic supervillain called the Cold Killer showed up. Now the authorities are up to their necks in frozen corpses in the middle of a blazing hot summer and the city is on the brink of panic. But when Our Heroes try to stop the Cold Killer’s rampage, they get sucked into far deeper and more terrible matters. Because in a place like Beldam, the truth is always so much worse than you think.

This giant-sized, 201 page adventure comes with its own campaign setting—the city of Bedlam. Crammed with double-crosses, intrigue and secret skullduggery, it’s a return to the Iron Age of Comics. Includes more than a dozen full-color maps, more than fifty NPCs, and an in-depth breakdown of an entire secret base, covering seven floors and over 130 separate rooms in lavish detail. Also includes fiendish experiments, nefarious conspiracies, sinister government agents, awful revelations, lurking shadows, stubble-jawed heroes brooding on rooftops at midnight, everything an Iron Age adventure needs!

So help yourself to a copy of the biggest RPG superhero adventure ever published! Bedlam is calling!

Buy PDF: RPG Now

Coming Soon:

Sisyphus Books - Second Stringers

A character folio filled with has-beens, up-and-comers, and never-weres. These heroes range from power level 6 to 8, making them perfect for sidekicks, off-color npcs, or Street-level heroes.

Each entry includes plot hooks, villain options, history/origin, and full-color art. With 20 characters in all, Second Stringers is a perfect addition to any campaign.

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