Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Meta-Powers

Emerald City Knights Chapter 5: Rise of the Masterminds (PDF)

One of those ways was producing smaller, focused products we could deliver electronically in PDF format to provide support for our games. We started with the launch of Mutants & Masterminds, Third Edition, figuring the most useful support for that game out of the gate was villains for the heroes to fight. So we came up with what we initially called "Villain of the Week": a single bad guy, written up with game stats, background, and adventure hooks, with an "app price" of 99 cents, like buying a song on iTunes. We worked on getting at least a month's worth of releases prepped and ready to go before we launched the series, which we eventually named "Threat Report" making it a weekly update from AEGIS, the super-agency dealing with villains in the setting.

Threat Report was well-received. It didn't do as well, sales-wise, as a print product, but it also didn't need to: the overhead costs for the individual issues was lower, so we could sell to a smaller audience. Some villains did better than others, but all of the issues at least broke even, and continued to do well afterwards. It proved to us that a weekly series of smaller products was viable, and a good way to provide continuing support for a game that didn't involve producing a large book. As a plus, we could compile the smaller products and use them to produce a book eventually, as we've done with Threat Report.

Of course, the weekly publishing process was also a learning experience. We had to greatly compress our usual production timeline. Even getting a month or so ahead of the publishing dates, we needed to produce and develop text, art, and layout quickly. Having a standardized layout helped, something we carried over to the Power Profiles series. We needed to make sure our art orders were planned well in advance. Even then, art did not always keep pace with the text, leading to occasional hold-ups or reschedules as art came in late or in a different order. We also learned to standardize our art: in Power Profiles, each issue has the same art specs in terms of size and placement, allowing finished art to fit into the layout quickly and easily (unlike the character pieces in Threat Report, which often involved reflowing and adjusting text and layout).

On the other hand, the weekly schedule made our products more responsive: we got regular feedback from fans on our forums about what they liked and didn't about the format and content. Threads began devoted to speculation and wish-lists on future releases as well as reviewing the current ones. So later issues in the series benefited from information we would not have gotten if they had all been chapters of the same book.

After we completed a full year's worth of issues for Threat Report, we decided to wrap it up and launched the Power Profiles series. Fans of Threat Report were initially uncertain but Power Profiles has proven, if anything, to be more popular than Threat Report, allowing us to provide another type of regular support for M&M. The smaller electronic format has done so well that we've expanded it to our other games lines, offering similar (although not weekly) products for Dragon Age (and, eventually, A Song of Ice & Fire Roleplaying). The format has also allowed us to provide more "generic" support for the Adventure Gaming Engine, which has met with great fan approval.

As new innovations continue to change how publishing happens, you can expect to see us continue to experiment with new formats, new kinds of products, and new ways of delivering them to you for your gaming enjoyment. With the popularity of Kickstarter as a funding and marketing mechanism, who knows, there might be an offering there in the future...

Have a type of product or publishing you think we should be exploring? Hit our forums and let us know!

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Morphing Powers

The Silver Storm has turned Emerald City from a quiet Pacific Northwest metropolis to a hub of super-criminal activity, and AEGIS—the American Elite Government Intervention Service—is on the job. Threat Report presents profiles on dozens of the new supervillains endangering Emerald City and the world. From "stormers" newly granted their powers to ancient and eldritch evils, from beneath Emerald City's streets to other dimensions and times, Threat Report gives you a plethora of villains to challenge your players. This book compiles most of Green Ronin's Threat Report series of electronic villain profiles, along with new content created just for this collection. You'll find a variety of villains ready-made for your Mutants & Masterminds game, from low-level mercenaries for hire to super-powered thugs and cosmic world-beaters, even gods pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Heroes get ready because the villains of Emerald City are on the loose!

New in this collection:

• Arcanix: Keeper of occult secrets, so determined he will do anything to protect them.
• Dakuwanga: Aquatic beast from the dawn of time, rampaging across the seas towards shore!
• Hexenhammer: Hunter of all things magical, determined to send them to meet the Devil!
• Lady Vila & Treker: A former Russian spy and her enthralled companion. Who else will fall under her spell?
• Professor Jackanapes: Mystic cursed with a monkey's form by his dark eldritch masters, he seeks to unleash them on Earth to regain his rightful body.
• Redwood: Sequoia-sized avenger of the natural world.
• The Terror: Mysterious monster that haunts the streets, feeding on fear.
• Adventures! Plus additional adventure content, including "The Scrolls of the Secret Circle" involving Abracadaver and Arcanix, and "The Hammer and the Dragon" featuring Hexenhammer vs. Dracula!

Pre-Order Threat Report today!

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Talent Powers

Awards can be a contentious and passionate affair regardless of how the they are determined or what organization hands them out. Controversy and impassioned critique springs up around award nominees and winners; whether Nobel or Pulitzer, Origins or ENnies, it makes no difference when passionate people have strongly held opinions on their interests. In the wake of seemingly annual arguments over awards and their results I've seen people become disheartened and disinterested, cynical even, but I was reminded the other day why I still care and why, at least in the realm of the hobby game industry I think you should, too.

The ENnie awards ask nominees to submit a sound file or a song that they would like to play during the few seconds between when the award is announced and when the winner (should that be you) makes it up to the stage to accept the award. A few years ago I got my turn to pick something and I chose Pump It from the Black Eyed Peas, which just happened to be an upbeat song that I personally liked. As it turns out, songs that get right to the groove within the first few seconds are rarer than you might think but Pump It started off with a blazing sample from Dick Dale's Misirlou and fit what we needed to my satisfaction. That year we were honored with several nominations in the ENnies and the whole company turned out for the ceremony to see if we'd make it past the final cut.

As it happens that year at the ENnies was rather a high point for Green Ronin and to our genuine surprise we were honored with several silver and gold medals. It was an emotional night for many reasons, not the least of which because the company had been hit hard by the catastrophic failure of a key business partner that lost our little company (and many others) a staggering amount of money (search "Osseum debacle" if you're curious). Some of the books up for honors that night were things we'd released to critical acclaim and then never seen a penny from sales. We'd had a very real fear that the company wouldn't survive at all, let alone be attending Gen Con and reaping awards. That night things went our way and time after time as the award was announced and our "theme song" began to play, the gathered crowd started clapping along *clapclap* *clap* *clapclap* *clap* as our people made their way to the stage. That night wasn't about "winning" and was NEVER about "beating" our esteemed competition but was all about validation (in spite of our troubles, we'd reached people with our products), inspiration (people were essentially asking us to keep doing what we were doing), and, most movingly for me, camaraderie (fans and colleagues alike were happy for us, were cheering with us, were clapping along and singing our song and the message was loud and clear that we were all in it together). At that moment nobody gave a whit about how the awards were calculated or whether there was sufficient evidence that a body of unholy neutrality had empirically calculated the page density per dollar value of each nominated product or whatever the annual complaints about the process might have been. That night the ballroom resounded with a crowd of people cheering and clapping along, enjoying our surprise and glee, gracious and giving and celebratory.

I realize I'm beginning to sound like Sally Field ("...I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!") but bear with me. That night at the ENnie Awards has become one of my cherished memories. Although Green Ronin as a company was still pretty young, everyone in the company (and several of our most valued freelancers) had been working in the industry for many years. For some of us it was the first time in more than a decade of work or more that we'd experienced that kind of reception. To this day I can't hear that song without breaking into a huge, nostalgic grin. I've had many other similar nights since, though few of them have involved Green Ronin. In the years since our awards blow-out experience we've had the pleasure to see numerous other colleagues share our experience from center stage. I clapped my hands sore for our friends at Paizo one recent year and watched our colleagues at Evil Hat accept some well-deserved awards brimming over with goodwill because I remember how I felt and I'm so pleased they're getting a chance, too. Creators of websites I've never visited, designers of games I've never played (and sometimes would never play), podcasts I've never listened to, I just can't help myself but be happy for everyone who gets a moment of recognition for the hard work, dreams, and inspiration they've poured into whatever it is they've done. In a job where it's much more likely that you'll hear from someone who can't believe you've "screwed up" Superman's stats or some such, a little positive feedback goes a long way. I can't bring myself to be stingy when it comes to these fleeting awards. I hope you'll join me in resisting the cynicism that can surround awards and join hobby game fans in offering a few kudos to your favorite game companies, designers, and systems this awards season.

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Kinetic Powers

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Air Powers

Mutants & Masterminds Power Profile: Illusion Powers