Super-Vision #9: Celebrating Freedom
Back in November I took some time in Super-Vision to observe the anniversary of the publication of Mutants & Masterminds. I would therefore be remiss if I didn't also honor the anniversary of the Freedom City campaign sourcebook, especially since without Freedom City, there would be no Mutants & Masterminds RPG! How, you ask? Read on, and discover...
The (Not So) Secret Origin of Freedom City
Freedom City got its start as a place called Century City, which was just as quickly blown up. It was intended as an event in the San Angelo: City of Heroes setting, published by Gold Rush Games (more on that in this month's Superlink Spotlight).
The plan was, after Century City was destroyed in some cataclysmic disaster, it would be rebuilt as New Century City, a "city of tomorrow," and become home to a government-sponsored superhero team (intended to prevent any similar disasters from occurring). The book would serve as an East Coast complement to San Angelo and focus more on "world-class" superheroes.
When the San Angelo line was sold to Hero Games (itself sold to a company called Cybergames), plans to publish further books in the line fell through. At the time, the superhero RPG market was pretty much nonexistent, so I put aside the New Century City manuscript, although I continued to work on it in my spare time. As I did, the city changed and expanded. I made it the focus for its own setting, not necessarily tied to San Angelo, and used it as the basis for my own superhero adventures.
I was discussing the homeless manuscript with Chris Pramas, President of Green Ronin, when he made me an offer: if I wanted to design a d20-based superhero RPG for Green Ronin, we could make my city setting its first sourcebook. I agreed and Mutants & Masterminds came to be not long thereafter. We changed the name of the setting to Freedom City, shedding its remaining ties with the past to make it stand on its own.
Happy Easter (Eggs)
One thing readers of Freedom City noticed right away was the number of homages and "Easter eggs" the city contained: tributes to classic comic book archetypes, stories, and creators. Many enjoyed ferreting out the various Easter eggs, even to the point of finding some I'd never originally intended! For those interested in finding out about the ones I did include in purpose, check out the complete list.
Masterminding: Try This One On For Size...
Following some discussion of the effects of size changing in M&M, take a look at the following optional rules for characters of different sizes for use with Growth and Shrinking in your games.
Attack Area
If you are three size categories or more larger than your opponent, you have a chance to hit even if you miss your attack roll! If your attack roll misses due to your size modifier, your attack is considered an area attack filling the fighting space of an opponent three size categories smaller than you. So a gargantuan attacker has a 5-ft area attack against medium or smaller opponents. A medium attacker has a 1-ft. "area" attack against diminutive or smaller opponents, and so forth.
If you roll a successful attack, it has the normal effect. If you miss, but would have hit if not for your size modifier, the attack still hits, but the target gets to make a Reflex save for half effect. Other targets in the area of your attack are also hit by a normal area attack.
Example: A gargantuan robot tries to stomp on the Bowman, who's a normal (medium-sized) target. The robot has a –4 to hit because of its size. If it succeeds, it hits Bowman square on. If it misses, but by 4 or less (the amount of its size modifier), then the stomp of its massive foot still has a chance of hitting Bowman. He gets a Reflex save to halve the damage. If the robot's attack roll misses by more than 4, it misses Bowman completely.
New Power Stunt
Try out the following power stunt with Growth and Shrinking:
Growth Strike: You can add the momentum of increasing size to your melee attacks, literally enlarging under an opponent's jaw, for example. This gives you a +1 damage bonus per size category you enlarge until you reach your opponent's size and only works on opponents larger than you are. So growing from medium to awesome size as part of an attack against an awesome-sized opponent does +5 damage, for example.
Superlink Spotlight: San Angelo 1.5
As I mentioned at the beginning of this column, Freedom City (and therefore Mutants & Masterminds) owes a debt to San Angelo: City of Heroes from Gold Rush Games. Written by Patrick Sweeney, San Angelo presents a complete West Coast city for superhero roleplaying. Although originally a Hero System product, Gold Rush Games has produced a new "1.5" edition in electronic and print formats, containing M&M Superlink stats alongside Action! System stats (Action! System is Gold Rush's house game system).
I was fortunate enough to be involved with the development of San Angelo, and worked on one of its sourcebooks (Enemies of San Angelo). I also reviewed the book when it was first published, and I think my opinion in that review still stands:
"Although San Angelo is designed as a sourcebook for the Champions game system, it is easily usable with any superhero RPG and Gamemasters who prefer not to use the setting itself can still mine a large number of ideas, locations and characters from the book for use in a super-campaign set in another location. Even modern-world campaigns without super heroes can make use of the information about the city. Gamemasters and players owe it to themselves to pick up this book and experience the City of Heroes for themselves."
With San Angelo 1.5 you can bring Freedom City full circle: by making San Angelo a West Coast city in the Freedom Universe! Whether you're looking for another city setting or a place for your Freedom City heroes to visit from time to time, the characters and background of San Angelo fit the bill nicely and offer some interesting story opportunities.
